Guild Wars 2

I believe the current time a player has to be AFK before they are automatically logged out is 1 hour (correct me if I am wrong). This limit was probably decided at a time where it was more of a concern of taking up server resources than one of space and it likely worked out well.

However, the months old update to Tequatl and the two new world events, the Marionnete and Wurm, have made AFKers and the space they take up a real concern now that we realize how small the map limit is when we need almost everyone there participating for those events. The overflow system was designed for active players trying to access popular content, not to encourage AFKing as a sure way to stay in your server’s map.

I doubt this needs to be said for most people, but just so there is no understanding, I believe a person that actually wants to participate, explore and fight in a map has more right to be there than people who sit there and do absolutely nothing until the meta event. They either do this by playing chicken with the timer, waiting forty five to fifty five minutes before pressing a few buttons that buys them an hour more AFK time, or programming a macro to run their character around in circles or shoot at a wall until they come back. Heck with a macro, they could just place a paperweight on the 1 key. But in any case, these players are not contributing anything, often taking up space for 2+ hours before the event. And sometimes they don’t even do the event (seen it plenty of times), just hoping being there will be enough to get them credit and a reward.

That being said, I can think of two good changes to help out the current overflow woes and AFK anger, which I see with this new content just as much as I saw it at Tequatl.

The first would be to lower the AFK kick time from 1 hour to 10 minutes. There are legitimate reasons to step away from your computer, but if they take more than 10 minutes, it’s likely important enough that you won’t mind being kicked back to login.

The second would be to upgrade/increase/enhance/etc screening for macro usage on world boss maps such as these. While macros can be used anywhere, the absolute laziest way someone can successfully AFK until an event is to program a simple macro that moves their character in a small, simple motion/action or range of motions in a relatively safe area of the map. Narrowing down the maps (Sparkfly Fen, Bloodtide Coast and Lornar’s Pass), the type of preprogrammed action and their likely locations (Splintered Coast WP for Tequatl, Firthside Vigil WP for the Wurm and any of lanes 1-5 at False River Valley for the Marionnete) should hopefully make it much easier to catch these people.

The end result of this would hopefully see a lot less AFKers at these events, giving the people there at least a fighting chance at their event.

+10000 on this.

Very much agree, though I would vote for 15 minutes (20 max) as my ideal time. There are also many people with disabilities and medical conditions to where it can easily take 10-15 minutes just to go to the bathroom. I think 10 minutes would be a little on the ‘bit too soon’ side, with 20 being the longest I can see as being reasonable. But, yeah, an hour has no logical basis for being the kick time any longer with the content changes and world dynamics having evolved.

It’s currently too long when a boss appears – 30 mins would be ideal.
Perhaps the real issue is the AFK people being carried through the event rather than being AFK.

People wanting to avoid AFK-timer will simply auto-run into the wall to bypass it, so I don’t really see how decreasing it will change much.

Changing it to as short as 10 minutes would risk kicking people out of a map simply because they got a phonecall or someone knocked at the door, which is quite bad if you have been on the main server and get kicked 5 minutes before a big event starts simply due to the afk-timer.

lordkrall.7241:

People wanting to avoid AFK-timer will simply auto-run into the wall to bypass it, so I don’t really see how decreasing it will change much.

Changing it to as short as 10 minutes would risk kicking people out of a map simply because they got a phonecall or someone knocked at the door, which is quite bad if you have been on the main server and get kicked 5 minutes before a big event starts simply due to the afk-timer.

That should be taken care of by the second suggestion.
The game already considers you to be AFK if you are just standing still and chatting or using the trading post. I don’t see why running in place should be treated any differently.

Since these bosses spawn on a fixed timer these shorter AFK timers would only need to go into affect maybe 15minutes before the start and then reverts to the usual after the event ends.

I doubt all the AFK people are getting a door or answering their phone.

Also how big is your house? Over 300 meters/1000 feet long?

And if they fix that people will simply use more advanced macros and bots to keep “active”. And since they would not really be used to gain any kind of actual advantage I doubt ArenaNet would bother with the more or less impossible task hunt them down and ban them.

Of course not all of them are, nor did I ever claim such a thing.
What I said was that you shouldn’t punish people that might have to get a phone-call simply because it happens to take a couple of minutes, which would be the issue if they decreased the AFK-timer too much.

60min is just fine, I often go early to events like tequatl, go afk and do something else and come back when the event starts. if the timer would be shortened I would feel forced to use an anti afk makro. I cant be bothered with doing these events on overflow just because I can only afk for [insert random time here].

Yet some pvp maps had it kick too soon, at least 1-2 minutes too soon. I had to pee and when I came back, I was out of the mad king’s labyrinth.

This is a problem no doubt. Wished there was a way to address it. Even though the overflow I’ve been on has been successful several times. afk’ers certainly are a hindrance to others. I’m all for kick times like pvp. That would be awesome imo.

Auto Running into walls breaks this camels back. I’ve seen it going on so often. The first time I saw it in LA near the bank I just thought someone was glitched or a broken bot. Then I kept seeing them, all the while asking myself why people were doing that. I once even jumped up to auto run with them thinking perhaps it was a new fad.

Sadly, and I hate to admit this, it took me a long while to realize just WHY these people were auto-running into walls…

Fermi.2409:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Fermi.2409:

Bind move and turn right to F5/F6, use coins to hold the buttons down. Problem solved.

Good job on posting a way to circumvent something ANET has in place to stop people like you from taking advantage of others.

Wait, who am I taking advantage of and how exactly?

