AFK penalty for support role

meldrithpw

it was bad enough a couple days ago when i got an afk penalty after the mission bumped me out, (not me choosing to leave,) but i just ran a CCA with a placate build--successfully placated most of the opposition with low damage thoron-pol beams, allowing the rest of the team to swoop through and finish the mission in about 3 minutes.

The reward for my successful support strategy? not only did i NOT get any rewards package, i Recieved an AFK penalty for "not participating enough" in the pve. That's just wrong man.

protogoth

The "AFK Penalty" was a lazy attempt to fix an issue due to the mob raging outside ... err, the players raging in General Discussion, demanding such a thing be done. I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo. While it may discourage the AFK abuse which was indeed once more commonplace (I remember reporting one dolt at least twice for this when the Vauthil Station Mirror Incursion mission was new), it does not really do anything about genuine AFKers, who are allowed to stay throughout the mission, then get the penalty and log over to an alt, coming back in 2 hours when the penalty is gone. ("Oh! So don't let it count down when someone isn't on that character!" Yeah, no, precisely because of the imperfection in the system flagging people as AFK when they aren't, simply because they're not engaging in massive DPS madness.) It doesn't do anything to help the players who were raging, who must still tolerate the AFKer. Oh, but it does penalize people for doing what you did, playing the game creatively. It does penalize people who get sucked into a massive lag sinkhole. It even sometimes penalizes people for being DCed. The whole thing was a massive PHAIL and should have been removed shortly after it was implemented, as it has done more harm than good.

kyrrok

Don't you know? This game stopped being Star Trek Online, and since Delta Rising became, DPS online. If you don't pack the DPS, you get beat with the AFK stick.

You're not the first, and I doubt you'll be the last. And the more powercreep that happens, the more people even with respectable numbers will also get beat with the AFK stick.

woodwhity

So, you neither got enough dps, heal or anything else to qualify for not getting afk-penalty? Seems you deserved it. "Placates" dont really work well in STO, especially if you think you would support your allies with it, as you are to only one profiting from it (not even considering the following resistence against placates).

You effectively were afk. You let others carry you. Maybe not deliberately, but that doesnt matter.

P.S.: Yes, heal alone, with no dps, can render you invalid for receiving an afk-penalty.​​

vivenneanthony

woodwhity wrote: »

So, you neither got enough dps, heal or anything else to qualify for not getting afk-penalty? Seems you deserved it. "Placates" dont really work well in STO, especially if you thing you would support your allies with it, as you are to only one profiting from it (not even considering the following resistence against placates).

You effectively were afk. You let others carry you. Maybe not deliberately, but that doesnt matter.

P.S.: Yes, heal alone, with no dps, can render you invalid for receiving an afk-penalty.​​

Thats harsh.

OP, play as you like support ship or not. Still this game like others say. Is a DPS race. Youll get slapped with penalties otherwise

woodwhity

vivenneanthony wrote: »

Thats harsh.

Truth tends to be.​​

meimeitoo

woodwhity wrote: »

So, you neither got enough dps, heal or anything else to qualify for not getting afk-penalty? Seems you deserved it. "Placates" dont really work well in STO, especially if you thing you would support your allies with it, as you are to only one profiting from it (not even considering the following resistence against placates).

You effectively were afk. You let others carry you. Maybe not deliberately, but that doesnt matter.

P.S.: Yes, heal alone, with no dps, can render you invalid for receiving an afk-penalty.​​

Though it feels harsh, I have to agree with this. Either you do DPS, or you heal like crazy in cca (ironically, healing is probably more guaranteed to get you 1st place even). If the OP did neither, than an AFK penalty seems appropriate.

coupaholic

I feel your pain dude. STO doesn't reward any other type of gameplay besides HULK SMASH, so all the alternate or just plain fun builds are shelved and left to gather dust in favour of the damage dealers.

It's lazy game design and pretty stupid since all these powers and ships exist, yet they are apparently useless.

