What exactly does "block player" do in Open?

burn420 · Dec 5, 2017

STORY TIME:

while minding my own business, i had a run in with a CMDR yesterday @ the CG Haz Rez flying a Fed Gunship.
while i was busy taking on a wing of 3, this dude comes in and tries to pull a fast one. i see what's goin on right away, and when i first get hit, and see him turn red on my sensors, i give him the benefit of the doubt, and suspect its a accidental hit... but then he blips off the radar...poof..

im thinking he either left the instance, disconnected, or popped a heat sink. i take care of the remainder of the wing i was workin on, but lo and behold, "red flashing hollow blip" back on the radar, and im being hit again.

okay, now its on... i re-orientate and get visual with my own eyes, and he's just doing barrel rolls 400m out in front of me flying away. i let my beams loose, and he literally disappears, from my own eyes, and the radar. 2 secs later, i see him back in front, barrel rolling heading straight away again, i also i notice im still being shot at from behind! i double check sensors for additions threats (SLF), nada...

this situation continues for about 2 more minutes with me seeing him appear / disappear and still being shot at continuously. at this point im down to 1.5 rings, and decide to just low wake away back to the station.

i do, and dont see him in the contacts of players in the supercruise instance. but he direct messages me about how stupid i am for having chaff on my Vette. i check contacts again, and no sign of him...

anyway...i decided this dude was either cheating or lagging and i dont want to play with either of those types, so i block him.

well just 10 minutes ago, while im sitting docked at the station, i see him fly in thru the slot! he's laggin like a , and bounces off the pad several times before landing. i message him asking if he's having trouble landing, and he replies nah, just classic FDev instancing... i reply "oh like that bad time when u were appearing/disappearing from sight and sensors and still shooting me in my rear?" he then leaves the instance.

i double checked my blocked players list, and he is still listed as blocked. i thought blocking a player would keep him outta instances im in, and that communications (via direct messaging) would also be blocked. i can confirm, it doesnt do this.

so my question is, what exactly does "block player" do?

Goose4291 · Dec 5, 2017

It reduces the chance of the player appearing in the same instance as you.

However if one of their friends shares your instance, that takes priority.

Devari · Dec 5, 2017

The way that the devs have described it is that blocking a player directs the matchmaker to not put you and the blocked player in the same instance. I've found it generally works well but you do sometimes need to quit the game and restart for it to take effect (simply logging to the main menu and reentering the game often isn't enough).

The only exception here is if you have a player on your friend list who is already in the same instance as a blocked player. In this case the matchmaker "overrides" your block list to place you in the same instance as your friend. This is one of the reasons I don't accept random friend requests from someone I haven't actually interacted with in-game in some way. In theory a bunch of griefers could use a "clean" second account that they are all friends with to randomly friend other CMDRs. If someone they are trying to grief or troll has that account on their friend list and it is logged in at a certain location (i.e., a station at a CG) it will override the block list and they will effectively not be able to prevent being instanced with those players in Open. If you accept random friend requests from other CMDRs you would only actually realize this if you knew how the friend/block list works and you would also need to notice that griefing tends to increase when that particular account on your friend list is logged in. It would be quite a bit of effort for someone to actually do this of course but we know that using the friend list in unintended ways has already been done in the past (i.e., the friend list was used to track Salome during the player event) so I wouldn't put it past certain players to try this as a means of circumventing someone's block list.

Eventually however if players use their block lists frequently enough the griefers will all be effectively "shadow banned" and will only be instanced with each other. That's why I will now block any player I see engaging greifing or trolling behavior. I'm hoping that over time enough players will block them and they run out of other players to grief/troll.

burn420 · Dec 5, 2017

i only have a few friends, and none are/were online, as ive also heard it being circumvented in this way as well. so i guess with messaging that took place this last time was because he was in my instance and it negated the block? or was it because it was myself whom initiated this last comms? i had no problem sending and receiving to/from him.

