Logging During Combat Punishment [Proposal]

[DarkWalker]

Perhaps Frontier need to set up "Solo", "Group", "Open - PvP" and "Open - PvE Only" - joining Open - PvP gives you message which you are expected to "Accept" that informs you that this is an open PvP group and that "unwanted" or "unwarranted" PvP is to be expected.

That is exactly what I want. Make it so players that crave for the social interaction without the PvP have an officially supported mode to play. I don't even think a message would be needed, as long as the mode names made it clear that those wanting a pure PvE experience shouldn't play in Open.

When that happens I will stop considering combat logging acceptable (as I already consider combat logging to be at least reprehensible when used for anything other than avoiding unwanted PvP). Even then I won't consider it worth of a ban, mind, but a shadowban (AKA forced Solo) might be appropriate.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

As others have said, if it was as easy as you say, Frontier would have done something a long time ago. So, either it isn't as easy as you say, or Frontier doesn't actually want to punish combat logging; take your pick.

(Particularly, I think it's a bit of each. I don't think Frontier would issue bans, or other kinds of strong punishment, without being sure false positives can't exist, which means pure statistical analysis and trusting the client isn't enough for them; at the same time, as the forums show, many players seem to consider combat logging to be an acceptable, and even appropriate, response to griefing and even ganking, which might give them pause.)

Finding the right solution is not easy at all, I never said it was.
Frontier can ill-afford to permanently ban their players anyway, so it'll likely never happen - it's just my preferred option. Blizzard has that luxury, Frontier does not.

Most of the things I've said I suspect are already in place, others are definitely in place. I mention them purely because they aren't difficult to implement. Data collection, error handling and logging is not hard stuff to do. As a developer, I'm automatically assuming that a project on the size and scope of ED would have a plethora of error handling, data collection and logging already implemented. I'm working on a project not even close in size and ours is pretty thorough.

Due to the way, I suspect, commander data is collected and stored, false positives can and do exist, it's inevitable - for example, if you and a friend engage in friendly PvP; the data doesn't account for that. So if you quit the game for something (emergency) whilst in friendly-pvp combat, the game records you as quitting whilst in combat.

Determining if someone CL'd is a matter of pattern recognition, data correlation and historic connection checking. It's tedious. It's boring. It's likely very difficult. I never said it was easy, I never said it was 100% accurate. What I did say, is that they could accurately determine if someone CL'd within an acceptable margin of error. This doesn't make it foolproof, it doesn't mean they won't make mistakes, it doesn't mean they won't get false-positives.

- - - Updated - - -

... I don't even think a message would be needed, ....

Oh, you'd be surprised. xD

 

[Shaamaan]

I've stopped reading here.

You're clearly aren't interested in any view but your own. You don't have any kind of actual development experience but you then have the gall to challenge me on mine, and to top it off, you're trying to prove some point based on your own (deliberate or otherwise) misunderstanding of what I'm saying.

I'm not making this up as I go along, my more-than-a-decade-long development experience grants me a much greater understanding of the intricacies of software development than it does for someone who has none.


I literally can't make my words any easier to understand , and I'm not even going to bother trying any more.

Welcome to my ignore list. There's no talking to insane people.

And, BTW, I'm writing this while waiting for an app to compile.

 

[SamSlade]

Yeah, but some players would rather not have PvP at all, but still want co-op. Thus my suggestion. It's worked in every other mmo, why not have it in ED?

That's fine; so long as your proposed Super Friends Mode is functionally removed from PP and from altering the BGS; all about give and take in balance

 

[Shaamaan]

That's fine; so long as your proposed Super Friends Mode is functionally removed from PP and from altering the BGS; all about give and take in balance

What about Solo and private groups then? Do they get a pass?

The whole PP and BGS argumentation falls flat on its face when you considering that 2/3 of the current game modes affect those things, all the while there's nothing you can do about it in your Open play.

 

[Shintai]

That's fine; so long as your proposed Super Friends Mode is functionally removed from PP and from altering the BGS; all about give and take in balance

Why not remove PvP entirely from the current server and make a new server for PvP then?

 

[DarkWalker]

Also I wouldn't be averse to having the WANTED condition make you PvP enabled if you are in the system where you are wanted.

I would separate bounties accrued from PvP and bounties from NPC interactions, and make the player unable to play in Open PvE while he still had PvP-related bounties (and make such bounties only be cleared by PvP-related deaths or by paying them off, so no suicidewinder in Solo). Otherwise PvE pirates might be forced into PvP.

