Guild Wars 2

It is an old problem that has been plaguing the PvE environment for a long time. With the introduction of event maps, such as Dry Top and Silverwastes, some players have purposely stopped playing the game and instead sit around reaping the rewards of other player’s hard work. If the upcoming expansion is going to include more event maps, then obviously these useless players are going to continue their cheap tactics from DT and SW in order to receive free loot.

For example, I was in SW and there were a pair of players named “R” and “K” camping around in Amber Sandfall. They did not move over a long period of time, and never contributed to the fight at all (and possibly up-scaled the enemies). They just stood on the little cliff the entire time. Once Breach was activated, they jumped down the hole, tagged the boss, and immediately left to go AFK outside the hole again. After the event had finished, “K” was bragging about the merits of being AFK and how they had been rewarded for doing absolutely nothing.

Is this the sort of behavior that is seriously being encouraged? Claiming rewards for not actually playing the game? And not just those two. I see this all the time on these event maps. Sometimes groups of people or even guilds do this sort of stuff.

My question is: What is a good solution to this?
I would suggest my own crazy idea for reporting and penalizing AFK players, however, every plan has a “trolls will abuse this” or “there is a loophole” counter-argument and I am certain my suggestion would be no exception.

I would like to see something done about AFK players purposely abusing the game like this, especially if more event maps are going to be put into the game. Whether it is a foolproof report function that cannot be abused by trolls, some sort of de-buff like “Dishonorable” from PvP mode, or improved AFK detection/timers… anything to discourage this kind of behavior!!

/end rant

If you despise AFK-ers receiving rewards, what are your thoughts on this matter?
If you are an AFK-er, how do you justify being a useless lump?

“But I want to be able to play how I want! Manifesto!! Maaannnniiifffeesssstooooo!!!”

One possibility would be to have the event areas updated and make sure there are no “safe” areas. For example in SW maybe have the Mordrem periodically launch some widely spread AoE attacks that are easily dodgeable, but would wipe out the AFK folks. Kind souls may still rezz them, so we’d need to discuss other ideas such as the one in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/All-armor-broken-unrevivable/

Another possibility would be to have your event participation level affect the chances toward how much or what kind of loot you get. For example if you just tag an event and get bronze level, your chances of getting “good” loot would be small, whereas if you get gold level, you’d get your normal full chance of getting good loot. IIRC, don’t the event participation levels already do this to some degree, such as the participation level determining how many gear bags you get?

i think it’s a necessary evil. Unless afker levels climb to the point that events seldom succeed (remember that they do fail from time to time regardless – poor luck, too few players, etc) then any change made is likely to punish the much larger number of ‘proper’ players much more than the afking minority. Apart from the bosses, i’m not sure that the events in the SW scale at all – and if they do, not all that steeply. The only way to really combat afking would be to increase this scaling to the point that every player must do a certain amount of dps and that inevitably means that sometimes (often?) the event will fail regardless of every person present actively contributing – because they just aren’t contributing enough for the new standard.