This is why I stick to Battlezones. No expectations, no requirements. I use whatever build I want and perform whatever role I want.​​

meimeitoo

coupaholic wrote: »

I feel your pain dude. STO doesn't reward any other type of gameplay besides HULK SMASH, so all the alternate or just plain fun builds are shelved and left to gather dust in favour of the damage dealers.​​

Or, in an unexpected blaze of honesty to himself, the OP could also admit woodwhitty was right when he said:

woodwhity wrote: »

"Placates" dont really work well in STO, especially if you thing you would support your allies with it, as you are to only one profiting from it (not even considering the following resistence against placates).

You effectively were afk. You let others carry you. Maybe not deliberately, but that doesnt matter.​​

It would appear the OP misunderstood how Placate works, and, instead of helping others, as he thought, all he did was placate some ships for himself.

e30ernest

Contrary to what some say here, this is one map that isn't all about DPS. You can heal through a CCA and place higher than someone focusing on DPS. In fact, this is probably the most rewarding map for support ships. If you got an AFK penalty for playing support here, either something is bugged or you didn't heal as much as you thought you did.

One thing to consider, with all the lag, sometimes an ability will seem to activate but in reality, it doesn't but those abilities may still go on cool down.

My advice for you OP is to get a parser and run a parse when you play Crystalline Catastrophe. Unlike what some players think, parsers do much more than measure DPS. A parser will tell you how much healing you've actually done, to whom you've sent heals, how much was your healing towards shields vs hull and how much healing the others have made to themselves and to allies. You'll also see how much damage they've taken in from NPCs.

A parser can be a very valuable tool for you as a healer. Think of healing as reverse DPS. You need to know your numbers if you want to be effective even as a support craft.

gradii

protogoth wrote: »

The "AFK Penalty" was a lazy attempt to fix an issue due to the mob raging outside ... err, the players raging in General Discussion, demanding such a thing be done. I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo. While it may discourage the AFK abuse which was indeed once more commonplace (I remember reporting one dolt at least twice for this when the Vauthil Station Mirror Incursion mission was new), it does not really do anything about genuine AFKers, who are allowed to stay throughout the mission, then get the penalty and log over to an alt, coming back in 2 hours when the penalty is gone. ("Oh! So don't let it count down when someone isn't on that character!" Yeah, no, precisely because of the imperfection in the system flagging people as AFK when they aren't, simply because they're not engaging in massive DPS madness.) It doesn't do anything to help the players who were raging, who must still tolerate the AFKer. Oh, but it does penalize people for doing what you did, playing the game creatively. It does penalize people who get sucked into a massive lag sinkhole. It even sometimes penalizes people for being DCed. The whole thing was a massive PHAIL and should have been removed shortly after it was implemented, as it has done more harm than good.

Wow someone else realizes the misguidedness of the AFK Penalty.

e30ernest

gradii wrote: »

protogoth wrote: »

The "AFK Penalty" was a lazy attempt to fix an issue due to the mob raging outside ... err, the players raging in General Discussion, demanding such a thing be done. I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo. While it may discourage the AFK abuse which was indeed once more commonplace (I remember reporting one dolt at least twice for this when the Vauthil Station Mirror Incursion mission was new), it does not really do anything about genuine AFKers, who are allowed to stay throughout the mission, then get the penalty and log over to an alt, coming back in 2 hours when the penalty is gone. ("Oh! So don't let it count down when someone isn't on that character!" Yeah, no, precisely because of the imperfection in the system flagging people as AFK when they aren't, simply because they're not engaging in massive DPS madness.) It doesn't do anything to help the players who were raging, who must still tolerate the AFKer. Oh, but it does penalize people for doing what you did, playing the game creatively. It does penalize people who get sucked into a massive lag sinkhole. It even sometimes penalizes people for being DCed. The whole thing was a massive PHAIL and should have been removed shortly after it was implemented, as it has done more harm than good.

Wow someone else realizes the misguidedness of the AFK Penalty.

