P2P vs. Client/Server (The facts Surrounding the Issue)

[tagos]

It's not an important problem. Potentially punishing the innocent is just no-go and I really don't care if someone disconnects. It's not that important. Life and the game goes on just as before..

I've never disconnected but I reserve the right to do so if I drop cargo and I'm then opened fired on or if I'm being verbally abused.

 

[Kinjin]

So getting disconnected in the mail slot / moving over someone elses docking pad on the way to yours / mining asteroids automatically means you log back in to find a dead ship?

I would suspect that disconnects at those specific times are quite rare but if you are suffering from the a lot, maybe you'd be better off in Solo anyway.

I've got a few friends that are interested in playing this game but I've suggested that they hold off buying it yet as they would be looking to play a multi-player game. With the the lack of co-op content and the fact that if you do get into a fight, your opponent can just quickly log off if they are winning, it seems like Elite is just a solo game with an embarrassed nod in the direction of multi-player.

I am new to the game, so it's possible that I have experienced the game enough to have experienced the richness of it's multi-player aspects, and Wings is just around the corner, so I'm hoping that my opinion will change in the not to distant future. But part of that is making it a making it a game were you can't just pick your ball up and say, "I'm not playing" if you are losing.

 

[crushdepth]

What do the rest of you think would be a valid solution to address this issue given the facts presented?

A valid solution is to accept the status quo and stop trying to browbeat the devs into modifying the game to serve the interests of a minority group.

There would be less resistance if there were tools to deal with idiot griefers, for example removing the ability to pay off your own bounty for murder, and forcing fugitives to operate out of unsanctioned outposts and anarchy systems.

 

[Kinjin]

I've never disconnected but I reserve the right to do so if I drop cargo and I'm then opened fired on or if I'm being verbally abused.

As the game now stands, I can understand this. However, wouldn't it be better if there was an in game deterrent to players just shooting up players (no, I have no ideas how you would do this.) As for the verbal abuse, don't you just report the player and move on?

 

[deMangler]

I don't have anything to add that has not already been said on this issue, in this or many of the other threads.
I do want to say that it is nice to read a thread on this subject that actually contains debate and an exchange of ideas. It's a pleasant relief. Nice way to start my Sunday.
Nice one.

 

[excalibus]

I've +1'd your rep for the clear way you explain the game server methods. Maybe this is common knowledge to games players, but I'm not one of them, Elite is the first game I've played in years that does not require friends sitting around a table with pen and paper.

As for the disconnect issue, notwithstanding Lanatir's statement about the number of time he loses his connection, just what is the possibility that your connection will fail at just the right moment to save your skin? I'd suggest very VERY small. 1x10 to a very biggish -ve number.

I've been killed twice by commanders, once through ignorance of the comms system, once because that's all he intended to do to me anyway. Yes it hurts, but their are missions to Kill traders etc., so if you trade, you take your chance (it's only a game).

If your instance disappears during a combat situation the probability of it not being a hardware problem is close to 100%, they should be reported and consigned to Solo Mode

Actually if I disappear during an instance its 100% chance its either some hardware problem or (MOST LIKELY IN MY CASE) the power has dropped in the suburb I live in... I personally don't have many 'network' problems apart from it being a bit slow some days but where I live does suffer from power outages (mostly during summer) reasonably often...

I only play in open and no I have not had a power blackout MID FIGHT YET... but there is always the chance of it happening at any time...

So tell me, and this is not directed at just you WO-One, why should I be punished for that or consigned to just playing solo just because I should suffer a power drop in a fight and some player reports me? 99.9% of the time my connection is stable and maybe as much as 5 or 6 times in a 3 month period I may lose power... I think there are definite ways the ED servers can track player connection stats to highlight those who MAY be using the ALT F4 termination... It would require telemetry being sent semi regularly by the client of each player in the instance back to ED servers such as time at start of instance, some statistics of the 'gameplay' during the instance such as bullets fired, damage dealt / received etc , and time of connection loss of other people in the instance

How much of this telemetry overhead the ED servers and game clients can handle without having a noticble impact on the clients ability to ensure smooth gameplay I do not know... none of us really do, only FD would have an idea of how much network overhead they can embargo before it would impinge on the clients and cause noticable problems (lag etc) and of course the amount of telemetry would be dependant on the connection speed as well which is a huge variable given the different countries, different network infrastructures etc involved...

