the dev dont care about leechers its got to the point were i dont play this game as much is i did because im sick of it other games have a handle on the problem but not cyptic NO ITS to much work to fix this issue
I have started to come across this more and more, where one person is AFK for the whole match. I understand that sometimes things happen where you need to be AFK, but can something please be implemented in PVE encounters, where after a 45 seconds or so once a match begins, if a player has not moved/used his abilities a 30 second countdown is displayed that they have to click OK on or be dropped from the instance?
its been stated a million times.. being afk is not against any rules..
if you dont want to put up with the very few afk people you will meet in a pug, dont pug..
go in chat and ask for a team.. join a fleet... there are many ways to get around this problem.
[12:35] Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 225232 (271723) Plasma Damage to you with Plasma Lance.
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
Let me preface this long post by repeating that I don't like being in a map with an AFKer either. It's just bad form regardless of whether we can finish the thing without them or not.
Someone said, around page 60 or so that the reason that vote to kick, naming and shaming, AFK flagging, and all those other systems where people have to wear a silly hat as punishment for their crimes don't work is because it leaves anyone wide open to abuse of the system for other reasons.
To put in in black and white for those that don't seem to understand this, here is a list of the possible reasons other than having been a genuine AFKer that it is entirely possible I may be vote-to-kicked, flagged or made to wear a silly hat. All of the following is taken from real stuff that I have seen people either rage about on the forums or rage or even rage quit over in the game itself:
1. You had a bad experience with someone from my fleet who left it before I joined.
2. On ISE I'm shooting generators and I get a lucky crit or the phone rings and I answer it before untargeting the generator, leaving autofire to do what it does. Some players flip out before the optional even fails...
3. You mistake my server not responding for 1985s for my being afk.
4. I gave you some sound advice in a STF and you thought I was being an TRIBBLE$hole.
5. I'm flying a skittle boat.
6. I paste a youtube link in teamchat.
7. I activate whatever is the discoball of the day.
8. I go to the wrong outlying facility or zone in SB defense or Mine Trap
9. I cross a few trigger lines.
10. I 'help' you guard a transformer on Cure Ground.
11. You don't like me.
12. I use team chat to tell you that the phone rang/someone is at the door but due to a team chat bug, you don't see it.
13. When I say 'Hi team' at the beginning of a mission, I use Zone/Local.
14. It takes me noticeably longer than you would prefer to kill probes/cube.
15. I die while killing probes/cube.
16. I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing wrong (even though I'm not).
17. I say (as a joke) 'Hi team, first time here. How do we do this?' at the beginning of an Elite STF
18. I say the same thing in any fleet action.
19. I rage quit after someone says something about how I'm playing.
20. The game kicks me as or right after someone says something about how I'm playing. (see what I did there?)
21. I kill you in PvP
22. I'm using hax/cheats/exploits in PvP (but I'm not)
23. You mistake me for someone else.
24. For you, this is 'endgame'.
25. I'm AFK for the first thirty seconds/minute (you're seriously fooling yourself if you think there won't be people who can't hold themselves back)
26. I die + any of the above.
27. I die.
How many flags would I need in order to be punished if I were a genuine AFKer? 1? 5? 10? 20? 5000? 100,000?
If the aim of punishing AFKers with a ban is so that I never have to play with them again, or so that it's more difficult for them to get a game, what is to stop me from using, and why should I be able to use, any of the above reasons as an excuse to abuse the system simply because I don't like someone?
TL/DR
If it's 'Name and Shame' vs 'Ignore and Forget', for me there's no contest. You can ignore me for all sorts of reasons, but if I'm not a genuine AFKer, I'll most likely still be able to join the queues and play the game whereas if I get flagged specifically as an AFKer, and therefore banned, perhaps for just not being very good, how on Earth will that ever change and more to the point, why should other players potentially have control over whether or not I can play if I'm not necessarily doing anything wrong/bad?
But if you are in favour of potentially punishing 5 (or more) innocents to catch 1 bad guy, I guess we'll never see eye to eye on this.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Again with the people whining about leechers. Reporting them does nothing. They are not violating any rules by leeching. They are 100% on the safe side by doing this.
