Guild Wars 2

Before ANet will decide to act, it would help to identify what the issue is. In my opinion, there are very, very few situations in which AFKers affect my ability to enjoy the game and complete content. Silverwastes is not one of them; I have yet to be on a map that failed primarily (or even likely) because of AFKers.

Mind you, I dislike it when people leech like that, but if they want to risk having their account banned for “botting” (even if it’s a small risk), then that’s their choice.

I support this thread

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Before ANet will decide to act, it would help to identify what the issue is. In my opinion, there are very, very few situations in which AFKers affect my ability to enjoy the game and complete content. Silverwastes is not one of them; I have yet to be on a map that failed primarily (or even likely) because of AFKers.

Mind you, I dislike it when people leech like that, but if they want to risk having their account banned for “botting” (even if it’s a small risk), then that’s their choice.

Botting is using 3rd party automated programs, afking is using guild wars 2 client.

Many.8419:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Before ANet will decide to act, it would help to identify what the issue is. In my opinion, there are very, very few situations in which AFKers affect my ability to enjoy the game and complete content. Silverwastes is not one of them; I have yet to be on a map that failed primarily (or even likely) because of AFKers.

Mind you, I dislike it when people leech like that, but if they want to risk having their account banned for “botting” (even if it’s a small risk), then that’s their choice.

Botting is using 3rd party automated programs, afking is using guild wars 2 client.

“Botting” is the drop-down to use in the /report dialogue when you think someone is AFKing. There is no other ‘good’ choice at the moment.

That’s why I put the term in quotes, because I’m using to mean doing something in game without actively playing. I apologize if that colloquial usage was confusing and can restate the same point as:

If people want to risk getting a permanent ban for “gaining rewards without active participation,” that’s their choice.

Once you’ve been around a bit, all you’re really there for is VW, and hopefully a chest train after.

You know that, regardless of what you do or don’t do, that progress bar will eventually get filled. You’re only interested in what happens once it IS filled, and your rewards at that point have no relation to anything that happened prior. It’s like this in Silverwastes and everywhere else that has big meta chains. Same story with all the people standing around waiting for World Bosses, while others do the pres. You get full reward for doing the final event and it has no relation to what built up to it.

I think the key is the reward structure. The countless cap/defend events have tiny rewards, and then VW has a lot of rewards, but the two have nothing to do with each other. You can just go straight to VW (or the champs before that) after everyone else has done the work, do only that part, and get tons of loot, no less than anyone else.

The “work” events ..well let’s face it. They’re boring and tedious after you’ve been around the block a few times. So they’re tedious and they don’t give much for rewards AND they don’t even affect the rewards you’re ultimately there for. So it should be no surprise that people get “less motivated” about the whole production.

I think for Silverwastes, and anywhere else, when you have these meta events, rewards should be cumulative. Each step rewards better than the previous ..but only if you did the previous ones. In order to get full credit for the final boss, you need to have gotten credit for what came before. There should be a very real difference in the rewards people get based on if they just popped in or if they participated in paving the way.

This coming from the perspective of someone who frequently “takes breaks”. I DO participate in stuff. If I feel like it. Often times I’m tired, my hands are worn out, or I’m just bored out of my mind and I might chill out a bit (but keep an eye on things to make sure I don’t disconnect). But I absolutely intend to be ready when that bar fills up. Those Fort events are pure grind, and I hate grind. The reward structure for them is not compelling, does not affect the end result I’m really there for, and simply does not outweigh my desire (sometimes need) to take a break.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Before ANet will decide to act, it would help to identify what the issue is. In my opinion, there are very, very few situations in which AFKers affect my ability to enjoy the game and complete content. Silverwastes is not one of them; I have yet to be on a map that failed primarily (or even likely) because of AFKers.

Mind you, I dislike it when people leech like that, but if they want to risk having their account banned for “botting” (even if it’s a small risk), then that’s their choice.

I’ve had tower defend events fail because they were scaled so far up that it was incredibly difficult for the handful of people actually doing the events to kill them. Every try to kill a teragriff that has become an HP sponge while simultaneously being attacked by a dozen other mordrem that have made it through the gates and walls? It’s gotten to the point where I see people AFK, mainly at that corner inside Amber, I just don’t bother and let the event fail.

