dunno why anyone bothers coming up with ideas to stop afk'ers, if the devs felt it necessary to stop afk'ers they would have something suitably ready. any and all ideas i have seen thus far always had some sort of flaw in the grand master plan they propose.
i once did the same, so im on the same boat wanting afk'ers eliminated, but it has to be fool proof.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
so im on the same boat wanting afk'ers eliminated, but it has to be fool proof.
This idea is fool proof. For example the engine would search for compatible players. If someone has been ignored enough he will only end up with other AFK or Leechers because they haven't ignored each other.
So is teaming with people you know and there is no new development time required for it.
You have stated your opion and it has been noted several times. You feel like you have all the answers. Well the rest of the community does not share your opinion and they probably don't have the time to play like you do either. I don't add every Tom, ****, or Harry to my friend list. My fleet is fairly small comprised of US Military Servicemen who are for the most part deployed overseas. Therefore, our scheduals conflict most of the time. So a PUG is usually the best option for running a few STFs before time for work.
Also you seem to believe STO DEVS are working on STO projects. For the most part DEV teams have been pulled to work on Neverwinternights. The content we get is a far cry from what Mr.Stahl promised us. I can only think of actually seeing 3 different DEVS in zone chat in the three plus years I have been on STO. We still have exploration missions and warzones that were broken 3 years ago and they haven't garnered any attention. My point is if they wanted to fix them they would have already. It isn't like they have anything pressing other than turning out new lockboxes.
FYI a good programer could copy the friend page rename it to Ignore and insert a piece of code to sort players [Just like it does already with the people coming into the queque already on a team] . The programming could be done in about an hour if that. It would take .07 seconds to do the scan and boom the sorted players are ready.
Also you seem to believe STO DEVS are working on STO projects. For the most part DEV teams have been pulled to work on Neverwinternights.
And you know this how?
Cryptic has flat out told us that they have staffed up and that there are developers who are dedicated to STO.
I'm not saying (and Cryptic is not saying) that they don't share certain resources between games. There is a team for the Core Engine, for example.
It seems to me that you are assuming that because one game is in development that they are pulling all of the resources off every other game.
The fact is that unless you are a Cryptic or PWE employee or related to one, you have no more than a vague idea how they handle work assignments and scheduling resources. No more than they've publicly told us.
And I know that we have been told that they have NOT pulled the STO team to work on Neverwinter. If that were true, they would not have been able to produce Legacy of Romulus. The changes we've been told about would have required a full Dev team (Programmers, Systems, Artists, etc). So please do not suggest otherwise.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I have either forfeited my mission, loot & possible temp ban for leaving due to people just joining to get credit, loot & do not work or not listening to their team causing us to lose anyways.
You may think I screwed my team by doing so, however it was not I who was abusing the system nor was it me who screwed us; it was the other team player whom was not playing at all nor being a team player.
*rant*
One person 3 nights ago someone in a recluse was 180+km from the borg attack we ALL q'd up for & all of us but them were fighting.
They ignored me many times, after 20 mins we already failed the optional. I was fed up with people like him.
I told my team we should all ditch the person since they ditched us & I sent a gm report then split because you auto lose when you do that. *shrug* The AFK guy lost too. *end rant*
FYI the name was meant as a joke. I honestly don't know the persons name nor do I care. I am sorry if offended someone.
My two cent's take em or leave em......
Officer of Fed side - Borg Syndicate: Isulaya (FED Sci) & Isu'laya (ROM Eng) . Admin/Head Officer of KDF side - Blood Empire: A'Nari (KDF Tac). Both have 400+ (usually 500) active fleet members in each of the fleets = I is one busy woman.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Implement a system for teams to vote to kick a player like they do in WoW!
My two cent's take em or leave em......
Officer of Fed side - Borg Syndicate: Isulaya (FED Sci) & Isu'laya (ROM Eng) . Admin/Head Officer of KDF side - Blood Empire: A'Nari (KDF Tac). Both have 400+ (usually 500) active fleet members in each of the fleets = I is one busy woman.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
A vote to kick option would be nice but has is has already been stated it could be abused.
