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Recived AFK penalty without being AFK
admiraljohn1701
Member Posts: 28 Arc User
I'm not sure if this would be categorized as a bug or an in game issue but, I have a bug report number anyway: #2,340,131. Yesterday playing on my newly created Fed Liberated Borg Science character Lt. 7 flying the Oberth Tier 1 Science ship. While actively participating in a Federation Fleet Alert, after about wave 4 I stopped receiving Fleet Marks.The event eventually failed and in the PVE window I received the 2 hour AFK penalty. I do not understand how I was declared AFK by the system when I did not leave the keyboard at all. If I had gone AFK and came back and picked up the 2hr penalty sure that's fine but it's upsetting when I'm actually actively in the event. There was some talk in chat that it may be DPS related. I tried another Federation Fleet Alert and firing weapons every so often to test the AFK penalty I had received 12 marks from the first wave, waves 2-6 no marks at all but, the last wave and the siege Group I was given 4 marks per each wave and no AFK penalty. I further tried a Starbase Blockade without firing a single shot which I was given the AFK penalty. This was the first time I had received this penalty. I don't know if it's an issue for low level characters. Any insight to what triggered it would be greatly appreciated.
Actual join date: Aug 2010
1000+ day veteran
1000+ day veteran
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The same thing happens when you get a team of 4 30k dps + players and 1 guy who does less than 1k dps, the 1k guy gets an afk ban despite not being afk.
this is why in a lower tier ship i always pick my own targets far from the others so it recognizes i did enough damage. it's not impossible to get around the penalty, however working with another team even in a team wont help your cause really until you become more threatening with your weapons.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
To be honest it never should have been added in the first place. The afk problem wasn't nearly as bad as some people made out.
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy
Well for me it was bad i had one weekend of every mine trap i did there was at lest 1 afk one mission i was teamed up with 3 that ran off to the conner of the map to afk. Now lets see if u can guess wot well know troll fleet there was from.
Yes it was as bad as people said it was. That's why Mine Trap died before the penalty was added to the game and the reason why it is still dead. Every match there would be at least 1 or 2 AFK players, sometimes on my team, and sometimes as many as 3 or 4 across all teams in a single event.
Mine Trap was somewhat active during the recent bonus mark weekend and I noticed 1 AFK player from another team in 1 event standing over in the district my team was working on. He wound up being mobbed by the vampires and we lost a building building because I was busy preventing him from getting killed just in case being killed prevents the penalty. He was still standing in that same exact spot when the event was complete.
I have also had at least 1 AFK player in Azure Nebula Rescue every other match before the penalty was added. I remember this one time someone in a defiant cloaked and flew way down as far as they could go and just sat there the whole time.
If there wasn't an AFK problem, nobody would have demanded the AFK penalty in the first place. It was added due to demands for it and we all knew there were going some false-positives. This isn't the first time someone claimed to wrongfully get the penalty.
I don't think the AFK penalty goes by how little damage you do only. It must go by other factors as well, such as healing other players, interacting with objects for mission objectives, etc. I don't know for sure and I imagine Cryptic won't tell us to avoid players finding a way to game the system (pun intended).
It's really stupid, as it's 2 hours, basically a little less than 10% of a day. So basically, I as a player am getting punished because Centurylink (unfortunately, they're my ISP) had a hiccup and wasn't able to more or less turn my ship into having V'ger's destructive powers as these other guys could in less than the 10 seconds left!
Either the AFK'er penalty needs a complete overhaul (maybe make it like a 1/4 of what it is now, 2 hours is too long), or sadly gotten rid of.) It is really runing for me as it is. I mean, how can the game be played if I have a hiccup in my connection for a couple minutes and when I get back in, the mission is almost done since 2 or 3 other guys on the team do 20k to 30k DPS, and essentially finish said STF within 2 or 3 minutes without giving anyone else a chance to actually shoot at much! This was in a private que through the private ESTF channel.
The other alternative I can think of will likely really P/O the hardcore players, and that's limiting DPS to a low number to avoid the AFK'er penalty getting messed up!
The system's goofy behavior has the threat to turn a lot of these events into ghost towns because of isolated events that were not intentional AFKing!
I have to disagree with you on there wasn't a AFK problem. I had so many in the same STFS mentioned here & Conduit = at least 1 afker every(other) team I had.
The worst afker ever was a 1000 day VET in a Tholian Recluse Carrier whom cloaked & flew away over 100k away behind the planet hiding. When I came over to tell them either help the team (the others were lower lvls new to the game) or I would report them & leave thus we all lose. Their response was to play with their fireworks instead & ignore me. Thus I wasted my time & got a ban for an hr or wtv amount of time it was because I left the team due to their AFK selfishness.
As I write this a fleet mate who is a STFer big time not a AFKer she is one of the few other females I know in the game but she packs a mean punch, has a MOGH & was just banned for AFK because the team mates killed the enemy to quickly. So yeah there ya go.
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]
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Sadly, it clearly isn't "WAI" as you say. Well, actually, yeah, it is WAI now that I think about it, but in a way that a Nuclear weapon WAI in going after your opponent, then a bunch of people who are otherwise innocent... I mean, if I were working with people who did not have V'ger abilities to finish that STF in a matter of minutes, I could jump back in and have done something, but these folks do some unreasonably high DPS, and once I was able to get back on, they were done, I kid you not, I wasn't even gone for more than a minute! Believe me, I'm not responsible for my ISP's ability to keep a connection going (because I only give them money, you know, to do that for me...), and you're maybe going to have a shocker here, but not everywhere has ultra-reliable super-internet-connections like the Big Cities, California and Korea.