 

[tagos]

It's not unreasonable to expect cheaters to be punished in a competitive online game where risk vs reward is involved.

Then it's lucky we're not playing such a game then. I'm not competing with anyone and attacking a helpless freighter is a risk free activity that both reaps a reward and garners no real consequences.

This is not a competitive MMO. It's not even really an MMO except to people who feel clever quoting dictionaries.

Pirating is fine. I just wish people would do it without all the chest-beating. It's the safest, easiest profession in the game. You get to pick your targets and rinse away the consequences with a few thousand credits.

 

[Zed]

MOD please delete as I forgot to include the quote

 

[nathan bridger]

Dead Horse again??

Pleas lets vote all at the Login Screen because most of the players dont come here!

 

[Zed]

It is simple. It is a question of loss and again.

What does the attacker lose if the other guy exploits the client termination when it stays the way it is vs what does the defender lose when he gets destroyed when they change it so he has to remain even after a faulty connection.

The attacker loses: Nothing.

The defender, in the worst case scenario, loses everything.

Case closed.

And yes, there is a LOT of people playing this game with faulty connections, me being one of them. I lose my connection 5 to 8 times a day randomly. Thats why i only play solo.

Your assumption is that there is an attacker and a defender and the defender is the one that disconnects.
I've been ripped out of SC a few times, attacked and then when I've gone on the offensive the attackers has vanished with out leaving a wake behind.

In these cases I've lost out, I could have got a bounty that would have covered some of the cost of repairs I needed to make due to being attacked but could not due to the exploit.

Things are not black and white...

I'd prefer to punish the guilty most of the time and if the odd innocent get's punished then that's ok. I'm sure I'll be one of the innocent at some point as I have a network issue that I've been unable to resolve but it's not hit while I was losing a battle so far.

 

[Robert Maynard]

It's not unreasonable to expect cheaters to be punished in a competitive online game where risk vs reward is involved. In fact, not only is it not unreasonable, its necessary if open mode is going to survive. If they're going to continue to allow people to log out to avoid death they may as well let people use speed and teleport hacks, because its the same thing. The fact that you are unable to see that shows that you have a clear bias against PvPers , not just the ones who kill players for no reason.

To presume guilt for any dropped connection is a bit one-sided - it takes the part of the attacker every time. This game, while online with progression, is not purely competitive - there is no "win" scenario - no player knows how any other player earned the ship that they fly.

It would probably not be difficult for Frontier to record a player's total disconnects and categorise then with respect to the threat level that the player was experiencing at the time of the disconnect. If a player only (or mainly) experienced disconnects when losing in combat then that could be treated differently from a player who simply had random disconnects regardless of threat level.

As to what to do with the disconnected ship - it has been suggested several times in the many threads on this topic that a combat rank appropriate AI could take over as pilot of the disconnected ship with a directive to escape the encounter if in combat and change instance by entering SC then the game would log out the ship. If the ship could not flee and was destroyed then so be it. The attacker would hopefully not notice the change in behaviour (although more experienced combat players probably would) - but would still have a target in combat rather than a ship just vanishing. This would at least give the player with a flaky connection a chance of their ship surviving and, at the same time, would give any attacker continuity of combat.

 

[NettiWelho]

The death penalty is not that harsh, unless the player is flying without enough to cover insurance in which case he will still be eligible to get a trophy at the annual Darwin awards.

Even if you are flying with insurance the penalty is pretty severe if you've spent an hour picking up rares / are hauling cargo on which you earn 10-20% profit. I remember even Ultima Online being more jolly about death.

Also, I need to remind you that we are discussing the issue of combat logging while engaged in PvP combat with another player. Loitering, getting hit by asteroids, hostile NPC's and fuel scooping are all PvE activities and thus have no bearing in this discussion.

