I for one would like to see something done about people that are leeching. What exactly that may be, I'm not sure.
This is the whole problem, nobody is really actively condoning leeching in this thread. It needs to be fixed, but nobody can agree on a sensible way of doing it.
PWE may take any actions and impose any penalties we deem necessary to discourage and punish any violation of these terms or any other illegal or inappropriate conduct, all without prior notice or warning. The determination as to whether a violation has occurred and who is responsible for such act is solely within PWE's discretion, and is based on what we deem best for the community and the Website. By using the Website, you agree you will be bound by PWE's determination as to whether a violation has occurred and any penalty we choose to implement.
Leeching doesn't HAVE to be against the TOS for PWE or Cryptic (as a subsidiary) to take action. As a prime example, look at the STF early leave penalty. Leaving early was not, and is not, a violation of the TOS, and yet, they took action.
Arguing against action being taken simply because it is not covered in the EULA doesn't mean anything. They have proven that.
I for one would like to see something done about people that are leeching. What exactly that may be, I'm not sure. Account banning is excessive for this offense. Loss of marks or other rewards, however, I feel would be appropriate. How it would be determined that someone is leeching (in the code, mind you, it isn't as easy to see as it is for you and I) is another issue.
I would, for one, like to see what Cryptic has to say to the community regarding this issue. I have yet to see a response from even the community manager, and this, I fear, tells me everything I need to know about their stance on it.
Subsection 10.n
(n) Take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service.
Covers pretty much anything that Cryptic and PWE want it to cover. It's pretty much a slam-dunk that leeching "negatively affects other users ... enjoying the Game(s)."
So it's not like they need cover if they choose to act, the problem is that they seem to feel that this isn't a particularly urgent issue.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
They should. Even from a simple income issue. Less marks (due to failed optionals) means less pressing need for dilithium, as the requisition projects take longer (they add up pretty quickly). Less pressing need for dilithium means a few less people buying Zen to convert.
That aside, it should be enough for them that a portion of their player base is irritated with this, and they should, at the very least, communicate with the player base on an issue such as this. Poor customer relations never turns out well in the end, no matter how small the issue.
This is the whole problem, nobody is really actively condoning leeching in this thread. It needs to be fixed, but nobody can agree on a sensible way of doing it.
Simple....if AFK for 10 consequtive min during event, boot them from task. Base it on doing some dmg to event targets , ie borg ships, ground forces, etc. If leechers no longer get marks for leeching missions they will stop trying to leach. And either not join. Or may actually try to participate.
Simple....if AFK for 10 consequtive min during event, boot them from task. Base it on doing some dmg to event targets , ie borg ships, ground forces, etc. If leechers no longer get marks for leeching missions they will stop trying to leach. And either not join. Or may actually try to participate.
The problem here is specifics. How much damage, how little? What about tanks and science officers? If it's only a token amount I could just play for 90 seconds then AFK and still get the rewards. Or if it's just buffing, set a simple keyboard macro to mash a hotkey.
Details would be good...
Frankly most STFs are done within 10 minutes anyway.
This wouldn't totally solve the problem, but if they incorporated that all players must move a set distance from start and must rack up (not necessarily kill) a small, but set damage amount on a total of no less than 10 encountered enemies might be a push in the right direction. This way even if they incorporate a macro/bot it would still have to accomplish some means to fulfill its requirements, and would therefor be contributing in some way.
Report them (It does fall under a TOS violation) and if possible leave. But not before alerting the rest of the team and offering your apologies.
I've had a full team minus the leech follow my lead twice now. We all reported the leech after three minutes of him/her sitting at spawn and doing nothing and left.
We all immediately re-queued (Colony invasion) and got a fresh run (Three of the four of us ended up together again) with people who actually contributed to the mission and we swept through it in less tie than normal.
Best temporary solution? Leech yourself. When everybody starts leeching, the game will become unplayable. This forum will only contain complaints about this issue. Cryptic will be forced to accelerate efforts to do something.
