The irony here is that an alternate suggestion (the ignore list system) is always shot down based upon a "too much code argument".
Well, it probably would be too much code. Can you even describe how such a system would work? If you try something like "pick the number 1 person in queue, then pick the next four people not on his ignore list", then one person with a huge ignore list could jam the queue for a long time - a perfect way to grief an entire queue. What else could you do? "Group people such that the sum of their queue numbers is minimized and no one is on anyone's ignore list?" That's a mouthful to say and a lot of combinations to compute.
All of which ignores the fundamental point that we shouldn't be using the ignore list for a function it's not designed for. If you wanted to do this right, a new list should be created, a "don't group me with" list. That is, of course, a whole different infrastructure to implement.
Finally, it doesn't address the user experience problem - where people are sitting in queues that have far more members than are needed to spawn a map, but nothing happens. Expect hourly "Queue broken?" threads...
"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
Can =/= Will. However where there's a will, there's a way.
I didn't read the whole thread so pardon if this has been mentioned, but kicking players won't stop griefers, and players may be kicked under the assumption they are griefing, when they may just not know what they are doing.
Also, does kicking within the STF penalty time still apply a leaver penalty? There's some serious grief potential there, boot you in the first 2 mins and lock you out of STFs for an hour. /ggson
I played Vindictus for some time, so I'm very familiar with kick abuse by elitist min/maxers, but in retrospect, the feature was far more useful in getting games started, than detrimental to joining them.
The irony here is that an alternate suggestion (the ignore list system) is always shot down based upon a "too much code argument".
Coming at you with novice database programming, that could be accomplished with a simple query, but what I see with that are queue s getting backlogged with ignored players and server slowdowns from the constant running of queries.
Edit: then again.... add in the ignore list anti-team and have the activated VtK button auto offer to add kicked players to ignore lists.
That's what some people keep saying about it. But I haven't seen any actual evidence that it would be such a huge problem.
Then I challenge you to read the other threads on this subject. There have been people in those threads who have stated that if a vote kick system were to be implemented they will kick people if they don't have the "right" build or are not using the "right" weapons or aren't using the "right" ship. Read those posts then tell me again a vote kick system won't be abused. That's ok, I'll wait.....................
I don't care what the header says, I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, an "ARC user".
Coming at you with novice database programming, that could be accomplished with a simple query, but what I see with that are queue s getting backlogged with ignored players and server slowdowns from the constant running of queries
As I've noted the system already will give preferential groupings to friends.... not really. It seems to already being doing DB lookups for instancing. Is there a potentiality of backlogging of certain players who are on everyones ignore list? sure.... that's the general idea.... those people who engage in leeching or other undesirable activities by the general community will end up on a lot of ignore lists and sit in queues most of the time.
As I've noted the system already will give preferential groupings to friends.... not really. It seems to already being doing DB lookups for instancing. Is there a potentiality of backlogging of certain players who are on everyones ignore list? sure.... that's the general idea.... those people who engage in leeching or other undesirable activities by the general community will end up on a lot of ignore lists and sit in queues most of the time.
Your absolutely right. Forgive me, I'm a sleep deprived narcoleptic workaholic and it got the better of me for a moment, but I think you might like what I added to my last post.
Then I challenge you to read the other threads on this subject. There have been people in those threads who have stated that if a vote kick system were to be implemented they will kick people if they don't have the "right" build or are not using the "right" weapons or aren't using the "right" ship. Read those posts then tell me again a vote kick system won't be abused. That's ok, I'll wait.....................
What people say they'll do on a forum and what they'll actually do tend to be vastly different things.
This also ignores the fact that one person doesn't have the ability to kick. What are the odds that 3 similarly minded people will be randomly grouped with another person that they want to kick? I believe it's a lot less than the odds that you'll get an AFKer.
"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
Coming at you with novice database programming, that could be accomplished with a simple query, but what I see with that are queue s getting backlogged with ignored players and server slowdowns from the constant running of queries.
I'd be curious to see this simple query. Especially considering that none of us know the schema.
