They should just implement a 3-man kick-vote system.
Other mmos have it and abuse doesn't seem to be much of an issue. Sure there will be trolls and idiots, too, but I'd rather be kicked unjustified in 1 out of 100 games, than having to cope with afkers in what seems to be every 20 out of 100 right now...
I've suggested, previously, an in-game modification which wouldn't require GM intervention and which would at least discourage the AFK'ers.
Introduce a new enemy mob (the "Borg Scavenger Drone", I thought you could call it) which targets only inactive players. If you're moving, shooting or healing, the thing pays no attention to you. If you're immobile (or, in space, moving on a fixed course for long enough), the Scavenger Drone sneaks up to you and kills you. And if it kills you, you don't get any rewards for that mission.
It wouldn't be a perfect solution - some people would still be pressing the occasional movement key to satisfy the "keep it away" requirement, and no more - but it would at least force some level of engagement with the actual mission.
(It's more or less consistent, too, with the changes they made to Foundry mobs, so that you can't "win" a Foundry mission by shooting at stationary helpless targets any more - you have to take some sort of a chance to achieve anything. That change didn't put an end to farming missions, but it did make them a bit more of a challenge!)
absconder, runaway, fugitive, truant, escapee; More
renegade, defector, turncoat, traitor
"deserters were shot in full view of their fellow soldiers"
It is not somebody who joins and stf has half the members disconnect afk or just sits there till it fails and nothing left to do but leave.
leaveing a failed mission when there is no way to future contiune the mission is not desertion its withdrawal why do we get punished for other peoples short comeings? I did my part i fought the borg yet I am labled a deserter same as the rest.
I relize that the developers are prob the least talented in the industry but come on punishing players who did nothing wrong just because there to inept to develope a proper system.
they better figure something out cause at rate perfect world games are doing there all going to be at the unemployment line or back in college cause nobody will hire them with there current skill set
Seems you're someone who hasn't even been close to serving or had anyone serving in the Armed Forces of any country.
If you quote a random, low-quality online dictionary, at least read up a bit on background and military law. Even 2-3 minutes spent reading the wiki entry on the subject would prove your point invalid.
Oh look, someone who has shown that he/she is capable of using an online dictionary to look up a word and cut/paste it's definition into his/her post, but is apparently incapable of using the same dictionary to make sure the rest of his/her post is spelled correctly. I won't even point out the OP's poor sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar.
If the devs need to go back to college the OP needs to go back to grade school.
Oh look, it's the grammar police! :rolleyes: How cute.
God forbid someone playing the game comes from that "small" and not English speaking part of the globe.
For me its real simple. In weak parties when someone is leeching. I very simply aggro the NPCs to get it over with quicker. The leechers have a choice either help out or the mission is a bust at minute 5 instead of minute 60 and the mission is over much sooner as I can pug several more in the time it would have taken to do just the one. I give leechers no quarter!
Now if you have a problem with this game having an English speaking bias you can thank those colonizing, empire building Brits for that. They are the ones responsible for spreading their language all over the globe to the point it's the third most spoken language on the planet.
Don't blame us if our language is catchy :P Well if they had a choice I am still sure they would have spoken English sooner or later..... yes I am sure they would !
[off-topic]English is the world's lingua franca only because the Brits ruled a large swathe of the world for about two centuries and because for two-thirds of the 20th the United States pretty much led the way in international politics (not getting into whether either is a good or bad thing; for the purposes of this discussion it just is). Up until around the 1930s people learned French.
I actually kinda prefer it when authors get a little creative with that. In the X-Universe games the lingua franca is a variant of Japanese, and Chris Moriarty's Spin novels use Spanish.[/off-topic]
I've really only had to deal with an AFKer two times. Once, I was in a Borg invasion and there were four of us fighting, and there's this fifth guy with a warbird (don't remember what kind) who just spends the entire instance parked at the spawn point. I don't know what the heck he was doing the whole time but he wasn't contributing and he was wasting a spot that could've been occupied by a contributing player. I even flew over and yelled at him at least once to no avail. We ended up losing.
Another time I went into a 4v4 match with some guys from my fleet. That's right, me with the undergunned freebie star cruiser. I did about as well as you'd expect considering everybody else is flying C-store or lobi ships -- including the fleet leader, who's on the other team flying an Odyssey-class with advanced fleet antiproton beam spam -- but at least I'm making an effort. I even scored a few solid torpedo hull hits on leader-guy, before he fried me extra crispy. Same can't be said of one of the guys on my team, who spends all but the last minute of the match with his dreadnought warbird parked at the spawn point.
