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STF AFKers
grethore
Member Posts: 41 Arc User
Something has got to be done about this problem! There is constantly someone AFKing through an entire STF...not contributing at all, but rolling on every drop, need of course, and gaining EDC's and dilithium for doing NOTHING. Nearly every single STF has one.
And before you say it, yes I have reported them. And yes, I know the old "run only with a fleet" advice. I don't have the time, the patience, or the sanity to join a fleet. Fleets, guilds, clans, whatever they are called in whatever game you can think of, are nothing but asking for trouble. So don't even suggest it. Furthermore, running with a fleet doesn't solve the problem as a whole, for me yes it would, but for everyone else, no it wouldn't.
What they are doing is essentially stealing IMO. They're getting something for doing nothing. And yet, Cryptic/PWE is doing NOTHING about it at all. These AFKer need to be perma banned. And the people that would do something like that are NOT the kind of people you want in the game anyways. They do nothing but bring the game down.
Come on BAN these players. There's NO excuse for just sitting there in an STF doing nothing.
And before you say it, yes I have reported them. And yes, I know the old "run only with a fleet" advice. I don't have the time, the patience, or the sanity to join a fleet. Fleets, guilds, clans, whatever they are called in whatever game you can think of, are nothing but asking for trouble. So don't even suggest it. Furthermore, running with a fleet doesn't solve the problem as a whole, for me yes it would, but for everyone else, no it wouldn't.
What they are doing is essentially stealing IMO. They're getting something for doing nothing. And yet, Cryptic/PWE is doing NOTHING about it at all. These AFKer need to be perma banned. And the people that would do something like that are NOT the kind of people you want in the game anyways. They do nothing but bring the game down.
Come on BAN these players. There's NO excuse for just sitting there in an STF doing nothing.
Post edited by grethore on
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Second, yes, that's true, but how would that be done? I'm sure they deal with heaps of reports everyday.
Plus, permanent banning? Pretty harsh. What would the requirements be? Multiple, consistant reports from a bunch of people, or would it just be one single report? Multiple reports is ok, but one report? The exploitation is tremendous there.
Also, could you act against the report?
I'm not disagreeing with the problem, OP, but again, you want an extreme end to the problem, and while I do want a fix as well, not one like that.
But CC does not count into that, so that would clearly favour escorts...which in turn is not a problem, since escorts are among the best ships to do those stfs.
but thats arguable, and i can understand that many disagree on that.
so, in my opinion...fixed values, that need to be achieved to get loot.
If you get above 2 million damage/healing you receive third grade loot...if you reach 5 million dmg/heal you reach 2nd grade loot...and first grade at 8 million.
those numbers are just out of my head now, and do not really represent real values.
as i said many times before, i think to punish somebody because he is not participating is wrong...the participation should be worth something, and loot based on luck and the possibility to sit idle for 15 minutes without doing anything clearly does not favour that.
Here's why your suggestion does not work:
In a well run STF, there won't be many enemy spawn, and those spawning mobs will be low damage and low hp - that's simply what a good strategy optimizes for, and a quick run prevents too many timed spawns.
In a very badly run but still successful STF, there will be tons of enemy spawn, and a lot of those spawning mobs will be high damage and high hp - people get swarmed and swamped in them.
Result: the good group gets TRIBBLE loot, the bad group gets rewarded for sucking hard, since they actually HAVE to generate a lot more total damage and heal to deal with and survive all the spawning enemies.
I've go parses of runs where failing 1k dps cruisers managed to get 3M damage and considerable healing in a long, drawn-out misery, and I also have parses that show the same 3M damage and a lot less heals on an at least decent 3k+ dps player on a good run.
Also: some STFs require someone to guard something (Kang duty ...) or keep something alive but low HP - this cuts into dps heavily, and you'd penalize those players having to do it, even if they're actually helping the group succeed.
Not to mention: you penalize people who are unlucky enough to end up as a replacement in an already running STF via queue. As if the choice between carrying a fail group or taking the leaver penalty isn't already bad enough.
