Guild Wars 2

Ok, Everyone knows that afk’rs during a major event cause problems simply because their afk. Being there ups the scale of difficulty, and now that they have added in a 3 carrier loss, for failing to kill the lane boss before timer runs out. Things have taken a turn for the bad. So i’ve put in some time towards thinking of a solution.

First While in the RED circle aoe for the event, A new flag (buff) is given to everyone in the area. This buff would allow you to access a NEW report afk during major event option by right clicking target’s portrait only. Not via their name in any chat window, but specifically targetting them. I’d also suggest at least 6 people have to report them within a certain time frame, say 2 minutes. This reason is to stigmy any abuse that players may feel towards actual non-afk’rs in the chat windows. Reasonable right? You have to be there, to see them, to report them for it. You cannot report them from a distance because there is no buff for you to do so. Got it? Got to be there, got to be active, and have them within your sight range. No other way.

Secondly, because botting has been a issue with online games since as far back as the early 90’s. I’m suggesting that the people who went afk, the game developers themselves add into the code a new pop up randomly placed on the players screen, to cancel this afk effect. Which will be listed below shortly. This is because there are also Click programs that are associated with botting programs/scripts, to keep them going. If the window is in a random place each time, then they simply can’t automatically react to it with such a program in use. I’d say 20-30 seconds is a good timeframe.

I understand some people have to suddenly afk for reasons unknown, and there may actually be emergencys requiring their attention. But on the other hand, this is a game, and everyone plays to win. So with the regards towards the masses, Majority rules. If your not here to win, your not here at all. If your going to be at the event, you should be there the whole time for it. If you have to afk or leave, then either teleport out, or log out. Otherwise, suffer the consequences.

Which brings me to them right now. First, the player is teleported out of the vinewrath event automatically, to their home instance or starting zone. Secondly, all teleport options are disabled for them for 5 minutes on the first offense, 10 on the second, 30 on the 3rd. Timer would reset back to 0 offenses daily or weekly, at gm/dev teams discretion. This debuff would be account wide, and would not fade on death. The debuff for this would also pause on log-out. This debuff stays until its timer has expired by actual online play. In most cases players will have exhausted this timer, by the time they have actually returned to the game. In some cases, that may be otherwise.

This is currently JUST a idea. Its not set in stone, and its certainly not a very well thought out idea. Its something to start with. If you have any criticism about it, keep it to yourself. I’d rather see something constructive than actual flaming posts. If you have idea’s towards it, that’s fine. Be constructive.

I’d like to remind you that you are proposing to report people from a game they bought for not doing anything in the game they bought.

Maddwarf.8064:

But on the other hand, this is a game, and everyone plays to win. So with the regards towards the masses, Majority rules. If your not here to win, your not here at all.

Also, no. Your whole premise for this AFK report feature hinges on something that isn’t true. Some people play a game to entertain themselves, which may happen to include afking in Silverwastes.

You cannot criminalize the playstyle of one individual to benefit the playstyle of another. Find another way.

also having things randomly pop up on a screen is a horrible idea imo

First, I’d like to address the fact that the 3 siege carriers dying has ALWAYS been a part of the vinewrath event. He just kills them with his beam thing whenever a lane fails at killing the champ.

Now for your solution, it is a lazy and sub-par solution. To address afkers which can become a problem there are better solutions, maybe a shorter afk time so that those people need to regularly check in, forcing them to watch if an event is failing and either contribute/leave. Maybe they can make it so only alive people can affect scaling would work too, since most AFkers that are close enough to scale will also likely be dead. However, a report button for this increases workload by a TON, and just isn’t a feasible solution.

I will admit to the afk and such sometimes. However most people that do AFK do it away from the zone and thus do not effect scaling, and I do it sometimes when I do KNOW that I am making the zerg do all the work, but generally don’t do it unless it’s to the point that all I am is an auto attack bot since it’s just that boring.