How does a guy flying a freebie star cruiser with a hodgepodge of mostly outdated equipment end up scoring an order of magnitude higher than a guy flying a Scimitar-class? That's how.
EDIT: And yes, I think kiting a tactical cube onto an AFKer should be completely legal.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Trouble with that is while "leeching/AFKing" isn't against the rules, griefing people by dragging opponents onto them is against the rules. And we've had angry threads made by people who got punished by GM's after they were petitioned by a Leech.
Never said I dragged NPCs toward the players. Agrro making the mission harder by aggroing the NPCs. This make the mission fail sooner. I have nothing to prove and I will not reward someone who is stealing by choosing Need or Greed if they are getting rewards the are there and should contribute. That's all!
EDIT: And yes, I think kiting a tactical cube onto an AFKer should be completely legal.
My personal favorite is getting Donatra's aggro, intentionally making her cloak, and then parking right on top of the leech. >_> The result is either hysterical (leech pops), or makes it obvious they are a leech (they move 30k away and stop again)
They better ban me for it, because I have every intention to keep doing it. They would lose a paying subscriber and z-store hero by doing it, too.
The rule needs to change, and the leeches need to be banned. Leave the legit players the hell alone.
Financially, banning me and not the leech is losing Cryptic about 100 a month in revenue. Derp!
So thats the thing, Cryptic. Are you going to ban me for violating TOS? Or are you going to ban the cause of me violating TOS because you dont do anything about the cause? I am no longer allowing leeches to run these queues. I will grief them or take the leaver penalty. I really dont give a damn anymore.
Either do something about the leeches, or do something about your bread and butter players that have had enough of your inaction.
How much is 100 dollars a month worth to you?
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
I see afkers in STF pugs almost every day. Not in every STF, but often enough to think that there are way too many of them. I do not support this type of "activity", and if I see one, I just choose the leaver penalty. You have the right for disrespecting me for that, but in my opinion if someone queues for an STF, he should participate. Same for fleet alerts, Azure etc.
I think that dragging a cube onto an afker is a valid tactic. Usually they run away and become obvious leeches.
3- or 4-man vote-to-kick would be a great solution, especially against STF afkers.
But there is another idea. Since STF with an afker is either irritating or an obvious lost cause, there should be a way to make it funnier. By introducing a vote for enabling friendly fire. This way everyone would be able to poke aforementioned afker/leecher with a handy torp or overloaded beam.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
I've already mentioned this before but here goes again:
1st solution: NO REWARD in ELITE contents for the last classified or if you don't do X% of the total damage (I would suggest 10% for 5 ppl events and 5% for 10ppl events)
2nd solution (MY PERSONAL FAVORITE): DON'T FORCE ME TO PLAY with ppl on my ignore list (they are there for a good reason) make this ban last for 2 or better yet 3 months and then remove the player from my ignore list!
this 2nd solution should work like this: If I'm in a que with someone on my ignore list then I'll have to wait for the next game to start BUT If 2 or more ppl have the same person on their ignore list then THAT player its going to have to wait for the next game to start...
Can anyone think of a way to exploit this solution?
1st solution: NO REWARD in ELITE contents for the last classified or if you don't do X% of the total damage (I would suggest 10% for 5 ppl events and 5% for 10ppl events)
This is a bad, bad idea. It punishes healers and new players. I commonly see cases where I am in a 5-man ISE where everyone is clearly participating, but after the battle, I check the DPS logs and...one guy has barely broken 1K while the rest of us are hitting 5K+ with an average of about 8K including that guy. This means that guy did about 3% of the total damage. Maybe he was the team healboat. Maybe he just sucked. Does this mean we should punish him? He did his part. He may have been bad at it, but he did his part and deserves the marks.
2nd solution (MY PERSONAL FAVORITE): DON'T FORCE ME TO PLAY with ppl on my ignore list (they are there for a good reason) make this ban last for 2 or better yet 3 months and then remove the player from my ignore list!
this 2nd solution should work like this: If I'm in a que with someone on my ignore list then I'll have to wait for the next game to start BUT If 2 or more ppl have the same person on their ignore list then THAT player its going to have to wait for the next game to start...