---

So if someone "forces" me into PvP, then combat logs when i start winning, how does that fit into your theory?

If someone starts the fight and then combat log when things go south, I believe that makes him a jerk. I have no sympathies to those. But I will never support any punishment for them if it would also punish those that were the targets from the start and logged out to avoid the PvP interaction.

---

Frontier can ill-afford to permanently ban their players anyway, so it'll likely never happen - it's just my preferred option. Blizzard has that luxury, Frontier does not.

Actually, Frontier can afford it, and does it — for actual cheats. Combat logging isn't a cheat.

It's why Blizzard design their games so combat logging never benefits the logger and have as small an impact on the other players as possible; they know they could never afford to take strong action against combat logging, so they design their games to make it a non-issue.

BTW: everyone that ever ragequits is a combat logger. Think about how common that is.

Determining if someone CL'd is a matter of pattern recognition, data correlation and historic connection checking. It's tedious. It's boring. It's likely very difficult. I never said it was easy, I never said it was 100% accurate. What I did say, is that they could accurately determine if someone CL'd within an acceptable margin of error. This doesn't make it foolproof, it doesn't mean they won't make mistakes, it doesn't mean they won't get false-positives.

False positives likely makes it unacceptable for them. Even disregarding the moral issue, they could get sued, and lose big, if one of those false positives decided to take them to the courts. It's part of the reason bans often come in waves; the devs keep collecting information until they have ironclad certainty those players were actually cheating before banning them.

Oh, you'd be surprised. xD

Peanut Butter. Warning: Contain peanuts.

 

[NeilF]

What about Solo and private groups then? Do they get a pass?

The whole PP and BGS argumentation falls flat on its face when you considering that 2/3 of the current game modes affect those things, all the while there's nothing you can do about it in your Open play.

Yep, OPEN vs non-OPEN is a crack down entire game that can never be truly balanced. A bit like fixed vs gimbals.

However, I would suggest where it's for an outcome/result the answer to it should surely be just to acrue the results in two totals, OPEN and non-OPEN, and then these two are then amalgomated to a single result in a ratio (eg: 50/50 or 60/40). This would then mean if 80% of the player base decided to play in SOLO/GROUP and therefore ducked away from what should surely be considered the greater challenge of opposing CMDRs, their results would count in proportion for less than those 20% that played in OPEN.

I can see no other way for this "crack" to be partially repaired other than an approach like that, in short, where necessary, logically rewarding players for playing in OPEN when there is a greater risk to them in OPEN.


ps: If we considered something like taking a commodity say in Powerplay from X to Y, I'd envisage when you pick up the commodity there's a behind the scenes flag on it saying is it in "OPEN". Anytime you player the game in any mode other than OPEN, that flag on your cargo would get cleared. So if you pickedup the cargo in OPEN, ducked into SOLO for a while, then returned to OPEN to hand it in, the OPEN flag would have been cleared on it, so it would go towards a non-OPEN total. Only if the cargo lived in OPEN for its entire existence would it count towards an OPEN total.

 

[DarkWalker]

That's fine; so long as your proposed Super Friends Mode is functionally removed from PP and from altering the BGS; all about give and take in balance

I'm not sure you know, but it's possible to tweak your router settings so you never see another player even in Open.

Multiple ways to do it, too; firewalling all peer to peer connections, reducing throughput, adding latency, etc. You just need to convince the matchmaking that putting you in the same instance as someone else would ruin his experience.

And that before you even consider Solo and Private Groups.

BTW, Solo and Private Groups influencing the BGS and PP is very much intentional. Frontier has been telling so since the first week of the game's Kickstart, some 4 years ago.

 

[Shaamaan]

Yep, OPEN vs non-OPEN is a crack down entire game that can never be truly balanced. A bit like fixed vs gimbals.

I fear your solution has too many moving parts to be a viable "quick-fix". Quite frankly, given how enigmatic the whole BGS is, I wonder if this whole BGS and PP argument isn't just a red-herring. As in - in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter if something that's related to the BGS or PP is happening in open or not. And finally, consider that with a specific router and / or firewall configuration you could be flying in Open without ever running into other people... what then?

 

[NeilF]

BTW, Solo and Private Groups influencing the BGS and PP is very much intentional. Frontier has been telling so since the first week of the game's Kickstart, some 4 years ago.

