Feature Request: Abyssal Logout with Pause

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

(If you are a Darwinist who is okay with your bed sheets being made of sandpaper and your mattress being pile of thorns who only cares to improve things that are blatantly broken, this thread is not for you.)

There are many reasons why someone might disconnect in the middle of the Abyss, some might be more reasonable and legitimate than others. Examples include:

  • Family Emergency
  • Internet Outage
  • Taco Tuesday Mudbutt
  • Ragequit

There’s really no way for us to determine why someone disconnected or how we should handle it on a case by case basis (do you really think CCP wants you to submit hospital invoices to justify reimbursements?), but I do have an idea that I don’t think is too unreasonable to handle all cases.

Current mechanics dictate that you cannot logout if you’ve recently engaged in non-capsuleer combat, so even if you’ve just cleared a pocket, the timer is far too long and this would be a death sentence in the Abyss. I propose the following modification: Create a new “Abyss Disconnect Timer” unique to the Abyss and eliminate the Non-Capsuleer Combat timer when in the Abyss (ie. Abyss rats cannot inflict this on you). The new timer would work as follows: If you’ve disconnected in the Abyss, then after a short amount of time you will be teleported out safely and the Abyss timer will pause.

Why make these changes? The idea is to permit you to disconnect and then reconnect with penalty. During that time before you are teleported to safety, you may very well be killed. If you survive, then you are still losing time against the Abyss timer between your inactivity, warping to the safe spot, and warping back out of it. Furthermore, when you warp back, you will be damaged and will be challenged to recover from your injuries. At the very least, there is still a chance that you’ll escape alive. You might not score anymore caches with the time you’ve lost, but you’ll escape. Family emergencies, Internet outages, and Mudbutt suck; you shouldn’t have to lose your blingy ship because of them. As for ragequit… maybe you decided to man up and that renewed sense of courage was enough to take you the end.

For this to be plausible, the timer will have to be relatively short. As an example, the timer might last 15 seconds after a disconnect is detected (I’m not fixed on any particular number, just using it as an example). Again, by the time you warp back in you will be in a more disadvantageous position (both in terms of your ship’s overall condition and in having wasted the available time) than if you did not disconnect. Basically, you would not be able to use disconnect as an exploit to recover your health, for example. If necessary, additional restrictions such as not being able to use active modules and disabling passive cap/shield regeneration could be used to prevent repairs during the warp out / warp in though I doubt this is necessary compared to the existing mechanics.

I’m hoping my suggestion, or something similar (I’m open to discussing adjustments and refinement), is fair to those who disconnect for whatever reason. Not all disconnects of any duration, be it a minute, several hours, or even days, need result in a suicide - you don’t know the circumstances. The loss of a 5b Sacrilege serves only as insult to injury when you need to rush to the hospital for a family emergency, for example. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my two ISK.

EDIT: @Scoots_Choco pointed out my suggestion could be used as an exploit to avoid gankers waiting for you to emerge from a T4/T5 instance (if you have an alt watching the portal); I suggested this could be mitigated by employing a penalty that scales with the duration of the logout. An example penalty could be a reduction to your sec status, which may lead you to become permaflashy (which is clearly worse than temporarily flashy). This is worth further discussion.

EDIT: @M_Cincinnatus pointed out that while not everyone agrees this mechanism should exist in general, we should consider a safety or reimbursement mechanism for the Abyss if the disconnection occurs due to a fault on CCP’s end.

EDIT: Subsequent Player-side Disconnect Proposal has been shelved due to not being received well by the community; however from the discussion arose the possibility of an automated mechanism for reimbursement for CCP-side disconnects as outlined in Reply #14. For your convenience, it is:

CCP-Side Disconnect Proposal (Eliminating the Need for Reimbursement Request Tickets):

  • Prior to entering Abyssal, CCP takes a snapshot of your state: Implants, fit, cargohold, filaments, everything. (If by chance the outage happens HERE before the snapshot is completed, then you never entered Abyssal to begin with and nothing happens)
  • You enter Abyssal space and the failure occurs
  • During the recovery and reboot process, servers check their database for Abyssal instances that had started but not finished - these are the ones whose snapshots need to be restored - this is done BEFORE logins are permitted. These players are placed into a safe spot in space such that when they log back in they are warped back to the location they were when they initiated the Abyssal portal.
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2

This seems like a very convenient way to have an “emergency” or “accidental disconnect” when your notice that the Abyssal Trace that your 5b ship + 4b pod is in has become camped by gankers.

