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The Leaver Penalty has got to go...

nixbooxnixboox Member Posts: 1,041 Arc User
It never seems to me that the Leaver Penalty ever actually does what it is intended to do. It isn't a deterrent for people to leave a TFO, it just seems to be a vindictive punishment to those of us who stay.

Last night I was doing Khitomer Vortex and the random team was entirely hopeless. After about 30 minutes of watching everyone else blow up, two team members left. The three remaining people struggled along until the assimilated Scimitar showed up and then it was just pointless. The three of us couldn't do enough damage to stop the Scimitar and it would heal completely after every cloak. Now explain to me why someone should get a leaver penalty for that? Not only a nebulous "leaver" penalty but one that stops them from playing ANY other TFOs or, indeed, even queueing for Gamma quadrant missions!

In the olden days, you could join TFOs that were already in progress or invite friends/fleet members to join you in them if a vacancy appeared. Now we cannot do that so we're all stuck in a sinking ship with no hope of rescue.

I've thought about this very carefully and realized that the leaver penalty is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Instead of trying to punish leavers we need to reinstate the ability to join inprogress TFOs. We already have sliding-scale participation rewards in every other battlezone, it can't be hard to implement it in TFOs.

Think of it like this - its better for no one to get the leaver penalty than it is for one person to get it unfairly.
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Comments

  • leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,331 Arc User
    It used to be, and may still that if one person left a queue, no-one else got a penalty. However this penalty isn't applied if that first person switches character, and the system doesn't recognise this exploit.

    So no, the penalty should remain, but the Dev's need to fix it so the system recognises that a player has left the queue by switching and applies an Account-wide penalty to that player.
    "You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
  • rattler2rattler2 Member Posts: 57,969 Community Moderator
    nixboox wrote: »

    It is not that way. Two people left the TFO I was in and we still got a leaver penalty. As I said, the penalty serves no purpose. It isn't a deterrent since, as you've already noted, people can just switch characters and not have to worry about it. The Devs need to remove the penalty altogether and reinstate the ability for people to join TFOs already in progress.

    That's because its actually only the last TWO to leave that don't get the penalty. Not the last three.
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
  • fun4ever#6757 fun4ever Member Posts: 45 Arc User
    edited March 2019
    (Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
    Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    nixboox wrote: »
    If two people are magically not enough to finish a TFO then three people can't be enough to finish the TFO either.

    You were a little off the rails until that comment.. and now you have gone full blown nonsense.

    This idea is as bad as that statement. Maybe the system can use a revision, but removal is a bad idea for reasons so obvious we shouldn't even have to list them out for you. We have all been a victim of it from time to time, it happens.. move on.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • rattler2rattler2 Member Posts: 57,969 Community Moderator
    nixboox wrote: »
    Firstly, it applies the leaver penalty even if you left unwillingly.

    There have been times where I was disconnected, and was able to reconnect in time to rejoin the mission. You still have a bit of a grace period to log back in and load your character before it decides to put you back in whatever zone you queued from.
    How long that grace period is... I don't know.
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    nixboox wrote: »
    valoreah wrote: »
    Sorry, no. Leaver penalty should stay as is. You're neglecting that the people who left also had the penalty applied to them, so they got what they deserved. Working as intended.
    Except that's not what happens if they switch characters...as someone previously mentioned. So it is NOT working as intended it is punishing the people who stay.

    This is why the leaver penalty should extend to the entire account.
    When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
  • xyquarzexyquarze Member Posts: 2,114 Arc User
    First of all: the leaver penalty as well as the afk penalty need constant revision. And yes, this can also be a tastier carrot and doesn't have to be the stick itself.

    But they don't need to go.

    There are two problems with the penalty pointed out here: sometimes it does punish innocent players, and experienced gamers have found a way around it. Both of this needs to be minimized, sure. But neither of these is "maxed out", permanently happening, as this discussion seems to imply. And yes, I do think that scrapping the mechanic would mean "chaos and anarchy" if people find out. Because right now many people who otherwise would like to leave don't know about the exploit and stay. Not everybody knows everything about this game, and that isn't limited to builds. cf the thread we had about private messages a couple days ago. A simple command to answer and yet more than half of the people in the thread, mostly multi year veterans, didn't know about it. Sure, that one's a mistake in explaining how mechanics work, but I'm pretty certain they don't advertise their glitches either. But if it is obvious that leaving at any time without any repercussions is possible, people will just do that, not out of spite or for optimization, but because they can and probably think it even is what was intended in the first place. Also this is a way of communicating that behavior is not wanted, and some people do care. It's a bit like burglary: some people know how to get away with it. Some get accused of it wrongly (as has happened to me twice, which is why I chose this example). But that doesn't mean that getting rid of punishment would be a good idea.

    As for the T'Pau: insinuating that it isn't capable of holding its own is a sign of not having understood it. I will claim that any T6 ship and even any T5-non-U ship can be built without anything too intricate or expensive to hold its own in advanced queues. Not being great, but good enough that 5 ships of this type will win the queue. But if you want to be afraid, don't be afraid of Sci ships, be afraid of escorts being piloted by a Sci captain with a fully blown all-space-magic-no-weapons captain build.
    My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
  • brian334brian334 Member Posts: 2,214 Arc User
    I think the OP presented an elegant solution: allow new participants to an in-progress event with an empty slot. If a palyer were to, say, shout to his fleet that he needed help in a particular TFO, some help might arrive like the proverbial cavalry.

    This is a very Star Trek solution as well, as it rewards team play and cooperation while having the in-game excuse of, "We heard a distress call, what do you need us to do?"
  • rexnebular51rexnebular51 Member Posts: 20 Arc User
    During the recent featured TFO, I've noticed an unusual number of "AFKers" [translated: leechers]. Players merely taking part for a daily token, either not moving at all or charging into battle, dying immediately and staying dead. As far as I know, none of these people ever got an afk penalty. They did nothing the entire match and still reaped the same rewards as those who gave it their all. Reporting them seems to do nothing. The ONLY option is to leave unless there is some other method to deal with these non-players. Perhaps the next time I encounter a leech, I should just step away from the keyboard. As the old saying goes, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Have I ever received a leaver penalty? You bet I have because I don't work for leechers anymore. I put 100% into every pug I take part in and get penalized because I refuse to play with players who do little or nothing. Considering the number of afkers I've seen during this latest event, I'll wager I'm not the only player that feels this way. Fact: good players DO get the shaft if they're not keen on playing for others.
  • viridian74#1359 viridian74 Member Posts: 49 Arc User
    brian334 wrote: »
    I think the OP presented an elegant solution: allow new participants to an in-progress event with an empty slot. If a palyer were to, say, shout to his fleet that he needed help in a particular TFO, some help might arrive like the proverbial cavalry.

    This, and in addition like patrickngo said, increase the rewards for the people who try and finish the queue.

    I don't know about any dedicated troll communities, but if they exist, isn't this something people should be aware of?

This discussion has been closed.