They are relevant to the issue at hand because they are elements present in PvP as well. What if 2 CMDRs were have a minor scrap, one dropped and the other decided to spare his life just to leave the ship for a System Authority viper to zap hull away 1% at a time? Or get smashed by a floating rock / fly into station wall after being ambushed outisde the no-fire zone and surviving etc..

 

[Cathalo]

I agree that is not unreasonable to expect cheaters to be punished. The problem arises when that same penalty is imposed by default on those who have disconnected through genuine internet connection problems. Now, I can't say how often a combat logging scenario would be either deliberate exploiting or a genuine disconnect (I daresay no-one can), but why would we seek to penalise the genuine cases (however rare) to deal with it? If you (or anyone) could prove that PvP interdictions made up >50% of all combat interactions (ie including combat with NPCs - so doubtful) and that >50% of those suffered from deliberate combat logging, then you MIGHT have a case - BUT if the actual figures were <50% you'd be dealing with <25% of ALL combat interactions (PvP and PvE). If that were the case, then we'd still be talking a significant minority of all combat interactions. Now, given that deliberate combat logging in all likelihood affects less combat interactions than these figures, it's hard to argue the case for this being a priority over other things in my opinion.

Do you PvP a lot? If your answer is no then this issue doesn't effect you. Just like I told the last poster, nobody is advocating that connection loss for PvE activites be any different than it is currently. But when you're engaged with another player in PvP the penalty for dropping client needs to be stiff or else you may as well just let the circus come to town and allow people to hack the game without penalty. Most players who don't engage in PvP see this as a non-issue and have a hard time understanding what I'm saying and I will keep being patient with you because you're being patient with me even though patience is a virtue I seldom posses (I'm Italian, so please forgive me for that). So, let me put this to you in simple terms just so that you understand. Combat logging is a game breaking mechanic for people who play this game for PvP purposes. It breaks the game for us. Si rompe il gioco per noi.

Capiche?

 

[NettiWelho]

Well any which way, so far FD hasn't even gotten around to punishing people who actually abuse bugs to kill other people, I see this being even lesser priority.

Combat logging is a game breaking mechanic for people who play this game for PvP purposes.

I've done bounty hunting in an Asp and I can say I have made a nice profit on CMDR bounties even after wear&tear+ammo. Never had anyone disconnect on me, even if many choose to run. My personal experience is that either Ive been very lucky or its a marginal issue.

 

[ianw]

Do you PvP a lot? If your answer is no then this issue doesn't effect you. Just like I told the last poster, nobody is advocating that connection loss for PvE activites be any different than it is currently. But when you're engaged with another player in PvP the penalty for dropping client needs to be stiff or else you may as well just let the circus come to town and allow people to hack the game without penalty. Most players who don't engage in PvP see this as a non-issue and have a hard time understanding what I'm saying and I will keep being patient with you because you're being patient with me even though patience is a virtue I seldom posses (I'm Italian, so please forgive me for that). So, let me put this to you in simple terms just so that you understand. Combat logging is a game breaking mechanic for people who play this game for PvP purposes. It breaks the game for us. Si rompe il gioco per noi.

Capiche?

If you were awarded the kill stat as the remaining player and got some compensation to cover your interdiction expenses would that make it more palatable?

Seems to me that wouldn't unduly punish an innocent disconnect and you'd get something out of it too.

 

[Cathalo]

Even if you are flying with insurance the penalty is pretty severe if you've spent an hour picking up rares / are hauling cargo on which you earn 10-20% profit. I remember even Ultima Online being more jolly about death.

Ultima Online was one of the greatest games ever made until they made the dumb decision to segregate the player-base. I had a lot of PvE friends in that game but I never saw them again once they segregated the two modes into the different realms because I was always in the Trammel and they were always in Felucca. That's when I stopped playing.

8They are relevant to the issue at hand because they are elements present in PvP as well. What if 2 CMDRs were have a minor scrap, one dropped and the other decided to spare his life just to leave the ship for a System Authority viper to zap hull away 1% at a time? Or get smashed by a floating rock / fly into station wall after being ambushed outisde the no-fire zone and surviving etc..