To be honest, unless you really have GMs police events, using logs/replays - the best way to do things is by using moderated channels to form groups, where your reputation actually matters, and repeated failing/afk/leaving gets you banned. Of course that brings along other issues, but it's still a better solution, and ... it already exists.
I think we need some sort of kick vote requirement, if the other 4 team members vote to kick you, you are gone and someone from the list can join. I know there is potential for abuse, but about 1 in 10 of the stfs I join have someone sitting there doing nothing but clicking need on every drop, that's worse abuse of players in my opinion.
Thing that get you points for participation, awarded only once:
+5 fired a shot at the enemy
+5 used any debuff or tactical ability on the enemy
+5 was hit by an enemy shot or explosion
+5 used any healing ability
+5 flew within 10km of an enemy
+10 shields failed on player ship
+10 hull fell below 50% on player ship
+10 used any healing or support ability on an ally
+20 killed an enemy
+20 used any support/healing ability on an ally who was 50% or less hull
These are intentionally really simple things that a majority of players will probably do in a typical mission. If the player with the lowest participation has a score less than half the next-highest, that player receives a zero for the battle.
Server keeps track of a player's average participation. Players with really low participation raise a flag on complaints and get preferential attention.
Most multiplayer games have some kind of anti-AFK/anti-bot defenses. It's only reasonable that this game should as well.
No offence momaw, but those criteria listed lend themselves to abuse although it's as good as try as any. You can't even use 'AFK for x seconds' since these people aren't really AFK. Even when you get a GM to ban them (it has happened), STO is F2P and Cryptic won't ban IP addresses (or a range of them)... yet.
And gaynir... that kind of solution is worse than the problem. TRIBBLE over three other people because of one bad apple. Try to make it a group decision next time. You really want to be the kind of cop that deprives the kidnappers of their hostage... by shooting the hostage?
Join a moderated channel.
Someone will no doubt mention the 'report player' feature. Well, why do you think such players join the Public queues...
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I'm pretty sure STF-AFK'ing isn't about efficiency.
It's about being an ******* and getting away with it.
Actually, not only getting away with it, but being rewarded for it.
It's trolling/griefing with a reward and no negative consequences.
Which actually DOES make it a banable offense - it's just not getting enforced, and probably won't get enforced any time soon since that'd cost money and offers little to no direct revenue.
I mean, you can't sell customer satisfaction in the C-Store, can you? Oh, wait, that's what a P2P game actually does - but for F2P cutting these corners in par for the course, sad but true.
Vote to kick works great until someone kicks you for getting blown up, because they don't like your fleet, they don't like your ship, you went the wrong direction when they didn't say where they were going, your ship auto-targeted the gate when it fired on you (if you have auto-target attackers on), you made a simple mistake, clicking "need" on an item they want, etc.
Too much potential for abuse.
I don't see annoyed players unilaterally "rage kicking" others being a serious problem when it is, after all, a vote.
Where I see this going wrong is fleets going into STF missions with 3 or 4 people, playing the mission, and then kicking non-fleet members just before the loot is handed out.
I think this is a great idea. Not only would it effectively get rid of AFK players, but it would encourage participating players to adapt their play-styles towards helping each other. Getting +20 for throwing a heal at someone who needs it is an easy thing to do, but right now most players (including myself) are more inclined to save them for self-healing.
I hope they introduce something like this.
Situations like I described can and do happen in games that have vote to kick features. When you give the players the ability to "punish" people, they start "punishing" people for no reason. I've been a victim of it myself for nothing more than telling someone I wouldn't vote to kick someone else for no reason. What they do is they send a tell to the people they want to stay "vote to kick ___".
We don't need it here, for the reasons I described as well as the one you gave.
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
Low levels can't get in to the NWS, so it's not possible you're seeing low levels in it.