Can anyone think of a way to exploit this solution?
Yes, actually. There's this troubling issue where putting someone on your ignore list can result in them being banned from chat and unable to use the mail or receive their Exchange returned items. If people are to being encouraged to frivolously ignore others merely because they know those people will thus never be teamed with them, you're going to have a LOT of frivolous ignores being dispensed against poor Captain Newbie up there. Not because he was offensive, not because he was AFK, but simply because he was bad at the game. Should someone be punished like this merely because they're a terrible player?
Frankly, as much as people rail about this issue, it is being blown way out of proportion. You encounter an actual leecher about maybe one in every 10-20 missions, tops, and it is rarely an impediment to finishing the mission with full marks. Or, at least, as full as you were going to get pugging. Remember, even leechers want to get paid, and if their sandbagging is going to stop them from collecting their paycheck, they're going to leech elsewhere. It is, frankly, a non-issue. Why do you care how others play if it's not really affecting you?
This is a bad, bad idea. It punishes healers and new players. I commonly see cases where I am in a 5-man ISE where everyone is clearly participating, but after the battle, I check the DPS logs and...one guy has barely broken 1K while the rest of us are hitting 5K+ with an average of about 8K including that guy. This means that guy did about 3% of the total damage. Maybe he was the team healboat. Maybe he just sucked. Does this mean we should punish him? He did his part. He may have been bad at it, but he did his part and deserves the marks.
Healing should be taken into account as well (and don't forget this was only an idea for ELITE CONTENT not the regular one)
Yes, actually. There's this troubling issue where putting someone on your ignore list can result in them being banned from chat and unable to use the mail or receive their Exchange returned items. If people are to being encouraged to frivolously ignore others merely because they know those people will thus never be teamed with them, you're going to have a LOT of frivolous ignores being dispensed against poor Captain Newbie up there. Not because he was offensive, not because he was AFK, but simply because he was bad at the game. Should someone be punished like this merely because they're a terrible player?
Frankly, as much as people rail about this issue, it is being blown way out of proportion. You encounter an actual leecher about maybe one in every 10-20 missions, tops, and it is rarely an impediment to finishing the mission with full marks. Or, at least, as full as you were going to get pugging. Remember, even leechers want to get paid, and if their sandbagging is going to stop them from collecting their paycheck, they're going to leech elsewhere. It is, frankly, a non-issue. Why do you care how others play if it's not really affecting you?
Thats the reason why ppl won't stay in yours ignore list for more than 3 months!!! and quoting a bug as a reason not to implement an idea doesn't really stand up....
FYI: I encounter at least a leecher (if not more) every 3 stf... and its worstening every day....
Fun is a subjective concept. My wife's idea of fun is a mani/pedi and a night at the ballet. Guess how high that rates on my fun-o-meter?
And we used to have posts complaining about AFK long before the game went FTP - even back when STFs were 4 hour DPS grindfest.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Exactly. AFKers want something, and don't care if they hurt others to get it.
And really.... aside form "grinding" what else is there that could possibly keep you busy for 4 hours a day? If you want story, play everything in the Foundry mission database. Otherwise go back to grinding.
So, it's a long despised issue, and I dare say most Endgame players have seen it at some point or other - so let's talk about solutions!
*snip*
There are two solutions that will work much better than what is implemented right now. But first, lets discuss something PWE doesn't want discussed: Motivation. You hit on this very well, and needs some expanding and delving into. The motivation for afking and under-performing is as you stated, identical rewards to those that participate. So the obvious and only real solution is removing this motivation all together.
So lets discuss this new system PWE devised: The whole idea that banning a player for a few hours when they afk will stop AFKer's is fundamentally flawed because the motivation is not removed. Sure, afk players have to wait a little longer, but lets face it, they AFK knowing the mission may fail reaping no rewards, yet they do it anyways for that "chance" of getting something for free.
I'll recap, the only way to solve this problem is by removing the motivation entirely and in a way that rewards players whom are contributing to the group while removing any possibility of reward to those that do not. And there are two ways of going about this.
VOTING SYSTEM
This would likely not be a large project for PWE to achieve, in fact it could be handled with a new and simple chat command very easily. This system I propose is a system that allows any player to initiate a vote in the group. If the majority of the votes cast indicate that the player is undesirable to the group, then the player is removed and another player is pulled in from the queue.