It has its flaws... I've been hit once after being DC'd too. A way to detect and penalize afk'ers is still needed IMO and to me the premise of the current system has merit, but it has some bugs that need to be fixed. What method would you suggest in handling real AFK'ers?

Regarding this case though, woodwhity and meimeitoo have a point. Since CCA rewards healing (even more than DPS), there is a real possibility that the OP simply did not heal as much as he thought he did and there may be huge gaps in activity on his end on the map (too much flying around, too little healing). If that is the case, the AFK penalty system did its job properly.

gradii

e30ernest wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

protogoth wrote: »

The "AFK Penalty" was a lazy attempt to fix an issue due to the mob raging outside ... err, the players raging in General Discussion, demanding such a thing be done. I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo. While it may discourage the AFK abuse which was indeed once more commonplace (I remember reporting one dolt at least twice for this when the Vauthil Station Mirror Incursion mission was new), it does not really do anything about genuine AFKers, who are allowed to stay throughout the mission, then get the penalty and log over to an alt, coming back in 2 hours when the penalty is gone. ("Oh! So don't let it count down when someone isn't on that character!" Yeah, no, precisely because of the imperfection in the system flagging people as AFK when they aren't, simply because they're not engaging in massive DPS madness.) It doesn't do anything to help the players who were raging, who must still tolerate the AFKer. Oh, but it does penalize people for doing what you did, playing the game creatively. It does penalize people who get sucked into a massive lag sinkhole. It even sometimes penalizes people for being DCed. The whole thing was a massive PHAIL and should have been removed shortly after it was implemented, as it has done more harm than good.

Wow someone else realizes the misguidedness of the AFK Penalty.

It has its flaws... I've been hit once after being DC'd too. A way to detect and penalize afk'ers is still needed IMO and to me the premise of the current system has merit, but it has some bugs that need to be fixed. What method would you suggest in handling real AFK'ers?

Regarding this case though, woodwhity and meimeitoo have a point. Since CCA rewards healing (even more than DPS), there is a real possibility that the OP simply did not heal as much as he thought he did and there may be huge gaps in activity on his end on the map (too much flying around, too little healing). If that is the case, the AFK penalty system did its job properly.

Maybe allow someone who does no COMBAT ACTIONS for enough time to be kicked out of a (pug) STF, but for heaven's sake do NOT ban them from all queues afterward!

If someone persists in being AFK they'll just be kicked again.

e30ernest

gradii wrote: »

Maybe allow someone who does no COMBAT ACTIONS for enough time to be kicked out of a (pug) STF, but for heaven's sake do NOT ban them from all queues afterward!

If someone persists in being AFK they'll just be kicked again.

But wouldn't that allow griefers to simply continue on griefing and penalize PUG groups he/she joins by leaving a string of groups short one member? Just using combat actions to gauge whether a player is afk or not may have some issues in itself since a player can in theory throw a single FAW or heal and go idle the rest of the way.

With that in mind, I understand why Cryptic went the route they did. Maybe the punishment was too heavy for a single offense. Maybe that could work if the offender gets a full penalty (banned from all queues) not on the first offense (which could just be a glitch/technical issue) but after two "AFK" runs in a 20h period? The first offense could simply show a warning to the player (chat and mail). Not sure how hard that would be to implement though.

darkknightucf

protogoth wrote: »

The "AFK Penalty" was a lazy attempt to fix an issue due to the mob raging outside ... err, the players raging in General Discussion, demanding such a thing be done. I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo. While it may discourage the AFK abuse which was indeed once more commonplace (I remember reporting one dolt at least twice for this when the Vauthil Station Mirror Incursion mission was new), it does not really do anything about genuine AFKers, who are allowed to stay throughout the mission, then get the penalty and log over to an alt, coming back in 2 hours when the penalty is gone. ("Oh! So don't let it count down when someone isn't on that character!" Yeah, no, precisely because of the imperfection in the system flagging people as AFK when they aren't, simply because they're not engaging in massive DPS madness.) It doesn't do anything to help the players who were raging, who must still tolerate the AFKer. Oh, but it does penalize people for doing what you did, playing the game creatively. It does penalize people who get sucked into a massive lag sinkhole. It even sometimes penalizes people for being DCed. The whole thing was a massive PHAIL and should have been removed shortly after it was implemented, as it has done more harm than good.