It’s the same for defending your lanes. It’s easy to get swarmed when they get scaled up and I have been in several instances where the entire lane wiped as a result and just bled carriers. Imagine doing any of the eight bosses with one third of the players present not participating. Do you think you’d have enough DPS to make up for it?

if you ask me what Anet need to do is make participation more rewarding by expanding on the gold/silver/bronze reward system for events and make it so you realy do need ot work at it to get gold instead of tagging 1-2 mobs and afk’ing and getting scraps you would get a good reward for gold

abbetd.5912:

Ayrilana.1396:

His complaint is likely coming from those who AFK at forts during defend events and also during VW after they’ve tagged enough to get credit. All these players then do is scale up the event making the active players work even more.

Events dynamically scale based on the number of active participants though. If people are not taking any action, the game detects a decrease in participation and scales down.

But if your heal is on autocast and your pet is killing stuff you are scaling up the event.

Going AFK is rewarding.. right.. in a game that rewards participation.. how does that work?

going AFK does not reward you.. at all
if you are not participating in an event or a kill then you will not be rewarded for it
and you certainly wont be getting loot since you are AFK and unable to pick it up

there is no reward for going AFK at any time..
frankly people who come into a map and go AFK are just wasting other peoples time and taking up map space..

in SW this is a minor problem.. but in boss events.. this is a pain
why even bother coming to Teq to just go AFK for the whole battle..
these people are just wasting map slots and peoples time.. upscaling events for the lols..
it’s pathetic that people have absolutely nothing better to do with their time than this

Well I remember in WoW (sorry to bring it up) back in Alterac Valley AFKing had reached unheard of numbers due to the ease of rewards. Eventually they added a right-click AFK function and I think the same could work here.

After a certain amount of right-click AFK reports a timer starts counting down and if it runs out before they enter combat they get sent to a different map (home instance?) or have them flagged with a debuff that removes credit and prevents rewards from events for a limited time.

Its leeching, and I hope anet is taking action against these people as they did to the leechers in dry top who stood at the crystal race event.

Leeching is considered an exploit:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exploit

[Quote][i]ArenaNet defines an exploit as any deliberate action that provides an unfair advantage over other players or otherwise hurts the game, community, or economy; it does not matter whether the exploit is a hack or makes use of a mechanic (bugged or otherwise) within the game.[/I][/quote]

So the problem really is how to report them. Which all I can think of atm is nothing.
So, is someone using the autocast to get free credit in an event while standing still? Exploit. Taking in one spot, doing nothing but causing an upscale to the event making it harder for other legit players? Exploit.

Teratus.2859:

Going AFK is rewarding.. right.. in a game that rewards participation.. how does that work?

going AFK does not reward you.. at all
if you are not participating in an event or a kill then you will not be rewarded for it
and you certainly wont be getting loot since you are AFK and unable to pick it up

there is no reward for going AFK at any time..
frankly people who come into a map and go AFK are just wasting other peoples time and taking up map space..

in SW this is a minor problem.. but in boss events.. this is a pain
why even bother coming to Teq to just go AFK for the whole battle..
these people are just wasting map slots and peoples time.. upscaling events for the lols..
it’s pathetic that people have absolutely nothing better to do with their time than this

I could be misunderstanding, but I think the problem is that people tag so they get credit, then park it for awhile. They become inactive, but they pop in every so often just so they get rewards, hence the label “leeching”. They aren’t helping at all, but they don’t stay inactive long enough to actually get kicked for being AFK. At least that is what I see happening at the Amber Fort a lot and the Vinewratih event. I get real life happens, but it seems awfully convenient that real life doesn’t keep many of these people from getting to the chest at the end before it despawns.

The other problem is it’s difficult to prevent people from behaving like this without punishing many innocent players in the same sweep.

As a Ranger I can sit AFK in a heavily farmed event spot, and know that when the event starts, my pet WILL tag an enemy, and give me credit for the event and it’s reward. I do this occasionally in Dry Top (next to the inquest race event), this way my pet can tag the race, haze, and the dust tornado. I don’t set any macros to use a heal or it anything, but it seems that with the pet attacking, people reviving you when you’re downed or dead, and the devourers fearing you, sometimes you can stay on for hours and get upwards of 10+ reward chests. I frequently see rangers that use the heal macro to stay logged in.

If there was an easier way to grind geodes, I’d do it, but the amount you need to buy all the ambrite weapon skins + the ridiculously low drop rate of fossilized insects, if I can AFK and still make progress, I will. Ultimately, me afking has an extremely low effect on the outcome of the events due to the amount of people that will be doing them anyways.