Of course, this system is also ripe for abuse and should be considered very carefully before implementation. This system could also solve a lot of issues beyond just the afk and leeching issue such as "bad" players, those whom scream in chat when someone makes the slightest, yet honest mistake, and players who simply don't want to communicate.
As I said though, this system is ripe for abuse allowing players to kick a player for any reason they want at any point in the mission and may add more drama to groups than needed.
REWARD SCALING SYSTEM
This is so trivial, I don't understand why it is not being used. It is already in use in some group finders. Imagine a system in which keeps a tally of your damage, healing, support, and tanking (by calculating damage taken). Sound familiar? It should, because this is near to exactly what the Crystalline Event does in order to determine your placement (ref image of my last Crystalline fight {yes I'm a hopeless trek fan and have a boff named Hugh v2.0} ).
If this was applied to all missions, this would solve both the issues of AFKers and the issues of leeches joining an elite STF without first learning it and being capable of contributing to the group by eradicating all motivation thereof.
For the life of me, I cannot identify a single flaw with this system. So allow me to break it down so you can help me understand why PWE hasn't put this in place yet.
Rewards should evenly scale with a minimum cutoff to:
Escorts: The amount of damage you do
Cruisers: The amount of damage you take
Sci Vess: The amount of healing and debuffs you do
Please note: I specified that these quotas should be run on the ship, not the captain. I understand very well that captains like trying new things and more flexible and complex builds. I wouldn't dare penalize this pool of creativity and nor should a system like this lock in a captain to a quota system because of his class. Instead, it should look directly at the ship the captain is using because no captain will use an escort to tank (though we may have to examine which category the chimera will fit in, or all of the above), no captain will use a science vessel to DPS. So it is absolutely paramount we don't limit the players to a certain ship with these quotas by placing these quotas on the captain's class and not the class of his/her ship.
There would be a minimum achievement you have to reach to receive any reward, this line should be minimum (but some) effort in a minimum (but capable) ship and gear to an extreme reward as well as a leaderboard (here's to hope) for players that provide extreme effort and extreme ships and gear.
This will ensure, 1) everyone is doing their JOBs, ie, Cruisers tanking, Science is healing and debuffing, and escorts are dpsing and 2) solves the problem with under-performing and AFK players!
This also has a very desirable side-effect: This system will allow for PWE to make fights more challenging and difficult with higher quality item rewards that are within reasonable reach by requiring each group member to meet a specific ability level before attempting the mission for a reward.
Arguments for this that I have seen range only in the category of excuses -- "What if my connection dies or I lag during a fight?"
The answer is, you did not contribute as much as you should have, so then you should not be entitled to the same reward. My connection lags here and there too, and if I had a lag bolt of half the darn mission, I certainly would not expect, no -- DEMAND -- the same reward. It is this entitlement mentality that leeches use to sustain their status in game to begin with.
Said NO to Arc. Gets punished by not being given a free outfit, free lobi, and free shuttle. Now forced to use Arc's site when trying to get to STO site. Still not rewards for beta testing the Arc website by force. Bravo Cryptic.
I have a solution, I say everyone make a list of all these afkers and if you see one leave, if we join a stf or any other pve or pvp mission and any of them show up I say leave, let them sit there alone, after being stuck in one alone a few times because everyone is tired of their laziness it might stop. We are not their employees, it's not our job to earn fleet marks or any other marks for them. I'm making my own list and when I see one I'm going to split. As far as the people saying we shouldn't leave but stick it out for the team I say are you going to pay us for earning marks for these people?
There would be a minimum achievement you have to reach to receive any reward, this line should be minimum (but some) effort in a minimum (but capable) ship and gear to an extreme reward as well as a leaderboard (here's to hope) for players that provide extreme effort and extreme ships and gear.
This will ensure, 1) everyone is doing their JOBs, ie, Cruisers tanking, Science is healing and debuffing, and escorts are dpsing and 2) solves the problem with under-performing and AFK players!
Falls apart in the case currently causing the most grief: Azure, in which nobody tanks, nobody shoots, and nobody heals, if the mission is done right, since the mission objectives require none of these things and having to take any of these actions represents a failure. A perfectly run Azure will result in no shots fired: Nobody shoots, nobody gets hit, nobody needs heals.
Why is this thread 194 pages? It's just the same arguments over and over and over.
Really needs closing now.
