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Let's talk AFK Players

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  • carasucia83carasucia83 Member Posts: 568 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    bluegeek wrote: »
    Yet Another Thread Merge

    Captains, we only need one active thread on AFK.

    If you'd rather not have to plow through a disorderly jumble of posts, please try to add to an active discussion rather than starting a new one. I know it can be hard to tell sometimes.

    But I want to be the leader....
    "So my fun is wrong?"

    No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
  • ussdelphin2ussdelphin2 Member Posts: 525 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    valoreah wrote: »
    No, it isn't. It's a viable way to avoid leeching. It's your choice not to socialize and find other people to team with.

    Well it is, leeching needs to be dealt with, not avoided. What if someone only has 30 min's to play, the queues are faster. like I have said, the easy way to fix pugs is to remove the leavers penalty, that will end the leeching unless people are to stupid to leave.
    How I picture a lot of the forumites :P
  • hanoverhanover Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    A "vote to kick" option would be fine. It's not like the world ended on all the past games where this was implemented. People who oppose it just don't want to start having to actually earn their resources. :rolleyes:
    Does Arc install a root kit? Ask a Dev today!
  • edited July 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • vesterengvestereng Member Posts: 2,252 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    hanover2 wrote: »
    A "vote to kick" option would be fine. It's not like the world ended on all the past games where this was implemented. People who oppose it just don't want to start having to actually earn their resources. :rolleyes:

    Completely false.

    It will wreck STO like you can't even imagine. Not only will there be a crowd whose gameplay will consist of kicking people at the right moment for fun, you will also have a tsunami of overly emotional ragers who will kick for litterly nothing.

    And yes, that's exactly what happens in other game and is one of the few things STO does't 100 % right along with its f2p system.
    There can't be a kick function period.

    Can't handle playing in a PUG then don't, but for the love of god don't waste everyones time least of all developers and you have no idea how much damage this will do to the game.
  • marshalericdavidmarshalericdavid Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Well it is, leeching needs to be dealt with, not avoided. What if someone only has 30 min's to play, the queues are faster. like I have said, the easy way to fix pugs is to remove the leavers penalty, that will end the leeching unless people are to stupid to leave.

    Great post.

    So many people think that everyone has enough play time to ask around trying to get private games going. Public matches are great to get games going ASAP and are great for people with only a short amount of time to play so the leeching problems needs to be fixed. How many people have given up on the game because they have that short time to play and it being ruined because of leechers?
  • hanoverhanover Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    vestereng, you exaggerate. Clearly, you are a leecher.

    :P
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  • badname834854badname834854 Member Posts: 1,186 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    I know this thread is the culmination of a gazillion moderator merges, but have any devs commented yet?
  • vesterengvestereng Member Posts: 2,252 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Leecher ?

    No, I am the opposite. I carried so many people on the ground you can't even imagine it son.

    Space takes less effort but I certainly carry my weight there too.

    And, I am probably the only one in my fleet who PUG'd it from day 1 up to now.

    A votekick function is going to bring out the worst in people and let's be honest here, the STO crowd isn't exactly known for its high tolerance and mellow attitude - just look at this here thread.

    A votekick function is going to bring out the hardcore primadonna in all you people and it breaks my heart even thinking about it. I can honestly and easily say this will be the worst thing that ever happened to STO by far.
  • bermanatorbermanator Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    I ran into my first AFK leacher (that I can remember) yesterday while playing an eSTF. With the near-constant stream of nanite spheres, the team was unable to destroy the nanite spheres before the spheres could heal the transformer. Within the first couple minutes, one of the teammates dropped out, to be replaced by another player. After another 5 minutes or so, another player dropped out, to be replaced by nobody. All of us were on ridiculously long respawn cooldowns, so we usually had a max of 1-2 players alive at any given time. After 10 or so minutes of getting nowhere, I had to get off as it was the last thing I was going to do before logging off. I apologized to the only other active player for having to leave and left. I've seen all of these threads and decided it was time to add my own thoughts.