When you think about it there are not many teaming based options that could not be abused.
How about an option to leave a team?
To explain the above:
Let's say that you have an AFK player in your group and you and the other members of your team disband the group and reassemble it without the AFK player and after 1 minute any player that's in a team based instance that is not teamed would be removed from the instance and the missing team member would be replaced by someone who has be waiting in the que for that mission.
A plan old vote to kick option would be much better :P
AFKers are a pain. They leech off others to get benefits they dont do anything to help earn.
Solution? Ignore list = no group? No... because then ANYONE you ignore wont get grouped, even chat jerks you don't want to listen to, but who actually pull their weight in STFs...
My suggestion:
Step 1: In an STF if someone does not move for 30 seconds THEN other players can select an option to "Report AFK" (which does not even appear until 30 seconds of inactivity). This report can be done by any of the other players in the STF. When one person reports him, the option disappears for the others.
Step 2: "Report AFK" gives the AFK player a 30 second chat notice that they will be kicked, then a 15 second warning, then a 5 second warning. If within the alotted time the AFKer moves then they cancel the warning. If they do not move then they are removed from the STF and a slot opens in the STF which allows a new player to join and help.
Step 3: If this person moved to cancel the AFK/kick notice but then goes AFK again, then after 20 seconds of inactivity they may be reported again by anyone in the STF. This time the report triggers a 15 second warning/timer to be removed.
Step 4: If this person moved to cancel the AFK/kick notice but then goes yet AFK again, then after 15 seconds of inactivity they may be reported again by anyone in the STF. This time the report triggers a 10 second warning/timer to be removed.
Step 5: If this person is reported AFK 4 times in a 5 man STF or 9 times in a 10 man STF they are removed automatically.
This allows a balance.
(1) It allows players to ONLY report people who are actually inactive (for 30+ seconds the first time, 20 seconds the next, then 15 seconds each time thereafter).
(2) Avoids trolling (i.e. abusive spamming to remove people "for fun" or chat warning annoy people) since the option will not even be available unless they are inactive for the designated time.
(3) And if the AFKer returns to AFK he risks being reported again with a shorter timer & ultimately kicked without a timer if enough people report him enough times.
I have played other games with various report, timer, kick approaches to AFKers. You have to have something to discourage actual AFKers, but not something that can be easily abused/spammed. This will make AFKing less common & more difficult.
Gee valoreah it sure seems you want to grief arnthebard because he has a differing opinion. Several other players as well as myself think this his proposed solution will solve the problem. You act as if this is going to hinder your gameplay style.
Perhaps this will clear things up a bit... things happen doorbells,phone,kids whatever... as a common courtesy if you need to be AFK blurb it in the chat. Chances are nobody will put you on ignore if you attempt to communicate.On the other hand the moron who fails to listen and charges into battle and gives his team the finger needs to be ignored.
Personally I don't have a gazillion friends online at any given time. Each chat channel has special lingo or ways to request stuff and if you don't know what the protocol is for each channel you get ignored or kicked from a team when they don't know you. So his arguement is a valid one despite your personal experience.
The problem with ignoreing AFKers as the OP suggested is that not everyone is nice enough to handle such power kindly & properly.
Elsewhere a thread existsts on the absolute abuse of the report spam/ignore issue that silences people for 24 hours and eventually leads to an account ban. What we DONT need is another way to terrorize people while trying to solve the AFK problem.
The problem with ignoreing AFKers as the OP suggested is that not everyone is nice enough to handle such power kindly & properly.
Elsewhere a thread existsts on the absolute abuse of the report spam/ignore issue that silences people for 24 hours and eventually leads to an account ban. What we DONT need is another way to terrorize people while trying to solve the AFK problem.