"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
Just a thought that I had this weekend that I'd like to bring up since afkers and the team kick vote issue came up in this same thread. Instead of kicking a player from the instance - if the team votes them as an afker, and once voted as one they make no gameplay contributions, why not just prevent them from reaping the rewards of the mission? Not the best solution I admit, but it is a very sticky issue.
absolutly not go play TOR players abuse it
we have tried this before does not work
you kick from team in STF they steal all loot because they can't leave
you guy just want it to bypass need or greed is all
Just a thought that I had this weekend that I'd like to bring up since afkers and the team kick vote issue came up in this same thread. Instead of kicking a player from the instance - if the team votes them as an afker, and once voted as one they make no gameplay contributions, why not just prevent them from reaping the rewards of the mission? Not the best solution I admit, but it is a very sticky issue.
I like the idea, leechers simply get nothing. Maybe a stealth vote so if they are afk. They don't see the warning and move to cancel the tag
solution is right click on player and scroll down and report them if they get so many flags they get banned Geko is working on fix for making you have to do stuff than just be a freeloader
In laymens terms because I'm on my phone and don't have access to my sql references.
If variableA = variableB then
Match failure and the query loops
Else if
Match Success and continues.
End if
VariableA = player name Variable = Ignore list
I guess you didn't read earlier why a "pick 4 people that the first person in the queue will group with" system is a bad idea.
Also, you've ignored the fact that ignore lists exists for both players and both need to be tested.
Just pointing out that this isn't easy to describe even in pseudo-code.
"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
I'd be curious to see this simple query. Especially considering that none of us know the schema.
True, unknown what it would be precisely as we don't know the DB schema... I'd assume it (as well as the fiends list) would be a table of user id's indexed by the owner user id of the list. As that would be the most reasonable approach to be able to make the dynamic enough, and they do operate account wide as opposed to character specific.... but yes, for all I know it could have been done in an extremely convuluted manner... of course, as I pointed out, during instancing there already are lookups happening with teh DB to attempt to instance friends together.... so it does not seem that DB lookups would be impossible to do.
That being said, such a system would certainly be less than problematic to do over code attempting to monitor contribution thresholds on each player to determine whether a vote kick would be initiated as proposed by the OP. And to top it all off, unlike a VtK system, the ignore list system would not deprive people of rewards at all, or penalize people's ability to requeue.
As I've personally stated, I don't consider leeching that big of an issue, I pug all the time, in fact I've done 13 so far today (as this is a day off work for me) and not seen a single one. Imerely consdier the ignore list idea the best idea of the proposals if we were to impliment such a system..... a lesser of multiple evils idea. I'd also be fine of continuing things as they are now.
True, unknown what it would be precisely as we don't know the DB schema... I'd assume it (as well as the fiends list) would be a table of user id's indexed by the owner user id of the list. As that would be the most reasonable approach to be able to make the dynamic enough, and they do operate account wide as opposed to character specific.... but yes, for all I know it could have been done in an extremely convuluted manner... of course, as I pointed out, during instancing there already are lookups happening with teh DB to attempt to instance friends together.... so it does not seem that DB lookups would be impossible to do.
There are other ways the information could be stored that wouldn't require anything particularly convoluted. For example, the ignore list could be stored as an array object in the account record because no one ever thought the system would need to do an individual query for the A vs B ignore status, and that would decrease time to load. Something as simple as that could complicate the problem significantly.
"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
I guess you didn't read earlier why a "pick 4 people that the first person in the queue will group with" system is a bad idea.
Also, you've ignored the fact that ignore lists exists for both players and both need to be tested.
Just pointing out that this isn't easy to describe even in pseudo-code.
Duly noted, however, I believe you missed that only a request for the query was made, and not the implementation of said query.
Nothing against you, but I thought it would be clear that the query would have to be ran for each player against all other's ignore lists. Sorry, that wasn't clarified.