Another thing is the motivation for leeching. This game has become an endless, mindless grind. For Romulan marks etc. you do not really need to "win". The more difficult stfs are hardly played by pug teams anymore, cause they are hard and do not generate more rewards. And you need to play a lot to equip all ur ships and Boffs with the best there is. Thus, the motivation for afk-grind is tremendous. Do you still remember the days when you would play CGE everyday? Was a real pain, but the motivation was there and I personally never met someone who was AFK-grinding throughout the game.
Another thing is the motivation for leeching. This game has become an endless, mindless grind. For Romulan marks etc. you do not really need to "win". The more difficult stfs are hardly played by pug teams anymore, cause they are hard and do not generate more rewards. And you need to play a lot to equip all ur ships and Boffs with the best there is. Thus, the motivation for afk-grind is tremendous. Do you still remember the days when you would play CGE everyday? Was a real pain, but the motivation was there and I personally never met someone who was AFK-grinding throughout the game.
Hes right, the rep system demands you fill buckets , its a lazy system and of course it has causes a lazy response from some players
personally speaking i got bored of STF a long long time ago , why? Because it felt like i was running on auto pilot
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
I call player that do not Participate, AFkers, and I call Leeches, players who join Elite STFs and run wild agroing everything and have no clue as to how the mission works and spends more time dying than playing.
i really dont think the leeching would be that bad if they removed CDs and leavers penalties.
by having a 1 hr CD they are forcing is to play missions we dont want to play.
in doing so, people just queue up and let others do the work.
when you cant leave, you have no choice but to finish the mission for them..
yes you can fail it, but in the end everyone loses.
[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.
Hes right, the rep system demands you fill buckets , its a lazy system and of course it has causes a lazy response from some players
personally speaking i got bored of STF a long long time ago , why? Because it felt like i was running on auto pilot
Indeed.
1. They need to scale mission rewards accoding to difficulty. People have different nightmares, but statistics should show which are more difficult. Hive and Ground Stfs are probably hardest.
2. Make all missions possible to fail.
3. Introduce serious PvP. I would not mind if they stealt from Perfect World or Battlefield, like e.g. Capture strategic points or create galaxy instances where the galaxy can be conquered by Fed or KDF.
Bundled with a proper AFK handling system, it should do the trick.
Am I the only one who gets the feeling that anyone here talking in the lines of "Its not against the TOS/EULA" or using some other way to defend/suggest just dealing with it is just another Leecher afraid their effort-free marks might be going away?
Because why else would you defend something that irritates and diminishes the playing experience of others?
Oh and I'm still saying that Vote kicking ability that requires 3 team members to agree on would solve this problem once and for all.
And it has been proven to work over at WoW since the day the dungeon finder was established, so don't bring the "but it would be abusez!!!!111oneoneoneelelven" argument here.
Oh and I'm still saying that Vote kicking ability that requires 3 team members to agree on would solve this problem once and for all.
And it has been proven to work over at WoW since the day the dungeon finder was established, so don't bring the "but it would be abusez!!!!111oneoneoneelelven" argument here.
It is abused there. When it was being tested the players proved this, which was their intention, and so a cooldown was introduced. Effectively if someone has been kicked a certain amount of times they are immune from it. Now imagine if you get them in your group, we are back to the situation we are at now.
Know in that go and see the forums of why people are being kicked and the complaint of it. Some of the reasons I have seen:
they weren't in the same guild as the rest of the group
they spoke a different language to the main group
they asked questions about the instance, and this applies even at low levels when it is meant to teach people about working in group in dungeons
they tried to give helpful advice
To say it won't be abused is naive to say the least. I would rather see 99 leachers get their reward than one innocent player being punished. don't hold it up as soe shinging example of how it should be dealt with.
I do prefer the report afk feature of the BGs because even if it is done for no reason atlast you have the chance to remove the debuff. Yes it can be abused I have seen people be reported afk while gaurding nodes in AB for example however as I said you atleast have the chance to show you are not afk. A sort of compromise system.