And solo and private groups being completely untouchable by other CMDRs, and therefore being actively rewarded by the game for taking the "safer path", has very much been pointed out, ignored by the game, and in truth therefore damaged the game since day one.

 

[OCD]

TL ; DR

Until the network issues are sorted there is no way for FD to determine who logged and who got dropped into the wrong instance
Until the crime and punishment for murder without piracy is addressed we need a balance not just punishment for one side
I can see the time youve spent on this but why do you feel so strongly and how is this impacting you personally ?
Its a game we all play for a bit of fun. There are so many other things that need fixing but this is just my personal view of course

 

[NeilF]

I fear your solution has too many moving parts to be a viable "quick-fix". Quite frankly, given how enigmatic the whole BGS is, I wonder if this whole BGS and PP argument isn't just a red-herring. As in - in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter if something that's related to the BGS or PP is happening in open or not. And finally, consider that with a specific router and / or firewall configuration you could be flying in Open without ever running into other people... what then?

Maybe.. But I'm sure in many places where we have these epic bar charts showing results for Powerplay or CGs, they could be split by if they're done in "OPEN" or "NON-OPEN"... And results/outcomes apportioned accordingly.

It may actually add some more elements. eg: A Powerplay group realise not much effort has been made in OPEN for a particular goal, so organise to do that. As such those efforts would have a far greater bearing on the outcome than if they'd done them in NON-OPEN.

Because simply ignoring it does nothing than make a bit of a mokery of doing them in OPEN TBH.

 

[Gunnet]

And solo and private groups being completely untouchable by other CMDRs, and therefore being actively rewarded by the game for taking the "safer path", has very much been pointed out, ignored by the game, and in truth therefore damaged the game since day one.

PP and the BGS are PvE systems. Players who want to counter other players can do so by contributing more than them.

As much as PvP players would like to imagine otherwise, solo and group are not second class modes.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

Actually, Frontier can afford it, and does it — for actual cheats. Combat logging isn't a cheat.

Ah yes, I didn't take that into account. Fair point.
Combat logging is totally a cheat. http://www.findababysitter.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/stubbornkid.jpg

It's why Blizzard design their games so combat logging never benefits the logger and have as small an impact on the other players as possible; they know they could never afford to take strong action against combat logging, so they design their games to make it a non-issue.

They still, however, have a problem with trigger-bots and the like. Hence why they've permanently banned over 1500 players.

False positives likely makes it unacceptable for them. Even disregarding the moral issue, they could get sued, and lose big, if one of those false positives decided to take them to the courts. It's part of the reason bans often come in waves; the devs keep collecting information until they have ironclad certainty those players were actually cheating before banning them.

Whatever the reason, permanently banning a player likely won't happen.
Doesn't change my perspective though; I still feel they should go.

Peanut Butter. Warning: Contain peanuts.

End-users tend to be a special bunch. As a developer you see/hear about it on an almost daily basis.

 

[Shaamaan]

Because simply ignoring it does nothing than make a bit of a mokery of doing them in OPEN TBH.

I think a large part of the issue lies in the above statement.

Why do you think it's a mockery doing something in Open vs doing it in Solo or group?

The obvious answer is "because of PvP". But the way the game was set up shows that this isn't the right answer at all, at least according to the developers.

It seems to me that PvPers want the game to respect their game-time more as opposed to other people - i.e. "since I'm doing this in Open, it's worth more". Instead, the game seems to be built around the premise of "in Open you can have fun by meeting other players, that's it". I.e. being able to do PvP (or, rather, just meeting other players) should be the reward in and of itself.

Do mind - I'm not saying that this is good or bad. It's my take on what kind of philosophy Frontier had when designing this system.

 

[NeilF]

PP and the BGS are PvE systems. Players who want to counter other players can do so by contributing more than them.

As much as PvP players would like to imagine otherwise, solo and group are not second class modes.

True, and no one is suggesting Solo and Group are second class modes. But it's important to realise at the moment, using your logic, OPEN is a second class mode?

It's only fair to be realistic about the mechanics surely? Let's suggest Powerplay group A have to deliver a commodity to location X. Meanwhile Powerplay group B need to stop them.

As it stands, group A are penalised for playing in OPEN. They are rewarded (by less poweful/organised opposition) in non-OPEN - I don't believe this is a unfair assessment?

So keeping this in mind, group B can try as hard as they like to prevent group A delivering that commodity to X, and most of it will invisibly pass them by with not a thing they can do about it.