I can see this being abused...as just about everything that players have any amount of control over.
cgta1967: you was on my thread pushing your anti-non-kick hate idea (as i was for the idea) you never came up with any solution and now i see you here on your campaign to destroy any progress to get rid of leeches plus as you say you see mass free for all (just kick anybody out thought) well frankly i think you and others that say this will encourage abuse then i think this is a delusion or paranoid thought to stop fair game play and FUN game play,do you actually know anybody that will actually do this? or is this just a long stab in dark? of what yet has not happened and probably won't GO TEAM VOTE KICK!
Then I challenge you to read the other threads on this subject. There have been people in those threads who have stated that if a vote kick system were to be implemented they will kick people if they don't have the "right" build or are not using the "right" weapons or aren't using the "right" ship..
I don't see the problem. Particularly in Elite STFs, you should be kicked for pulling stupid TRIBBLE like showing up in a T4 rainbow cruiser. I would also kick you for refusing to follow strategy even after everyone tried to explain it to you. And no, "don't pug" is not and will never be a viable solution. Not everyone can put together a team of five trusted acquaintances at any given time.
Make no mistake, no matter how everyone presents themselves here, griefers and leechers are the main opponents to a "vote to kick" system.
There are other ways the information could be stored that wouldn't require anything particularly convoluted. For example, the ignore list could be stored as an array object in the account record because no one ever thought the system would need to do an individual query for the A vs B ignore status, and that would decrease time to load. Something as simple as that could complicate the problem significantly.
Not nearly as much as the other proposals for this.... and aspecially the OP's suggestion of constant monitoring of participation levels to initiate a vote kick.
The simple fact is ANYTHING that is done to handle leeching that is done via code, and that is is checked to reduce using it to grief will have a negative impact on server load, so in suggestion to implement the question should not be whether it will or not, but with how much you'd want. As stated, I think leeching is so minor it really does not need addressing, merely that the ingore list idea is the LEAST problematic of ALL OTHER suggestion (other than do nothing, which would be my primary go-to on it).
Not nearly as much as the other proposals for this.... and aspecially the OP's suggestion of constant monitoring of participation levels to initiate a vote kick.
The simple fact is ANYTHING that is done to handle leeching that is done via code, and that is is checked to reduce using it to grief will have a negative impact on server load, so in suggestion to implement the question should not be whether it will or not, but with how much you'd want. As stated, I think leeching is so minor it really does not need addressing, merely that the ingore list idea is the LEAST problematic of ALL OTHER suggestion (other than do nothing, which would be my primary go-to on it).
tekehd:you also was promoting panic and an idea that a (free for all boot anybody out) would happen (on my thread) well all i can say to all STO players lets all just leech and get away with it the problem is far worse than your making and before you start your the troll cos you are on a campaign like in my thread to dash all progress to fair and fun play,this thought you have of abuse is or not happen or even going to happen.
I'am in full agreement that a boot icon is the (ONLY) way to ridding ourselves of people that get a free ride and therefore destroying any fun in pugging,like i said just like bullies in the play yard bully or be bullied (leech or be leeched):D
never was 'your' thread ... and it was merged with the original AFK'er thread, where it should have been in the first place.
If you say so,but no denying what i said though! you and tekehd have to gang up on pro boot icon promoters and play to this mass panic of all abusing the ability and still can't prove that what you both say will happen just a hunsh i see!
I'am beginning to think that you both are leechers yourself???????? why all this no boot icon at (all costs)? as you did on my post thread i started on addressing the problem
Every game that has vote kicking it gets abused. My daughter had to quit one game as because she was a better player people kept voting to kick her from matches.
Add vote kicking to STO and the same thing will happen. That and it will just encourage the already rife elitism.
The fix for leeching is pro rata rewards, NOT a mechanic that is far too easily used as a tool to troll. Leeching is impossible when you have to earn your reward.