The idea behind the shorter AFK kick timer would be to prevent people from AFKing and taking up room in maps with bosses like the Wurms or the doll. Some of the events tied into these don’t even require you to do anything to get credit, and you’d be preventing someone who wants to play from possibly getting in on an instance with a full group.

Rajani Isa.6294:

Fermi.2409:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Fermi.2409:

Bind move and turn right to F5/F6, use coins to hold the buttons down. Problem solved.

Good job on posting a way to circumvent something ANET has in place to stop people like you from taking advantage of others.

Wait, who am I taking advantage of and how exactly?

The idea behind the shorter AFK kick timer would be to prevent people from AFKing and taking up room in maps with bosses like the Wurms or the doll. Some of the events tied into these don’t even require you to do anything to get credit, and you’d be preventing someone who wants to play from possibly getting in on an instance with a full group.

Still doesn’t explain how I’m personally doing this, which is what Mudbone accused me of.

StinVec.3621:

Very much agree, though I would vote for 15 minutes (20 max) as my ideal time. There are also many people with disabilities and medical conditions to where it can easily take 10-15 minutes just to go to the bathroom. I think 10 minutes would be a little on the ‘bit too soon’ side, with 20 being the longest I can see as being reasonable. But, yeah, an hour has no logical basis for being the kick time any longer with the content changes and world dynamics having evolved.

15 minutes would probably be fine. I agree there are many legit reasons to go AFK for a short period, as you attend to something that requires you to leave the computer, and I wouldn’t want a shorter limit to kick these players. What I want is to prevent people from doing what this guy says he does.

Malediktus.9250:

60min is just fine, I often go early to events like tequatl, go afk and do something else and come back when the event starts. if the timer would be shortened I would feel forced to use an anti afk makro. I cant be bothered with doing these events on overflow just because I can only afk for [insert random time here].

This problem clearly call for extraordinary monster to solve.

I introduce you the “man-eating rabbit”.

What we need is have a man-eating rabbit that find afk player to be tasty to chase after all players (since they are rabbits, they breed extraordinarily fast… so there are a LOT of them). It will try to sniff someone about 5 to 10 times to see if the victim is tasty enough to eat. Wherever the eaten player end up, no one knows.

The player need to talk to the rabbit and trick it by telling it that they are not tasty before it sniff player enough to find out (good thing rabbit aren’t exactly too smart).

Okay, I’m going to take the unpopular opinion here.

People who log in and go AFK to wait for an event to start have earned the right to be there.

Anything you need to explore or do etc can be done in the overflow and if you’re looking to join the event, then just plan ahead.

You don’t see people who wait in line to go on a rollercoaster getting flak. They got there to own that spot early, so be it. It sounds a bit harsh but hey getting there earlier is easier than forcing ArenaNet to spread resources on something people will just work around, rather than interesting new content.

Blame the design of the events, not the players.
When you put events that require one hundred players and more to even try – let alone to succeed – people will flock where they can find them. And they’ll have to get there earlier than anyone else to do it.

deadrebel.7409:

Okay, I’m going to take the unpopular opinion here.

People who log in and go AFK to wait for an event to start have earned the right to be there.

Anything you need to explore or do etc can be done in the overflow and if you’re looking to join the event, then just plan ahead.

You don’t see people who wait in line to go on a rollercoaster getting flak. They got there to own that spot early, so be it. It sounds a bit harsh but hey getting there earlier is easier than forcing ArenaNet to spread resources on something people will just work around, rather than interesting new content.

I understand where you’re coming from, but there are a couple of things you need to look at first…

1. It’s not the active players’ fault that the mechanics of the game allow people to be perennially AFK except for that minute or two it takes to position one’s self for an event. Active players (opinion alert) have just as much right to be in the “main” server to prepare as an AFKer who probably wouldn’t organize in the first place.

2. AFKers force active players to risk overflow simply because they can’t be there as soon as the last one ended just to be able to participate in an event two hours from now (sic) on the main server. What “right” do they have to force me into overflow by exploiting the AFK timer?

My opinion on AFKing is that things like crafting or chatting shouldn’t risk disconnect due to inactivity. Parking somewhere for an hour or two and watching TV or playing another game (or anything else for that matter) should immediately fall under the AFK timer.

A suggestion, of sorts:
One possible way to be able to discern active players who are chatting, crafting or whatever from perennial AFKers is that after a random amount of time over 20 minutes, a capcha pops up. If there is no input after 30 seconds or so, it disappears, and the random timer starts again. If the player misses 2 capchas, then they’re booted. If Active players can do them, those who are AFK cannot. If the capcha timer is truly random, people wouldn’t be able to simply set a timer so that they would be able to “beat the clock.”

Also, I want people to know that AFKers don’t really make me angry, because if I miss this event, I can catch the next one.

Having said that, my personal experience is that on the Marionette in particular, when the event was “new” there were tons of AFKers in the lanes. When they came back as the event started, they didn’t know what to do or where to be simply because they weren’t there to hear (see chat) what was going on.

I didn’t mind that they were gone while waiting, but I absolutely hated it that those of us who were there and organizing ended up carrying most of the AFKers because they didn’t have a clue what the rest of us had planned… At least some of the people who could have been there but were stuck in overflows might have been able to help us out.

TL;DR:
Being there is part of playing the game. Those stuck in Overflows have just as much right to be in the main server as those who are AFK. Those who are AFK could at least try to get back as early as they can in order to help organize and maybe actually help the event instead of hindering.