Totally agree the silencing people for 24 hours is crazy. That needs to be totally removed. That"CAN"be abused and has no place in the soultions offered here.
Kind of like you're trying to do to me? These forums are here to share ideas and discuss them. I'm not trying to grief anyone, just offer a second opinion, just as you and everyone else is able to express a differing point of view.
This wouldn't hinder my gameplay at all. It would, however, take development time -regardless of how easy those who know nothing of how the engine is built think it would be. That impacts everyone and it's a feature that isn't really necessary. All that's required to solve the AFK problem now is minimal effort on your part.
This thread needs to die.
Where is a moderator?
This thread moved past meaningful and constructive conversation some pages ago.
Valoreah, you are making too much sense and it appears you are arguing with walls.
The simple solution is don't reply and don't boost the post count. Let it die a natural death.
We don't kill threads just because they're controversial. We kill them when attempts to moderate are pointless or because the rules force us to kill them.
That said, people can debate this all they like but none of us get to make the call one way or the other. Cryptic does.
By now I've got to believe that they are aware of the problem. Whether and how they choose to address it, none of us know and Cryptic isn't going to talk about it unless they have something to say.
If anyone has a new angle to discuss that we haven't heard a half-dozen times before, by all means please contribute. Otherwise, it would be best for everyone to state their opinion on the topic and then let it go.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Cryptic has flat out told us that they have staffed up and that there are developers who are dedicated to STO.
I'm not saying (and Cryptic is not saying) that they don't share certain resources between games. There is a team for the Core Engine, for example.
It seems to me that you are assuming that because one game is in development that they are pulling all of the resources off every other game.
The fact is that unless you are a Cryptic or PWE employee or related to one, you have no more than a vague idea how they handle work assignments and scheduling resources. No more than they've publicly told us.
And I know that we have been told that they have NOT pulled the STO team to work on Neverwinter. If that were true, they would not have been able to produce Legacy of Romulus. The changes we've been told about would have required a full Dev team (Programmers, Systems, Artists, etc). So please do not suggest otherwise.
Well you should stop drinking the Kool-Aid it is a well known fact in the STARBASE UGC Community that the Devs were pulled to work on Neverwinter nights. There were several discussions on it because of the failed promises they made to the Foundry community. Most of the people were really TRIBBLE off about it. The gist of the story was that when they were through launching Neverwinter nights that they would bring more staff over to help with STO. I can see no reason in why the people who were in conversations with the devs would blatlantly lie to everyone in the chat.
I love this guy who is suggesting not to pug stfs... see, heres the thing, I can run 90% of my STFs on elite with no issues pugging it, most people playing elites know their stuff and dont eff around.
Its that 10% that bugs me, I shouldnt have to wait on a chat channel or my friends or fleet to be able to play an elite STF.
The queues were made so you could always find people to play certain missions with, even if your friends/fleet have lives.
I agree with the OP, and the idea has some merit, although may be too complicated to get into the game.
There needs to be some way of distancing yourself from these douchenozzles or avoiding them altogether that doesnt involve me having to get into a chat channel and ask for people to run a mission with me.
I have tried the chat channel thing, even with a full fleet it can sometimes be impossible to get the needed people and thats only because everyone has their different enjoyments in the game, not everyone wants to STF all day every day.
The point about the specific chat channels, theres a point to be made there as well, any popular chat channel tends to attract trolls and flamers after a while making the chat channel not a helpful place but an annoying one (hell, look at the Organized PVP channel).
There is something that needs to be done with AFK'rs and leeches, but I am not sure if its something that can be added to the game engine, at least not easily.
All i do to these people now is report to GM with the subject being "AFK" or "Leeching" and a short description of the behavior witnessed. i know it may not actually do anything if only 1 person does this, but if enough people put in tickets it could start to work in our favor, it doesnt cost you anything more than a little time to do.
[SIGPIC]InGame - @Darth_Tauri[/SIGPIC]
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
It is currently being abused to grief fleets - get five-plus people to go down a list and set individuals of a fleet on ignore, and those fleeters won't be able to participate in their own fleet's chat channels for the next 24hrs.