I have seen to many leeches just sit there (wait) and just collect there drop at the end it doesn't matter about what they can't or may not collect during the game when borg processors are given at the end and all they are interested is the Borg processer,Rom marks e.c.t.,
In their minds that's all they want to stay for (let everyone do the hard work and just collect the proper reward at the end)
I'am beginning to think that you both are leechers yourself????????....
speculate as you will....you might want to add more to that list to make it more interesting though, it's pretty dry....
perrhaps something like; we hack accounts and sell the stolen dilithium for beer money, or we steal welfare checks in order to sell them to invisible starving talking ponies. ... or maybe we are sleeper-cell conspirators to the alien invasion that is going to happen to Earth in seven days....
you know....spice the speculation up a notch ...
_______________________
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
Comments
Well, it probably would be too much code. Can you even describe how such a system would work? If you try something like "pick the number 1 person in queue, then pick the next four people not on his ignore list", then one person with a huge ignore list could jam the queue for a long time - a perfect way to grief an entire queue. What else could you do? "Group people such that the sum of their queue numbers is minimized and no one is on anyone's ignore list?" That's a mouthful to say and a lot of combinations to compute.
All of which ignores the fundamental point that we shouldn't be using the ignore list for a function it's not designed for. If you wanted to do this right, a new list should be created, a "don't group me with" list. That is, of course, a whole different infrastructure to implement.
Finally, it doesn't address the user experience problem - where people are sitting in queues that have far more members than are needed to spawn a map, but nothing happens. Expect hourly "Queue broken?" threads...
I didn't read the whole thread so pardon if this has been mentioned, but kicking players won't stop griefers, and players may be kicked under the assumption they are griefing, when they may just not know what they are doing.
Also, does kicking within the STF penalty time still apply a leaver penalty? There's some serious grief potential there, boot you in the first 2 mins and lock you out of STFs for an hour. /ggson
I played Vindictus for some time, so I'm very familiar with kick abuse by elitist min/maxers, but in retrospect, the feature was far more useful in getting games started, than detrimental to joining them.
Coming at you with novice database programming, that could be accomplished with a simple query, but what I see with that are queue s getting backlogged with ignored players and server slowdowns from the constant running of queries.
Edit: then again.... add in the ignore list anti-team and have the activated VtK button auto offer to add kicked players to ignore lists.
Then I challenge you to read the other threads on this subject. There have been people in those threads who have stated that if a vote kick system were to be implemented they will kick people if they don't have the "right" build or are not using the "right" weapons or aren't using the "right" ship. Read those posts then tell me again a vote kick system won't be abused. That's ok, I'll wait.....................
As I've noted the system already will give preferential groupings to friends.... not really. It seems to already being doing DB lookups for instancing. Is there a potentiality of backlogging of certain players who are on everyones ignore list? sure.... that's the general idea.... those people who engage in leeching or other undesirable activities by the general community will end up on a lot of ignore lists and sit in queues most of the time.
Your absolutely right. Forgive me, I'm a sleep deprived narcoleptic workaholic and it got the better of me for a moment, but I think you might like what I added to my last post.
Edit: spelling errors fixed
The problem with this proposal is that, in order to get past the inevitable problems, it becomes increasingly complex.
The problem with leachers is that there is no simple solution and, thus, no workable solution.
Just about the only possible remedy is for the teaming system to check your ignore list and not team you with those there.
Problem is, such a system would have to be built from scratch because there's nothing really like it in the game.
Given the relatively low frequency of leachers, it does not seem to be the best possible use of the devs time.
What people say they'll do on a forum and what they'll actually do tend to be vastly different things.
This also ignores the fact that one person doesn't have the ability to kick. What are the odds that 3 similarly minded people will be randomly grouped with another person that they want to kick? I believe it's a lot less than the odds that you'll get an AFKer.
I'd be curious to see this simple query. Especially considering that none of us know the schema.
In laymens terms because I'm on my phone and don't have access to my sql references.
If variableA = variableB then
Match failure and the query loops
Else if
Match Success and continues.
End if
VariableA = player name Variable = Ignore list
we have tried this before does not work
you kick from team in STF they steal all loot because they can't leave
you guy just want it to bypass need or greed is all
I like the idea, leechers simply get nothing. Maybe a stealth vote so if they are afk. They don't see the warning and move to cancel the tag
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
I guess you didn't read earlier why a "pick 4 people that the first person in the queue will group with" system is a bad idea.