It is abused there. When it was being tested the players proved this, which was their intention, and so a cooldown was introduced. Effectively if someone has been kicked a certain amount of times they are immune from it. Now imagine if you get them in your group, we are back to the situation we are at now.
Know in that go and see the forums of why people are being kicked and the complaint of it. Some of the reasons I have seen:
they weren't in the same guild as the rest of the group
they spoke a different language to the main group
they asked questions about the instance, and this applies even at low levels when it is meant to teach people about working in group in dungeons
they tried to give helpful advice
To say it won't be abused is naive to say the least. I would rather see 99 leachers get their reward than one innocent player being punished. don't hold it up as soe shinging example of how it should be dealt with.
I do prefer the report afk feature of the BGs because even if it is done for no reason atlast you have the chance to remove the debuff. Yes it can be abused I have seen people be reported afk while gaurding nodes in AB for example however as I said you atleast have the chance to show you are not afk. A sort of compromise system.
Alright. Let's say it does get abused. (Funnily me nor any of my guild ever got wrongfully kicked over a period of several years nor did we see anyone get wrongfully kicked. *Shrug*)
May I quote Spock here. "Good of the many outweigh the good of the few. Or the one man."
If 99 leechers get kicked for one innocent suffering, then it is a fair price. I would guarantee you that if Vote kick is introduced, leeching drops down to minimum quite fast when leechers realize they can't get away with it.
At the same time we'd get rid of the people who intentionally troll STF's by flying injury-ridden ships, blowing optionals intentionally or in other ways intentionally inhibiting the group (That is griefing, but there is nothing the group can do about it)
So even if it would get abused, the number of proper uses would outweigh the amount it'd be abused. Fair trade I'd say.
Alright. Let's say it does get abused. (Funnily me nor any of my guild ever got wrongfully kicked over a period of several years nor did we see anyone get wrongfully kicked. *Shrug*)
May I quote Spock here. "Good of the many outweigh the good of the few. Or the one man."
If 99 leechers get kicked for one innocent suffering, then it is a fair price. I would guarantee you that if Vote kick is introduced, leeching drops down to minimum quite fast when leechers realize they can't get away with it.
At the same time we'd get rid of the people who intentionally troll STF's by flying injury-ridden ships, blowing optionals intentionally or in other ways intentionally inhibiting the group (That is griefing, but there is nothing the group can do about it)
So even if it would get abused, the number of proper uses would outweigh the amount it'd be abused. Fair trade I'd say.
Your tone would be different if you were that one. The "I didn't see it happen" argument doesn't wash given how many players there are in the game as a whole and it is split acroos the globe by localisations.
An optional is called that for a reason. It is not needed for the STF to be completed. If it gets blown it gets blown. Add to that how do you know it was done intentionally? The only way is if the person states clearly that is what they are going to do or have done, otherwise it is an assumption.
Your tone would be different if you were that one. The "I didn't see it happen" argument doesn't wash given how many players there are in the game as a whole and it is split acroos the globe by localisations.
An optional is called that for a reason. It is not needed for the STF to be completed. If it gets blown it gets blown. Add to that how do you know it was done intentionally? The only way is if the person states clearly that is what they are going to do or have done, otherwise it is an assumption.
How nice of you to ignore the meat of my argument.
Point is, there are people out there who are intentionally griefing others. And yes, some people even state that they are doing it. (Yes, I've used report every time I've seen it. Doesn't seem to stop em though) and others who just HAVE to be doing it intentionally because nobody can be that stupid. (taking a ship with a dozen injuries into an STF and giving responses like "yeah, i'll fix it afterwards etc when asked about them) or by flying ships like Connies or NX'es or Mirandas "For s**t's and giggles" or by leeching.
Also, I don't mind if the optional is blown due to lack of dps or lower gear levels, that's life. But when someone intentionally blows it (Like by going over an blowing one gen on the right while everyone else is killing the right one or by TBR'ing the spheres TOWARDS ISE, or by intentionally letting probes though or... well ,you get my gist) I get really annoyed.