Azhure.1857:

If they shortened the afk timer to 1min while inside an active event perimeter, I’d say that would work. Anyone that needs to step away for a drink or nature break could very easily step outside of an event circle before stepping away.

So, I’m going to the bathroom, and I’ll feed the cats in the meantime. Takes me about 5 minutes. During that time, an event spawns around me. And I’m kicked because I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time for a second too long.

Many.8419:

So the problem is BAD EVENT SCALING DESIGN, not people being afk.

No. Especially in SW, where having more people active is crucial for the breach and vine events, AFK’ers don’t so much scale up, but rather prevent active people from joining in the map so the events can be evenly filled…

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Azhure.1857:

If they shortened the afk timer to 1min while inside an active event perimeter, I’d say that would work. Anyone that needs to step away for a drink or nature break could very easily step outside of an event circle before stepping away.

So, I’m going to the bathroom, and I’ll feed the cats in the meantime. Takes me about 5 minutes. During that time, an event spawns around me. And I’m kicked because I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time for a second too long.

That is correct.
It is interesting when people equate “getting kicked” with being punished. Its called a character select screen. When you return from being away — simply log back in and continue on your merry way.

Azhure.1857:

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Azhure.1857:

If they shortened the afk timer to 1min while inside an active event perimeter, I’d say that would work. Anyone that needs to step away for a drink or nature break could very easily step outside of an event circle before stepping away.

So, I’m going to the bathroom, and I’ll feed the cats in the meantime. Takes me about 5 minutes. During that time, an event spawns around me. And I’m kicked because I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time for a second too long.

That is correct.
It is interesting when people equate “getting kicked” with being punished. Its called a character select screen. When you return from being away — simply log back in and continue on your merry way.

if that was only true in SW… I can be in a map that is about 10 minutes away from a breach, get kicked (for whatever reason) and come back in a map that has just finished the vine…

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Azhure.1857:

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Azhure.1857:

If they shortened the afk timer to 1min while inside an active event perimeter, I’d say that would work. Anyone that needs to step away for a drink or nature break could very easily step outside of an event circle before stepping away.

So, I’m going to the bathroom, and I’ll feed the cats in the meantime. Takes me about 5 minutes. During that time, an event spawns around me. And I’m kicked because I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time for a second too long.

That is correct.
It is interesting when people equate “getting kicked” with being punished. Its called a character select screen. When you return from being away — simply log back in and continue on your merry way.

if that was only true in SW… I can be in a map that is about 10 minutes away from a breach, get kicked (for whatever reason) and come back in a map that has just finished the vine…

You called my suggestion out specifically. It was reasonable in that people that know they’re stepping away for whatever reason can quickly port or run to a safe location (aka where no events are located) and then step away without being kicked by my suggested 1 min timer. That way their precious map IP is still held for them as long as they’re not afk for an hour or disconnect. So why do you insist on arguing the point?

Or are you attempting to call out an injustice when people don’t return to the very same map IP when they return back into a game, regardless how long they were kicked out? If that is what you’re talking about, then there are solutions in place for that. Join a party while farming so when you log back in you already have people anchoring the map for you (as long as its not hard capped). Or pull up your map chat history and try to join on someone else that was there.

If that happens to you and the map ends up hard capped, all I can say is that its unfortunate…. but its still a good system, overall. This is not an offline game. When you disconnect there can be no admin address to that particular map when you go off: “All players FREEZE. LadyRhonwyn has disconnected. The map has been locked so none of you can leave, event progress has been halted, and none of your comrades may join until she returns. Thank you for understanding.”

Life goes on.
Open world PvE also goes on.

Rick.5781:

As a Ranger I can sit AFK in a heavily farmed event spot, and know that when the event starts, my pet WILL tag an enemy, and give me credit for the event and it’s reward. I do this occasionally in Dry Top (next to the inquest race event), this way my pet can tag the race, haze, and the dust tornado. I don’t set any macros to use a heal or it anything, but it seems that with the pet attacking, people reviving you when you’re downed or dead, and the devourers fearing you, sometimes you can stay on for hours and get upwards of 10+ reward chests. I frequently see rangers that use the heal macro to stay logged in.

If there was an easier way to grind geodes, I’d do it, but the amount you need to buy all the ambrite weapon skins + the ridiculously low drop rate of fossilized insects, if I can AFK and still make progress, I will. Ultimately, me afking has an extremely low effect on the outcome of the events due to the amount of people that will be doing them anyways.