To be honest, I have no real beef with leechers. If they wanna leech, let them. In fact, I have seen some really funny leechers, and even leared a thing or two from them on how to scale the map like a boss. They are not hurting anyone. Live and let live people.
If you don't like leechers...quit the game and let the devs focus on other things...like making the next OP Federation Escort with 7 front facing weapon slots and the tanking ability of a Tac cube.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you oppose the Reputation nerf, feel free to use my signature
the problem is that cryptic keep sticking their fingers in their ears and going "lalalala I cant hear you lalalal" the whole AFK leecher problem is a very big one. THey say "its not against the rules" if players don't want to join fleets and pug a lot they are the ones that are getting a bum deal.
What kind of message is it to say to players "hey go afk we don't care" its a really poor one, so we ask Cryptic again can we please have vote to kick.
Problem is: In the strictest sense of the ToS, AFK'ing is not really "not ok".
You can to some degree put it into the "harassment" category, but in reality they do not really prevent you from completing most missions.
Infected ground for example only needs 3 people to complete... Sure you don't get the optional, but it can be done.
As I see it, there are only two ways to get rid of the AFK'ers:
1: Create a rewards-by score system. We know they have a basic system in place from the CE event, but it needs tweaking, but it can be done.
That way, people will only get rewards if they take part in the missions, and that would effectively render AFK'ing useless to thoose that do.
2: Vote-Kick-AFK'er system. A system where players report people for AFK'ing. The mission then checks if the player is moving and shooting, and if they don't, the player gets kicked, making room for another guy, forcing a cooldown on the AFK'er at the same time.
After a reporting, the mission will check every minute if the player is still moving and shooting, and if not, same show.
Personally I am more to the latter solution... I admit: It gives me joy to kick AFK'ers.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Don't pug, then. Friends don't let friends pug STFs and other public queues.
My fleet likes private PvE instancing, and encourages fleet members to engage in it, and I'm sure we'd be willing to let you ask around in our public cross-fleet channel for people to STF with. Check out RedditChat, it's usually pretty active. Just start a private STF instance, and ask 'who wants to run so-and-so?'. People will likely respond.
I would actually go as far as to say those people who AFK on purpose must have a script to automatically load them into the instance queues because it makes no sence to set yourself into an instance then leave the computer. Because you got to wait for the message to pop up to engage
So I am saying that the people who afk in instances are breaking the TOS they must be using programs to bypass the requests. and so I request that cryptic look at the problem again.
I would actually go as far as to say those people who AFK on purpose must have a script to automatically load them into the instance queues because it makes no sence to set yourself into an instance then leave the computer. Because you got to wait for the message to pop up to engage
So I am saying that the people who afk in instances are breaking the TOS they must be using programs to bypass the requests. and so I request that cryptic look at the problem again.
yea, majority of the afkers are using a program, which is against the TOS
i've come across only a small few that actually bother to afk normally.
they need to change it to where the game should check for mouse movement
and not keyboard to check to see if your afk.
the problem is that cryptic keep sticking their fingers in their ears and going "lalalala I cant hear you lalalal" the whole AFK leecher problem is a very big one. THey say "its not against the rules" if players don't want to join fleets and pug a lot they are the ones that are getting a bum deal.
What kind of message is it to say to players "hey go afk we don't care" its a really poor one, so we ask Cryptic again can we please have vote to kick.
Woa... hold on there... we ask Cryptic to do something about it. No-one has decided that this will necessarily be vote to kick.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Woa... hold on there... we ask Cryptic to do something about it. No-one has decided that this will necessarily be vote to kick.
To go a step further, there is significant opposition to a vote kick option for a variety of reasons.