It looks like the griefers just target certain fleets though - I tried 20min in Kerrat (hadn't ever been there before) shooting at feds (and not talking locally/in-zone at all, not spawn-camping, etc) and found myself locked out of fleet chat. I've only done a few non-elite STFs (aquitting myself well enough, certainly not AFKing or griefing), don't troll zonechat, etc., in other words no way could I possibly have a reputation in-game, not positive and certainly not negative.
It is currently being abused to grief fleets - get five-plus people to go down a list and set individuals of a fleet on ignore, and those fleeters won't be able to participate in their own fleet's chat channels for the next 24hrs.
It looks like the griefers just target certain fleets though - I tried 20min in Kerrat (hadn't ever been there before) shooting at feds (and not talking locally/in-zone at all, not spawn-camping, etc) and found myself locked out of fleet chat. I've only done a few non-elite STFs (aquitting myself well enough, certainly not AFKing or griefing), don't troll zonechat, etc., in other words no way could I possibly have a reputation in-game, not positive and certainly not negative.
See this is just a example of how poorly the ignore is being handled currenly. They need to revamp it and stop the silencing for 24 hrs. That is a true travesty or griefing. If all the ignore did was to not communicate with a player or put them to where you could not be teamed with them it would be acceptable.
See this is just a example of how poorly the ignore is being handled currenly. They need to revamp it and stop the silencing for 24 hrs. That is a true travesty or griefing. If all the ignore did was to not communicate with a player or put them to where you could not be teamed with them it would be acceptable.
I was unaware of the silencing by fleets. That type of abuse should be a terms of service violation right? So who came up with that idea? I must agree they need to fix the ignore.
Heaven forbid you need to do some minimal work and socializing in an MMO.
There's socialising and then there is being a saint. Unfortunately getting the right balance is difficult.
I read somewhere else on the forum that you can be silenced by being put on enough peoples' ignore list. Now if this is true then this needs to go, ignore is meant to be on an individual basis. There shold be no way this should affect the game as a whole. For the simple reason I may put someone on my ignore list that someone else will just not be bothered by and vice versa.
On the matter of not grouping with eople on your ignore list. One of the biggest games out there, mention no names, seems to be able to do this, and it has a hell of a lot more players. I have ignored people and never been placed in a group with them. It is even dynamic as in the longer the queues then the ignore list is turned off for grouping, just to bring the queue time down. Mainly because there is more complaining about queue times than most other things.
Now if they can do it I am not sure why it can't be done here.
Given the current system being open to such abuse it is time something is done about it and until there is, and as much as I am loathe to say it, it needs to be disabled. Silencing through report spam should not affect fleet channels.
There's socialising and then there is being a saint. Unfortunately getting the right balance is difficult.
I read somewhere else on the forum that you can be silenced by being put on enough peoples' ignore list. Now if this is true then this needs to go, ignore is meant to be on an individual basis. There shold be no way this should affect the game as a whole. For the simple reason I may put someone on my ignore list that someone else will just not be bothered by and vice versa.
On the matter of not grouping with eople on your ignore list. One of the biggest games out there, mention no names, seems to be able to do this, and it has a hell of a lot more players. I have ignored people and never been placed in a group with them. It is even dynamic as in the longer the queues then the ignore list is turned off for grouping, just to bring the queue time down. Mainly because there is more complaining about queue times than most other things.
Now if they can do it I am not sure why it can't be done here.
Given the current system being open to such abuse it is time something is done about it and until there is, and as much as I am loathe to say it, it needs to be disabled. Silencing through report spam should not affect fleet channels.
This may get me in trouble but wouldn't the silencing affect one's ability to enjoy the game therefore it would be violating Cryptic's own TOS?
This may get me in trouble but wouldn't the silencing affect one's ability to enjoy the game therefore it would be violating Cryptic's own TOS?