    I'd like to propose a system that punishes only true AFK leachers (and it's quite simple): a player is marked "active" if a numeric is being dealt to others by the player. If the player is healing, that'll come up as a numeric; if the player is dealing damage, that'll come up as a numeric. As far as I've seen, all abilities that have game affecting outcomes deal with numerics. The important thing to note is that the player has to be dealing numerics to others (not him/herself). I can't think of a situation where a player would be active, yet not be dealing numerics.
    A player is marked "AFK" if they have a stable connection to servers (I imagine that the game server has a way to detect connection stability) and they have not dealt a numeric in 2 minutes. (I don't know if 2 minutes is too short or too long, that would have to be called by the devs.) The player should be warned after 60 seconds that they are being marked as "idle" and they have x seconds to become active.
    When a player is marked as "AFK," they'll be booted from the match and be required to wait until the match they left has completed + 5 minutes before being able to join another queue (whether or not the ruling applies to all PvE queues or not should be a dev decision).
    Also, the players will wait 60 seconds before receiving a buff to increase damage from all weapons. The remaining players won't receive the bonus if another player joins mid-match.
    By the way, the penalty for leaving a match should be the same as an AFK'er: they have to wait for the match that they left to end along with an extra 5 minutes.

    I hope the system I've thought up is fair and leaves no loopholes or false positives.

    P.S. If someone's already thought up of this or something similar, I didn't read all 70+ pages of this thread. Sorry.
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  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    vestereng wrote: »
    A votekick function is going to bring out the worst in people and let's be honest here, the STO crowd isn't exactly known for its high tolerance and mellow attitude - just look at this here thread.

    Man has a point.

    But I'm not quite ready to say it's a bad idea. It can be abused, yes. Other games have kick and in a normal PUG run people just do their job and don't quit unless there's a team wipe. Mostly kick was used on AFK'ers.

    Of course those games didn't have optional timed objectives to be lost and leaver penalties to boot. I'm starting to wonder if another poster didn't have it right -- the queue system and the leaver penalties together with lack of any kick function are actually enabling AFK in a way that other games don't.

    The queue system throws random players together. There's no kick for players who abuse the system, and the leaver penalty makes people more reluctant to drop out and form a new team.

    It might be more accurate to say that a votekick system could bring out vindictive backstabbing behavior in the folks who were inclined to it in the first place. A unanimous kick vote would be less abusable than team leader kick.

    And really... would you really want to be part of a group that wanted to kick you out anyway?
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  • stardestroyer001stardestroyer001 Member Posts: 2,615 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    bluegeek wrote: »
    Man has a point.

    But I'm not quite ready to say it's a bad idea. It can be abused, yes. Other games have kick and in a normal PUG run people just do their job and don't quit unless there's a team wipe. Mostly kick was used on AFK'ers.

    Of course those games didn't have optional timed objectives to be lost and leaver penalties to boot. I'm starting to wonder if another poster didn't have it right -- the queue system and the leaver penalties together with lack of any kick function are actually enabling AFK in a way that other games don't.

    The queue system throws random players together. There's no kick for players who abuse the system, and the leaver penalty makes people more reluctant to drop out and form a new team.

    It might be more accurate to say that a votekick system could bring out vindictive backstabbing behavior in the folks who were inclined to it in the first place. A unanimous kick vote would be less abusable than team leader kick.

    And really... would you really want to be part of a group that wanted to kick you out anyway?

    The problem are, as always, humans. I'd say that if there were to be an approach to tackling the afk problem, it shouldn't involve human decisions at all.

    A keyboard tracker, a map movement tracker, an idle timer, an interact/RedAlert timer... all of these could be a potential fix. It doesn't allow humans to abuse the system and vote-kick people out just because they don't have enough DPS or they are incompetent. It does allow a fair and equal method of applying a solution to AFK players.
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  • carasucia83carasucia83 Member Posts: 568 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    So..... O.K. I officially give up trying to explain to people why vote-to-kick is a bad idea - regardless of how well it may or may not work in other games.

    I cannot even begin to express just how right on the money Vestereng is about what will happen if v2k is introduced into STO

    I will sit back, wait for it to be implemented and then laugh heartily at the far far higher number of forum threads that spring up that go something like this:

    "OK, enough is enough Cryptic. Last night I logged on for my usual $time$ and had enough time to do a quick $mission$. It started fine and then $thing beyond my control$ happpened and the others on my team kicked me. Please remove the Vote-to-kick feature as people are using it for $reason other than to punish AFKers$ and it's becoming an epidemic. This kind of thing has happened to me $quantity$ time just this week."

    When STF's were first introduced to the game, there were no leaver penalties. Now there are. Now people want those removed and you could bet all current and future possessions on people calling for them to be put back in for all the same reason that a) they were implemented in the first place and b) for a lot of the same reasons v2k is a very bad idea - what's more, because they will be new players, they will post on the forums talking about a leaver penalty like it's a new thing. Which is what would happen if v2k was implemented and then removed.

