STF leaving penalty too harsh?

klahzell · August 2012

OK, I'm aware there has to be a penalty to prevent people from just leaving an STF in progress for giggles/ragequit/griefing issues, but is an HOUR away from any group activity fair? For all the folks that leave an STF in progress for TRIBBLE reasons, there are quite a few who just want the hell out of a PuG in Infected that's attacking both transformers while ignoring nanite spheres/probes (an example COMPLETELY unrelated to personal recent experience :rolleyes:). Honestly a half hour would do the job just as well, and most real life emergencies/dinner calls would force about a half hour minimum away from the game anyway. And while I hate to play the "that OTHER MMO does things differently" card, they use half hour "deserter" timers there and people feel free to drop from horrible groups while not doing it casually. Right now it seems like if you get stuck in a terrible group (a fairly common experience at the moment) your choices are getting stuck with them forever and punished that way, or leaving and getting punished by the game for a similar period of time. All for something you have absolutely no control over in the case of PuGs. At the least maybe lessen it based on time played; I know several people who've been stuck in a single STF for over an hour anyway, if they'd done the smart thing and left 30 min earlier they'd have been effectively screwed out of STFs for half their play time. If they can't do a damn thing to stop crappy PuGs, at least don't torment people for not being able to stand it any longer. A half hour away from everything is harsher than putting up with it (a timer for everything is worse than just a timer on one STF after all) but it's not taking away a huge chunk of playtime for somebody whose only crime is other people's stupidity.

praghas · August 2012

What annoys me STF-wise is that I joined one in the PvE Queue, and it was one that was half way through and they had already failed the optional objective, yet when it was over, I was penalized with an hour cooldown... That should not happen if I wasn't there from the get-go when I tried to start one, I had no desire to play with one that had already failed.

grouchyotaku · August 2012

praghas wrote: »

What annoys me STF-wise is that I joined one in the PvE Queue, and it was one that was half way through and they had already failed the optional objective, yet when it was over, I was penalized with an hour cooldown... That should not happen if I wasn't there from the get-go when I tried to start one, I had no desire to play with one that had already failed.

Of course, this is the reason why there is a penalty, to discourage people from leaving, just because the optional has failed... There are still too many people who are abandoning STF half way though, which indicates that the penalty should be made longer... (Perhaps a day???)

anazonda · August 2012

grouchyotaku wrote: »

Of course, this is the reason why there is a penalty, to discourage people from leaving, just because the optional has failed... There are still too many people who are abandoning STF half way though, which indicates that the penalty should be made longer... (Perhaps a day???)

For the first time ever, I find myself in complete agreement with grouchy...

In fact, It could be beneficial to crank it up severely.

flekh · August 2012

grouchyotaku wrote: »

Of course, this is the reason why there is a penalty, to discourage people from leaving, just because the optional has failed... There are still too many people who are abandoning STF half way though, which indicates that the penalty should be made longer... (Perhaps a day???)

anazonda wrote: »

For the first time ever, I find myself in complete agreement with grouchy...

In fact, It could be beneficial to crank it up severely.

Are you guys serious?
You want to force people to either do something they hate or prevent them from doing what they want?
And that's supposed to be beneficial to the game how?

...
Hint: it isn't.
What you'd get is frustrated veterans who either quit this game completely or restrict their STF (and FE) play to premades.
Either way, without the veterans in STFs, failures will skyrocket, and STFs stop to be fun for everyone.
Leading to: right, even the semi-competent players and incompetent players will leave, since they can't get a successful run. You'd turn everything into ... yeah, Crystalline Entity is probably a good example. Pure frustration for everyone.

I'm not sure if lowering the timer would be a good idea. But I know for sure that EXTENDING it is one of the most stupid, short-sighted ideas I've read in a while.

Memo to everyone who didn't get it yet: Competent players want to play with other competent players. It's no fun explaining the same thing to random newbies or even worse, random nabs, every run. It's no fun to fail time and time again because they didn't listen ... again!
And that's perfectly fine.
Games are meant to be fun, not a source of frustration. Is that so hard to get?

tvlar · August 2012

So you are looking to make it easier to leave, if the circumstances are inconvenient ?
Try using STFElite chat channel for STF groups, rather than pugging, your results will be better.

I agree ( mainly ) with Grouchy, lengthen the leaver penalty. Otherwise the next complaint will be the amount of abandoned STF's, and the futility of even trying.

Personally, I think "Fail" groups can make for great tactical practice.

For the moment, a lot of the players who have been " carrying" pugs, have shifted to the Fleet missions and the Marks grind.

johnny111971 · August 2012

IMHO, the leaver penalty is not harsh enough. Making it easier just encourages more leavers.

However, I don't think increasing the time factor makes much difference, given the number of alts most people have. So, ake the penalty account wide.