carrying this to its logical extreme, SW content would become ‘hardcore’ content inaccessible to casual players who aren’t intimately familiar with their class, and you haven’t even necessarily solved the afk problem – if only the most competent people go there, probably they can still exceed the requirements of the events by such a margin that an afker or two can leech without the events failing. All that’s been accomplished is to punish the keen-but-not-overly-competent majority.

~~~~~

TL;DR: There’s no simple solution, and it’s not enough of a problem to warrant an extreme one.

more or less, they are getting less from there afking, a lot of the good loot comes from the killing of the monters, at least it how it seems to me, a tag event here and there, they are spending more time, trying to get a couple things, then actually playing.

TJgalon.5012:

more or less, they are getting less from there afking, a lot of the good loot comes from the killing of the monters, at least it how it seems to me, a tag event here and there, they are spending more time, trying to get a couple things, then actually playing.

Actually, that’s not true, but you’ve stumbled on a solution i hadn’t considered.

since so few of the event mobs actually do drop loot, the afker really isn’t missing out on much. Change that, solve the problem.

i swear all the mobs but the ones that spawn during the final mission with the vine thing (never can recall it name) drop loot when you kill them.

TJgalon.5012:

i swear all the mobs but the ones that spawn during the final mission with the vine thing (never can recall it name) drop loot when you kill them.

I think fort defense enemies can drop stuff, but they have a really low drop rate compared to regular open world enemies. Generally not worth the time it takes to kill them.

The main rewards from the area are supposed to be the event completion stuff, bandit chests, and whatever you get from the bosses.

You can’t AFK for prolonged periods of time without moving or using a skill, so they may be using bots. If not, and legitimately being lazy, a simple solution would be to put mordrem trolls near afk locations. Mordrem trolls use a projectile based attack that’s deadly if you don’t run away. Or maybe introduce another mordrem type, one that has a pull ability. I prefer this one, but stability spamming might prevent the pull ability. Maybe put both mordrem close together, and tweak the AI to target people on AFK spots first? How about instead of puller type mordrem, you could use a taunting mordrem?

Pockets.3201:

TJgalon.5012:

i swear all the mobs but the ones that spawn during the final mission with the vine thing (never can recall it name) drop loot when you kill them.

I think fort defense enemies can drop stuff, but they have a really low drop rate compared to regular open world enemies. Generally not worth the time it takes to kill them.

The main rewards from the area are supposed to be the event completion stuff, bandit chests, and whatever you get from the bosses.

I guess all the rushing back ad force, i never notice to much the rate at which loot drop, i only notice when i get some nice yellow + or rare T6.

Will happen forever if they don’t put loot on mobs.

I refuse to waste my time killing those unrewarding mobs for god knows how many times, thats just boring to pieces, ill go tag them and move on watch some show.

The enemies spawned for fort defense don’t drop anything. The lane enemies during VW don’t even give EXP. None of the breach bosses or VW champs give anything (besides the reward chest). Open world mordrem/anything not tied to an event drops loot as normal, but the mob density is pretty low. The enemies spawned during caravan escorts do drop loot.

In dry top most enemies do drop loot but there aren’t nearly so many spawned enemies, other than the dust mite farm in sandstorm. The normal inquest mobs spawned by the race can drop loot, but i don’t think the veterans do. The Elites/Champs definitely don’t.

by and large, 33-75% of the mobs you kill in either zone have a 0% chance of dropping anything.

grknwrt.5493:

I refuse to waste my time killing those unrewarding mobs for god knows how many times, thats just boring to pieces, ill go tag them and move on watch some show.

Welcome to the “part of the problem” club!

A much discussed topic.
I feel the simpler route is less punishing people, as invariably you get innocents in the crossfire, and more simply making it more rewarding for continuing to participate in an event.
In part this is caused by the fact that there are (almost) no mob drops, so there’s no real incentive to kill anything you don’t need to to get credit for the event.
People complained, others just farm the mobs for loot and don’t care if the events succeed (or in some cases bully people into failing them because failing is more profitable.)
And so we got DT and SW.

grknwrt.5493:

Will happen forever if they don’t put loot on mobs.

I refuse to waste my time killing those unrewarding mobs for god knows how many times, thats just boring to pieces, ill go tag them and move on watch some show.

Fair enough. If you somehow get downed while being afk, I’ll refuse to rezz you. Sound good?

I never really considered the notion that poor monster drops as being the cause of this. But it makes sense…

Rather than approach this issue with a “punish the worthless players” mentality, it is better to explore solutions along the lines of “encourage them to participate by re-allocating where the rewards come from” so that they are more likely to actually earn their share.

I think that changing the loot system on these types of maps would be the better answer at this point. It is win-win.

Orion Templar.4589:

One possibility would be to have the event areas updated and make sure there are no “safe” areas. For example in SW maybe have the Mordrem periodically launch some widely spread AoE attacks that are easily dodgeable, but would wipe out the AFK folks. Kind souls may still rezz them, so we’d need to discuss other ideas such as the one in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/All-armor-broken-unrevivable/