Because it's still a relevant topic that's why. Still have people who want to join these missions and just stand there at the starting spawn point while the rest of the team does all the work. Slavery ended decades ago, I think someone needs to inform those idiots at Cryptic that, if someone wants to farm marks fine, but they better do something too, otherwise the rest of us want to be paid for our work
I think someone needs to inform those idiots at Cryptic that, if someone wants to farm marks fine, but they better do something too, otherwise the rest of us want to be paid for our work
That's an unfair statement. They've already shown that they are looking into combating it. they even had attempt at a fix on the test servers, but they had to bring it down because it wasn't working right.
Policing people who "afk" isn't something that can be done in a quick fix. (at least not in a way that isn't itself open to abuse.)
It's not myfault ifyoufeel trolledbymyDisco ball...Sorry'boutit.
This AFK'ing is indeed getting annoying. Just came from an STF where the AFK person was actually being annoying ("What is AFKer?" , "Report who?") and needing all blue and purple loot.
All I do at the current time is report these players and hope that the GMs temporarily suspend their account. If this would indeed be the case, then any suspension they receive later on should be increased in time!
Also, I am much in favor of a majority (3 out of 5) vote of removing these unwanted players. Or as an alternative add an option to 'report player AFK' so a GM can decide on what to do (assuming they follow this up with a temporary account suspension).
Comments
Other mmos have it and abuse doesn't seem to be much of an issue. Sure there will be trolls and idiots, too, but I'd rather be kicked unjustified in 1 out of 100 games, than having to cope with afkers in what seems to be every 20 out of 100 right now...
Introduce a new enemy mob (the "Borg Scavenger Drone", I thought you could call it) which targets only inactive players. If you're moving, shooting or healing, the thing pays no attention to you. If you're immobile (or, in space, moving on a fixed course for long enough), the Scavenger Drone sneaks up to you and kills you. And if it kills you, you don't get any rewards for that mission.
It wouldn't be a perfect solution - some people would still be pressing the occasional movement key to satisfy the "keep it away" requirement, and no more - but it would at least force some level of engagement with the actual mission.
(It's more or less consistent, too, with the changes they made to Foundry mobs, so that you can't "win" a Foundry mission by shooting at stationary helpless targets any more - you have to take some sort of a chance to achieve anything. That change didn't put an end to farming missions, but it did make them a bit more of a challenge!)
Seems you're someone who hasn't even been close to serving or had anyone serving in the Armed Forces of any country.
If you quote a random, low-quality online dictionary, at least read up a bit on background and military law. Even 2-3 minutes spent reading the wiki entry on the subject would prove your point invalid.
Oh look, it's the grammar police! :rolleyes: How cute.
God forbid someone playing the game comes from that "small" and not English speaking part of the globe.
How this would work out is up to someone else but % comes to mind.
Don't blame us if our language is catchy :P Well if they had a choice I am still sure they would have spoken English sooner or later..... yes I am sure they would !
I actually kinda prefer it when authors get a little creative with that. In the X-Universe games the lingua franca is a variant of Japanese, and Chris Moriarty's Spin novels use Spanish.[/off-topic]
I've really only had to deal with an AFKer two times. Once, I was in a Borg invasion and there were four of us fighting, and there's this fifth guy with a warbird (don't remember what kind) who just spends the entire instance parked at the spawn point. I don't know what the heck he was doing the whole time but he wasn't contributing and he was wasting a spot that could've been occupied by a contributing player. I even flew over and yelled at him at least once to no avail. We ended up losing.
Another time I went into a 4v4 match with some guys from my fleet. That's right, me with the undergunned freebie star cruiser. I did about as well as you'd expect considering everybody else is flying C-store or lobi ships -- including the fleet leader, who's on the other team flying an Odyssey-class with advanced fleet antiproton beam spam -- but at least I'm making an effort. I even scored a few solid torpedo hull hits on leader-guy, before he fried me extra crispy. Same can't be said of one of the guys on my team, who spends all but the last minute of the match with his dreadnought warbird parked at the spawn point.
How does a guy flying a freebie star cruiser with a hodgepodge of mostly outdated equipment end up scoring an order of magnitude higher than a guy flying a Scimitar-class? That's how.
EDIT: And yes, I think kiting a tactical cube onto an AFKer should be completely legal.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Never said I dragged NPCs toward the players. Agrro making the mission harder by aggroing the NPCs. This make the mission fail sooner. I have nothing to prove and I will not reward someone who is stealing by choosing Need or Greed if they are getting rewards the are there and should contribute. That's all!