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3

Yes, I did not consider this. If you have an alt (etc) watching the portal then this would be an exploit. So in this regard this raises two questions:

  • Is my proposal / similar proposals the lesser of the two evils?
  • Could we inflict an additional penalty to mitigate this, such as, for example, a severe penalty to sec status that could very well make them permaflashy if they use this mechanic? Perhaps the penalty could scale with the duration of the logout.
4

Just my opinion, but maybe proposing an exploit be part of a game is probably not the best idea.

I honestly think the idea is silly either way and that it’s not matter of “lesser of two evils”. ■■■■ happens in life and it really shouldn’t be on CCP to make sure your space pixels are safe due to issues that are beyond CCP’s control.

If it’s a specific mess up on CCP’s end, sure. If not, then sucks.

There are plenty of players who run Abyssal sites that never go into High Security space, much less live in places where Security Status matters. So what would be the point here?

So you’re “perma flashy” in nullsec, wow.

5

True, but it does make Jita runs a pain in the ass… And then you’ve got the carebears who do want to do Abyssals who don’t know / don’t care / underestimate the risk of PVP resulting from emerging out of T4s/T5s. That, and permaflashy matters for residents of HS/LS who do want to hit up the Abyss regularly.

Basically, it does affect a large demographic. A large enough demographic that I think the penalty largely counters the exploit. IMHO.

6

No.

If you want to partake in Abyssal Deadspace, you have to accept the risk that goes with it. Full stop.

Don’t want to risk your blingy cruiser? Don’t take it into Abyssal Deadspace. Or, really, undock with it at all.

-1

Good luck with the mudbutt though…

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7

So just make the game boot you from the site, drop you at your entrance with a npc combat timer that ticks down and then you will log off. Prohibit this if you have a pvp combat timer, to keep players from using it to avoid abyssal pvp.

The hunters can sit and catch you if they want, otherwise a power outage, service loss or CCP working as intended doesn’t cause a ship + pod loss and more support tickets.

9

In every other circumstance I agree with you 100%. The only reason I feel Abyssal space should be treated differently is because it is literally the only thing in the game that is intended to be an isolated private instance, and that may justify (although admittedly does not necessarily merit) special rules.

At this stage I just want to have a conversation: >>>if<<< such a feature were to take place, what would be the most reasonable way it could be implemented? I’m totally fine if it gets shot down at the final yay-or-nay moment, but I’d love to have it thoroughly fleshed out before democracy/CCP/CSM gives it the boot.

10

I can sympathize about family emergencies, but hopefully that should be uncommon. Even mudbutt is pretty serious business, but maybe can be planned around, like no abyss after Taco Tuesdays, maybe Wednesdays even, just to play it safe…

With that said, I would have to agree with others here that the dangers of abyss are well known, and that CCP does not reimburse. If you can’t afford to lose a super shiny abyss runner, then you aren’t following the “fly what you can afford to lose” rule. Life events are sympathetic, and almost excusable, but in theory rare enough that it may be a lot to ask CCP to implement some sort of change for, not to mention having to account for the possibility of abuse.

However, I would say that if CCP doesn’t have a mechanism in place to safeguard abyss runners in case of a disconnect on CCP’s end, they probably should, just to save themselves some headaches on petitions. It’s one thing to lose assets when it’s not CCP’s fault, they really can’t be expected to bear any burden in that case. But if it is CCP’s fault, that is a whole other beast…

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11

Worthy consideration: Safety OR reimbursement when it’s CCP’s fault. I will update my initial post with this.

12

You’re right that Abyssal Deadspace is a unique realm and is treated differently.