None of what you just said makes a lick of sense. The CMDR who drops is going to get destroyed, likely by the opposing pilot before those other things will ever happen. Such is the nature of PvP.

 

[Cathalo]

If you were awarded the kill stat as the remaining player and got some compensation to cover your interdiction expenses would that make it more palatable?

Seems to me that wouldn't unduly punish an innocent disconnect and you'd get something out of it too.

There is nothing innocent about a disconnect. Either the player caused it (most likely) or he was just extremely unlucky (Extremely unlikely).

But again, it's not just about the reward. Its not about my repair bill. Its not about seeing his ship blow up. Its about cheating. Plain and simple.
I was playing the game the right way, and he was cheating. No amount of money or time matters in this, other than the fact that cheating detracts from good competitive gameplay. And If FD allows it to persist they will end up with children in open play and no Bounty Hunters to blow them out of the sky.

 

[excalibus]

Do you PvP a lot? If your answer is no then this issue doesn't effect you. Just like I told the last poster, nobody is advocating that connection loss for PvE activites be any different than it is currently. But when you're engaged with another player in PvP the penalty for dropping client needs to be stiff or else you may as well just let the circus come to town and allow people to hack the game without penalty. Most players who don't engage in PvP see this as a non-issue and have a hard time understanding what I'm saying and I will keep being patient with you because you're being patient with me even though patience is a virtue I seldom posses (I'm Italian, so please forgive me for that). So, let me put this to you in simple terms just so that you understand. Combat logging is a game breaking mechanic for people who play this game for PvP purposes. It breaks the game for us. Si rompe il gioco per noi.

Capiche?

So if we were having a stouch and should my power go out (power to my house) and because of that my connection drop... I should be punished? just putting it out there fella... please explain why I should be punished in this circumstance

Sure I can understand both the frustration and your need to punish those who are deliberately combat logging... but you cannot or rather SHOULD NOT set up mechanics that punish the innocent along with the guilty... If ED can track players actions in the instance through telemetry and they can then see a regular pattern forming where a particular player regularly drops during combat instances where they are losing then perhaps they can institute a workable system for punishing that particular player, until then... do not get mad as it achieves absolutely no purpose... The mechanic is not game breaking (and yes I do PVP sometimes), being locked in the loading screen would be game breaking, exploding on launching from a station because the blast doors are closed would be game breaking... this really is not..

I do hope FD address it in a meaninful and well thought out way that both reduces it happening for the heavy PvPers out there whilst also not punishing those whose connections drop legitimately

 

[NettiWelho]

But again, it's not just about the reward. Its not about my repair bill. Its not about seeing his ship blow up. Its about cheating. Plain and simple.
I was playing the game the right way, and he was cheating. No amount of money or time matters in this, other than the fact that cheating detracts from good competitive gameplay. And If FD allows it to persist they will end up with children in open play and no Bounty Hunters to blow them out of the sky.

How many people have combat-logged on you?

I've never had anyone quit on me when they were losing, even those carrying big bounties have always gone down with honor or tried to escape using in-game methods. As far as I can tell its a marginal issue.

 

[Rhywden]

So if we were having a stouch and should my power go out and because of that my connection drop... I should be punished? just putting it out there fella... please explain why I should be punished in this circumstance

Sure I can understand both the frustration and your need to punish those who are deliberately combat logging... but you cannot or rather SHOULD NOT set up mechanics that punish the innocent along with the guilty... If ED can track players actions in the instance through telemetry and they can then see a regular pattern forming where a particular player regularly drops during combat instances where they are losing then perhaps they can institute a workable system for punishing that particular player, until then... do not get mad as it achieves absolutely no purpose... The mechanic is not game breaking (and yes I do PVP sometimes), being locked in the loading screen would be game breaking, exploding on launching from a station because the blast doors are closed would be game breaking... this really is not..

I do hope FD address it in a meaninful and well thought out way that both reduces it happening for the heavy PvPers out there whilst also not punishing those whose connections drop legitimately

Counterquestion: Why should we be punished for your bad internet connection? And don't act all enraged because it's a perfectly valid question to ask, it's just that the tables are turned on you.