Also, you've ignored the fact that ignore lists exists for both players and both need to be tested.
Just pointing out that this isn't easy to describe even in pseudo-code.
It would have to be more than moving to cancel the tag 'cause then we'd just get botting. But I could see a stealth vote.
True, unknown what it would be precisely as we don't know the DB schema... I'd assume it (as well as the fiends list) would be a table of user id's indexed by the owner user id of the list. As that would be the most reasonable approach to be able to make the dynamic enough, and they do operate account wide as opposed to character specific.... but yes, for all I know it could have been done in an extremely convuluted manner... of course, as I pointed out, during instancing there already are lookups happening with teh DB to attempt to instance friends together.... so it does not seem that DB lookups would be impossible to do.
That being said, such a system would certainly be less than problematic to do over code attempting to monitor contribution thresholds on each player to determine whether a vote kick would be initiated as proposed by the OP. And to top it all off, unlike a VtK system, the ignore list system would not deprive people of rewards at all, or penalize people's ability to requeue.
As I've personally stated, I don't consider leeching that big of an issue, I pug all the time, in fact I've done 13 so far today (as this is a day off work for me) and not seen a single one. Imerely consdier the ignore list idea the best idea of the proposals if we were to impliment such a system..... a lesser of multiple evils idea. I'd also be fine of continuing things as they are now.
There are other ways the information could be stored that wouldn't require anything particularly convoluted. For example, the ignore list could be stored as an array object in the account record because no one ever thought the system would need to do an individual query for the A vs B ignore status, and that would decrease time to load. Something as simple as that could complicate the problem significantly.
Duly noted, however, I believe you missed that only a request for the query was made, and not the implementation of said query.
Nothing against you, but I thought it would be clear that the query would have to be ran for each player against all other's ignore lists. Sorry, that wasn't clarified.
I don't see the problem. Particularly in Elite STFs, you should be kicked for pulling stupid TRIBBLE like showing up in a T4 rainbow cruiser. I would also kick you for refusing to follow strategy even after everyone tried to explain it to you. And no, "don't pug" is not and will never be a viable solution. Not everyone can put together a team of five trusted acquaintances at any given time.
Make no mistake, no matter how everyone presents themselves here, griefers and leechers are the main opponents to a "vote to kick" system.
Not nearly as much as the other proposals for this.... and aspecially the OP's suggestion of constant monitoring of participation levels to initiate a vote kick.
The simple fact is ANYTHING that is done to handle leeching that is done via code, and that is is checked to reduce using it to grief will have a negative impact on server load, so in suggestion to implement the question should not be whether it will or not, but with how much you'd want. As stated, I think leeching is so minor it really does not need addressing, merely that the ingore list idea is the LEAST problematic of ALL OTHER suggestion (other than do nothing, which would be my primary go-to on it).
I'am in full agreement that a boot icon is the (ONLY) way to ridding ourselves of people that get a free ride and therefore destroying any fun in pugging,like i said just like bullies in the play yard bully or be bullied (leech or be leeched):D
never was 'your' thread ... and it was merged with the original AFK'er thread, where it should have been in the first place.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
Add vote kicking to STO and the same thing will happen. That and it will just encourage the already rife elitism.
The fix for leeching is pro rata rewards, NOT a mechanic that is far too easily used as a tool to troll. Leeching is impossible when you have to earn your reward.
In their minds that's all they want to stay for (let everyone do the hard work and just collect the proper reward at the end)
speculate as you will....you might want to add more to that list to make it more interesting though, it's pretty dry....
perrhaps something like; we hack accounts and sell the stolen dilithium for beer money, or we steal welfare checks in order to sell them to invisible starving talking ponies. ... or maybe we are sleeper-cell conspirators to the alien invasion that is going to happen to Earth in seven days....
you know....spice the speculation up a notch ...
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----