This. So much this. One can be afk'd just by being in a run w/ higher DPS people. Despite having similar number of shots fired, they get a penalty because they didn't meet the minimum threshold needed for that zerging group.

meimeitoo

e30ernest wrote: »

Regarding this case though, woodwhity and meimeitoo have a point. Since CCA rewards healing (even more than DPS), there is a real possibility that the OP simply did not heal as much as he thought he did...

Yes, we *do* have a point. :P In most other cases, I'd say the AFK Penalty system is indeed broken/not WAI. But placating is the one thing that neither heals, nor does DPS. Basically all it does is prevent the enemy from shooting at you... and ONLY you: and that, as one's main tactic, sorry to say, is pretty useless on almost any map.

And, like I said, slot the Tachyon Trait, with Taychon Beam, for instance, and you're almost guaranteed 1st place! In fact, cce is ere broken in the opposite direction, in that it rewards heals *too* much. But the OP neither did DPS, nor healed. And at some point the system, however mild it tries to be, just gives up on you.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

shadowwraith77

IMO, the penalty system works @ 85% efficiency! It should stay put!!!

gradii

Punish those evil random offenders!

protogoth

e30ernest wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

protogoth wrote: »

The "AFK Penalty" was a lazy attempt to fix an issue due to the mob raging outside ... err, the players raging in General Discussion, demanding such a thing be done. I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo. While it may discourage the AFK abuse which was indeed once more commonplace (I remember reporting one dolt at least twice for this when the Vauthil Station Mirror Incursion mission was new), it does not really do anything about genuine AFKers, who are allowed to stay throughout the mission, then get the penalty and log over to an alt, coming back in 2 hours when the penalty is gone. ("Oh! So don't let it count down when someone isn't on that character!" Yeah, no, precisely because of the imperfection in the system flagging people as AFK when they aren't, simply because they're not engaging in massive DPS madness.) It doesn't do anything to help the players who were raging, who must still tolerate the AFKer. Oh, but it does penalize people for doing what you did, playing the game creatively. It does penalize people who get sucked into a massive lag sinkhole. It even sometimes penalizes people for being DCed. The whole thing was a massive PHAIL and should have been removed shortly after it was implemented, as it has done more harm than good.

Wow someone else realizes the misguidedness of the AFK Penalty.

It has its flaws... I've been hit once after being DC'd too. A way to detect and penalize afk'ers is still needed IMO and to me the premise of the current system has merit, but it has some bugs that need to be fixed. What method would you suggest in handling real AFK'ers?

Regarding this case though, woodwhity and meimeitoo have a point. Since CCA rewards healing (even more than DPS), there is a real possibility that the OP simply did not heal as much as he thought he did and there may be huge gaps in activity on his end on the map (too much flying around, too little healing). If that is the case, the AFK penalty system did its job properly.

My solution is probably impractical: hire more GMs to be present in-game and deal with this sort of thing, as well as other examples of griefing.

markhawkman

meimeitoo wrote: »

e30ernest wrote: »

Regarding this case though, woodwhity and meimeitoo have a point. Since CCA rewards healing (even more than DPS), there is a real possibility that the OP simply did not heal as much as he thought he did...

Yes, we *do* have a point. :P In most other cases, I'd say the AFK Penalty system is indeed broken/not WAI. But placating is the one thing that neither heals, nor does DPS. Basically all it does is prevent the enemy from shooting at you... and ONLY you: and that, as one's main tactic, sorry to say, is pretty useless on almost any map.

And, like I said, slot the Tachyon Trait, with Taychon Beam, for instance, and you're almost guaranteed 1st place! In fact, cce is ere broken in the opposite direction, in that it rewards heals *too* much. But the OP neither did DPS, nor healed. And at some point the system, however mild it tries to be, just gives up on you.

