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AFK penalty coming to PvE maps
mikefl
Member Posts: 861 Arc User
Hi All,
Saw on tribble that the AFK penalty of two hours and no reward has been put back in for almost all PvE maps. Will this be rolled out on Tuesday as well with Season 8? Excited to see something done about it.
Saw on tribble that the AFK penalty of two hours and no reward has been put back in for almost all PvE maps. Will this be rolled out on Tuesday as well with Season 8? Excited to see something done about it.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
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Somehow I doubt it. Expecting lots of rage posts about "I helped but got marked as AFK anyways. What gives?"
It's the Cryptic Queue-of-DOOM about to be sprung upon us.
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
What will be funny is the amount of players raging about it... who actually were AFKing/leeching. There's no incentive to come clean about it, of course. And every reason to derp up the STO forums with "Omg I didn't do anything wrong!"
It's like a kid getting sent to the principal's office. What's the first thing they always say? "I didn't do anything!"
People will just be mad they were caught in the act and will lie and say Cryptic screwed up to try to save face for their laziness/negligence.
Of course, I'm not ruling out false positives at all... I'm just saying that the forums will have players who were mad that they were caught AFKing and pretending they weren't in order to blame Cryptic.
It's a good thing you're not in Law, then: you'd make a lousy Judge! "The presumption of guilt" is a bad, bad thing!
Its not that we support AFKing, its that we have been around the block with these kind of automated systems in sto and remember how well they usually work. Last one was the auto ban for mentioning energy credit selling websites in chat. For weeks it was banning people for saying all kinds of random stuff and people had to wait days and even several weeks to get there accounts reinstated.
So yeah when we see systems like this coming and they are being all quite about how it is going to work we are not exactly filled with confidence that we are not about to get screwed over by this new system.
This isn't about accusing a specific individual, its about predicting the emergence of a subgroup of posters and players. An accurate prediction that any developer has to think about when reading user feedback.
Two totally different things
Agreed. I was in a STF just after they tried it out and pulled it. We had 2 players afk in the STF (just pushing random buttons it seemed), and when I came here to say "they found a way around it!" I saw the same person complaining that he was lagging and not really afk. I know an afk player when I see it -- the guy was afk and purposely trying to game the new system. It does happen a lot and your right, they can't be expected to come clean about it -- all you can expect is that this "brick" will make the dogs it hit bark the loudest.
This reminds me of something my first sergeant did to our company once in the US Army while deployed in Afghanistan. There was a report of a few people who dabbled in the local pharmaceuticals and this is something not condoned by the US Government or the US Army. We're deployed, so the soldiers that were guilty were thinking "he can't TRIBBLE test us all". Funny enough, the first sergeant was thinking the same thing, and said, "everyone line up for a TRIBBLE test!" He was able to tell from that who needed the screening and who did not from the "what?!?" exclamations he got back out of it. All 18 soldiers (the precise amount reported) he identified were discharged after the screening and purely identified by this "flying brick in the dog pen" test.
Thankfully its a game where no writ or warrant can be issued to place your privacy before a panel of your peers huh? Last I heard behavioral profiling was still a method used by LE.
Easy peasy.
Surprised? I'm not. The proposed AFK penalty has exactly zero teeth unless it is imposed as an account wide penalty. However, the 'false positive' corrections added in due to the numerous threads sure to pop up here complaining will further reduce the proposed AFK penalty to something which people will refer to with many snide comments and much laughter. In short this problem, which isn't limited to STO, will continue to be a problem. Both here and elsewhere.
I suggest increases in duration with each successive incident. Two hours about right for the first time and tack on another two hours for each successive one. Then, 'stop the clock' on the account for everything. So going AFK affects Rep rewards, Doff assignments, etc.
I'll even go so far as to suggest 'stopping the clock' on Holdings for the the fleet(s) the AFKer is a member of. As to whether or not this is fair, is it fair complete strangers should suffer the penalties the AFKer imposes on them now? if strangers suffer from the actions of an AFKer then friends should suffer as well.
But this will all amount to nothing. Deliberate AFK as a way to exploit the game, which also cheats pwe/cryptic out of revenue but they are too willfully blind to see it, will continue as before. Except now pwe/cryptic will say, "See? We fixed that! So stop complaining and give us your money!"
My character Tsin'xing
If the respawn timer cancels out the afk penalty isn't that just an easy way for someone to go afk for the entire stf and only respawn at the end?
This strictly depends on who's sitting in the seat... >;-)
It's just "Dr Doom" Roubini
Refugee from those other games!
Two things will be true no matter the action Cryptic takes:
1) Someone will find a way around it.
2) There will be false positives.
Does this mean they should give up? I think not.
No false positives are acceptable. AFKers are only a "problem" for people who are more interested in watching others than playing the game. Any mechanism designed to appease them should have zero effect on the rest of us.
Don't confuse law with social behavior patterns.
Are you saying there are no criminals? That criminals always confess?
I'm sure there are people smart enough to detect in a program a player that never moves from the warp in point. Or ever fires weapons.
And this is a game, you are supposed to take an active part. And PW is within their legal rights as owners to inflict penalties for slackers.
That is,what if the door bell rings and you have to answer it?
Suddenly needing the bathroom,or an unexpected phone call????
I see it to, but if they for instance make it that you only receive your reward if you do over a limit of damage, some where over a few phasers and torpedos but not so high that new players with not that great a gear can still get theirs, but not so low that the the AFKer will turn into "one hitter" and then go AFKers..
Come on really? A fifteen minute match you are about to begin, and you can't tell if you need to urinate beforehand? You go on a long vacation trip and stop five minutes out to urinate? There's always Depends for incontenence, a necessary evil regardless.
Heaven forbid you ignore the "phone gods" . . . lols, you can buy an answering machine for that old rotary phone. If it's important they will call back, or leave a message. Make them wait 10 minutes, **they** are asking to talk with **you**. You may answer at your convienence. If you are expecting an important call, what are you doing on the computer anyway?
And, my friends usually tell me if they are coming over - as they know I might be away, or occupied. UPS is going to leave that parcel at the door - signiture or not, as will the post office - if you have to sign for it, you pick it up at the PO anyway. If it's the police, a 2 hour AFK penalty is the least of your problems.
All excuses, all within your control, all your responsibility.