If it being abused then yes it might be worth reporting, though what would happen I have no idea.
However the silence is part of the system design and therefore is within their TOS, it is also pretty much standard across the board, I thinmk the only exception is RS, though they have player mods with the power to silence so it is a different enviroment..
Even WoW does it, and they all have a critical number of reports to silence an account. However using it to grief someone is an actionable offence that they do investigate when reported. If organised griefing is spotted then all those taking part get at first a warning and if they countinue it will eventually lead to a full account ban for them.
Either way fleet channels should be removed from the silence, at the least.
Even WoW does it, and they all have a critical number of reports to silence an account. However using it to grief someone is an actionable offence that they do investigate when reported. If organised griefing is spotted then all those taking part get at first a warning and if they countinue it will eventually lead to a full account for them.
Either way fleet channels should be removed from the silence, at the least.
Here's the catch: You don't have to report someone to silence them. Merely putting them on ignore is enough. Since I am not filing a report, you cannot tell me who I can and cannot ignore, as I have filed no false report and broken no rule in doing so. That some unpleasant side effects occur cannot be held against me, as I cannot control this.
As for the proposed solutions for dealing with AFKers other than the "likely to be abused" votekick, none of them work, for the simple reason that few, if any, "AFKers", are actually AFK. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to conveniently roll for every single looted item. No, they're there, they just intentionally choose not to do anything useful. So any inactivity check would fail or be trivially derailed by someone flying in circles.
At the same time, you can't punish someone just for "not doing damage", as this penalizes anyone in a non-damage-dealing role. There's really just no way you can stop this without causing additional damage.
Here's the catch: You don't have to report someone to silence them. Merely putting them on ignore is enough. Since I am not filing a report, you cannot tell me who I can and cannot ignore, as I have filed no false report and broken no rule in doing so. That some unpleasant side effects occur cannot be held against me, as I cannot control this.
As for the proposed solutions for dealing with AFKers other than the "likely to be abused" votekick, none of them work, for the simple reason that few, if any, "AFKers", are actually AFK. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to conveniently roll for every single looted item. No, they're there, they just intentionally choose not to do anything useful. So any inactivity check would fail or be trivially derailed by someone flying in circles.
At the same time, you can't punish someone just for "not doing damage", as this penalizes anyone in a non-damage-dealing role. There's really just no way you can stop this without causing additional damage.
Do you think it is fair to ask to not be teamed up in the future with someone who is leeching or intentionally inactive?
Here's the catch: You don't have to report someone to silence them. Merely putting them on ignore is enough. Since I am not filing a report, you cannot tell me who I can and cannot ignore, as I have filed no false report and broken no rule in doing so. That some unpleasant side effects occur cannot be held against me, as I cannot control this.
So what I wrote on page 13 is correct, that if enough people put someone on ignore it is a full silence for that person. Well then, as I said, that needs to be stopped/removed ASAP, as ignore is a personal matter. If I add somone to ignore it should only silence them for me, not everyone else no matter how many people ignore that person.
However if there are logs showing that you encoraged a lot of other people to put said person on ignore to silence them in game, then it could still be looked into.
Do you think it is fair to ask to not be teamed up in the future with someone who is leeching or intentionally inactive?
What is leaching? That is the question.
A person who is new and so is not going to be upto the standard of the regulars in that area can be seen as leaching be certain elitist, whether it be rotation or gear causing this DPS drop.
To me leaching is someone who is intentionally inactive, they are not sperated as you have put them.
Comments
i once did the same, so im on the same boat wanting afk'ers eliminated, but it has to be fool proof.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
This idea is fool proof. For example the engine would search for compatible players. If someone has been ignored enough he will only end up with other AFK or Leechers because they haven't ignored each other.