You should really ask yourself the question what the problem is here. Because, when I go to the failed instances it feels a LOT like the first few days the vinewrath was coming out again, it seems that people have become complacent and always just relied on the farmers who KNEW the vinewrath event to do all the work for them (which may in some form include you as you only now seem to be only know discovering mechanics that were always in place) but now those people are getting bored of farming vinewrath and are moving on. Maybe you should help reeducate people as opposed to target a red herring like afker’s. I still see plenty of dead people at the champions instead of WPing, they are scaling up the boss but not adding DPS. Should they be reportable too since they aren’t acting in the goal of winning? The real problem seems to be mechanics are generally untouched for the beehive boss and usually doesn’t reach much more then a 75% beehive if I do nothing to charge it (easily something that can be done solo). Meanwhile, AFK’ers are doing nothing to scale up these bosses, but they’re still failing. These champs can be killed with around 10 people or less, so blaming AFKers for that seems ridiculous.

Yeah I don’t think that there is much you can do about AFKers in open world events. In PvP is a different matter, but I won’t get into that.

Sometimes people have to step away. If you have a kid, you know what I’m talking about. Sometimes you have to take a phone call, or leave your computer suddenly. It happens. Should they be punished because of that?

I’m not trying to defend AFKers, but sometimes there are legitimate reasons for having to AFK. At the very least they should have an AFK tag that doesn’t allow you to scale up the event, or recieve the rewards. So if you suddenly have to leave just type /afk and go.

But to address the people not WPing when dead, is that some of them aren’t reading map chat because of kittens who like to rage at them, so they turn it off. Others really are AFK but there isn’t much you can do about it.

Leechers are a completely different problem. People who join the event, but don’t do any to progress it and are still rewarded. I don’t know how that can be fixed though so I have no solutions to offer.

Way to easy to exploit. 6 reports in two minutes would be zero problem to coordinate. In other words, if I decide I don’t like you, I could easily and quickly get enough reports to get you zoned out. Blocking any teleports account wide, pausing the countdown on logout is also, in my opinion, excessive.

I have kids and a young dog. Things happen sometimes that necessitate my stepping away from my computer, sometimes without the opportunity to zone or log out. What you are proposing is basically to put me in the corner for a time out because I sometimes have to do something you don’t like, and to ensure I spend the whole time thinking about what I’ve done by pausing the timer if I log out.

I’m not sure, but i don’t think there is any timeout for event participation, I could hit a mob in a empty event, leave and get credit a half hour later when someone else comes along and completes it (If i’m still in the same map). That could be something to look at. Although it’s nice in the rare occurrences I need to actually afk in the middle of an event like the VW or any WB and at least be able to get the popup chest reward.

GW2 actually has a lot of casual players. It’s a game you can pick up and drop whenever you like.

It feels wrong reporting someone because they rushed off to go tend to their crying baby in the other room and forgot they left the game running as they sat down with their spouse to watch sitcoms.

How about a hidden aggro counter that goes up the longer you stand still? That’ll get the AFKers killed, and then they’ll stop counting for event scaling!

Why not just have a short timeout for the map when the vinewrath event is going on? They are able to adjust this timer because being afk in WvW gets you kicked a lot quicker than some other places. If you must go afk, then it should not be a problem if you are kicked after a minute or two of inactivity, right? There is a point at which being afk becomes griefing, which is not a play style. Or at least it is not an allowed play style. :-)

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Why not just have a short timeout for the map when the vinewrath event is going on? They are able to adjust this timer because being afk in WvW gets you kicked a lot quicker than some other places. If you must go afk, then it should not be a problem if you are kicked after a minute or two of inactivity, right? There is a point at which being afk becomes griefing, which is not a play style. Or at least it is not an allowed play style. :-)

I have no problem with an automated timeout. By all means, if I’m afk for an extended period, move me somewhere safe.

I am opposed to other players getting to decide when/if I get moved off map and then having game-breaking limitations imposed on me as a result.

Why are people AFKing at the actual event? Don’t they know they could simply tag a single enemy then go do something else?

Reporting people isn’t a solution. It would only hide the problem. The contribution system needs to change to require something more than just tagging the event.

Captchas, reduced kick timers, etc. None of these things will actually punish intentional leechers. They will only act as an annoyance to legitimate players.

The event should not scale up if no action has been taken by a character. No matter how close in proximity to the event they may be. If anything, the Dev’s may need to tighten up the scaling features in the Silverwaste. Though nothing additional is required.

@Sane.5072.

