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False Positive AFK Penality Trigger

aspartan1aspartan1 Member Posts: 1,054 Arc User
edited August 2017 in PC Gameplay Bug Reports
I loathe with a deep passion AFK people trying to leech and gimping a team so imagine my surprise being tagged with the AFK penalty not one, not twice or even trice but four times in the past month!

In three of those cases, a couple times as I approached weapons range of cubes, they blew up before I could do damage due to serious DPS from others in the instance before me. Nonetheless I was ACTIVELY controlling my ship and subsequently participating in clean up when I could and the boss fight only find out after I was AFK tagged for whatever reason.. WTF? I'm baffled over this insult to injury...

Granted the toons are alts and I dont play them well as I dont know engineering and science - which is why I'm trying to play them, and of course it takes me longer to buff up and deploy pets when I get the option but still I somehow trigger it.

Something is off with algorithm as I've been pegged four times now and all are a false positive. I've submitted tickets every time but it seems the tickets get ignored. My toon now has a 2.5 hours lockout going on it.

I'm to the point now where I figure I should fly into stuff with no power of course - since I cant wait for it to charge up or any buffs which will surely lead instant death thereby gimping the team the same as an AFK person would effectively be doing but at least I wont get the penalty.

The fact I'm even thinking about such a strategy for my none jazzed up toons shows there is an issue with the system.
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & Friends Testing Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
Obscurea Chaotica Fleet (KDF), Commander
ingame: @.Spartan
Romulan_Republic_logo.png
Former Alpha & Beta Tester
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
Post edited by aspartan1 on

Comments

  • mattaukettmattaukett Member Posts: 190 Arc User
    Sadly your problems explained where you said "In three of those cases a several times I flew up to cubes and they blew up before I could do damage due to serious DPS from others in the instance before me", as I understand it the AFK system is set so that you have to do something like 1% of the total damage on the map to not fall foul of the AFK system. I'm inferring from your comment above that in those 3 cases you didn't meet that threshold which means the systems working as designed.

    Now I'm guessing this is a red alert you're talking about so my best advice would be to not go straight for the same group of borg as everyone at the start (usually the group right in front of you), gives you a fighting chance of getting enough damage off to not be below the AFK threshold if you've got a high DPSer with you (which isn't too unusual for a red alert these days.
  • arionisaarionisa Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    I echo what matt said, I'm not a top DPSer at all so when I enter a Borg RA I make it a point to turn and head for the group that is always almost directly behind where you spawn. It's always close and most of the time everyone else goes for the group directly ahead. Sure, I get stuck trying to wipe out an entire Borg group by myself, which is almost always sure to fail, but the key thing is no matter how many high DPSers are in the RA with me, I can put out more than enough DPS before blowing up to avoid an AFK penalty. I've had RAs where I never managed to kill a single ship in my group before the high DPSers wiped out the 4/4 and then had the end boss dead before I got there but never got an AFK penalty.
    LTS and loving it.
    Ariotex.png
  • pottsey5gpottsey5g Member Posts: 4,165 Arc User
    edited August 2017
    I hate that AFK penalty it completely ruined my team support build/playstyle. Where everything was geared towards boosting the team not direct damage. The AFK penalty killed team support now its mostly all DPS.
  • aspartan1aspartan1 Member Posts: 1,054 Arc User
    edited August 2017
    The fourth time I warped into a RA instance which was pretty much wiped out when I arrived the boss suddenly spawned I did fight her but I'm amazed I did not do at least1% frankly speaking. It only happens on my sci toon with an engineering speck, which I'm trying to get better at but now I'm highly discouraged. She cant go solo as she is not so good or I simply suck playing her.

    Anyway, thanks for the feedback guys... I did not know the metric for the penalty. I was feeling insult to injury with it for doing what I could throughout the entire experience only to not a reward and worse being locked out of everything for long and longer times.

    I guess maybe I'll stick with my extreme DPS builds and not really bother with trying new play styles or setups.