You have stated your opion and it has been noted several times. You feel like you have all the answers. Well the rest of the community does not share your opinion and they probably don't have the time to play like you do either. I don't add every Tom, ****, or Harry to my friend list. My fleet is fairly small comprised of US Military Servicemen who are for the most part deployed overseas. Therefore, our scheduals conflict most of the time. So a PUG is usually the best option for running a few STFs before time for work.
Also you seem to believe STO DEVS are working on STO projects. For the most part DEV teams have been pulled to work on Neverwinternights. The content we get is a far cry from what Mr.Stahl promised us. I can only think of actually seeing 3 different DEVS in zone chat in the three plus years I have been on STO. We still have exploration missions and warzones that were broken 3 years ago and they haven't garnered any attention. My point is if they wanted to fix them they would have already. It isn't like they have anything pressing other than turning out new lockboxes.
FYI a good programer could copy the friend page rename it to Ignore and insert a piece of code to sort players [Just like it does already with the people coming into the queque already on a team] . The programming could be done in about an hour if that. It would take .07 seconds to do the scan and boom the sorted players are ready.
And you know this how?
Cryptic has flat out told us that they have staffed up and that there are developers who are dedicated to STO.
I'm not saying (and Cryptic is not saying) that they don't share certain resources between games. There is a team for the Core Engine, for example.
It seems to me that you are assuming that because one game is in development that they are pulling all of the resources off every other game.
The fact is that unless you are a Cryptic or PWE employee or related to one, you have no more than a vague idea how they handle work assignments and scheduling resources. No more than they've publicly told us.
And I know that we have been told that they have NOT pulled the STO team to work on Neverwinter. If that were true, they would not have been able to produce Legacy of Romulus. The changes we've been told about would have required a full Dev team (Programmers, Systems, Artists, etc). So please do not suggest otherwise.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
You may think I screwed my team by doing so, however it was not I who was abusing the system nor was it me who screwed us; it was the other team player whom was not playing at all nor being a team player.
*rant*
One person 3 nights ago someone in a recluse was 180+km from the borg attack we ALL q'd up for & all of us but them were fighting.
They ignored me many times, after 20 mins we already failed the optional. I was fed up with people like him.
I told my team we should all ditch the person since they ditched us & I sent a gm report then split because you auto lose when you do that. *shrug* The AFK guy lost too.
*end rant*
FYI the name was meant as a joke. I honestly don't know the persons name nor do I care. I am sorry if offended someone.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
Officer of Fed side - Borg Syndicate: Isulaya (FED Sci) & Isu'laya (ROM Eng) . Admin/Head Officer of KDF side - Blood Empire: A'Nari (KDF Tac). Both have 400+ (usually 500) active fleet members in each of the fleets = I is one busy woman.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Officer of Fed side - Borg Syndicate: Isulaya (FED Sci) & Isu'laya (ROM Eng) . Admin/Head Officer of KDF side - Blood Empire: A'Nari (KDF Tac). Both have 400+ (usually 500) active fleet members in each of the fleets = I is one busy woman.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
When you think about it there are not many teaming based options that could not be abused.
How about an option to leave a team?
To explain the above:
Let's say that you have an AFK player in your group and you and the other members of your team disband the group and reassemble it without the AFK player and after 1 minute any player that's in a team based instance that is not teamed would be removed from the instance and the missing team member would be replaced by someone who has be waiting in the que for that mission.
A plan old vote to kick option would be much better :P
Solution? Ignore list = no group? No... because then ANYONE you ignore wont get grouped, even chat jerks you don't want to listen to, but who actually pull their weight in STFs...
My suggestion:
Step 1: In an STF if someone does not move for 30 seconds THEN other players can select an option to "Report AFK" (which does not even appear until 30 seconds of inactivity). This report can be done by any of the other players in the STF. When one person reports him, the option disappears for the others.
Step 2: "Report AFK" gives the AFK player a 30 second chat notice that they will be kicked, then a 15 second warning, then a 5 second warning. If within the alotted time the AFKer moves then they cancel the warning. If they do not move then they are removed from the STF and a slot opens in the STF which allows a new player to join and help.
