Since I haven't even started this grind yet, I am a little curious on how AFK players hinder your ability to farm marks. Does the level of difficulty depend on the amount of players in the event? Meaning, the act of them sitting there, is actually making you sweat more as a player? Or is it decreasing the ATK player's chances for drops or loot etc? Or does it really not affect anything other than, you happen to help someone AFK farm some marks, but no addition weight on your shoulders? If it puts more weight on your shoulders, with no contribution on their end, then yeah I can see why it would be a detriment.
Since I haven't even started this grind yet, I am a little curious on how AFK players hinder your ability to farm marks. Does the level of difficulty depend on the amount of players in the event? Meaning, the act of them sitting there, is actually making you sweat more as a player? Or is it decreasing the ATK player's chances for drops or loot etc? Or does it really not affect anything other than, you happen to help someone AFK farm some marks, but no addition weight on your shoulders? If it puts more weight on your shoulders, with no contribution on their end, then yeah I can see why it would be a detriment.
In reality they don't (hinder the ability to get the marks).
Still, it can have an impact. On a STF it's more noticeable. On Azure, not so much.
However, being a timed match, the faster you take out the enemy and free the ships, the faster they will respawn, and so on.
The thing is, even if you can solo the whole thing it's not fair that someone gets marks and even loot for doing nothing. Moreover, things are smoother if everyone helps out.
We must have been playing to very different games, I never once saw a leech after that system was implemented.
To be fair, I was mostly in TFs and Incarnate trials at that point.
Well, you obviously have not be part of Peregrine Island AFK powerleveling farms where 1 tanker or controller was farming a whole map while powerleveling 6-7 AFK other players.
And I ask: So what?? Hate to bust anyones bubbles, but life isnt fair.. Like i said before in this hread, I'm on the probes, the spheres the cubes, you name it.. I die an average of twice per ESTF.. I havent got time to notice anyone sitting around doing nothing.. and no, i dont resent it.. I'm in an stf to earn dil or marks. Everything else is icing on the cake.. Yeah, its true that i'll only get maybe one dropped item every six to eight matches, but thats still icing and not cake.. Let the losers stay AFK.. I learn new tactics, new ways of doing things; new tricks to make my ship even better; stronger..
No, for me, the AFK-ers are nothing. what gets my goat is the people who take the stf and then run away like scared little girls with their skirts hiked up to their TRIBBLE.. I'm rather sick of being the only person left in a mission..
I GM report every single one. Is that not what the system was designed for? I don't care. I'll keep doing it until a system is in place that forces people to actually contribute to PvE to reap its rewards.
Cryptic records what we type in-game for use if there's a complaint against you. Why don't they keep track track of the damage and healing you do in each mission? That way if a complaint is made against a person they can look at the log to see if the person leeched of not.
It seems such a trival set of checks before they hand out marks of mark. If your starship receives no damage during a PvE round, you don't receive any marks or a mark box. But you do receive a Traitor box in your inventory. This undeletable box will sit in your inventory for 24 hours. If your inventory contains three of these boxes, you'll be banned from the queue system for 48 hours.
If you're actively participating in a run as dps, healer or support, you will get hit by enemy fire.
+1 to being one of the many frustrated with this problem
I have a suggestion...
A real reputation system for players - the specifics to be worked out, but here is the thought...
Everyone has a reputation, say from -100 to 100
- Log on, your reputation goes up 1 point
- Every 3 days you don't log on and rep is (+), rep goes down 1 point (moves toward 0)
- Every team battle your in,
if the sum of your damage and healing > ( total damage + healing) / (2 x number of players), rep goes up 1 point
if the sum of your damage and healing < ( total damage + healing) / (4 x number of players), rep goes down 1 point
if the sum of your damage and healing = 0, rep goes down 10 points
- Players with a positive rep can report players they are in combat with, by paying one point of rep, the can lower the other player's rep by one point
- Game content may award rep
Rep must be positive to play in any team combat
Fleets can have rules to demote/promote or kick players based on rep
A player cannot be part of a fleet (gets kicked) if rep < -25
Log in queue is ordered by rep, not order of login
Team combat is also ordered by rep
Loot awards scale based on rep
- Scale to 1% of normal award if rep -100, 120% if rep is +100 (include all team combat, missions, and doff missions)
- No purple loot if rep < 0
- Costs for purchases incur surcharges for negative rep (including market), discounts from vendors for positive rep
I admit, I did it a couple of times.
Yes, it is a bad attitude, but i really hate that missions.
in fact, I often avoid them.
I think the problem are the missions themselves: extremely boring.