Although this is a more of a “punish them” solution, I do admit I wish a giant vine would come and wipe out all the stupid people AFK-ing on the cliff…

WEll if this was “other MMORGPS”(ElderScrollsOnline as example) then the rewards would be tied to %of DMG done or Healing Done (the top 8+ DMG dealers get exp/rewards; min DMG amount must be met). And sometimes this is capped as to how many players but in scaling difficulty of GW this is not necessary. IN other words… “you cannot simply tag and bail”.

In theory this is possible with this game but would require some coding and effort to make possible and effective. A solution nonetheless…

I have seen bosses and open world events fail a number of times because of the amount of PPL that are afk leeching.

The best solution is instanced content for groups of 10+ people that can scale as high as needed.

This would give guilds & tight knit groups of friends the hard content they have been wanting while getting rid of the leecher problem because leechers would be able to be kicked.

Other then that the only other solution that is workable is to greatly increase the amount of damage & healing that needs to be done to qualify for loot.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

I have seen bosses and open world events fail a number of times because of the amount of PPL that are afk leeching.

The best solution is instanced content for groups of 10+ people that can scale as high as needed.

This would give guilds & tight knit groups of friends the hard content they have been wanting while getting rid of the leecher problem because leechers would be able to be kicked.

Other then that the only other solution that is workable is to greatly increase the amount of damage & healing that needs to be done to qualify for loot.

They are unlikely to focus on that as it leaves out people who just don’t have the active guilds, or any guilds at all, needed to play such content. Which is a lot of the player base.

When considering solutions, let’s not forget that tying loot to event completion rather than to mob kills was to discourage the sort of behavior where people prolong events (sometimes indefinitely) to produce more mobs. Given that, I’d say that it might be better to up the ratio of participation to loot. Let’s say max loot from an event is 4 loot bags. Players who participate beyond a certain threshold in the first 25% of the event get 1 bag, then a 2nd if they participate in the second 25%, etc.

Given that all silverwastes events are fixed-spawn or set duration, i don’t think they’ll run ito the same issues there.

I tried afking during event in event area and I got no rewards so these ppl actually have to kill atlast 1 mob to get rewards for event so i see no problem here

IndigoSundown.5419:

When considering solutions, let’s not forget that tying loot to event completion rather than to mob kills was to discourage the sort of behavior where people prolong events (sometimes indefinitely) to produce more mobs. Given that, I’d say that it might be better to up the ratio of participation to loot. Let’s say max loot from an event is 4 loot bags. Players who participate beyond a certain threshold in the first 25% of the event get 1 bag, then a 2nd if they participate in the second 25%, etc.

Well, at least in the case of Silverwastes, the events conclude when either the fortress falls or until the timer expires. There is no prolonging or exploit to run here. If loot was tied to killing monsters, then players that actively participate win whereas players that stand around lose.

Proportional loot based on how much the player is active during the event is another interesting suggestion. Of course, there is always the issue of DPS output, so I think some sort of solution that takes actual participation into account is needed.

baylock.1703:

I tried afking during event in event area and I got no rewards so these ppl actually have to kill atlast 1 mob to get rewards for event so i see no problem here

No problem. . . ?

So if you and I were co-workers, and I decided that I would do 10% of the work and leave the other 90% to you, I should still deserve the same paycheck as you? How would you feel about that?
(Extreme example, I know, but I’m trying to make a point here.)

Killing just one mob and then doing nothing else is rude. Other players are working hard to get the exact same reward, and in the case of “R” and “K” from my original post, they knew full well that they were leeching off of the efforts of other players and getting unfairly rewarded for it.

Kross.6428:

For example, I was in SW and there were a pair of players named “R” and “K” camping around in Amber Sandfall. They did not move over a long period of time, and never contributed to the fight at all (and possibly up-scaled the enemies). They just stood on the little cliff the entire time. Once Breach was activated, they jumped down the hole, tagged the boss, and immediately left to go AFK outside the hole again. After the event had finished, “K” was bragging about the merits of being AFK and how they had been rewarded for doing absolutely nothing.

1. They were not rewarded for events where they were AFK.
2. They tagged the boss in the breach so according to Anet’s credit determination algorithm, they deserve the loot.
3. Despite what the guy said, he didn’t literally do “absolutely nothing” for his loot: see #2.

The problem is not with these players. The problem is that Anet gives no incentive for them to “play” the game.

What incentives?

1. Event rewards: pitiful.
2. Mob loot: none.
3. Fun: if something is fun enough, people will play despite low rewards (see WvW). But this content is, by now, really really old — and was never very compelling in the first place when it was new.

Come to think of it, instead of punishing these players, Anet should just be happy these guys even bother logging in at this point.