Part of that difference is that 20 minutes after entering it, it collapses destroying any capsuleer vessel inside.

What you’re asking for would make it less differentiated from the rest of EvE, and thus goes against the entire idea of Abyssal Deadspace (not to mention EvE itself).

One point of correction: Abyssal deadspace is an isolated instance, but it’s not private. Other players can follow you in. What would stop you from using this proposed logout feature that you’re using to escape a hostile player interrupting you? Or for that matter, what would stop you from popping an Abyssal Filament, entering it, and using this proposed logout feature to escape PvP in regular space?

The most reasonable way for it to be implemented is for it to not be implemented.

What exactly is the point in discussing how best to implement bad ideas?

13

If you lose an in-game asset due to an issue on CCP’s end, you can already petition them for its return. No need for a special mechanism for Abyssal Deadspace.

14

True in general, but I think with Abyssal it could be exceptionally easy.

Think about it:

  • Prior to entering Abyssal, CCP takes a snapshot of your state: Implants, fit, cargohold, filaments, everything. (If by chance the outage happens HERE before the snapshot is completed, then you never entered Abyssal to begin with and nothing happens)
  • You enter Abyssal space and the failure occurs
  • During the recovery and reboot process, servers check their database for Abyssal instances that had started but not finished - these are the ones whose snapshots need to be restored - this is done BEFORE logins are permitted. These players are placed into a safe spot in space such that when they log back in they are warped back to the location they were when they initiated the Abyssal portal.

No need to file a ticket.

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15

How does this system tell the difference between someone who legitimately DC’d versus someone who intentionally disconnects their client to “fake” a DC when:

  1. their outgate is camped
  2. they encounter a spawn that they cannot kill
  3. they’re about to run out of time
  4. they make a mistake and overheat their modules, preventing them from clearing a site
  5. any other number of excuses
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16

So just to be clear this thread has diverged into two separate ideas: What happens to DCs on players end and what happens to DCs on CCP’s end.

To answer your questions on players end…

First off: it doesn’t determine legitimate vs legitimate DCs. It provides a uniform way to treat both.

The idea is that DCs of any nature results in them re-emerging in a significantly more disadvantageous position than before the DC. So much so that they might die during the DC process. Should they survive they’ll have lost time and have taken a severe beating you’ll be challenged to recover from. In other words, even with (or perhaps especially with) ultra pimped out ships, for the most part it is very much against your interest to DC for any reason.

If a DC does a occur for a reason outside your control, at least you have a chance in hell to get out of there. You might be better off facing those portal campers than DCing. Oh, and let’s not forget that penalty I mentioned earlier: the longer you DC, the more severe the penalty. An example penalty that builds directly upon existing Abyssal mechanics would be to inflict security status penalty (longer DC = bigger penalty) to risk making you permaflashy instead of temporarily flashy. Obviously this doesn’t do anything to LS/NS, but neither does being flashy when emerging from T4/T5 instances.

17

The current system is already uniform for both. You’re asking for a special exception.

Also, regarding the security status hit, having a player take a security status hit makes zero sense. You’re taking the consequence of one action (a DC in abyssal space) and applying that directly to what is supposed to be a consequence for another action (aggressing another player in empire space). So what happens if a player in an Abyssal deadspace DCs for 2 minutes, but manages to come back online and complete the pocket without dying? Do they take a security hit for…disconnecting?

What you’re proposing makes zero sense. The only reason it’s diverging into two separate ideas is because you refuse to accept the futility of it.

18

Here is where I neglected to specify that this is in relation to T4/T5 instances in which you emerge flashy.

I accept the player-side DC idea is dead; I’d like to refocus the discussion on the CCP-side DC snapshot idea:

^^^ easier than filing a ticket?

19

Going suspect doesn’t impart a security status hit.

Try harder.

20

Where did I mention that current mechanics give you penalty to sec status when you come out of of T4/T5s? I was talking about proposed changes. Anyway, the player-side DC proposal is shelved; CCP-side DC proposal is still up.

21

Having your (potentially) 10 billion isk Gila +pod saved from certain destruction is a “significantly more disadvantageous position”?

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