My main point being, and I'll underline and bold it so even you can get it is: The good of the many (the four fifths of the team with a leecher) outweight the good of the few (The unlucky fellow who got unfairly kicked, but can requeue). And I'd be more than willing to take a few kicks for no reason myself if it means I can get rid of those leechers and griefers.
.....nobody can be that stupid. (taking a ship with a dozen injuries into an STF and giving responses like "yeah, i'll fix it afterwards etc when asked about them) or by flying ships like Connies or NX'es or Mirandas "For s**t's and giggles" or by leeching. ......Like by going over an blowing one gen on the right while everyone else is killing the right one or by TBR'ing the spheres TOWARDS ISE, or by intentionally letting probes though or....[/u][/b]
sounds to me you want every single person to play the game "your way" , be geared exactly as 'you want', and to act exactly as 'you do' eh ?.
_______________________
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
How about they try the "Vote" option and we see which way works better. They can see if there are more people AFKing or more people "abusing" the vote button. Then go with the better option. Also, consider me one of the people who cannot understand defending AFKers in any way.
I call player that do not Participate, AFkers, and I call Leeches, players who join Elite STFs and run wild agroing everything and have no clue as to how the mission works and spends more time dying than playing.
There is noting that can be done about this. Some may be playing the mission for the first time. Some may just be trying things out and learning. The only solution to happiness
is get a private group going. Pug groups in any game can be fun but don't expect
much. Can Cryptic make that more enjoyable? Sure they can. I think most people
have already figured out it's how to go about it. Is it a problem. Yes.
Does it need some sort of action....yes. For now though there's nothing anyone
can do so until then post your solutions. Stop the insulting of one another and
get a private group. Post your solution and let it go from there. It's unlikely
Cryptic is ignoring anything. They just haven't got a response that would satisfactorily
limit the problem. I've been in this since beta and things take time but I can assure
you it's not being ignored. They've fixed a lot of things in this game that I had that
were pages long grievances. Please work together stop the insults. Just post
your solution and again get a private group but it's perfectly ok to submit a complaint
on the alleged offender. Stop this hocus pocus nonsense of trying to interpret the EULA
and TOS. Cryptic is the only one that will determine what is against it or not.
And officially they've made no response but stop the mud slinging guys and gals.
You'll never get their attention this way.
I'm going back to playing but I advise listening if you want anything done about it.
IT has been so long since I've been in the forum my title is missing.....they must have upgraded
long ago.....lol.
Here it is. If you can handle eSTFs and are tired of getting screwed out of the optionals by the trolls/AFKers/leeches, join the channel PublicEliteSTF, and stop posting threads asking the devs to police the community when we are clearly capable of policing ourselves. That is all.
the problem with the public channels is the AFKers arent really afk, they can join those too.
[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.
Well, I've heard the public channel isn't much better than pugging most of the time. The private channel is where its at, never had a bad run there. Its all business all the time, and people know what's up. Never seen any afkers in those runs.
Comments
there's your problem....a 'few' of you arent going to change anyones' mind.
'working as intended'.
.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
This is the whole problem, nobody is really actively condoning leeching in this thread. It needs to be fixed, but nobody can agree on a sensible way of doing it.
Kirk's Protege.
Subsection 10.n
Covers pretty much anything that Cryptic and PWE want it to cover. It's pretty much a slam-dunk that leeching "negatively affects other users ... enjoying the Game(s)."
So it's not like they need cover if they choose to act, the problem is that they seem to feel that this isn't a particularly urgent issue.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
That aside, it should be enough for them that a portion of their player base is irritated with this, and they should, at the very least, communicate with the player base on an issue such as this. Poor customer relations never turns out well in the end, no matter how small the issue.