Devari · Dec 5, 2017

burn420 said:
i only have a few friends, and none are/were online, as ive also heard it being circumvented in this way as well. so i guess with messaging that took place this last time was because he was in my instance and it negated the block? or was it because it was myself whom initiated this last comms? i had no problem sending and receiving from him.

In that case it was probably just an issue that you needed to completely exit the game and log back in. I have found that the block list usually requires a restart to take effect. You can also double-check that he is actually on your block list which you can access from the main menu in case he wasn't actually added properly for some reason.

burn420 · Dec 5, 2017

well when i blocked him yesterday, i did exit the game to desktop and restart and seen him blocked on the main menu. but i seen him again TODAY, meaning ive fully quit and fully restarted at least twice (from yesterdays block) and he still flew thru the slot in my instance.

ill restart again for good measure i guess...

Chaparral · Dec 5, 2017

My experience has been you must fully quit the game (not just log to main menu) and reload. Devari is right about the friends list too. If the blocked player is friends with one of your friends, blocking won't work. Your friend does not have to be online. I've seen some sketchy things like disappearing ships (not just from silent running), and even players with a "green" hollow square (like allied system authority) in supercruise, even though they are listed as wanted when you hi-light them (oh and while I was not pledged to a PP faction). My understanding is P2P is pretty vulnerable to this kind of stuff.

burn420 · Dec 5, 2017

Commander Danicus said:
My experience has been you must fully quit the game (not just log to main menu) and reload. Devari is right about the friends list too. If the blocked player is friends with one of your friends, blocking won't work. Your friend does not have to be online. I've seen some sketchy things like disappearing ships (not just from silent running), and even players with a "green" hollow square (like allied system authority) in supercruise, even though they are listed as wanted when you hi-light them (oh and while I was not pledged to a PP faction). My understanding is P2P is pretty vulnerable to this kind of stuff.

again, im aware of needing to restart FULLY. like i quit the launcher and everything. im also aware of the friend's list exploit. of my 4 friends, 2 havent been online in years (and are friends IRL that i see and talk to regularly, and only got the game because i pressured them into it, they've never played the game without me). the other 2 are Private Group only CMDRs that ive known for quite some time and i highly doubt that this dude would ever make it into their group of 6 players.

EvE4evah · Dec 5, 2017

It messes with your instancing. That's what it does.

CMDR ANCALAGON · Dec 5, 2017

Rumor has it that it will either send them straight to solo, or send them straight to the forums. Its all RNG, so you never know which scenario you will get.

kofeyh · Dec 5, 2017

burn420 said:
i only have a few friends, and none are/were online, as ive also heard it being circumvented in this way as well. so i guess with messaging that took place this last time was because he was in my instance and it negated the block? or was it because it was myself whom initiated this last comms? i had no problem sending and receiving to/from him.

Block doesn't block. This is classic Frontier; use an irrelevant word to define an action. Block deprioritises their connection in matchmaking; it does not remove it. This is commonly misunderstood, because Frontier persist in using a word to define an action, that does not match the action. Like using "engineering" instead of "magic", or "engineer" instead of "shamen".

Ergo, blocking a player means the game will typically deprioritise instancing; but if there's no-one else, for example, you'll possibly still see them; and there are a few factors (not all are known) that impact the algorithm that affects matchmaking (which is the system handling all commander connections).

In short, it's not consistent; welcome to Frontierland - enjoy your stay.

burn420 · Dec 5, 2017

CMDR ANCALAGON said:
Rumor has it that it will either send them straight to solo, or send them straight to the forums. Its all RNG, so you never know which scenario you will get.

kofeyh said:
Block doesn't block. This is classic Frontier; use an irrelevant word to define an action. Block deprioritises their connection in matchmaking; it does not remove it. This is commonly misunderstood, because Frontier persist in using a word to define an action, that does not match the action.