    An 'Ignore and Forget' system is the ONLY system that can work without causing more pain than the good it does, just like the leaver penalty made STF's far less of a hassle to complete than they were before.

    And, while I am in no way an apologist for those tat do it, it has quite correctly been pointed by others that AFKing is NOT reaching 'epidemic' levels. It should be an item in the 'to-do' list, but in no way shape or form should it be added to the 'URGENT - Fix now!' list.

    It simply is not an issue that is as urgent as, say, fixing the game breaking uberness of the unimatrix ships on Hive Space, fixing various broken/exploitable mechanics in PvP, spawn points in Mine Trap, fixing the fact that ground bosses reset if you use your shard of possibilites while you are the only player left alive, and a whole host of other bugs, OP/UP issues that are FAR FAR FAR more game breaking than coming across an AFKer a little too often for your liking.
    "So my fun is wrong?"

    No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
  • matrix0matrix0 Member Posts: 261 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    REMOVE THE PENALTY TIMERS. Then all problem are solved. No need to implement kick option 'cause it will eventually lead to another form of abuse like the implement of the penalty timer due to quitters. So what if we got quitters without the timer... it's still better than with timer 'cause now we got afkers and arses that ruin the fun.

    No timer, every1 got the right to quit and leave the afkers/arses there. With that ppl will have to learn to play better and not being afkers/arses
  • carasucia83carasucia83 Member Posts: 568 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Explain how a quitter is different from an afker in the case that they quit for any reason other than there being an afker in the team.
    "So my fun is wrong?"

    No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
  • sortofsortof Member Posts: 196 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    +2

    Cryptic ... Please work on a solution for this. These are battle missions where multiple combinations of ASDW and mouse clicks are necessary.

    How hard is it to code some monitoring agent that if these combos aren't seen in a 60sec window, the player gets a 10 sec warning before being dropped? And I'm talking combinations of various key/mouse uses ... not some one off key strike to imply action where there really isn't any.

    Probably much harder than you imagine.
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  • carasucia83carasucia83 Member Posts: 568 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    A quitter isn't some deadbeat leeching off of other peoples work and stealing rewards when drops occur.

    I don't care why a person chooses to quit as I believe that everyone has the right to not be forced to team with anyone they don't want to be teamed with.

    I could just not pug and not have to worry about either, but what we're talking about here are specifically the public queues. So, I encourage all who are involved in this debate to disregard all the quippy one liner posts to the effect of 'Don't Pug, problem solved." because they are not at all related to what we're talking about.

    Now that that's out of the way, if you're gonna force me to choose between the two, I would much rather carry an AFKer and get what I came for than have someone quit for whatever reason, causing a chain reaction meaning I don't get my stuff. The reason the leaver penalty was introduced was because quitters causing chain reaction quitting was becoming reaching epidemic proportions. People leave STFs even now for the most absurdly stupid reasons. If the penalty is removed, I can promise you that it will be worse. I say that because it was worse.

    For a further STO history lesson, the public queues were implemented in part because people were complaining about it being too hard to find teams to do stuff. AFKing wasn't an issue, but finishing the damn thing was.

    The bottom line is that you will never get rid of AFKers. The one thing I do agree with Sopwithsnipe about is the right to control who I am teamed with. I want to be able put people on a list that only applies to me, like my friends list, so that I'm never teamed with them unless there is absolutely no-one else in the queues. I have no interest in passive-aggressive and vindictive 'see how you like them apples' flagging systems.

    Ignore works for people you don't like too huh with no option for you to be able to flag for something they haven't done because you don't like them.
    "So my fun is wrong?"

    No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
  • osiabunnyosiabunny Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    I didn't even know about this, Thanks forum!
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    One thing I have done several times is to look in the list of active STFs and see if there are any public STFs that are short a player.

    For the other guys, It's nice to have a replacement for someone who left. And for me it means the STF is usually shorter than usual, not that they're long in general.

    There is the risk of joining an STF where it's time for the rats to abandon ship though.
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  • ztempestztempest Member Posts: 9 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Cryptic. Please. Consider doing something about this.

    And to all of you out there that:

    1. Say that it is not a problem or,
    2. Say it is my own fault because I don't always team with my fleet or,
    3. Say that it is not against the TOS or
    4. Say that it is just another way to "play" the game...