And therein lies the problem ‘me afking has an extremely low effect’ and ‘other people will be doing them’.

Your leeching from the efforts of others, whilst at the same time making it harder for them to complete whatever the event is, but you seem to think this is somehow OK.

Imagine if everyone thought the same as you: 100 people all afk assuming someone else will do the work whilst the other 99 wait for ‘other people’ to do the event.

I’d like them to introduce dynamic spawning so that if you stand still for 30 seconds (don’t care if you’re casting a heal or whatever) then a teragriff spawns on top on you and attacks only you until you kill it. If you die it despawns and you lose all contribution to that map and receive no rewards from any event on the map for the next 30 minutes.

Maybe then all those mentioning ‘toilet breaks’ will learn to waypoint to the safe areas before wondering off- after all if RL gets in the way it takes less than one second to waypoint.

Their rewards system is the problem. It’s based not on participation but on presence and really it’s flawed it’s been that way for some time now. It’s also behind the huge RNG wall that this game exhibits. We all talked about it when the game first launched but those discussions went nowhere because the same people who are now denying that this game has a grind were the same people who back then denied that there was a problem with the rewards system in the game.

Why participate when you’re just going to die alot and when the real rewards come from a random dice role at the end of the event anyways?

It’s an endless circle it seems.

I’d rather they promote more activity than punish AFKs. Emergencies happen. Getting kicked from a good map you’ve been working on because you had to go to the bathroom, deal with a kid, clean up some kind of issue, etc just doesn’t really promote fun, and that’s why we’re all here right?

I think SW opened up a great idea with the buffs.

I’d like them to expand on that and change up systems that promote action but don’t simply throw you off a map because you akitten a little too long. Not just because it sucks for those people but also because the people abusing the systems have a plethora of tools to avoid the afk check.

Give me something like:

Extreme DR on tower defenses, talking like 10% drops if you’re under DR, however have this DR clear after doing just one other event, so if you’re around at the end of the defense just give the guy a piece of rubble and you’re clear to go for next round.

Also scale the defenses, a tag in one wave isn’t enough, require a tag in 1 wave is copper (less rewards than current) 2 waves is silver (current) 3 waves is gold (a bit extra).

Also if you get gold give a buff that stacks, having 4 or 5 stacks of this when clearing vinewrath produces an extra reward chest with another nightmare key and whatever else they want. This not only promotes active play in the map but also gives a bonus for those who are in a map going up rather than those who just hop in at the end, not punishing those that hop in to help finish it off, but just not the bonus.

Now some may reply with “that’s too many rewards” well, you’d still likely be able to exceed it with chest farms so I don’t really think it’d be a problem, if anything it’s promote playing the map rather than training around and picking up chests which is a good thing right?

I’ve always liked the idea of positive re-enforcement rather than punitive measures. Now I do include some negatives but only in such that you don’t get rewarded when you’re not there, nothing you’d miss out on if you’re actually playing and trying. And there’d be enough wiggle room that if you had to miss a defense phase you wouldn’t have lost out on everything like you could/would if you simply got booted from the map.

Ayrilana.1396:

Would a system that ports AFK players, after a certain amount of time, to the nearest WP at zero cost work? It at least gets them out of the way.

This is the best solution. Events will scale back down and legitimate afkers will still get their loot

As I see it the problem isn’t really people being AFK, although a map getting full but with low activity can be annoying.

The real problem is that Anet is so forgiving when counting towards those that go AFK. Being AFK should significally reduce the reward you get/can get from an event.

There are so many events in the game where you can be very lazy and still get the full reward, like the Vinewrath, Shadow Behe and other World bosses etc.

Nick.7259:

As I see it the problem isn’t really people being AFK, although a map getting full but with low activity can be annoying.

The real problem is that Anet is so forgiving when counting towards those that go AFK. Being AFK should significally reduce the reward you get/can get from an event.

There are so many events in the game where you can be very lazy and still get the full reward, like the Vinewrath, Shadow Behe and other World bosses etc.

But I love that I can wp into godlost swamp with SB at 1%, run towards it, fire off an arrow from 1500 range and still get full credit :P

And I wasn’t afk

Sorry, what is the problem we’re trying to solve here? So many afk that events scale too hard? No, that’s just BS. People got to pee, answer the phone, attend to kids. Perhaps if more of you had a life and didn’t farm a sad repetitive, and rather unrewarding map we wouldn’t have silly moan threads like this.