I have already raised the question, but the usual people who say no to everything, they said that those missions were ok, and that there was no need to fix them.
As I said, the challenge should be in defeating enemies, not in reaching them.
I don't see how this one in particular serves any purpose. People would just log in, then log out to keep their rep points. It's also punitive as per this;
It's also damaging toward casual players or players who take extended breaks every now and then. It's also very damaging toward members of the military. They get deployed and may not be able to play for months or more only to come back and see their rep wiped out. It's just a bad idea really.
I don't see how this one in particular serves any purpose. People would just log in, then log out to keep their rep points. It's also punitive as per this;
The purpose is that reputation isn't experience, its not something you accumulate, its something you maintain.
The exact mechanics is less important than the principle that you need to participate to grow and keep your rep, and if you don't you will lose it. Checking logins is an easy way to check, but yes it can be gamed somewhat - alternatives are fine too - this is just an example of what can be done.
I'm not sure what your concern is with a punitive component of rep? Since the primary way of getting negative rep would be AFKing, I think there needs to be a punitive component to dissuade that behavior.
I'd play with the numbers a bit, and remove the Login + Rep, and Punitive Fleet Kicking (although think that others should be able to see your rep, including fleet leaders, and decide amongst themselves if they want you in their fleet or not).
I'd play with the numbers a bit, and remove the Login + Rep, and Punitive Fleet Kicking (although think that others should be able to see your rep, including fleet leaders, and decide amongst themselves if they want you in their fleet or not).
Its just a strawman, but consider fleet kicking for negative values above a certain threshold might prove very useful. Otherwise, it would be possible for alts to organize solely for griefing purposes. But to your point, other penalties may make that a non-issue.
(although think that others should be able to see your rep, including fleet leaders, and decide amongst themselves if they want you in their fleet or not).
oh this will never happen sadly because to many here don't wont it to be like wow....
How can we deal with these AFkers?, With azure nebula it's an annoyance to say the least, in stfs, we could bring the fight to them, make em sweat!
Reporting them isn't working clearly, and it's getting annoying. An improved combat log as someone suggested is a good idea, no damage no reward would put them off, though it could be wishful thinking.
The sooner Cryptic deal with it the better the game experience us honest hard fighting players get.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Originally I would just add them to my ignore list but now that it's happening so often, I finally broke down and started reporting these people. I wish they could just make it so if some one is on your ignore list you can't team or there was a vote to kick option.
The optimal answer would be that if anyone leeches everyone else leaves immediately, or at least stops fighting immediately.
This would remove the incentive to leech, and would also send a fairly clear signal to Cryptic when they see no one completing content.
_________________________________________________ [Kluless][Kold][Steel Heels][Snagtooth] [Louis Cipher][Outta Gum][Thysa Kymbo][Spanner][Frakk] [D'Mented][D'Licious]
Joined October 2009. READ BEFORE POSTING
The optimal answer would be that if anyone leeches everyone else leaves immediately, or at least stops fighting immediately.
This would remove the incentive to leech, and would also send a fairly clear signal to Cryptic when they see no one completing content.
then your stuck doing nothing for a hour and and it would not stop leechers to and also every one leaves he going to go to a new so and so because the leecher did not leaves so the leecher is not stuck doing nothing for a hour
a leecher is not going to leave unless 1 the whole group leaves then they are auto kick for not enough members or 2 you complete the mission
Personally, someone recommended a player reputation system, and I think that idea has a lot of merit. You earn rep points for participation (some calculation based on damage+healing done) etc. I think that has merit...
If we could get more participation in event channels (or team find channels) so that it doesn't take 2 hours to fill a mission... the AFK'ers would be weeded out.... simply by being on your ignore list... this is how it works in some of the STF Channels... If I am forming a team, and you are on my ignore list, I don't even see your request to join my team.
So, I recommend we revive some dead channels such as RedAlert, FleetEvent, and TeamFind.
Will they be elite teams, maybe not... but they will have Active participation.
Bah the leechers simply leave more of the glory for me!
On a serious note the leechers are a side effect of excessive grind. If there were more solo missions and so on that granted the various marks the leechers would be SOL.
Reporting them isn't working clearly, and it's getting annoying. An improved combat log as someone suggested is a good idea, no damage no reward would put them off, though it could be wishful thinking.
You earn rep points for participation (some calculation based on damage+healing done) etc. I think that has merit...
'
As far as Azure Nebula goes - No to this this idea of using damage/healing to determine AFK status.
I have no heals to give to others, and, significantly, I make it a point not to get into any fights in Azure Nebula. I actively avoid trying to do any damage. I find it far more effective and time-efficient to avoid the Tholian patrols completely and just free the ships without engaging. The vast majority of my AZ runs I don't fire a shot, and rarely even get attacked.