Yes I am fairly new to the game. Started in early jan. However, I’ve been in the silverwastes for the last 6 weeks. I have also been instructing people who are also new to the top/mid/bottom lanes on what to expect, as well as how to survive. I also waypoint out when i’m dead in the boss fight, but not in the lane unless its heavily overrun. I will not stay, if the process of me being revived is going to get people killed. I’d rather waypoint out and return on my own. Even if it means coming back from the zone’s camp resolve one.

People afk’n during this major zone event hasn’t stopped, if anything its grown worse. We lose alot more often when people that are there, are afk. Than the times we win and no one is afk. Why do you suppose that is?

So you tell me, does it seem fair to the people who are actually doing the work towards winning the event?

@abbetd.5912

Takes less than 2 seconds to hit esc and click log out. Which is quicker, than waypointing to somewhere. You’ve expressed your dislike of this, and even tried to bring up a exploit option. If you had read the OP you’d have understood why i suggested that there’s a pop up window attached to it. Guess you didn’t though.

The reason they would be moved off map is because, its always better to have someone in the zone who is actually helping out, than someone who is not. And at the least, you would be placed in a safe zone. The only difference really, is that you’d probably notice the minute or two left on the debuff, provided you return within the first 5 minutes, if at all. And that’s only provided that this suggestion or any part of it, even reach the drawing board.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I’d like to remind you that you are proposing to report people from a game they bought for not doing anything in the game they bought.

Maddwarf.8064:

But on the other hand, this is a game, and everyone plays to win. So with the regards towards the masses, Majority rules. If your not here to win, your not here at all.

Also, no. Your whole premise for this AFK report feature hinges on something that isn’t true. Some people play a game to entertain themselves, which may happen to include afking in Silverwastes.

You cannot criminalize the playstyle of one individual to benefit the playstyle of another. Find another way.

I like this way of deciding morality of an action. Assuming intentionally AFKing is a playstyle. If everyone adopted this playstyle what would happen? No events would get done, dungeons would be pointless, the game would be pointless, hence the AFK playstyle is not beneficial to the majority and immoral.

Sometimes people have to go afk for real stuff, but AFKing with the intention of recieving the same rewards as the people there doing it for you is wrong. Whether or not we can discern the difference is another problem, but doesn’t change that AFKing intentionally is wrong.

This is one of the reasons i’m mostly against people that cry for “harder” content,
since this is exactly where it leads to .. it destroys a friendly community if people
always search reasons to blame others for fails.
That was never a problem at all the old world events, especially not before we got
the timers (of course also because it was to easy)
Anybody ever did Claw of Jormag with 6 people before that ?

Whats next .. should there be a gearcheck for SW, and people who enter SW and not
fit the gearcheck should be automatically banned from the game ?

Wiki says that events downscale if people stop actively participating.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_event
Most events scale for up to 10 players. Group events and large scale events such as the finale for meta events will scale much higher. For example, The Shatterer scales up to 100 players. Events can detect that players have not performed any actions relating to the event within a period of time and will scale down the event accordingly.

The solution might be for these events to check and adjust the scaling more frequently instead of sending off more reports to support.

The people that are actually away from their keyboard before the start of an event aren’t actively participating and will not receive any credit/reward. These people are not scaling the event since they are not participating and will, if gone long enough, be kicked out of the game. So, IMO no “reporting someone is AFK” is warranted.

I’ve been in camp resolve many a time at the vendors and will receive the “bronze” reward on my UI screen for that collector event. Because I have not actually participated in the event I receive no karma, nor any monetary rewards. I assume that other non-participating players are “rewarded” the same way when they are in an event area.

If people actively participate in the event (regardless of how long they were active during that event) then they will get a reward (Gold, Silver, Bronze) for the amount of their participation. Again, IMO, I don’t feel that any further reporting is warranted.

The current AFK kick system generally doesn’t work very well. Sometimes I park my character in HotM while alt tabbed to take a break for an hour and the game still keeps my character logged in.

Other times, I’m simply chatting in guild chat, while standing stationary for 15mins and the game prompts me the auto kick warning. It feels the game will auto kick faster while I’m typing. I assume it is in relation to gold spambots that only stand somewhere and auto PMs but not like that’s going to get rid of them.

hazenvirus.8154:

I like this way of deciding morality of an action. Assuming intentionally AFKing is a playstyle.