I do have to say, I have seen an uptick in the number of these threads, so I purposefully played all missions via the queues. No private matches over the last couple days... I can count the total number of afk/leechers on one hand that I ran across... 5 (and 2 instances were the same person). 2 CE (same guy), 1 Azure Rescue, 1 Starbase Incursion, and 1 PvP. Not a single AFK/Leech in STF. In all cases (except the PvP) the leech didnt effect the outcome. The PVP was so close (honestly a good match, that even just another target might have turned the tide in our favor). Now, I can say I saw some ... interesting tactics (Cure Space in the queues is.... challenging (and hard for me to remember its just game, and not become a rage quitter). But, since I have consistently posted in these forums that the PvE content is too easy... the added challenge was refreshing.
I didn't count the total number of missions I played... but can tell you I play a bunch... grinding on 3 toons for the reps, and the starbase/embassy/mine food.
As a result, I don't think the issue is nearly as bad as people make it out to be. With it being a minor issue, I encourage Cryptic to NOT invest any time in changing the system in ANY way.
People (me included) have provided those who want to avoid AFK'ers/Leechs a way to do so (or at least minimize an already small problem). If you choose to use the queues, then you have nothing to complain about.
No to ANY programatic mechanism for dealing with AFK'ers... please work on bug fixes, and content.
Actually someone pointed out in another thread that the devs when asked, have flat out said they will not consider adding any type of vote-kick to the game.
Yes, and it's just so mind-numbingly obvious why it's such a bad idea that it's hardly even worth discussing.
Furthermore, johnny111971 is perfectly correct in stating that it is by no means even remotely close to 'epidemic' levels. While I would very much like a way to be able to avoid AFKers and obnoxious players in the public queues, my commenting on and discussing the discussing the issue should not be mistaken for me considering this issue as anywhere near as urgent as fixing all the broken or the development of new content.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
A votekick function will litterly ruin STO guaranteed.
If you can't handle the afk'ers don't pug.
Problem solved.
I pug'd for a year now and I could care less if we get an afk'er. A lot of people I play I damned well wish they'd go afk instead of pushing 3 raptors over to kang or whatever other great ideas they had that day.
Play with friends, your fleet or join channels end of convo.
Just remove the leavers penalty and we can all deal with the AFK'ers that way, by leaving, you could even team back up with your fellow leavers and rejoin the queue together. I know it would create problems with people throwing a tantrum and leaving STF's if an optional is lost but it would deal with the leachers.
If you'd rather not have to plow through a disorderly jumble of posts, please try to add to an active discussion rather than starting a new one. I know it can be hard to tell sometimes.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Just remove the leavers penalty and we can all deal with the AFK'ers that way, by leaving, you could even team back up with your fellow leavers and rejoin the queue together. I know it would create problems with people throwing a tantrum and leaving STF's if an optional is lost but it would deal with the leachers.
everyone keeps saying "don't pug" that's not really the point how are you meant to meet new people in online games If you don't pug. Sometimes you don't have enough players to form a group and end up with an extra player a "pug" player.
We went into Minetrap with a fleet group we had two whole areas go dead because there were 50% afkers in that zone. 2 whole groups all in fleets doing nothing just stood around that's 10 people who chose to afk they wernt busy with a child or had to nip to the loo they specifically logged into the game and chose to afk instead of help.
How can that be justified as "working as intended" by cryptic, if we chose to do nothing as well they wouldn't get a thing but instead of giving us the facility to get rid of these people or allow us to leave them too it cryptic refuse.
"Don't pug" is a brainless copout that just enables the leechers, probably floated by leechers themselves. Not everyone even knows four other players who are online at the same time.
"Don't pug" is a brainless copout that just enables the leechers, probably floated by leechers themselves. Not everyone even knows four other players who are online at the same time.
there's the STF chat channel. It's a lot like pugging but without the leechers.
Comments
I have started to come across this more and more, where one person is AFK for the whole match. I understand that sometimes things happen where you need to be AFK, but can something please be implemented in PVE encounters, where after a 45 seconds or so once a match begins, if a player has not moved/used his abilities a 30 second countdown is displayed that they have to click OK on or be dropped from the instance?
Thanks
if you dont want to put up with the very few afk people you will meet in a pug, dont pug..
go in chat and ask for a team.. join a fleet... there are many ways to get around this problem.