Add a little more sting, a dilithium penalty for STF's and a fleet mark penalty for those events.

alastairnall · August 2012

I'm fine with the leave penalty the way it is. The only time I've been hit with it personally was when one or more group members left before me and the STF/event became impossible for a group of 3 or less. Although I will admit I've been more than tempted to leave a few times myself when an optional fails or in the case of fleet events when there's low levels in the group which almost always guarantees a failure. I haven't yet and it wasn't the penalty that stopped me but the fact that I didn't want to be a "leaver".

foundrelic · August 2012

Honestly I think it's too light.

If you're going to punk out of an STF, every single mission in the volunteer tab should get a 1 hour cooldown.

ALL OF THEM, STF or not.

sean2448 · August 2012

I left last night got banned all que WTF so content has no highend reward just fleet marks if banned STF should be able to do those not cool cryptic on top of amping them way to high when pugs don't have 12

please turn back down for all the newbies pooring inyo them

the group I had failed to go to the kitty in infected ground

I truly hope this is a bug this is not in any release notes
this is not funny doing this

and also not funny lack of tech drops

sollvax · August 2012

Two suggestions

1 Elite stf run per mission per character per day (pug only)

2 UNLIMITED Stf runs for full premade teams

3 Dispose of optional TIMER entirely for normal difficulty missions

anazonda · August 2012

flekh wrote: »

Are you guys serious?

~Snippidy-snip-snip

You bet I am serious... and saying it's a bad idea, dosent make it one.

zordar01 · August 2012

On IGN last night me and another KDFer cycled through three team changes as existing people dropped and new people joined. A couple of the droppers left shortly after I noticed they were hanging back (in another room, crouching) while everyone else fought the borg and I called them on it. We had been playing IGN for less than 5 minutes.

Obviously the leaver penalty is too light if so many people think so little of dropping the mission because they died a couple times. I wanted to finish the mission and get my EDC, but after a couple minutes of no new people joining, me and the other KDFer had to bail on it. An hour penalty is nothing.

The leaver penalty is there because STF's are team missions. When people bail on an STF it's not just their time they've wasted, it's other players' time as well. And sometimes, new people don't beam in and replace the leaver because folks aren't queued up, so that absence could very well end the mission for the others. Being able to basically TRIBBLE four other people with no penalty doesn't seem very fair.

To be honest, STO should have training missions for STF's so players have a clue when they go in, or much better mission dialog. And there's still the problem of people that can't/won't listen to team chat and ruining an STF (or griefers doing it on purpose). I know there are calls for a team kick feature for STF's but that would get abused all to hell and back. Unfortunately, there is no way to make sure that PUGs will work flawlessly. If people queue up for a PUG then they take their chances, so they should be prepared to either finish the mission or take the penalty. If folks don't want the chance of taking the penalty then they shouldn't PUG.

arba6 · August 2012

I understand the reason for the punishment system been created, but I believe it should not be applied to every case.
An example that just happened to me: from the other four players, one of them was already AFK early on. Another was running like crazy against the Borg (and dying all the time) ... when he got tired, he abandoned the STF.
With that, another decided to leave too.
Two players can't complete a STF, so we had to leave.

How can it be fair to punish those who actually want to play, if other players abandon the mission?

What should we do? Wait until other players decide to show up? How much time waiting and not really playing I would have to waste?

Now, I get 1 hour punishment because other player decided to leave. No matter how we see this, but it is just not fair.

Now, about mixing veterans with noobs, I know that some times it's frustrating, when the noobs will learn? Even if they know what to do, without a better player, many will not complete a SFT. In that case, STF missions would be played only by veterans.
I'm not a noob anymore, but i'm not well equipped enough to carry a STF mission on my back yet. So i should just stop playing STF missions?
We have all been noobs before. Don't punish the new players just because they are noobs.

English is not my first language, sorry about the mistakes. But i guess that everybody can understand what i'm saying.

lostmoony · August 2012

i vote for 5 hours penelity for first leaver!!!

1 hour is much to low:cool:

velktra · August 2012

I think an hour is fine. But I also think it should increase for every one you leave each day. The penalty as it stands now is not enough to keep people from bailing for no reason.

sollvax · August 2012

they should stack

first log out 1 hour
second 2 hours
third 3 hours
fourth 6 hours
fifth 12 hours
sixth 24 hours
and so on
as soon as it hits a week delete the character

liquidacid29 · August 2012

velktra wrote: »

I think an hour is fine. But I also think it should increase for every one you leave each day. The penalty as it stands now is not enough to keep people from bailing for no reason.

why should they be forced to stay in a mission ? there are plenty of times when bailing is perfectly reasonable and shouldn't be punished... like I joined one the other day and 3 of the 5 people went AFk... what other than bail can you do at that point? and obviously I wouldn't deserve to be harshly punished for leaving in a scenario like that

cptvanor · August 2012

liquidacid29 wrote: »

like I joined one the other day and 3 of the 5 people went AFk... what other than bail can you do at that point?

That's going to be a very rare thing, and as such incrementing the time wouldn't have much impact on people who bail because of things like that.