Simple....if AFK for 10 consequtive min during event, boot them from task. Base it on doing some dmg to event targets , ie borg ships, ground forces, etc. If leechers no longer get marks for leeching missions they will stop trying to leach. And either not join. Or may actually try to participate.
The problem here is specifics. How much damage, how little? What about tanks and science officers? If it's only a token amount I could just play for 90 seconds then AFK and still get the rewards. Or if it's just buffing, set a simple keyboard macro to mash a hotkey.
Details would be good...
Frankly most STFs are done within 10 minutes anyway.
Kirk's Protege.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I've had a full team minus the leech follow my lead twice now. We all reported the leech after three minutes of him/her sitting at spawn and doing nothing and left.
We all immediately re-queued (Colony invasion) and got a fresh run (Three of the four of us ended up together again) with people who actually contributed to the mission and we swept through it in less tie than normal.
Another thing is the motivation for leeching. This game has become an endless, mindless grind. For Romulan marks etc. you do not really need to "win". The more difficult stfs are hardly played by pug teams anymore, cause they are hard and do not generate more rewards. And you need to play a lot to equip all ur ships and Boffs with the best there is. Thus, the motivation for afk-grind is tremendous. Do you still remember the days when you would play CGE everyday? Was a real pain, but the motivation was there and I personally never met someone who was AFK-grinding throughout the game.
Hes right, the rep system demands you fill buckets , its a lazy system and of course it has causes a lazy response from some players
personally speaking i got bored of STF a long long time ago , why? Because it felt like i was running on auto pilot
by having a 1 hr CD they are forcing is to play missions we dont want to play.
in doing so, people just queue up and let others do the work.
when you cant leave, you have no choice but to finish the mission for them..
yes you can fail it, but in the end everyone loses.
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
Indeed.
1. They need to scale mission rewards accoding to difficulty. People have different nightmares, but statistics should show which are more difficult. Hive and Ground Stfs are probably hardest.
2. Make all missions possible to fail.
3. Introduce serious PvP. I would not mind if they stealt from Perfect World or Battlefield, like e.g. Capture strategic points or create galaxy instances where the galaxy can be conquered by Fed or KDF.
Bundled with a proper AFK handling system, it should do the trick.
Because why else would you defend something that irritates and diminishes the playing experience of others?
Oh and I'm still saying that Vote kicking ability that requires 3 team members to agree on would solve this problem once and for all.
And it has been proven to work over at WoW since the day the dungeon finder was established, so don't bring the "but it would be abusez!!!!111oneoneoneelelven" argument here.
It is abused there. When it was being tested the players proved this, which was their intention, and so a cooldown was introduced. Effectively if someone has been kicked a certain amount of times they are immune from it. Now imagine if you get them in your group, we are back to the situation we are at now.
Know in that go and see the forums of why people are being kicked and the complaint of it. Some of the reasons I have seen:
they weren't in the same guild as the rest of the group
they spoke a different language to the main group
they asked questions about the instance, and this applies even at low levels when it is meant to teach people about working in group in dungeons
they tried to give helpful advice
To say it won't be abused is naive to say the least. I would rather see 99 leachers get their reward than one innocent player being punished. don't hold it up as soe shinging example of how it should be dealt with.
I do prefer the report afk feature of the BGs because even if it is done for no reason atlast you have the chance to remove the debuff. Yes it can be abused I have seen people be reported afk while gaurding nodes in AB for example however as I said you atleast have the chance to show you are not afk. A sort of compromise system.
Alright. Let's say it does get abused. (Funnily me nor any of my guild ever got wrongfully kicked over a period of several years nor did we see anyone get wrongfully kicked. *Shrug*)
May I quote Spock here. "Good of the many outweigh the good of the few. Or the one man."
If 99 leechers get kicked for one innocent suffering, then it is a fair price. I would guarantee you that if Vote kick is introduced, leeching drops down to minimum quite fast when leechers realize they can't get away with it.