    For what it is worth, I would consider changing the penalty from a flat 1% total for the run to a more complicated one such as damage on any fodder ships every few minutes and damage on the boss at the top 80%+ and damage at the bottom 20%-
    If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
    Former member of the Cryptic Family & Friends Testing Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
    Obscurea Chaotica Fleet (KDF), Commander
    ingame: @.Spartan
    Romulan_Republic_logo.png
    Former Alpha & Beta Tester
    Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
    The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
  • kf4tvikf4tvi Member Posts: 164 Arc User
    I've been slapped with the AFK 4 times now all trying to do red alerts like borg or tholian. Two were due to the game crashing to desktop right after clicking "accept the mission", but before the red alert actually started to load. I managed to reload the game and get back before they had completed, and even got in a few shots of my own. The first time this happened I received a 30 min AFK penalty, the second time (today) I received 2 hours. Very embarrassing when you are on a team and let your teammates down!

    Anyway, both of the other two instances were due to faster, and more powerful players, reaching the targets before the rest of us could get to the action. All my AFK penalties were long after reaching lvl 60, and using good gear too, MK XII very rare or better. My Fleet Temporal Cruiser has mostly gold MK XIV temporal chronotron antiproton equipment, but I received an AFK today using it, the one for 2 hours because the game crashed... not because the ship failed to perform or the player was asleep at the keyboard or goofing off in the corner!
  • aspartan1aspartan1 Member Posts: 1,054 Arc User
    edited August 2017
    I know of a couple others with the same issues... Sad really.... the AFK and the Leaver Penalty really need to be revisited by Cryptic... It seems maybe many people are getting tagged which dont deserve it..... The AFK should be action or input based not DPS... For example, maybe the player needs to execute so many powers or movement adjustments throughout the duration of the instance but not DPS as the sole metric... Otherwise it is really a DPS penalty; not an "away from keyboard" penalty.

    I think the team members should have an option to vote after a score shows for each RA.... Why we dont have one for the RA in the first place is amazing actually when we get scores for so many other missions.
    If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
    Former member of the Cryptic Family & Friends Testing Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
    Obscurea Chaotica Fleet (KDF), Commander
    ingame: @.Spartan
    Romulan_Republic_logo.png
    Former Alpha & Beta Tester
    Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
    The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
  • aspartan1aspartan1 Member Posts: 1,054 Arc User
    edited August 2017
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    [..]

    Input count is really easy to fake. Just make a macro apply buffs to yourself as you stay in the start area. Anything more effective than the DPS threshold will be a LOT harder to do. What the DPS threshold does is make it so you have to at least do SOMETHING to achieve the goal of the map. That something is 1%. The ONLY thing I would change is doing click objectives should add as if you are doing damage. Otherwise it's not that bad.

    As for a vote system...absolutely NOT. You would have bands of griefers who group up 3 in a group and then vote the other two people to get penalized. Leavers penalty is fine too. Yeah when you get a false positive because you DC, it is annoying...but in other games, a DC could lead you to lose MONTHS of game progress. This game makes you do solo content for couple hours.

    So I've been told..... Sad really...

    Unfortunately my engineer got hit with it today for the first time... I warped into the instance and could not move, shoot or do anything despite efforts throughout the entire instance. I was completely stuck and could not do anything about it. When the instance ended I was assigned the penalty.

    Additionally on another character, I had the same freezing thing happen so I promptly switch out and killed the process. No point in staying if I'm going to get screwed anyway right? I had to restart STO and log back in but when I reentered the instance I was able to move and since it was a very high DPS toon, I was easily able to melt the capital ships; luckily for the others who were clearly not DPS players.

    For a vote thing I would make that it has to be unanimous with all the other players and they can surely build in premade teams vs PUG qualifier for voting I would imagine.
    If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
    Former member of the Cryptic Family & Friends Testing Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
    Obscurea Chaotica Fleet (KDF), Commander
    ingame: @.Spartan
    Romulan_Republic_logo.png
    Former Alpha & Beta Tester
    Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
    The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
  • kf4tvikf4tvi Member Posts: 164 Arc User
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    aspartan1 wrote: »
    I know of a couple others with the same issues... Sad really.... the AFK and the Leaver Penalty really need to be revisited by Cryptic... It seems maybe many people are getting tagged which dont deserve it..... The AFK should be action or input based not DPS... For example, maybe the player needs to execute so many powers or movement adjustments throughout the duration of the instance but not DPS as the sole metric... Otherwise it is really a DPS penalty; not an "away from keyboard" penalty.