My personal favorite is getting Donatra's aggro, intentionally making her cloak, and then parking right on top of the leech. >_> The result is either hysterical (leech pops), or makes it obvious they are a leech (they move 30k away and stop again)
They better ban me for it, because I have every intention to keep doing it. They would lose a paying subscriber and z-store hero by doing it, too.
The rule needs to change, and the leeches need to be banned. Leave the legit players the hell alone.
Financially, banning me and not the leech is losing Cryptic about 100 a month in revenue. Derp!
So thats the thing, Cryptic. Are you going to ban me for violating TOS? Or are you going to ban the cause of me violating TOS because you dont do anything about the cause? I am no longer allowing leeches to run these queues. I will grief them or take the leaver penalty. I really dont give a damn anymore.
Either do something about the leeches, or do something about your bread and butter players that have had enough of your inaction.
How much is 100 dollars a month worth to you?
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
I think that dragging a cube onto an afker is a valid tactic. Usually they run away and become obvious leeches.
3- or 4-man vote-to-kick would be a great solution, especially against STF afkers.
But there is another idea. Since STF with an afker is either irritating or an obvious lost cause, there should be a way to make it funnier. By introducing a vote for enabling friendly fire. This way everyone would be able to poke aforementioned afker/leecher with a handy torp or overloaded beam.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
1st solution: NO REWARD in ELITE contents for the last classified or if you don't do X% of the total damage (I would suggest 10% for 5 ppl events and 5% for 10ppl events)
2nd solution (MY PERSONAL FAVORITE): DON'T FORCE ME TO PLAY with ppl on my ignore list (they are there for a good reason) make this ban last for 2 or better yet 3 months and then remove the player from my ignore list!
this 2nd solution should work like this: If I'm in a que with someone on my ignore list then I'll have to wait for the next game to start BUT If 2 or more ppl have the same person on their ignore list then THAT player its going to have to wait for the next game to start...
Can anyone think of a way to exploit this solution?
Yes, actually. There's this troubling issue where putting someone on your ignore list can result in them being banned from chat and unable to use the mail or receive their Exchange returned items. If people are to being encouraged to frivolously ignore others merely because they know those people will thus never be teamed with them, you're going to have a LOT of frivolous ignores being dispensed against poor Captain Newbie up there. Not because he was offensive, not because he was AFK, but simply because he was bad at the game. Should someone be punished like this merely because they're a terrible player?
Frankly, as much as people rail about this issue, it is being blown way out of proportion. You encounter an actual leecher about maybe one in every 10-20 missions, tops, and it is rarely an impediment to finishing the mission with full marks. Or, at least, as full as you were going to get pugging. Remember, even leechers want to get paid, and if their sandbagging is going to stop them from collecting their paycheck, they're going to leech elsewhere. It is, frankly, a non-issue. Why do you care how others play if it's not really affecting you?
Healing should be taken into account as well (and don't forget this was only an idea for ELITE CONTENT not the regular one)
Thats the reason why ppl won't stay in yours ignore list for more than 3 months!!! and quoting a bug as a reason not to implement an idea doesn't really stand up....
FYI: I encounter at least a leecher (if not more) every 3 stf... and its worstening every day....
And we used to have posts complaining about AFK long before the game went FTP - even back when STFs were 4 hour DPS grindfest.
This is something that is sadly true and hasn't been brought up enough.
That said, it still doesn't excuse it.
And really.... aside form "grinding" what else is there that could possibly keep you busy for 4 hours a day? If you want story, play everything in the Foundry mission database. Otherwise go back to grinding.
My character Tsin'xing
There are two solutions that will work much better than what is implemented right now. But first, lets discuss something PWE doesn't want discussed: Motivation. You hit on this very well, and needs some expanding and delving into. The motivation for afking and under-performing is as you stated, identical rewards to those that participate. So the obvious and only real solution is removing this motivation all together.
So lets discuss this new system PWE devised: The whole idea that banning a player for a few hours when they afk will stop AFKer's is fundamentally flawed because the motivation is not removed. Sure, afk players have to wait a little longer, but lets face it, they AFK knowing the mission may fail reaping no rewards, yet they do it anyways for that "chance" of getting something for free.