Perhaps you would prefer a single player game?

AFK in competitive formats is a bane, but in open world? Really? No

It is actually a very rewarding map.

I totally understand having to go AFK. My father is 74 and is dealing with COPD. I have to go tend to him when things get really bad. But in a zone like Silverwastes, it’s not a leveling map, it’s a map for doing events and getting loot. The AFK timer needs to be reduced specifically for that zone/map. Having to relog is nothing to complain over vs the whole VW failing because half your lane is AFK. Or active players wanting loot can’t be taxi’d in because a good slot is taken by an AFK’er.

Complaining about having to go AFK to deal with things in real life is a very skewed view of what’s important to begin with.

Or even worse, 15 people AFK in the Greater Nightmare Chest room, which causes more dogs to spawn, making it harder to run the maze for Nightmare Chests.

Seriously Anet, you’re doing it wrong.

In the Silverwastes all they would have to do is make any area outside the main camp a non afk zone. If you have to go afk then running back from the main camp is not that onerous but you would be out of range for any rewards.

If Rangers are the main culprits, Anet can do something so that the pet is inactive after a certain time the character doesn’t move or something.

Sandpit.3467:

Sorry, what is the problem we’re trying to solve here? So many afk that events scale too hard? No, that’s just BS. People got to pee, answer the phone, attend to kids. Perhaps if more of you had a life and didn’t farm a sad repetitive, and rather unrewarding map we wouldn’t have silly moan threads like this.

Perhaps you would prefer a single player game?

AFK in competitive formats is a bane, but in open world? Really? No

If you did vw regularly you would understand how much of a problem this is.

When you post a solution, not only must you think how it can still be fair to those that are legitimently afk for something, but how a leecher could still get around it.

Shortening the afk timer to set you to the nearest waypoint – Fair to those that do go afk for good reasons. Works. How can it be abused? Well, we may start seeing auto runners into walls, could be rangers who will have pets that will attack anything that gets near so credit is given, so someone using the autocast such as shouting as buffing allies and NPCs gives credit as well, not to mention just being there. And how short should the timer be? Still make it too long, and that leecher just needs to do is tab back in, do a small movement, and be okay. But make it too short, and holding a conversation with a guild or chat with anyone else could end up making you removed.
So this solution would need itself adjusted a couple times before being found right, not to mention it wouldnt deal with the auto runners.

Making the participation caps higher, and making the bronze, silver, gold matter could be more appealing. Raising the cap from simply being involved in the death of one enemy to get bronze would be better. Making it that reaching gold actually gives more rewards than bronze via the chests would be good too. But again, this would have to be adjusted and tested to try and block out those that leech simply with autoattacks, autobuffs, and pets while they stand afk, yet fair to those who do participate.

Throwing both ideas at the same time seems more reasonable, its just getting the figures correct is the problem, and in the end, may not still be the perfect solution, but still better than what we have now.

We had same discussions with Scarlet invasion on LA event. It was great to get so many chests for doing nothing. Frankly, they don’t care about fixing their reward coding. Why should I care about other players then?

I don’t play SW, unfortunately GW2 has become a zergfest all day long. However the only place I can understand making afk reportable offense is PvP environment. In open world pve punishing ppl for being afk is clearly an overreaction.

Solution? Fix rewards. Or make 11111111 2 111111 “raids” instanced so ppl can kick afkers. And fix rewards.

P.S. fix rewards.

hrasna.3017:

How about this: if your character is standing in one place quietly for too long, it gets auto-targeted by some giant meany.

Suddenly, AFK wouldn’t be so rewarding

-Chris

Hehehe confession time…if I see a players standing still for a few minutes, I attract some beasties :P

abbetd.5912:

How exactly does it affect you though?

A full map creates an overflow, even if that full map has players AFK. If I am trying to get on a map that has enough people to do events, it absolutely effects me as well.
I came into a low population map last week and it was the worse experience I had since the area first opened. Forts in Mordrem control, events repeatedly failing.
Its discouraging and poisonous to an otherwise charitable community.

Many.8419:

We had same discussions with Scarlet invasion on LA event. It was great to get so many chests for doing nothing. Frankly, they don’t care about fixing their reward coding. Why should I care about other players then?