    I think the team members should have an option to vote after a score shows for each RA.... Why we dont have one for the RA in the first place is amazing actually when we get scores for so many other missions.

    Input count is really easy to fake. Just make a macro apply buffs to yourself as you stay in the start area. Anything more effective than the DPS threshold will be a LOT harder to do. What the DPS threshold does is make it so you have to at least do SOMETHING to achieve the goal of the map. That something is 1%. The ONLY thing I would change is doing click objectives should add as if you are doing damage. Otherwise it's not that bad.

    As for a vote system...absolutely NOT. You would have bands of griefers who group up 3 in a group and then vote the other two people to get penalized. Leavers penalty is fine too. Yeah when you get a false positive because you DC, it is annoying...but in other games, a DC could lead you to lose MONTHS of game progress. This game makes you do solo content for couple hours.

    I hear what you are saying, and I am happy to know the aforementioned penalties seem fair and work for you. If those macro's you mention do in fact exist, then they should be addressed by the developers as a priority one patch and be declared game breaking! I for one, now knowing of their possible existence, would surely use that information in determining whether I were going to continue participating in those type events within the game. So thanks for the heads up.

    So, in my previous post I indicated that those penalties are also applied to players who have done nothing wrong on their part. Big deal right? I mean what's a few lost hours of game play here and there, even when it isn't your fault, right? As long as we are doing something to combat those cheaters it's all good, right?

    Well, based on my own experiences the number of people "cheating" by sitting idle at the spawn point is much much lower than the number of people receiving these penalties for reasons beyond their control like server timeouts, disconnection from server, game crashes, gameclient crashes, or even other players having superior equipment and outpacing you/out shooting you.

    It appears to me that those affected unfairly far outnumber the people who claim to be constantly matched with people that just sit idle while the other players do all the work only to reap the great rewards for doing nothing, and thus would warrant the existence of such a penalty. No, I am not buying those claims any longer. I personally have never seen this behavior in person and have been playing for years and have two chars lvl 60+ yet I have received 4 penalties through NO fault of my own.

    A far simpler approach would be to fix the macro cheat/hack/loophole if they exist. That is it, simple, done, next....rotfl.
  • thunderfoot#5163 thunderfoot Member Posts: 4,540 Arc User
    kf4tvi wrote: »
    I hear what you are saying, and I am happy to know the aforementioned penalties seem fair and work for you. If those macro's you mention do in fact exist, then they should be addressed by the developers as a priority one patch and be declared game breaking! I for one, now knowing of their possible existence, would surely use that information in determining whether I were going to continue participating in those type events within the game. So thanks for the heads up.

    So, in my previous post I indicated that those penalties are also applied to players who have done nothing wrong on their part. Big deal right? I mean what's a few lost hours of game play here and there, even when it isn't your fault, right? As long as we are doing something to combat those cheaters it's all good, right?

    Well, based on my own experiences the number of people "cheating" by sitting idle at the spawn point is much much lower than the number of people receiving these penalties for reasons beyond their control like server timeouts, disconnection from server, game crashes, gameclient crashes, or even other players having superior equipment and outpacing you/out shooting you.

    It appears to me that those affected unfairly far outnumber the people who claim to be constantly matched with people that just sit idle while the other players do all the work only to reap the great rewards for doing nothing, and thus would warrant the existence of such a penalty. No, I am not buying those claims any longer. I personally have never seen this behavior in person and have been playing for years and have two chars lvl 60+ yet I have received 4 penalties through NO fault of my own.

    A far simpler approach would be to fix the macro cheat/hack/loophole if they exist. That is it, simple, done, next....rotfl.