At the same time we'd get rid of the people who intentionally troll STF's by flying injury-ridden ships, blowing optionals intentionally or in other ways intentionally inhibiting the group (That is griefing, but there is nothing the group can do about it)
So even if it would get abused, the number of proper uses would outweigh the amount it'd be abused. Fair trade I'd say.
Your tone would be different if you were that one. The "I didn't see it happen" argument doesn't wash given how many players there are in the game as a whole and it is split acroos the globe by localisations.
An optional is called that for a reason. It is not needed for the STF to be completed. If it gets blown it gets blown. Add to that how do you know it was done intentionally? The only way is if the person states clearly that is what they are going to do or have done, otherwise it is an assumption.
How nice of you to ignore the meat of my argument.
Point is, there are people out there who are intentionally griefing others. And yes, some people even state that they are doing it. (Yes, I've used report every time I've seen it. Doesn't seem to stop em though) and others who just HAVE to be doing it intentionally because nobody can be that stupid. (taking a ship with a dozen injuries into an STF and giving responses like "yeah, i'll fix it afterwards etc when asked about them) or by flying ships like Connies or NX'es or Mirandas "For s**t's and giggles" or by leeching.
Also, I don't mind if the optional is blown due to lack of dps or lower gear levels, that's life. But when someone intentionally blows it (Like by going over an blowing one gen on the right while everyone else is killing the right one or by TBR'ing the spheres TOWARDS ISE, or by intentionally letting probes though or... well ,you get my gist) I get really annoyed.
My main point being, and I'll underline and bold it so even you can get it is: The good of the many (the four fifths of the team with a leecher) outweight the good of the few (The unlucky fellow who got unfairly kicked, but can requeue). And I'd be more than willing to take a few kicks for no reason myself if it means I can get rid of those leechers and griefers.
sounds to me you want every single person to play the game "your way" , be geared exactly as 'you want', and to act exactly as 'you do' eh ?.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
Join a bigger fleet , make your fleet bigger and then only run the STFs with fleets members.
If you don't like this solution then there's nobody to blame but yourself.
Or you can just do the hard thing.
If you can hurt your enemy simply by inconveniencing yourself then do it.
The right move isn't always the easiest or even the one you want.
For those who PUG, you've got to make the hard choice.
DO you continue the run and reward Johnny Leech-a-lot or do you take the cooldown and do something else, keeping him from getting his unearned reward?
There is noting that can be done about this. Some may be playing the mission for the first time. Some may just be trying things out and learning. The only solution to happiness
is get a private group going. Pug groups in any game can be fun but don't expect
much. Can Cryptic make that more enjoyable? Sure they can. I think most people
have already figured out it's how to go about it. Is it a problem. Yes.
Does it need some sort of action....yes. For now though there's nothing anyone
can do so until then post your solutions. Stop the insulting of one another and
get a private group. Post your solution and let it go from there. It's unlikely
Cryptic is ignoring anything. They just haven't got a response that would satisfactorily
limit the problem. I've been in this since beta and things take time but I can assure
you it's not being ignored. They've fixed a lot of things in this game that I had that
were pages long grievances. Please work together stop the insults. Just post
your solution and again get a private group but it's perfectly ok to submit a complaint
on the alleged offender. Stop this hocus pocus nonsense of trying to interpret the EULA
and TOS. Cryptic is the only one that will determine what is against it or not.
And officially they've made no response but stop the mud slinging guys and gals.
You'll never get their attention this way.
I'm going back to playing but I advise listening if you want anything done about it.
IT has been so long since I've been in the forum my title is missing.....they must have upgraded
long ago.....lol.
Rest in Peace Brothers
But what is to stop some lowish life to join eSTF channel and I do not know ... but they could ...
TROLL?
Apart from the fact of the un-needed talk from people (like in ESD ... ), that can easily happen!
So I try not to join any new and unnecessary channels, thank you!
I hope STO get's better ...
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
Pizza: Pepperoni
Kalek shel'tek!
"Do not make me look foolish by allowing yourself to be murdered" -Lord Yu