Asphe I don't shoot the hostage, I refuse to pay the randsom. You give in, pay the kidnapper and let them get away scott free with a big reward encouraging them to repeat their crime. Sorry, but I will not help leachers profit and as long as people continue to fourman their way through content to give them the prize for nothing then they will continue to leach. It sucks for the other three and for me ( I get no loot and a 1 hour ban), but the situation is created by the leacher and there is no easy answer. I am simply making a moral choice to not let my effort aid a leach.
I am assuming your mispelling of my name is a typo and not supposed to be an insult.
you need to ban the idiots farming
need or greed needs a major fix I get tired of you know you got something good and someone right there spams f
I play stf's all time I have seen a ton of idots just sit let team do work and then get reward for it not cool
do it in cure space and now infected space these need to be reported and band from stf's
the idiots in khitomer ground going into other so don't die or just camp at that spawn point need to report them
these are suposed to be fun not frustrating
devs can produce code to detect if a player is really playing or not. It's easy, if you do not engage borgs for more than 3 minutes, you are not playing... so no reward, and ban from every pve/pvp event for 2 hours.
however the main problem are rainbow ships in elite stf (it's an elite stf, it is supposed only well equiped ships are sent in so important missions), peopple who do not repair their ships (why a damaged ship is sent in a so delicate mission?)...
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
Same thing for idle I guess, you just have it triggered to I dunno, make you do something minor every 60 seconds or so, so you never get an idle tag.
Meh, lets just find the moochers and beat their players in with a baseball bat
That would be a problem, I really don't know if there is a solution to this problem that couldn't be misused by players.
Perhaps something along the times of so much activity every minute, done by actual key pressing as we all know if it was just activity someone would set themselves up to be 9KM away from the gate with all weapons set to auto-fire.
I have only ever done one STF where someone went AFK, but it was due to real life commitments and he told us before he went AFK and was back after about 10 minutes and apologised to us, so our PUG team was cool with it.
Maybe it's during the Northern Hemisphere times that most people are on, my early morning. I play late in my day and I don't seem to have many problems, which is like midnight to early morning for the people living in the Northern Hemisphere.
Officially Nerfed In Early 2410
Tempted, so tempted.
Either way, something NEEDS to be done about these worthless scumbags. So far, PWE/Cryptic has done nothing at all to even acknowledge the problem. And that in itself irks me as well.
Problem NOT solved, really. I shouldn't have to accommodate another players bad behavior. I shouldn't have to change what I do, how I do it because PWE/Cryptic can't/refuses to enforce their own rules. It's their JOB to fix problems and resolve player issues. And they are simply not doing their job.
I could never understand why every single MMO company takes weeks/months to address any sort of bad behavior like this. Get off your fat a**es and do something about it. I don't give a rats tooshy what the excuse for not jumping on this is, just get it done NOW. Not fixing problems is one of the main reasons people leave a game.
And before anyone says it, yes, I have reported this one particular individual I seem to get grouped with frequently SEVERAL times. NOT a single word on any of the tickets. I'm sure this one particular person has had multiple tickets on him already. That should be a huge red flag right there. I mean, they DO have a separate field just for the @name. With the same name popping up so much, one would think that someone with more than 2 brain cells would take notice.
These days I just report to GM, address the person in chat "I hope you enjoy your free loot" then I add them to "my who-to-pimphand if I see these people in Kerrat/PVP" list then add them to my ignore list.
I also now only roll with fleet mates or join the EliteSTF call outs.
On another note... STFs are getting too easy with all the new fleet ships and fleet equipment, I've been in groups of 3-4 and still taken home the optional. Cryptic wont do anything about the AFKers, just deal with it :cool:
(Sorry that I'm sounding like a **** but I'm over the amount of complaints in the forums about everything).
Just a Vulcan logic
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
He's right. ALL STF issues relating to other players action or inaction can be very very very simply solved by playing with people you know, your fleet mates, or by joining any dedicated team play group or chat channel.
It's a really simple and even more obvious solution to ALL human issues on STF's. But what guess what I'm seeing around the forums?
People aren't listening to advice. The irony is killing me.