So no, bad idea, at least for AZ. Now if they tracked how many times you clicked 'disable tractor beam' that'd be okay
_________________________________________________
::WARNING:: This game is not intended for use as a source of self-esteem.
This reason is why having alts is a good idea.
You get stuck w/ an AFKer, you bail and get on your next toon that needs to grind marks. Do a couple runs on alts and your leaver penalty is done. Go back to that toon then and pray there's no AFKer again.
There could be a "bailing cause of name@handle" feature. No penalty and if the 'system' sees name@handle being blamed 2-3 times within a few seconds and then this happens often then you'd have a fairly abuse-resistant system.
Be a log like...(names used below just made up, any match w/ real players is a coincidence)
joe@nowhere: 1255:25 name@handle is afker, leaving event
jane@nowhere: 1256:02 name@handle is afker, leaving event
then at another event...
bob@nowhere: 1421:52 name@handle is afker, leaving event
fred@nowhere: 1422:35 name@handle is afker, leaving event
james@nowhere: 1423:00 name@handle is afker, leaving event
After a few days/events, you'd get a pretty good idea that name@handle was a blatant AFKer and action could be taken. And likewise if, say joe@nowhere, seemed to be blaming a huge number of various players frequently then action could be taken there.
Yeah, I know it's never gonna happen so save your 'it's never gonna happen' posts.
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
I've tried to the sneaky thing and disable the tractor beams without firing, but it usually fails because they fire on me, what's your trick, cloak, mask signature?
I've tried to the sneaky thing and disable the tractor beams without firing, but it usually fails because they fire on me, what's your trick, cloak, mask signature?
I've been noticing that in most of the instances I play the trick is me
I engage the tholians so other people can easily do it without being attacked. :P
I admit the the "sneaky thing" may be faster, but it's absolutely no fun...
This reason is why having alts is a good idea.
You get stuck w/ an AFKer, you bail and get on your next toon that needs to grind marks. Do a couple runs on alts and your leaver penalty is done. Go back to that toon then and pray there's no AFKer again.
If only everyone did this AFK problem would not be as bad as it is with the AFK people not getting anything. Unfortunately the game is so alt unfriendly with so many character bind stuff and reputation system that some people only have 1 character they play for end game stuff.
I think they should have a system that you can flag someone as a leecher and then the game starts monitoring the person who is called a leecher and if the person does not do anything useful to advance the missions after a period of time they are booted out of the mission and accumulate a leecher point that lasts for a day. A 2nd 3rd 4th and so on leecher point in the day causes a 1 hour ban each time.
If only everyone did this AFK problem would not be as bad as it is with the AFK people not getting anything. Unfortunately the game is so alt unfriendly with so many character bind stuff and reputation system that some people only have 1 character they play for end game stuff.
I think they should have a system that you can flag someone as a leecher and then the game starts monitoring the person who is called a leecher and if the person does not do anything useful to advance the missions after a period of time they are booted out of the mission and accumulate a leecher point that lasts for a day. A 2nd 3rd 4th and so on leecher point in the day causes a 1 hour ban each time.
No, if you want it to be actually punitive, make it a 1-week account ban, No advancing ANY of that account's characters.......:cool::cool:
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
I've tried to the sneaky thing and disable the tractor beams without firing, but it usually fails because they fire on me, what's your trick, cloak, mask signature?
Nothing special, I am a F2P tac in a Lvl 40 escort. But I've found a pretty reliable way to do it based on trial and error.
First you need to know that the disable button pops up when you are within 8km of the Romulan ship, IF the tractor nodes are within your line of sight.
Second also know that the Tholians actually dont open up on you as soon as you're within 10km of them. You get a little grace period of about 1 km.
Third, be aware that the Tholians actually 'patrol' around a small area in a circle (counter-clockwise, usually) and are not statically placed, so if they're too close, wait 10-20 seconds and you'll be fine.
Finally, remember that space has a Z- axis.
I typically fly much below the asteroid, make sure I'm just outside (underneath still but not directly) of the asteroid's diameter on the side with the romulan ship, and then simply point myself at the romulan ship and fly up, trying to get within 8km of it while keeping the tholians >10km away from me.
I've actually even had some success in not firing back, if one of the group shoots at me, about half the time, if I back off a bit, just out of range, I dont aggro the pack, and the shooter rejoins them.
_________________________________________________
::WARNING:: This game is not intended for use as a source of self-esteem.