Yeah he specifically called his weapons "low damage" and mentioned NOTHING else about his build. He was trying to placate the Crystalline entity with Thoron beams.... and, based on his description, did nothing else.

That's several levels of fail in one package..... 1; he wasn't hurting the enemies, 2; CE's immune to placate, 3; even if he shot the Tholians he wasn't helping his team since placate is really just a reverse aggro...

markhawkman

protogoth wrote: »

e30ernest wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

protogoth wrote: »

The "AFK Penalty" was a lazy attempt to fix an issue due to the mob raging outside ... err, the players raging in General Discussion, demanding such a thing be done. I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo. While it may discourage the AFK abuse which was indeed once more commonplace (I remember reporting one dolt at least twice for this when the Vauthil Station Mirror Incursion mission was new), it does not really do anything about genuine AFKers, who are allowed to stay throughout the mission, then get the penalty and log over to an alt, coming back in 2 hours when the penalty is gone. ("Oh! So don't let it count down when someone isn't on that character!" Yeah, no, precisely because of the imperfection in the system flagging people as AFK when they aren't, simply because they're not engaging in massive DPS madness.) It doesn't do anything to help the players who were raging, who must still tolerate the AFKer. Oh, but it does penalize people for doing what you did, playing the game creatively. It does penalize people who get sucked into a massive lag sinkhole. It even sometimes penalizes people for being DCed. The whole thing was a massive PHAIL and should have been removed shortly after it was implemented, as it has done more harm than good.

Wow someone else realizes the misguidedness of the AFK Penalty.

It has its flaws... I've been hit once after being DC'd too. A way to detect and penalize afk'ers is still needed IMO and to me the premise of the current system has merit, but it has some bugs that need to be fixed. What method would you suggest in handling real AFK'ers?

Regarding this case though, woodwhity and meimeitoo have a point. Since CCA rewards healing (even more than DPS), there is a real possibility that the OP simply did not heal as much as he thought he did and there may be huge gaps in activity on his end on the map (too much flying around, too little healing). If that is the case, the AFK penalty system did its job properly.

My solution is probably impractical: hire more GMs to be present in-game and deal with this sort of thing, as well as other examples of griefing.

Well they do apparently have staff to read through the torrent of reports of misconduct that get filed. People apparently can get banned based on it from what I've heard.

As for people to watch real-time what people are doing in STFs? Yeah... They'd need at least 6 bare-minimum, and that's a lot of people to hire even if you get interns to do it.

iconians

The AFK Penalty isn't perfect, therefore throw it out entirely and let people AFK in missions again, am I reading this right?

I'm not saying there hasn't been incidents of false positives (I've been struck with one before as a result of the game putting me in the end stage of a queued event where I managed to get maybe one shot off until the mission completed, thus I was flagged as AFK).

But just because there are incidents of false positives doesn't mean we should remove the mechanic entirely, because on the whole it's functional enough.

Instead of blaming Cryptic for creating the AFK penalty, how about we start assigning some personal responsibility to our fellow players whose actions (or rather inactions) resulted in the AFK penalty to begin with?

eldarion79

iconians wrote: »

The AFK Penalty isn't perfect, therefore throw it out entirely and let people AFK in missions again, am I reading this right?

I'm not saying there hasn't been incidents of false positives (I've been struck with one before as a result of the game putting me in the end stage of a queued event where I managed to get maybe one shot off until the mission completed, thus I was flagged as AFK).

But just because there are incidents of false positives doesn't mean we should remove the mechanic entirely, because on the whole it's functional enough.

Instead of blaming Cryptic for creating the AFK penalty, how about we start assigning some personal responsibility to our fellow players whose actions (or rather inactions) resulted in the AFK penalty to begin with?

Personal responsibility? Never, I rather blame Cryptic for my actions (lack of).

spaceeagle20

Never had problems in CCA on my no DPS uber-tank healer Samsar.
So what's next ? Are we going to blame DPS for world hunger ?
It seems to me that the OP just needs to learn the game a little better.

warmaker001b

woodwhity wrote: »

So, you neither got enough dps, heal or anything else to qualify for not getting afk-penalty? Seems you deserved it. "Placates" dont really work well in STO, especially if you think you would support your allies with it, as you are to only one profiting from it (not even considering the following resistence against placates).