Step 3: If this person moved to cancel the AFK/kick notice but then goes AFK again, then after 20 seconds of inactivity they may be reported again by anyone in the STF. This time the report triggers a 15 second warning/timer to be removed.
Step 4: If this person moved to cancel the AFK/kick notice but then goes yet AFK again, then after 15 seconds of inactivity they may be reported again by anyone in the STF. This time the report triggers a 10 second warning/timer to be removed.
Step 5: If this person is reported AFK 4 times in a 5 man STF or 9 times in a 10 man STF they are removed automatically.
This allows a balance.
(1) It allows players to ONLY report people who are actually inactive (for 30+ seconds the first time, 20 seconds the next, then 15 seconds each time thereafter).
(2) Avoids trolling (i.e. abusive spamming to remove people "for fun" or chat warning annoy people) since the option will not even be available unless they are inactive for the designated time.
(3) And if the AFKer returns to AFK he risks being reported again with a shorter timer & ultimately kicked without a timer if enough people report him enough times.
I have played other games with various report, timer, kick approaches to AFKers. You have to have something to discourage actual AFKers, but not something that can be easily abused/spammed. This will make AFKing less common & more difficult.
Perhaps this will clear things up a bit... things happen doorbells,phone,kids whatever... as a common courtesy if you need to be AFK blurb it in the chat. Chances are nobody will put you on ignore if you attempt to communicate.On the other hand the moron who fails to listen and charges into battle and gives his team the finger needs to be ignored.
Personally I don't have a gazillion friends online at any given time. Each chat channel has special lingo or ways to request stuff and if you don't know what the protocol is for each channel you get ignored or kicked from a team when they don't know you. So his arguement is a valid one despite your personal experience.
Elsewhere a thread existsts on the absolute abuse of the report spam/ignore issue that silences people for 24 hours and eventually leads to an account ban. What we DONT need is another way to terrorize people while trying to solve the AFK problem.
Totally agree the silencing people for 24 hours is crazy. That needs to be totally removed. That"CAN"be abused and has no place in the soultions offered here.
This thread needs to die.
Where is a moderator?
This thread moved past meaningful and constructive conversation some pages ago.
Valoreah, you are making too much sense and it appears you are arguing with walls.
The simple solution is don't reply and don't boost the post count. Let it die a natural death.
We don't kill threads just because they're controversial. We kill them when attempts to moderate are pointless or because the rules force us to kill them.
That said, people can debate this all they like but none of us get to make the call one way or the other. Cryptic does.
By now I've got to believe that they are aware of the problem. Whether and how they choose to address it, none of us know and Cryptic isn't going to talk about it unless they have something to say.
If anyone has a new angle to discuss that we haven't heard a half-dozen times before, by all means please contribute. Otherwise, it would be best for everyone to state their opinion on the topic and then let it go.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Its that 10% that bugs me, I shouldnt have to wait on a chat channel or my friends or fleet to be able to play an elite STF.
The queues were made so you could always find people to play certain missions with, even if your friends/fleet have lives.
I agree with the OP, and the idea has some merit, although may be too complicated to get into the game.
There needs to be some way of distancing yourself from these douchenozzles or avoiding them altogether that doesnt involve me having to get into a chat channel and ask for people to run a mission with me.
I have tried the chat channel thing, even with a full fleet it can sometimes be impossible to get the needed people and thats only because everyone has their different enjoyments in the game, not everyone wants to STF all day every day.
The point about the specific chat channels, theres a point to be made there as well, any popular chat channel tends to attract trolls and flamers after a while making the chat channel not a helpful place but an annoying one (hell, look at the Organized PVP channel).
There is something that needs to be done with AFK'rs and leeches, but I am not sure if its something that can be added to the game engine, at least not easily.
All i do to these people now is report to GM with the subject being "AFK" or "Leeching" and a short description of the behavior witnessed. i know it may not actually do anything if only 1 person does this, but if enough people put in tickets it could start to work in our favor, it doesnt cost you anything more than a little time to do.