So, my suggestion, is simply to acrue (where possible) such outcomes/totals in two totals (instead of just one), open and non-open, and then the outcome is an amalgomation (eg: in a 50/50 proportion) of those two results. As such if for example 80% of the group A decide to play on non-OPEN that's fine. Their efforts will be taken into consideration, BUT, will be proportioned such they do not have such a huge unconditional effect on the outcome. Instead now, the OPEN results will have a "fair" sizeable effect on the outcome.

In this way now, players in group A are (naturally) rewarded for playing OPEN, instead of being rewarded for non-OPEN, and group B actually feel that can at least have some affect on the outcome.

 

[DarkWalker]

They still, however, have a problem with trigger-bots and the like. Hence why they've permanently banned over 1500 players.

Of course. That is an actual cheat, requiring tampering with the client, which makes it both more serious and far easier to determine without the risk of false positives. It's not like combat logging, which is at most an exploit and can be done (sometimes even by accident) through completely physical means like literally pulling a plug.

Whatever the reason, permanently banning a player likely won't happen.

Over combat logging? No, I doubt it will ever happen. In ED or in most online-only games, for what matters.

Over actual cheats? Yeah, they did, and they do. One of the first things I do when I decide to play an online game is to head over to forums dedicated to cheating and evaluate how the cheating scene is in that game; the current consensus about ED is that trying to use any publicly available cheat is a quick way to get permanently banned. Even before that ED was considered a tough nut to crack to anyone without real reverse-engineering skills; every meaningful value is obfuscated in memory, and it even employs a watchdog to both prevent debugging and look for tampering.

End-users tend to be a special bunch. As a developer you see/hear about it on an almost daily basis.

I was lucky in that when I was writing code for a living my "users" were fellow engineers who would never have been hired in the first place if they didn't have a clue.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

Of course. That is an actual cheat, requiring tampering with the client, which makes it both more serious and far easier to determine without the risk of false positives. It's not like combat logging, which is at most an exploit and can be done (sometimes even by accident) through completely physical means like literally pulling a plug.

I still consider it a cheat; you're basically giving yourself an advantage over another player unfairly.

Over combat logging? No, I doubt it will ever happen. In ED or in most online-only games, for what matters. ... <snip>

I meant it'll likely never happen for combat logging. Banning for cheats I knew about.

One of the first things I do when I decide to play an online game is to head over to forums dedicated to cheating and evaluate how the cheating scene is in that game; the current consensus about ED is that trying to use any publicly available cheat is a quick way to get permanently banned. Even before that ED was considered a tough nut to crack to anyone without real reverse-engineering skills; every meaningful value is obfuscated in memory, and it even employs a watchdog to both prevent debugging and look for tampering.

Which is great, it could have been a lot worse.

I was lucky in that when I was writing code for a living my "users" were fellow engineers who would never have been hired in the first place if they didn't have a clue.

I hate you. We have to deal with doctor's receptionists and the like.
Latest request?
"Please could you change the program to fit on 800 x 600 screens? My 80 year old eyes can't see."
"No. I can't. Get with the times you barmy old bat. Dear doctor, please stop using your mother as your receptionist."
*cries in code*

 

[DarkWalker]

I still consider it a cheat; you're basically giving yourself an advantage over another player unfairly.

As is using a suicidewinder. Or changing modes to refresh the missions. Or using VoiceAttack (which is a paid for 3rd party software meant to interface with the game and give players better game controls). Or any of a number of small, unintended procedures, including virtually every working "get rich quick" method.

Tampering with the software is an easy line to draw, and one players are unlikely to ever cross unintentionally. Going beyond that is problematic even if the whole player base thinks whatever is being banned should never happen in the game (which, BTW, isn't the case with combat logging). Which, again, is why Blizzard designs their games to make combat logging inconsequential instead of trying to punish combat loggers.

I hate you. We have to deal with doctor's receptionists and the like.
Latest request?
"Please could you change the program to fit on 800 x 600 screens? My 80 year old eyes can't see."
"No. I can't. Get with the times you barmy old bat. Dear doctor, please stop using your mother as your receptionist."
*cries in code*

My answer would likely have been to get a 40" TV and use it as the monitor. Nice, big letters that even tired 80 years old eyes should be able to read.
(Unless the customer was willing to pay for my time while I added the options they wanted, in which case it would have been "Yes, sir!". Can't argue with being properly compensated for my time.)