    I suspect the reason it appears so many are being ahem, "unfairly treated" by the system is it seems every single one of them comes here straightaway and shouts to High Heaven about it. Some of these "I don't deserve an AFK Penalty!" threads are outrageously hilarious to read. One would think the people posting just barely had enough time to press <Send> before the EMT's whisked them away to the hospital. And even then the ambulance arrived precisely one second prior to their life ending.

    I play nearly every day for about an hour or two. I have been doing so since February 2012. If I had a nickel for every time I got an AFK or Leaver Penalty since then due to circumstances beyond my control, I'd be wealthy enough to afford every single ship and item for lease in this game. With enough left over to make most of them Gold. Yeah, it sucks when I get caught out. No, I don't like it. But I'm not going come in here and moan about it. AFK and Leaver penalties are why I have more than one character. And if the game appears to be picking on me more than usual, I go outside and play. It is only a game. It should not be allowed to become a lifestyle choice. If it does, my priorities may not be in the correct order.

    This is indeed a very minor problem which Cryptic will not acknowledge at all. Until they begin losing profits because of it. If Y'All really want their attention - stop playing STO. And when they ask why you did so, tell them. Until profitability suffers they are not going to do anything at all about this and ignoring people over it is the cheapest answer they can get by with.
    A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
  • kf4tvikf4tvi Member Posts: 164 Arc User
    kf4tvi wrote: »
    I hear what you are saying, and I am happy to know the aforementioned penalties seem fair and work for you. If those macro's you mention do in fact exist, then they should be addressed by the developers as a priority one patch and be declared game breaking! I for one, now knowing of their possible existence, would surely use that information in determining whether I were going to continue participating in those type events within the game. So thanks for the heads up.

    So, in my previous post I indicated that those penalties are also applied to players who have done nothing wrong on their part. Big deal right? I mean what's a few lost hours of game play here and there, even when it isn't your fault, right? As long as we are doing something to combat those cheaters it's all good, right?

    Well, based on my own experiences the number of people "cheating" by sitting idle at the spawn point is much much lower than the number of people receiving these penalties for reasons beyond their control like server timeouts, disconnection from server, game crashes, gameclient crashes, or even other players having superior equipment and outpacing you/out shooting you.

    It appears to me that those affected unfairly far outnumber the people who claim to be constantly matched with people that just sit idle while the other players do all the work only to reap the great rewards for doing nothing, and thus would warrant the existence of such a penalty. No, I am not buying those claims any longer. I personally have never seen this behavior in person and have been playing for years and have two chars lvl 60+ yet I have received 4 penalties through NO fault of my own.

    A far simpler approach would be to fix the macro cheat/hack/loophole if they exist. That is it, simple, done, next....rotfl.

    I suspect the reason it appears so many are being ahem, "unfairly treated" by the system is it seems every single one of them comes here straightaway and shouts to High Heaven about it. Some of these "I don't deserve an AFK Penalty!" threads are outrageously hilarious to read. One would think the people posting just barely had enough time to press <Send> before the EMT's whisked them away to the hospital. And even then the ambulance arrived precisely one second prior to their life ending.

    I play nearly every day for about an hour or two. I have been doing so since February 2012. If I had a nickel for every time I got an AFK or Leaver Penalty since then due to circumstances beyond my control, I'd be wealthy enough to afford every single ship and item for lease in this game. With enough left over to make most of them Gold. Yeah, it sucks when I get caught out. No, I don't like it. But I'm not going come in here and moan about it. AFK and Leaver penalties are why I have more than one character. And if the game appears to be picking on me more than usual, I go outside and play. It is only a game. It should not be allowed to become a lifestyle choice. If it does, my priorities may not be in the correct order.

    This is indeed a very minor problem which Cryptic will not acknowledge at all. Until they begin losing profits because of it. If Y'All really want their attention - stop playing STO. And when they ask why you did so, tell them. Until profitability suffers they are not going to do anything at all about this and ignoring people over it is the cheapest answer they can get by with.