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
Someone said, around page 60 or so that the reason that vote to kick, naming and shaming, AFK flagging, and all those other systems where people have to wear a silly hat as punishment for their crimes don't work is because it leaves anyone wide open to abuse of the system for other reasons.
To put in in black and white for those that don't seem to understand this, here is a list of the possible reasons other than having been a genuine AFKer that it is entirely possible I may be vote-to-kicked, flagged or made to wear a silly hat. All of the following is taken from real stuff that I have seen people either rage about on the forums or rage or even rage quit over in the game itself:
1. You had a bad experience with someone from my fleet who left it before I joined.
2. On ISE I'm shooting generators and I get a lucky crit or the phone rings and I answer it before untargeting the generator, leaving autofire to do what it does. Some players flip out before the optional even fails...
3. You mistake my server not responding for 1985s for my being afk.
4. I gave you some sound advice in a STF and you thought I was being an TRIBBLE$hole.
5. I'm flying a skittle boat.
6. I paste a youtube link in teamchat.
7. I activate whatever is the discoball of the day.
8. I go to the wrong outlying facility or zone in SB defense or Mine Trap
9. I cross a few trigger lines.
10. I 'help' you guard a transformer on Cure Ground.
11. You don't like me.
12. I use team chat to tell you that the phone rang/someone is at the door but due to a team chat bug, you don't see it.
13. When I say 'Hi team' at the beginning of a mission, I use Zone/Local.
14. It takes me noticeably longer than you would prefer to kill probes/cube.
15. I die while killing probes/cube.
16. I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing wrong (even though I'm not).
17. I say (as a joke) 'Hi team, first time here. How do we do this?' at the beginning of an Elite STF
18. I say the same thing in any fleet action.
19. I rage quit after someone says something about how I'm playing.
20. The game kicks me as or right after someone says something about how I'm playing. (see what I did there?)
21. I kill you in PvP
22. I'm using hax/cheats/exploits in PvP (but I'm not)
23. You mistake me for someone else.
24. For you, this is 'endgame'.
25. I'm AFK for the first thirty seconds/minute (you're seriously fooling yourself if you think there won't be people who can't hold themselves back)
26. I die + any of the above.
27. I die.
How many flags would I need in order to be punished if I were a genuine AFKer? 1? 5? 10? 20? 5000? 100,000?
If the aim of punishing AFKers with a ban is so that I never have to play with them again, or so that it's more difficult for them to get a game, what is to stop me from using, and why should I be able to use, any of the above reasons as an excuse to abuse the system simply because I don't like someone?
TL/DR
If it's 'Name and Shame' vs 'Ignore and Forget', for me there's no contest. You can ignore me for all sorts of reasons, but if I'm not a genuine AFKer, I'll most likely still be able to join the queues and play the game whereas if I get flagged specifically as an AFKer, and therefore banned, perhaps for just not being very good, how on Earth will that ever change and more to the point, why should other players potentially have control over whether or not I can play if I'm not necessarily doing anything wrong/bad?
But if you are in favour of potentially punishing 5 (or more) innocents to catch 1 bad guy, I guess we'll never see eye to eye on this.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
To be honest, I have no real beef with leechers. If they wanna leech, let them. In fact, I have seen some really funny leechers, and even leared a thing or two from them on how to scale the map like a boss. They are not hurting anyone. Live and let live people.
If you don't like leechers...quit the game and let the devs focus on other things...like making the next OP Federation Escort with 7 front facing weapon slots and the tanking ability of a Tac cube.
What kind of message is it to say to players "hey go afk we don't care" its a really poor one, so we ask Cryptic again can we please have vote to kick.
You can to some degree put it into the "harassment" category, but in reality they do not really prevent you from completing most missions.
Infected ground for example only needs 3 people to complete... Sure you don't get the optional, but it can be done.
As I see it, there are only two ways to get rid of the AFK'ers:
1: Create a rewards-by score system. We know they have a basic system in place from the CE event, but it needs tweaking, but it can be done.
That way, people will only get rewards if they take part in the missions, and that would effectively render AFK'ing useless to thoose that do.