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
It is currently being abused to grief fleets - get five-plus people to go down a list and set individuals of a fleet on ignore, and those fleeters won't be able to participate in their own fleet's chat channels for the next 24hrs.
It looks like the griefers just target certain fleets though - I tried 20min in Kerrat (hadn't ever been there before) shooting at feds (and not talking locally/in-zone at all, not spawn-camping, etc) and found myself locked out of fleet chat. I've only done a few non-elite STFs (aquitting myself well enough, certainly not AFKing or griefing), don't troll zonechat, etc., in other words no way could I possibly have a reputation in-game, not positive and certainly not negative.
See this is just a example of how poorly the ignore is being handled currenly. They need to revamp it and stop the silencing for 24 hrs. That is a true travesty or griefing. If all the ignore did was to not communicate with a player or put them to where you could not be teamed with them it would be acceptable.
I was unaware of the silencing by fleets. That type of abuse should be a terms of service violation right? So who came up with that idea? I must agree they need to fix the ignore.
There's socialising and then there is being a saint. Unfortunately getting the right balance is difficult.
I read somewhere else on the forum that you can be silenced by being put on enough peoples' ignore list. Now if this is true then this needs to go, ignore is meant to be on an individual basis. There shold be no way this should affect the game as a whole. For the simple reason I may put someone on my ignore list that someone else will just not be bothered by and vice versa.
On the matter of not grouping with eople on your ignore list. One of the biggest games out there, mention no names, seems to be able to do this, and it has a hell of a lot more players. I have ignored people and never been placed in a group with them. It is even dynamic as in the longer the queues then the ignore list is turned off for grouping, just to bring the queue time down. Mainly because there is more complaining about queue times than most other things.
Now if they can do it I am not sure why it can't be done here.
Given the current system being open to such abuse it is time something is done about it and until there is, and as much as I am loathe to say it, it needs to be disabled. Silencing through report spam should not affect fleet channels.
This may get me in trouble but wouldn't the silencing affect one's ability to enjoy the game therefore it would be violating Cryptic's own TOS?
If it being abused then yes it might be worth reporting, though what would happen I have no idea.
However the silence is part of the system design and therefore is within their TOS, it is also pretty much standard across the board, I thinmk the only exception is RS, though they have player mods with the power to silence so it is a different enviroment..
Even WoW does it, and they all have a critical number of reports to silence an account. However using it to grief someone is an actionable offence that they do investigate when reported. If organised griefing is spotted then all those taking part get at first a warning and if they countinue it will eventually lead to a full account ban for them.
Either way fleet channels should be removed from the silence, at the least.
As for the proposed solutions for dealing with AFKers other than the "likely to be abused" votekick, none of them work, for the simple reason that few, if any, "AFKers", are actually AFK. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to conveniently roll for every single looted item. No, they're there, they just intentionally choose not to do anything useful. So any inactivity check would fail or be trivially derailed by someone flying in circles.
At the same time, you can't punish someone just for "not doing damage", as this penalizes anyone in a non-damage-dealing role. There's really just no way you can stop this without causing additional damage.
Do you think it is fair to ask to not be teamed up in the future with someone who is leeching or intentionally inactive?
So what I wrote on page 13 is correct, that if enough people put someone on ignore it is a full silence for that person. Well then, as I said, that needs to be stopped/removed ASAP, as ignore is a personal matter. If I add somone to ignore it should only silence them for me, not everyone else no matter how many people ignore that person.
However if there are logs showing that you encoraged a lot of other people to put said person on ignore to silence them in game, then it could still be looked into.
What is leaching? That is the question.
A person who is new and so is not going to be upto the standard of the regulars in that area can be seen as leaching be certain elitist, whether it be rotation or gear causing this DPS drop.
To me leaching is someone who is intentionally inactive, they are not sperated as you have put them.