However unless they have a system that can somehow tell why someone left the STF, the only way is to punish everyone.

liquidacid29 · August 2012

cptvanor wrote: »

That's going to be a very rare thing, and as such incrementing the time wouldn't have much impact on people who bail because of things like that.

However unless they have a system that can somehow tell why someone left the STF, the only way is to punish everyone.

that's why I said 1 hour is fine... it's a punishment but not to harsh on those who have good reasons to leave...

what the game does need to do is stop giving the penalty if there are few people in the mission... for instance if there are only 2 people left in the STF they should be able to leave without getting the penalty.. this way those who bailed out and ruined the match would get a penalty while those left with no choice but to bail because there are no longer enough people to finish it aren't...

lostmoony · August 2012

sollvax wrote: »

they should stack

first log out 1 hour
second 2 hours
third 3 hours
fourth 6 hours
fifth 12 hours
sixth 24 hours
and so on
as soon as it hits a week delete the character

+1 sounds great.

apolloserenus · September 2012

Rather tha bury my porposed amendments to the penalty sytem in a thread, I have started a new one detailing how the system could be improved at http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=5742171#post5742171

adabisi · September 2012

Lets chant the mantra "FIND A FLEET" JOIN premades.....that is what is spewed to those they call ELITISTS who drop the stf when there are players with 15 critical and serious damages on their ship and refuse to repair them....

I would prefer dropping the penalty entirely until they can make it feesible to penalize those who ruin the game...but guess what...aint gonna happen......

anikaiful · September 2012

Heh... my 2 cents:

1) never left an STF prematurely, however sodding sorry the situation has been. I don't care about optionals - I try achieve them, but if others refuse (or fail) to do so too, then so be it - it's just a bag of monkeys anyway, nothing super exciting or useful.

2) the penalty of one hour is way too short.(*

*) Cure needs to be fixed! If you get in to map where there's no "leave map" button after the boss's shot down (it'll pop up eventually however), you'll be penalized if you don't wait for the button to appear. Folks who don't wait for the soddin' button to appear (and leave with 'depart system')... should be hung. Just saying.

As a matter of fact, what'd be the best solution:

--disable-- "depart system" completely during STFs. And if you log out, you'll be transfered back to the very same instance you logged off from. That'll teach people to complete the thing... Not fun? STFs aren't fun, they're a chore anyway - they've never been fun, only a chore to run thro a hundred, two hundred, or more times.

hereticknight085 · September 2012

+1 to the one above, esp the part where the put em back where they came from is XD

blunted74 · September 2012

anazonda wrote: »

For the first time ever, I find myself in complete agreement with grouchy...

In fact, It could be beneficial to crank it up severely.

All this would do is make all of the decent players abandon the queue system all together and leave nothing but scrub fail groups.

If anything, the deserter penalty should be abolished.

anikaiful · September 2012

blunted74 wrote: »

All this would do is make all of the decent players abandon the queue system all together and leave nothing but scrub fail groups.

If anything, the deserter penalty should be abolished.

Shoo, go away, deserter.:P

robeasom · September 2012

I agree the penalty should be more but I believe it should only happen to the first person who leaves one who have to leave after that should be allowed to leave and rejoin a queue without a cool down. One of the reasons I hardly play the game anymore is because of the STF cooldown affecting me when it became impossible to achieve the final objective due to some one leaving before STF was over.

borealeum · September 2012

I personally don't have a problem with a penalty in game for leaving, but think some people should be punished for going into any event and just sitting there to get the points while everyone else works. It frustrates me to no end when someone joins in and I end up failing the mission just because one or two people can't be bothered to play the game but he or she reaps the rewards.

meimeitoo · September 2012

grouchyotaku wrote: »

Of course, this is the reason why there is a penalty, to discourage people from leaving, just because the optional has failed... There are still too many people who are abandoning STF half way though, which indicates that the penalty should be made longer... (Perhaps a day???)

You are missing his point *entirely*. When, to no fault of your own, the system accidentally 'starts' you in an already ongoing STF with its Optional already failed, you should be allowed to leave. And for the simple reason that you were lured in under false pretences, as it were (namely, that you would enter a freshly starting STF). If the system can't honor its end of the bargain, you should be permitted to bale, too.

diogene0 · September 2012

As the player of several maco elite/shadow operative/elite HG commander characters, I strongly disagree with that.

The only point of the leaver penalty is just being extremely annoying, and I'm very polite here. I see no reason why I should be forced to stay 30 minutes on a mission because there are lame players unwilling to listen to any advice and queuing themselves with chat turned off. In fact this leaver penalty is just a way to force experienced player to endure noobs for half an hour. This is very frustrating and often prevent me from pugging.

I would gladly pug more if I was able to leave if the teammates were doing TRIBBLE and if they didn't read chat. And sometimes this leaver penalty makes me wish I could friendly fire them to death till they read and acknowledge the private message, and till they notice that no, this isn't a solo game you play to enjoy it the way you like no matter what, even if it means being a burden in a team.

There is only one translation for 'leaver penalty': experienced players won't share their knowledge.

STF leaving penalty too harsh?

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