I don’t play SW, unfortunately GW2 has become a zergfest all day long. However the only place I can understand making afk reportable offense is PvP environment. In open world pve punishing ppl for being afk is clearly an overreaction.

Solution? Fix rewards. Or make 11111111 2 111111 “raids” instanced so ppl can kick afkers. And fix rewards.

P.S. fix rewards.

You’re missing that there’s a difference from being AFK on the map and being AFK at an event that can be scaled by you being there.

You can’t force ppl to move in open world.
It’s open world for a reason. Too bad those events are in open world.
Make this game more instanced so ppl can control their parties. Problem solved.

From my personal point of view… everything that leads to screwing zerg trains is good.

P.S. and fix reward distribution.

There was a few interesting ideas over on https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/What-if-mobs-weren-t-to-drop-loot

If you don’t mind me shamelessly stealing: implement a system by which individual loot is a product of participation to the meta-event. That way a person who AFKs until the breech events won’t get the same rewards as those who actually worked to fill the map meta-event bar. So leeching is less rewarding.

Shivan.9438:

Or even worse, 15 people AFK in the Greater Nightmare Chest room, which causes more dogs to spawn, making it harder to run the maze for Nightmare Chests.

Seriously Anet, you’re doing it wrong.

On that last point, I was in the Labyrinth yesterday after what had been an exceptionally successful breach and Vinewrath. It turned out to be a travesty because there were 5-10 people at the Greater Nightmare Chest who got killed by the lurchers when somebody drew them in after then, and they simply would not WP out. I was literally yelling at them in map chat to WP back to Hidden Depths, but they wouldn’t, and I didn’t get a single thing from the chest because the place was overrun with lurchers who repeatedly killed me and everyone else who attempted to enter that area.

Sankofa Jimiyu.1567:

abbetd.5912:

How exactly does it affect you though?

A full map creates an overflow, even if that full map has players AFK. If I am trying to get on a map that has enough people to do events, it absolutely effects me as well.
I came into a low population map last week and it was the worse experience I had since the area first opened. Forts in Mordrem control, events repeatedly failing.
Its discouraging and poisonous to an otherwise charitable community.

Are you sure that wasn’t a chestfarming map? By now, it’s standard practice that if an instance has been unofficially designated for chestfarming, the zerg will only do events as necessary to earn more shovels to keep the train going as long as they hold out.

Ayrilana.1396:

Many.8419:

We had same discussions with Scarlet invasion on LA event. It was great to get so many chests for doing nothing. Frankly, they don’t care about fixing their reward coding. Why should I care about other players then?

I don’t play SW, unfortunately GW2 has become a zergfest all day long. However the only place I can understand making afk reportable offense is PvP environment. In open world pve punishing ppl for being afk is clearly an overreaction.

Solution? Fix rewards. Or make 11111111 2 111111 “raids” instanced so ppl can kick afkers. And fix rewards.

P.S. fix rewards.

You’re missing that there’s a difference from being AFK on the map and being AFK at an event that can be scaled by you being there.

Tequatl is a perfect case in point. I customarily play on a defense team (South Hills/waypoint), and we have invariably observed that when people AFK in that area, they cause the mobs that spawn at 90-second intervals after the event starts to upscale, often generating champions. The infuriating thing is that the AFK’ers know perfectly well what they are doing; on several occasions, I have eyeballed people who obstinately stayed AFK during the initial zerg phase while my defense team was up to its neck in champs, ignoring repeated entreaties and demands, suddenly wake up and go active once the first battery defense phase began. I’m convinced that they AFK to avoid the danger and hard work of engaging Tequatl directly during the first zerg phase, and I wish there was some way of penalizing them.

Archaos.4192:

Lately afkers have been a real plague, especially in the silverwastes and the excuse they give is that afking in the silverwastes is rewarding.

Cant Anet do something about this?

That is what happen when you design a reward first than risk and effort after mechanic . I do not afk but the Afk’s are correct. I can list class 4 class who is design same way.

Example: it is like go to a job and see other get pay for no require effort. Why would you complain against them if the Manager see it not a problem to fix it?

Suggestion:

1. Do not show kick timer in chat and in window. Give only one 5 minute afk every hour: if afk after 5 minute….auto-log out and will have to wait for 1 hour to rejoin. Like the queue system.. wait for 55 minute until 1 hour is available. That mean, Arena net to create a separate queue system for afk

So here clearly- Every 1 hour= 5 minute afk
2 hour=5 minute afk
3 hour= same

5 minute will not stack for each hour.