I've been noticing that in most of the instances I play the trick is me
I engage the tholians so other people can easily do it without being attacked. :P
I admit the the "sneaky thing" may be faster, but it's absolutely no fun...
I've been doing that in my D'deridex Retrofit.
Fly in, hit the spawn cluster with a singularity projectile while dumping BFAW2 and TS3 into it. Makes me very popular ... with the Tholians ... but it gives another team member time to work on the tractor beams.
Comments
Still, it can have an impact. On a STF it's more noticeable. On Azure, not so much.
However, being a timed match, the faster you take out the enemy and free the ships, the faster they will respawn, and so on.
The thing is, even if you can solo the whole thing it's not fair that someone gets marks and even loot for doing nothing. Moreover, things are smoother if everyone helps out.
Well, you obviously have not be part of Peregrine Island AFK powerleveling farms where 1 tanker or controller was farming a whole map while powerleveling 6-7 AFK other players.
No, for me, the AFK-ers are nothing. what gets my goat is the people who take the stf and then run away like scared little girls with their skirts hiked up to their TRIBBLE.. I'm rather sick of being the only person left in a mission..
If you're actively participating in a run as dps, healer or support, you will get hit by enemy fire.
I have a suggestion...
A real reputation system for players - the specifics to be worked out, but here is the thought...
Everyone has a reputation, say from -100 to 100
- Log on, your reputation goes up 1 point
- Every 3 days you don't log on and rep is (+), rep goes down 1 point (moves toward 0)
- Every team battle your in,
if the sum of your damage and healing > ( total damage + healing) / (2 x number of players), rep goes up 1 point
if the sum of your damage and healing < ( total damage + healing) / (4 x number of players), rep goes down 1 point
if the sum of your damage and healing = 0, rep goes down 10 points
- Players with a positive rep can report players they are in combat with, by paying one point of rep, the can lower the other player's rep by one point
- Game content may award rep
Rep must be positive to play in any team combat
Fleets can have rules to demote/promote or kick players based on rep
A player cannot be part of a fleet (gets kicked) if rep < -25
Log in queue is ordered by rep, not order of login
Team combat is also ordered by rep
Loot awards scale based on rep
- Scale to 1% of normal award if rep -100, 120% if rep is +100 (include all team combat, missions, and doff missions)
- No purple loot if rep < 0
- Costs for purchases incur surcharges for negative rep (including market), discounts from vendors for positive rep
Yes, it is a bad attitude, but i really hate that missions.
in fact, I often avoid them.
I think the problem are the missions themselves: extremely boring.
I have already raised the question, but the usual people who say no to everything, they said that those missions were ok, and that there was no need to fix them.
As I said, the challenge should be in defeating enemies, not in reaching them.
It's also damaging toward casual players or players who take extended breaks every now and then. It's also very damaging toward members of the military. They get deployed and may not be able to play for months or more only to come back and see their rep wiped out. It's just a bad idea really.
Mine Trap Supporter
The purpose is that reputation isn't experience, its not something you accumulate, its something you maintain.
The exact mechanics is less important than the principle that you need to participate to grow and keep your rep, and if you don't you will lose it. Checking logins is an easy way to check, but yes it can be gamed somewhat - alternatives are fine too - this is just an example of what can be done.
I'm not sure what your concern is with a punitive component of rep? Since the primary way of getting negative rep would be AFKing, I think there needs to be a punitive component to dissuade that behavior.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
Its just a strawman, but consider fleet kicking for negative values above a certain threshold might prove very useful. Otherwise, it would be possible for alts to organize solely for griefing purposes. But to your point, other penalties may make that a non-issue.
Yes I agree, rep should be a public value.
oh this will never happen sadly because to many here don't wont it to be like wow....
system Lord Baal is dead
if everyone leave the afk player alone, he'll stop stay afk.
why do you think this is so lucrative? because there's always an idiot playing for afk player
think about it
we dont need rules, we need conscientization
this is a easy and logical solution
system Lord Baal is dead
Reporting them isn't working clearly, and it's getting annoying. An improved combat log as someone suggested is a good idea, no damage no reward would put them off, though it could be wishful thinking.
The sooner Cryptic deal with it the better the game experience us honest hard fighting players get.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
This would remove the incentive to leech, and would also send a fairly clear signal to Cryptic when they see no one completing content.