The system needs some tweaking to detect chronic AFK'ers to small isolated incidents, like connection hiccups (because they do happen, so why ban someone for something outside their control). Of course, some people could just use that to get a free ride. I think a more appropriate tweak would involve seeing who is chronically AFKing an event and scaling appropriately, something like a strike system I think would be VERY beneficial. Like the first offense, you're simply not given the loot, 2nd offense you're given a 30 minute ban, 3rd 1 hour and 4th the 2 hour ban in addition to not being given loot.) I mean, who is going to intentionally AFK if they're not going to going to reap any of the benefits, and if you're constantly losing your connection then, then it's a good sign to not play past that point.
I mean, I could just play battlezone all day and night to get my Dil and such, but I found that shooting that playing "Future War: The Game (it was an episode of MST3K, look it up)" all day and night gets really boring really fast, and I'd like to diversify my game-play experience a little more, and I would do more Foundry episodes, but I've avoided touching them as it's been spammed to death with EC farming TRIBBLE.
I hate to say it, while the chronic AFK'ers need dealing with (and have been dealt with already, which is great), the system also is also flagging people who never intentionally, or are not really AFK too, and for reasons beyond their control (like a connection getting bumped off momentarily, or the other guy's ultra powerful ship hitting everything first.) This clearly isn't apparently working as Cryptic likely wanted it I would imagine, and it needs some tweaking, otherwise, this could chase away people who otherwise play the game without going AFK from doing Queued events.
Not trying to offend you there leonov, because I too experience horrid connection speeds from STO due to having Centruylink.
However even when I do lose connection or time out, it takes me but a minute to pop back in and I have never as of yet for any reason whatsoever received an afk penalty.
So it is hard for me to imagine some of these people who say this and that, and it caused them to receive a penalty I mean heck I got booted from an STF for over an hour as my IP was being serviced, and you know what I logged back in after an hour and guess what I was still in the mission.
I didn't get any reward, and didn't even receive a penalty for it either.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Harden up Princess
Looking for an Oceanic fleet? Check out our website:
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Thus far, I'm not really offended, as the game acts weird sometimes.
Well, this was a very quickly done STF, Within the first minute or two of ISE, the group took out the first cube and two spheres, and then the the other Nanite Generator left of the gateway (while the other two members went to the other Generator), was getting ready to go at the group of Nanite Spheres when all of a sudden I get the "Server not Responding message", and notice that my modem going resetting itself for a around a minute after d/cing me. When I got back in, I noticed they were going at the Final Cube, and before I could get in range to it, it was done, and pop, got AFK penalty. The guys did post the DPS scores though, and since I couldn't get at much, I had a very low score too, compared to their 30k+.
Honestly, while I wouldn't be happy, I could live with no reward there and be ok with it later on, and it has happened to me before back in the S6 days I think. I think with your situation, I think the game recognized you were not there by the end of the match, but somehow kept your character on. Again, just how the game sometimes tends to be.
But like I said, I do think this penalty needs to be re looked a bit, that way, it can still punish AFK'ers, and do so progressively harsher each time it notices it being a problem within a certain time (though no rewards period I think is more than appropriate), while not locking out players who were legitimately playing the game, but had a small snag with their connection, which does happen.
Hopefully, it'll be reviewed, and rethought a little to put that into consideration. Like we agreed on, the intended effect of the Penalty is showing. My Fleet Leader said no one was AFKing in Mine Trap (and that apparently had a very bad problem of attracting chronic AFK'ers) when it was implemented a couple weeks back. But I still feel it can be improved, so it wouldn't go after players in the kind of situation I ran into.
I played TWO STF Missions today. They were different missions, which I was playing because I need the special materials they award to obtain some upgrades for my ship through R&D and Reputation. I received not one but two AFK Penalties because my team failed the missions. I did not have this issue when I succeeded at a mission. The two missions played were
Undine Infiltration (Advanced) - Ground
The Breech (Advanced) - Space
I was actively participating in the missions, despite it being my first time playing The Breech. But I was unfairly put on an AFK penalty. I have read that these rack up, which makes you less of a priority in the queues for STF missions, but also can increase the severity of the penalty based on the number you have. This issue needs to be fixed.
If this is a DPS issue, it STILL needs to be fixed. How can you increase and improve you DPS if you can't get the special materials to craft or get through reputation, the upgrades that you require?
dps wise, you really only need some roughly 1500 dps at minimum or higher, which should meet the afk penalties criteria of overall dmg dealt by said player.
Possible early mission failures and than leaving, may be a cause of a penalty as it may factor the mission time didn't meet a certain criteria but, leaving on your own early will pretty much guarantee a penalty.
As for those who say they received one do to poor connections, DCs, I have never once received one having met or duplicated 99% of all possible net related incidents myself.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
@sinu22 Thanks for reviving this thread, as I got an AFK penalty as well just an hour ago and I had no idea what I had done to deserve it! I'm shocked that it has been several months and the penalty still hasn't been tweaked!
My story is: I was playing The Cure Found (Advanced) - Space and at least one or two other players had tanks which did a lot of heavy damage very quickly to the Cubes and Nanite Generators, and my Deinos Romulan Warbird did miniscule damage in comparison.
It's a bit of a comfort to know that a system bug did this, instead of an overzealous system admin wielding the ban hammer like Dolores Umbridge. (We have all experienced that at least once right?)
I noticed something was wrong when the queue message said I had earned Omega points, but they did not show up in my assets tab. So when I went to the PvE window a brief message popped up in red about an AFK ban. And I'm like, WTF was that? What did I do??
:mad: Sigh