    I hear you as well. And I agree with you on many points, especially the financial points. My original purpose in posting was to reiterate the fact that these penalties are also being issued to players that have done nothing wrong and are in fact adversely affecting their, and possibly their fleet and or team mates experiences within the game. For me I had already made the decision to limit investing financially in the game after the 3rd strike, but have continued playing and using up resources in an attempt to get those ferengi admiralty arcs completed. This 4th instance combined with all the server and bandwidth issues, software bugs and crashes, the decision to stop all financial investment is an easy one to make, even with them dangling those fancy ultimate upgrades in my face. I imagine the reason we are seeing so many "specials" like keys sales over and over and the phoenix, are all because of declining sales and an attempt at stimulating same. Anyway, totally stopping all game play, no not yet, heck I am having a panic attack just thinking about it....
  • arionisaarionisa Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    The STO universe works in mysterious ways it seems. I haven't been playing for "years", I only started just before Delta Rising and yet I have already seen countless examples of players AFKing STFs, especially MIA (which stands for Missing In Action, not Mirror Invasion Avanced). During that time I have also had more crashes/disconnects/weird behavior during STFs than I can count, and yet I have never gotten an AFK penalty.
    LTS and loving it.
    Ariotex.png
  • aspartan1aspartan1 Member Posts: 1,054 Arc User
    arionisa wrote: »
    The STO universe works in mysterious ways it seems. I haven't been playing for "years", I only started just before Delta Rising and yet I have already seen countless examples of players AFKing STFs, especially MIA (which stands for Missing In Action, not Mirror Invasion Avanced). During that time I have also had more crashes/disconnects/weird behavior during STFs than I can count, and yet I have never gotten an AFK penalty.

    No doubt.... I've never got one before this month and suddenly five in nearly as many weeks. It is very peculiar to say the least...
    If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
    Former member of the Cryptic Family & Friends Testing Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
    Obscurea Chaotica Fleet (KDF), Commander
    ingame: @.Spartan
    Romulan_Republic_logo.png
    Former Alpha & Beta Tester
    Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
    The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
  • arionisaarionisa Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    I crash/lockup often enough that I keep Task Manager open while I play. When I lock up, or crash, I don't wait for the crash reporter etc, I immediately alt tab to Task Manager, end task on the game, and restart. Other than recent sub-one minute CCAs I don't miss too much of an STF even when I do crash. That might help explain why I've managed to avoid AFK penalties so far.
    LTS and loving it.
    Ariotex.png
  • kf4tvikf4tvi Member Posts: 164 Arc User
    arionisa wrote: »
    I crash/lockup often enough that I keep Task Manager open while I play. When I lock up, or crash, I don't wait for the crash reporter etc, I immediately alt tab to Task Manager, end task on the game, and restart. Other than recent sub-one minute CCAs I don't miss too much of an STF even when I do crash. That might help explain why I've managed to avoid AFK penalties so far.

    That seems to be about the most straightforward, player based method of adapting to the game's nuances I've seen so far.

    I was wondering, have you lost a mission, mission progress, items or any data doing this? Most of the time I too was able to get back into the fight and avoid any penalties just by simply restarting, and skipping the "what were you doing" and "verify" prompts when and if they appear. It seems these penalties are a new thing, or at least getting more frequent. I appreciate your information though and hope it helps those still playing, and affected.

    However, all that being said this issue is clearly just one of many, both small and large (clearly a subjective viewpoint) with the game though, and although I love the game and want it to succeed, this issue was essentially the frosting on the cake for me, the last feather landing on the pile and tipping the scales. At this point, I'm just logging in to do my daily fleet assignments, chat with fleet mates and friends, and basically just keeping the account active in hopes that things will someday improve. I know I am not alone in this approach, but sadly I also know of others that simply stop playing and move on...
  • kf4tvikf4tvi Member Posts: 164 Arc User
    It looks as if most of if not all the issues we have discussed here have been explained in another post (https://arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1228674/for-server-team-suggest-completely-separating-toredo-and-standard-ip-protocol-tkt-170220-001259). I would also add that I recently noticed that the location of people in my friend list indicates when they are playing other games like neverwinter. Has that always been a thing?
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