I'll recap, the only way to solve this problem is by removing the motivation entirely and in a way that rewards players whom are contributing to the group while removing any possibility of reward to those that do not. And there are two ways of going about this.
VOTING SYSTEM
This would likely not be a large project for PWE to achieve, in fact it could be handled with a new and simple chat command very easily. This system I propose is a system that allows any player to initiate a vote in the group. If the majority of the votes cast indicate that the player is undesirable to the group, then the player is removed and another player is pulled in from the queue.
Of course, this system is also ripe for abuse and should be considered very carefully before implementation. This system could also solve a lot of issues beyond just the afk and leeching issue such as "bad" players, those whom scream in chat when someone makes the slightest, yet honest mistake, and players who simply don't want to communicate.
As I said though, this system is ripe for abuse allowing players to kick a player for any reason they want at any point in the mission and may add more drama to groups than needed.
REWARD SCALING SYSTEM
This is so trivial, I don't understand why it is not being used. It is already in use in some group finders. Imagine a system in which keeps a tally of your damage, healing, support, and tanking (by calculating damage taken). Sound familiar? It should, because this is near to exactly what the Crystalline Event does in order to determine your placement (ref image of my last Crystalline fight {yes I'm a hopeless trek fan and have a boff named Hugh v2.0} ).
If this was applied to all missions, this would solve both the issues of AFKers and the issues of leeches joining an elite STF without first learning it and being capable of contributing to the group by eradicating all motivation thereof.
For the life of me, I cannot identify a single flaw with this system. So allow me to break it down so you can help me understand why PWE hasn't put this in place yet.
Rewards should evenly scale with a minimum cutoff to:
Escorts: The amount of damage you do
Cruisers: The amount of damage you take
Sci Vess: The amount of healing and debuffs you do
Please note: I specified that these quotas should be run on the ship, not the captain. I understand very well that captains like trying new things and more flexible and complex builds. I wouldn't dare penalize this pool of creativity and nor should a system like this lock in a captain to a quota system because of his class. Instead, it should look directly at the ship the captain is using because no captain will use an escort to tank (though we may have to examine which category the chimera will fit in, or all of the above), no captain will use a science vessel to DPS. So it is absolutely paramount we don't limit the players to a certain ship with these quotas by placing these quotas on the captain's class and not the class of his/her ship.
There would be a minimum achievement you have to reach to receive any reward, this line should be minimum (but some) effort in a minimum (but capable) ship and gear to an extreme reward as well as a leaderboard (here's to hope) for players that provide extreme effort and extreme ships and gear.
This will ensure, 1) everyone is doing their JOBs, ie, Cruisers tanking, Science is healing and debuffing, and escorts are dpsing and 2) solves the problem with under-performing and AFK players!
This also has a very desirable side-effect: This system will allow for PWE to make fights more challenging and difficult with higher quality item rewards that are within reasonable reach by requiring each group member to meet a specific ability level before attempting the mission for a reward.
Arguments for this that I have seen range only in the category of excuses -- "What if my connection dies or I lag during a fight?"
The answer is, you did not contribute as much as you should have, so then you should not be entitled to the same reward. My connection lags here and there too, and if I had a lag bolt of half the darn mission, I certainly would not expect, no -- DEMAND -- the same reward. It is this entitlement mentality that leeches use to sustain their status in game to begin with.
CUUCUUMBEER! "-With slight partigen with it."
Proud member or DPS-800 "-We kill dem mines with our scitter turrets."
Really needs closing now.
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy
Because it's still a relevant topic that's why. Still have people who want to join these missions and just stand there at the starting spawn point while the rest of the team does all the work. Slavery ended decades ago, I think someone needs to inform those idiots at Cryptic that, if someone wants to farm marks fine, but they better do something too, otherwise the rest of us want to be paid for our work
That's an unfair statement. They've already shown that they are looking into combating it. they even had attempt at a fix on the test servers, but they had to bring it down because it wasn't working right.
Policing people who "afk" isn't something that can be done in a quick fix. (at least not in a way that isn't itself open to abuse.)
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy
All I do at the current time is report these players and hope that the GMs temporarily suspend their account. If this would indeed be the case, then any suspension they receive later on should be increased in time!
Also, I am much in favor of a majority (3 out of 5) vote of removing these unwanted players. Or as an alternative add an option to 'report player AFK' so a GM can decide on what to do (assuming they follow this up with a temporary account suspension).