I think that will help with afk a lot

Stop making ideas about punishing ppl for playing open world. This is a type of content where you MUST accept there are ppl not always participating. If the rewarding code is fixed, the amount of leechers may be lower but there still will be ppl doing their own stuff, not giving a single kitten bout the event.

On the other hand, if such content was instanced it would allow ppl to kick leechers and devs would make it challenging, so trivialiazing it with 111111111 zerg would be impossible.

Oh wait, we have this already. It’s dungeons. How about making them bigger?

This isn’t about people “playing open world”, it’s about people not playing, but at the same time making it more difficult for people who do play, and taking up spots for players who would like to actively join the event but can’t.
That’s the difference and what’s annoying people. Not those who run around escorting pack bulls or doing the jumping puzzle, because they don’t scale up the events.

So far, the best suggestion, in my oponion, was to make a very short timer that activates in an event radius, and when it reaches zero, it teleports any inactive players to the nearest uncontested waypoint (so anyone with a legit emergency can run back and doesn’t get kicked off a good map). That way, the scaling could be kept at a minimum while still allowing people to react to pressing real-life matters and not get “punished”. And if someone is afk for longer, they get booted from the map one way or another, making room for other players. Maybe that timer could be tied to how full the map is – if it’s half empty, the usual timer kicks in, but if it’s full, you get the “you will be kicked in 5 minutes” notification after 30 seconds or one minute of not doing anything (no chatting, no selling stuff, no moving around etc.)

Kartel.2561:

I think the key is the reward structure. The countless cap/defend events have tiny rewards, and then VW has a lot of rewards, but the two have nothing to do with each other. You can just go straight to VW (or the champs before that) after everyone else has done the work, do only that part, and get tons of loot, no less than anyone else.

The “work” events ..well let’s face it. They’re boring and tedious after you’ve been around the block a few times.

This is the crux of the problem right here. For most people, that long chain of events needed to get to the “good stuff” becomes very boring very fast, so people look for ways to minimize the pain but still get the rewards they want. And to be honest, the mat requirements for ascended are one of the main reasons for this behavior. You have to do this thing over and over, so naturally people begin looking for shortcuts.

Many.8419:

Stop making ideas about punishing ppl for playing open world.

That exactly us not the problem people are complaining about.

In Orr, if you fight a champ when he’s below a certain percentage of health or don’t do a lot of damage, sometimes you don’t get a champ box. Something like that could be applied to mobs in SW. And separate pet damage from player damage so Rangers and Necros can’t AFK and have their pet do the work.

man up

(extra words for 15 char limit)

Multiple solutions to the problem.

• First, pets damage only does not count towards event if you do not actively participate. You need to attack with your pets to tag events.
• Also do something about auto cast on non-#1 skills and running into walls at events. I suggest the AFK option mentioned above: have an AFK option and if there are enough players doing it, give that player 5 mins to do something different without letting him know. Doing something different remove the afk status. If successful, that person is WPed to start WP (still stays in the map until normal time-out)
• Make it so you can’t have GOLD if you were not at the event for at least 25% of its duration. Also, to have GOLD, you must have participated a great deal in the event. For example, no more picking 1 rubble then moving on. If you are 5 to complete that event, then 1 rubble will give bronze. If you defend, defeating a full wave gives bronze or silver.
• You will get rewarded only if you are near the event when it finishes
• Having multiple GOLD medals increase your loot each time (maybe a max of 10) and Magic Find. Having 10 gold events give you much better at the end than if you afk
• Have a system that teleports AFKs to the start WP where no events are located. This will scale down events and discourage afk since you need to be at the event for reward.

This does NOT punish afks, it rewards active players!

I ran Silverwastes on my level 17 ranger and got silver on just about 90% of the events. I’m not buying the afker’s with pets aren’t getting the same credit with lv 80 pets.

But seriously if you want to spend all of your time worrying about what others are doing you’re not going to have any fun in the game. You’ll just wind up with high blood pressure and popped veins at an early age.

We all afk from time to time, no one is going to lose stacks of persistence by camping to select just to be courteous when they have to step away for a minute.

They can make AFK stacks like they did with stabil. Basically the longer u afk the lower ur reward, analogically the longer u play the less afk stack u have Anet – Stack the world

The vantage point, up on the hill. Different views , different opinions.