    Look. I just came out of an Elite STF - a Conduit - not that hard to do when you have five players who actually play...

    But this time there were TWO afkers. Leechers. Freeloaders. Three active players...still do-able..but why should I bust my rear end so that the two non-players can soak up free Omega marks? And no -- it wasn't a technical glitch...not when one player promptly moves 80 klicks away and sits there...the other warped in, and just sat there, never moving.

    I left. Yep. I took the penalty. Odd how this game rewards freeloaders...while people who actually try to achieve something end up getting punished. Maybe the other two players can carry it off...I sort of doubt it. Good luck to them.

    This problem is getting worse, not better. I am running into it more and more often. This is the first time I have been in an STF where there were two...maybe that was coincidence. Maybe just plain bad luck. Personally, if you logically consider the potential odds of that happening if it is as rare as what some people think, then I might as well go out and buy a lottery ticket right this very instant...because boy howdy! I am on a roll!

    What is the point of freeloading in this game? Does it make even the slightest sense? I guess it is another form of griefing...because theoretically you are griefing random players in game by forcing them to serve you free marks...
  • aarons9aarons9 Member Posts: 961
    edited July 2013
    they need to get rid of CDs..

    forcing people to play missions they dont want to causes AFKers
    [12:35] Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 225232 (271723) Plasma Damage to you with Plasma Lance.
    [12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
  • corvallecorvalle Member Posts: 254 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Please stop spamming the forums with AFK posts. If you want to contribute to the so called AFK discussion, do a forum search and find the AFK mega post.

    People are becoming tired of hearing about it. Nothing is going to change, so drop it.
  • ztempestztempest Member Posts: 9 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    corvalle wrote: »
    Please stop spamming the forums with AFK posts. If you want to contribute to the so called AFK discussion, do a forum search and find the AFK mega post.

    People are becoming tired of hearing about it. Nothing is going to change, so drop it.

    No. I won't drop it.
  • razar2380razar2380 Member Posts: 1,187 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    I don't let it bother me that much, because in the end it is just a game, and I play it for fun, win or loose. However, I have seen some who, like yourself, that when bothered by it, just agro as many ships as possible, and lead them to the afk ships.

    However, doing this may cause a problem. Sometimes I have been in a stf with friends, or strangers, and they lose all weapon, and/or flight control. And when they get it fixed, they are more than happy to help out.

    I am not saying all afkers are having problems. However, it does happen. Personally, I don't mind it the people I am with go afk. I actually prefer it over ones that don't know what they are doing, and join elite. Then again, some may be completely new to MMO's, and not know the proper way to do an stf.

    But, in the end, it is still just a game. A really awesome game, but still just a game.
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  • medtac124medtac124 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
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  • aarons9aarons9 Member Posts: 961
    edited July 2013
    a simple fix is to get rid of CDs and leaver penalties..

    that way when you see an AFKer, you just leave and try a new team..

    but it seems they dont care.. so nothing we can do.
    [12:35] Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 225232 (271723) Plasma Damage to you with Plasma Lance.
    [12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
  • kar1972kar1972 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    That's what you get by using the Pug system. Besides AFK players you get noobs that do not know what they are doing.

    If you are really good at doing STF's, join EliteSTF private channel, ask for a invitation.
    Also, there is the PublicEliteSTF channel that is open to anyone to join. Many people there are very good in doing STF's.

    You go pug, you pay the price.
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  • virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    aarons9 wrote: »
    a simple fix is to get rid of CDs and leaver penalties..

    that way when you see an AFKer, you just leave and try a new team..

    but it seems they dont care.. so nothing we can do.

    That creates a simple problem...making it easier for folks to troll the queues.
  • aarons9aarons9 Member Posts: 961
    edited July 2013
    That creates a simple problem...making it easier for folks to troll the queues.

    troll qs or afk..

    id rather get trolls.. then i could leave myself and not have a crappy CD
    [12:35] Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 225232 (271723) Plasma Damage to you with Plasma Lance.
    [12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
  • artanisenartanisen Member Posts: 431 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    it would be cool if they did add
    some sorta thing to let us know
    if they are actually afk or not.
    like have the sleeping emote activate
    that displays "ZzZzZZZZz" if players
    not moving his mouse.
    a lighting icon with X on it that player
    is having connection problems, right before
    his character is removed from sight.
This discussion has been closed.