[Kluless][Kold][Steel Heels][Snagtooth]
[Louis Cipher][Outta Gum][Thysa Kymbo][Spanner][Frakk]
[D'Mented][D'Licious]
Joined October 2009. READ BEFORE POSTING
then your stuck doing nothing for a hour and and it would not stop leechers to and also every one leaves he going to go to a new so and so because the leecher did not leaves so the leecher is not stuck doing nothing for a hour
a leecher is not going to leave unless 1 the whole group leaves then they are auto kick for not enough members or 2 you complete the mission
system Lord Baal is dead
If we could get more participation in event channels (or team find channels) so that it doesn't take 2 hours to fill a mission... the AFK'ers would be weeded out.... simply by being on your ignore list... this is how it works in some of the STF Channels... If I am forming a team, and you are on my ignore list, I don't even see your request to join my team.
So, I recommend we revive some dead channels such as RedAlert, FleetEvent, and TeamFind.
Will they be elite teams, maybe not... but they will have Active participation.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
On a serious note the leechers are a side effect of excessive grind. If there were more solo missions and so on that granted the various marks the leechers would be SOL.
As far as Azure Nebula goes - No to this this idea of using damage/healing to determine AFK status.
I have no heals to give to others, and, significantly, I make it a point not to get into any fights in Azure Nebula. I actively avoid trying to do any damage. I find it far more effective and time-efficient to avoid the Tholian patrols completely and just free the ships without engaging. The vast majority of my AZ runs I don't fire a shot, and rarely even get attacked.
So no, bad idea, at least for AZ. Now if they tracked how many times you clicked 'disable tractor beam' that'd be okay
::WARNING:: This game is not intended for use as a source of self-esteem.
You get stuck w/ an AFKer, you bail and get on your next toon that needs to grind marks. Do a couple runs on alts and your leaver penalty is done. Go back to that toon then and pray there's no AFKer again.
There could be a "bailing cause of name@handle" feature. No penalty and if the 'system' sees name@handle being blamed 2-3 times within a few seconds and then this happens often then you'd have a fairly abuse-resistant system.
Be a log like...(names used below just made up, any match w/ real players is a coincidence)
joe@nowhere: 1255:25 name@handle is afker, leaving event
jane@nowhere: 1256:02 name@handle is afker, leaving event
then at another event...
bob@nowhere: 1421:52 name@handle is afker, leaving event
fred@nowhere: 1422:35 name@handle is afker, leaving event
james@nowhere: 1423:00 name@handle is afker, leaving event
After a few days/events, you'd get a pretty good idea that name@handle was a blatant AFKer and action could be taken. And likewise if, say joe@nowhere, seemed to be blaming a huge number of various players frequently then action could be taken there.
Yeah, I know it's never gonna happen so save your 'it's never gonna happen' posts.
I've been noticing that in most of the instances I play the trick is me
I engage the tholians so other people can easily do it without being attacked. :P
I admit the the "sneaky thing" may be faster, but it's absolutely no fun...
If only everyone did this AFK problem would not be as bad as it is with the AFK people not getting anything. Unfortunately the game is so alt unfriendly with so many character bind stuff and reputation system that some people only have 1 character they play for end game stuff.
I think they should have a system that you can flag someone as a leecher and then the game starts monitoring the person who is called a leecher and if the person does not do anything useful to advance the missions after a period of time they are booted out of the mission and accumulate a leecher point that lasts for a day. A 2nd 3rd 4th and so on leecher point in the day causes a 1 hour ban each time.
No, if you want it to be actually punitive, make it a 1-week account ban, No advancing ANY of that account's characters.......:cool::cool:
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
Nothing special, I am a F2P tac in a Lvl 40 escort. But I've found a pretty reliable way to do it based on trial and error.
First you need to know that the disable button pops up when you are within 8km of the Romulan ship, IF the tractor nodes are within your line of sight.
Second also know that the Tholians actually dont open up on you as soon as you're within 10km of them. You get a little grace period of about 1 km.
Third, be aware that the Tholians actually 'patrol' around a small area in a circle (counter-clockwise, usually) and are not statically placed, so if they're too close, wait 10-20 seconds and you'll be fine.
Finally, remember that space has a Z- axis.
I typically fly much below the asteroid, make sure I'm just outside (underneath still but not directly) of the asteroid's diameter on the side with the romulan ship, and then simply point myself at the romulan ship and fly up, trying to get within 8km of it while keeping the tholians >10km away from me.
I've actually even had some success in not firing back, if one of the group shoots at me, about half the time, if I back off a bit, just out of range, I dont aggro the pack, and the shooter rejoins them.
::WARNING:: This game is not intended for use as a source of self-esteem.
I've been doing that in my D'deridex Retrofit.
Fly in, hit the spawn cluster with a singularity projectile while dumping BFAW2 and TS3 into it. Makes me very popular ... with the Tholians ... but it gives another team member time to work on the tractor beams.