Ergo, blocking a player means the game will typically deprioritise instancing; but if there's no-one else, for example, you'll probably still see them. Welcome to Frontierland - enjoy your stay.

thanks for clearing that up fellas. +rep

Marbat · Dec 5, 2017

Why not just destroy him everytime you see him? Maybe he'll leave then. Or...move to my neighbourhood, I've been left alone for the longest time since starting to concentrating on ranking up.
This was a good question none the less, learned something new.

shadow133 · Dec 5, 2017

Marbat said:
Why not just destroy him everytime you see him? Maybe he'll leave then. Or...move to my neighbourhood, I've been left alone for the longest time since starting to concentrating on ranking up.
This was a good question none the less, learned something new.

That would be interesting, and I am curious to know if he was using legit tactics to “disappear “ or some form of cheating. If its the first and you got a vette, burn him up and then pop chaff to celebrate.

YinYin · Dec 5, 2017

burn420 said:
again, im aware of needing to restart FULLY. like i quit the launcher and everything. im also aware of the friend's list exploit. of my 4 friends, 2 havent been online in years (and are friends IRL that i see and talk to regularly, and only got the game because i pressured them into it, they've never played the game without me). the other 2 are Private Group only CMDRs that ive known for quite some time and i highly doubt that this dude would ever make it into their group of 6 players.

It doesn't have to be one of your friends/wingmates that overrides your block.

If you enter into a busy instance, chances are it contains a friend of the commander you blocked. Thus they will still enter your instance as well (their friend overrides your block).
You cannot impact their experience beyond you not actively entering into an instance they are in (with the exception of instances that contain a friend/wing of yours already).

Otherwise you could actively block other players from meeting their friends/wings. That would be ridiculous.

EvE4evah · Dec 5, 2017

YinYin said:
You cannot impact their experience beyond you not actively entering into an instance they are in (with the exception of instances that contain a friend/wing of yours already).

Otherwise you could actively block other players from meeting their friends/wings. That would be ridiculous.

It would, and it is. It does happen sometimes.

WR3ND · Dec 6, 2017

They get up to all sorts of things in Open...

[video=youtube;Vh4ElyUwkBA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh4ElyUwkBA[/video]

kofeyh · Dec 6, 2017

YinYin said:
Otherwise you could actively block other players from meeting their friends/wings. That would be ridiculous.

Correct; person a, blocking person b has zero bearing on person c's experience with person b. Nor should it. It's not relevant. Matchmaking as a system isn't perfect, there are only so many combinations of blocks it's going to be able to reliably manage in any given time period. It's not infallible and it's not designed to simply remove other players entirely, under every circumstance.

Back on topic; the entire point is so that person a, can manage their own personal experience; in particular blocking will silence verbal or typed abuse. Which is fair enough. Except..

.. a contingent seem hell bent on ensuring person a can absolutely manage b-though-z's experience by proxy. Sorry; did I say that out loud?

Inside voice, kof, inside.

Donald Duck · Dec 6, 2017

Same same but different:

Wing of 4, HasRez at CG. While heavily in PvE, some cmdr appears and waits to get his wingman in, who is blocked by at least one cmdr of our wing. Anyway, they are in, start their usual hyena play of selecting the weakest target, which was me after ramming an asteroid. I highwake with 10 % hull and end up in a neighboring system with a station where I could repair. Bandwith tells me that there is someone, but no contact and no signal, so I approach the station.
All of a sudden a contact appears and I get interdicted by the that one camper cmdr again, who seemed to have followed me and who I haven't blocked. I submit to end in an empty instance...
Back in the CG system, still same wing, a wing member, who has blocked that cmdr, gets interdicted by him in SC, just to end up in an empty instance as well.

Bottom line: Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get. Though, blocking helps - we just don't know exactly how...

Lance Corrimal · Jan 7, 2020

kofeyh said:
Frontier persist in using a word to define an action, that does not match the action. Like using "engineering" instead of "magic", or "engineer" instead of "shamen".

or like "high security" instead of "High risk"?