2: Vote-Kick-AFK'er system. A system where players report people for AFK'ing. The mission then checks if the player is moving and shooting, and if they don't, the player gets kicked, making room for another guy, forcing a cooldown on the AFK'er at the same time.
After a reporting, the mission will check every minute if the player is still moving and shooting, and if not, same show.
Personally I am more to the latter solution... I admit: It gives me joy to kick AFK'ers.
My fleet likes private PvE instancing, and encourages fleet members to engage in it, and I'm sure we'd be willing to let you ask around in our public cross-fleet channel for people to STF with. Check out RedditChat, it's usually pretty active. Just start a private STF instance, and ask 'who wants to run so-and-so?'. People will likely respond.
So I am saying that the people who afk in instances are breaking the TOS they must be using programs to bypass the requests. and so I request that cryptic look at the problem again.
yea, majority of the afkers are using a program, which is against the TOS
i've come across only a small few that actually bother to afk normally.
they need to change it to where the game should check for mouse movement
and not keyboard to check to see if your afk.
Woa... hold on there... we ask Cryptic to do something about it. No-one has decided that this will necessarily be vote to kick.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
To go a step further, there is significant opposition to a vote kick option for a variety of reasons.
I do have to say, I have seen an uptick in the number of these threads, so I purposefully played all missions via the queues. No private matches over the last couple days... I can count the total number of afk/leechers on one hand that I ran across... 5 (and 2 instances were the same person). 2 CE (same guy), 1 Azure Rescue, 1 Starbase Incursion, and 1 PvP. Not a single AFK/Leech in STF. In all cases (except the PvP) the leech didnt effect the outcome. The PVP was so close (honestly a good match, that even just another target might have turned the tide in our favor). Now, I can say I saw some ... interesting tactics (Cure Space in the queues is.... challenging (and hard for me to remember its just game, and not become a rage quitter). But, since I have consistently posted in these forums that the PvE content is too easy... the added challenge was refreshing.
I didn't count the total number of missions I played... but can tell you I play a bunch... grinding on 3 toons for the reps, and the starbase/embassy/mine food.
As a result, I don't think the issue is nearly as bad as people make it out to be. With it being a minor issue, I encourage Cryptic to NOT invest any time in changing the system in ANY way.
People (me included) have provided those who want to avoid AFK'ers/Leechs a way to do so (or at least minimize an already small problem). If you choose to use the queues, then you have nothing to complain about.
No to ANY programatic mechanism for dealing with AFK'ers... please work on bug fixes, and content.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
Yes, and it's just so mind-numbingly obvious why it's such a bad idea that it's hardly even worth discussing.
Furthermore, johnny111971 is perfectly correct in stating that it is by no means even remotely close to 'epidemic' levels. While I would very much like a way to be able to avoid AFKers and obnoxious players in the public queues, my commenting on and discussing the discussing the issue should not be mistaken for me considering this issue as anywhere near as urgent as fixing all the broken or the development of new content.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Not
PUG
.
If you can't handle the afk'ers don't pug.
Problem solved.
I pug'd for a year now and I could care less if we get an afk'er. A lot of people I play I damned well wish they'd go afk instead of pushing 3 raptors over to kang or whatever other great ideas they had that day.
Play with friends, your fleet or join channels end of convo.
Captains, we only need one active thread on AFK.
If you'd rather not have to plow through a disorderly jumble of posts, please try to add to an active discussion rather than starting a new one. I know it can be hard to tell sometimes.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
thats to easy for them to put back in the game
No one is forcing you, feel free to create your own group...problem solved
Or just remove the leavers penalty...... problem solved
We went into Minetrap with a fleet group we had two whole areas go dead because there were 50% afkers in that zone. 2 whole groups all in fleets doing nothing just stood around that's 10 people who chose to afk they wernt busy with a child or had to nip to the loo they specifically logged into the game and chose to afk instead of help.
How can that be justified as "working as intended" by cryptic, if we chose to do nothing as well they wouldn't get a thing but instead of giving us the facility to get rid of these people or allow us to leave them too it cryptic refuse.
My character Tsin'xing