You effectively were afk. You let others carry you. Maybe not deliberately, but that doesnt matter.

P.S.: Yes, heal alone, with no dps, can render you invalid for receiving an afk-penalty.​​

Not to mention all the effects-based lockout timers Cryptic has in place. On top of the things you already said, Placates are about as useful as Viral Matrix is in PVE. Placates can be annoying and disruptive to an attack that needs rhythm in PVP. But in PVE... NPCs barely do anything anyways

iconians

Oh, and I'll say the same thing here I said in the last thread about someone complaining about the AFK penalty for "support" ships.

There is no "support-only" option in STO. There never was. Your ships have weapon slots and tactical consoles for a reason. They aren't just there to look pretty.

Every ship in the game can be modified to be defensive, offensive, or supportive. There are ships that clearly excel at these tasks compared to others, but you can even turn an escort into a support ship if you're feeling creative enough.

Likewise for ground. My tactical officer kit is built for support at the cost of personal DPS. The team as a whole does way more damage and is way more protected in ground combat at the cost of my e-peen not being as big. Which is worth it to me since it gets us through the mission faster and with less deaths. I essentially distribute my personal damage and survival potential to the entire team rather than focusing it on myself. With the entire team having much higher DPS as a result, I am perfectly happy seeing 5 people melting face instead of just me.

So, to reiterate -- any person complaining about getting an AFK penalty in the game for being support-oriented, even as a support role, you are still expected to use your weapons against the bad guy semi-regularly, even if you're taking breaks in between shots to hit your support-related abilities.

You simply can not expect to go through an entire mission putting someone on auto-follow and hitting Hazard Emitters as soon as it's off cooldown, or in OP's case... placating all the things. It just does not work and while we can argue till the cows come home about Cryptic "forcing" us to play a certain way, the reality is that STO is more of an arcade shooter than a traditional MMO. You're always going to be shooting.

Does science and engineering need better viability in STO given the DPS meta? Of course they do, and I'll never argue otherwise.

But all ships regardless of captain or ship classification is expected to shoot at the bad guy regularly.

paxdawn

you don't even need weapons to achieve AFK penalty minimum requirement. One just needs to know how to use pets and get a fleet support which is expected since this is an advance mission not a beginners mission.

But yes, you need to damage in some form whether it be your pets, weapons or your sci stuff of roughly around 1% of the total damage of the whole team to avoid AFK.

The game punishes or is unfriendly to turtle builds or players who don't understand or little understanding of the mechanics of the game and expected to be rewarded and contribute in advance missions.

meldrithpw

just to clarify: my ship did do some damage, the build IS a reverse dps with energy weapons, but it's primarily a torp boat--built specifically to take advantage of the talaxian salvage trait. I open up with a TCD spread and follow it with thoron faw, (weapons energy set to minimum) resulting in one quick punch in the nose to knock em down (low enough to trigger the salvage trait,), then kick em with the thoron beams to get as much loot out of em as possible.

and if the placate is only stopping them from hitting ME, i havn't noticed it since i set up this build back at the beginnig of delta rising, nor has any of my fleet comented that they are taking more damage. I'll have to review some combat logs i guess.

this is the only build i've got that uses this tactic, most are tanky dps builds.

thx all for your input, didn't really expect so much, it is appreciated.

tacticalrook

protogoth wrote: »

I predicted at the time that it would fail to resolve the issue and cause other problems. Did anyone listen to my prophecy? Of course not; I'm obviously Cassandra. Gee, thanks, Apollo.

Prophecy? Cassandra? Aggrandizing this a little hard, aren't we?

meldrithpw

tacticalrook wrote: »

Prophecy? Cassandra? Aggrandizing this a little hard, aren't we?

hey, don't antagonize the diety.