Who said about it being a playing style? It’s just something that happens within a game, for a multitude of reasons, and is not forbidden by the rules.

hazenvirus.8154:

hence the AFK playstyle is not beneficial to the majority and immoral.

First, it’s not a playing style, as i have mentioned already. Second, and who is now deciding morality for others?

I wouldn’t be averse to some automatic action against afkers (and the dead who won’t waypoint), but I’ve yet to hear a satisfactory proposal.

One thing it shouldn’t do is log people out, or move them out of the Silverwates. That could strip them of all their perseverance etc, for the crime of answering the phone. If it does anything, it should just move them back to Camp Resolve.

As was already mentioned, The events for vinewrath are scaled up if people participate, and down if people are afking. Perhaps some further tweaking could be made to (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) make the meta easier, but the afking people in silverwastes are not to blame for the vinewrath failings.

The people actively doing the event on the map just are not performing to the scaling given by the game.

If that’s the case, then the people the OP needs to blame, or needs to report for causing the event to fail, are actually the people trying to do the event to begin with.
(Which, again as mentioned above, could consist of people who are down and wont WP, but that’s not reportable either.)

Maddwarf.8064:

@Sane.5072.

Yes I am fairly new to the game. Started in early jan. However, I’ve been in the silverwastes for the last 6 weeks. I have also been instructing people who are also new to the top/mid/bottom lanes on what to expect, as well as how to survive. I also waypoint out when i’m dead in the boss fight, but not in the lane unless its heavily overrun. I will not stay, if the process of me being revived is going to get people killed. I’d rather waypoint out and return on my own. Even if it means coming back from the zone’s camp resolve one.

People afk’n during this major zone event hasn’t stopped, if anything its grown worse. We lose alot more often when people that are there, are afk. Than the times we win and no one is afk. Why do you suppose that is?

So you tell me, does it seem fair to the people who are actually doing the work towards winning the event?

@abbetd.5912

Takes less than 2 seconds to hit esc and click log out. Which is quicker, than waypointing to somewhere. You’ve expressed your dislike of this, and even tried to bring up a exploit option. If you had read the OP you’d have understood why i suggested that there’s a pop up window attached to it. Guess you didn’t though.

The reason they would be moved off map is because, its always better to have someone in the zone who is actually helping out, than someone who is not. And at the least, you would be placed in a safe zone. The only difference really, is that you’d probably notice the minute or two left on the debuff, provided you return within the first 5 minutes, if at all. And that’s only provided that this suggestion or any part of it, even reach the drawing board.

Nowhere did I say it was fair. However you are kind of ignoring the fact that the event will scale down anyway… So the difficulty is the SAME wether or not those people are AFKing, the event scales to the amoutn of players actively contributing (so those afkers are really just scenery, they don’t do anything to make the event harder). With this in mind, it is the ACTIVE players who need to succeed at the event, and that IS doable with only 5-10 people in each lane. I have never seen so many afkers that you can’t even scrounge up 15-30 players and if that is the case then those trying to leech the event would just leave anyway.

Good on you for working on doing better yourself, keep at it. It takes time and I know it’s frustrating, especially when you need to also educate a bunch of other people too.

I don’t understand AFKers

they show up for a event usually boss or group

go Afk and then leave the map without reward after the event is completed..

my only guess as to why they even bother coming is simply to upscale the event and make things harder for other players

Gw2 does not reward leeching so these people are just wasting everyones time and taking up map space.. and they get nothing out of it..

I don’t know how Anet can fix this issue but its definitely something I wish they would look into

I didn’t read all the posts above me, but here is my idea:
Add a debuff similar to the hotfoot debuff from volcanic fractal boss. This debuff would apply to all players in the areas of the events in Silverwastes. It should only apply when the events are active (so no debuff between defend events). Dead players should have no impact on event scaling. This would clean up the bad afk players, including exploiting rangers, while its not much of a big deal to people afk for legit reasons because armor repair is free.

Sane.5072:

……To address afkers which can become a problem there are better solutions, maybe a shorter afk time so that those people need to regularly check in, forcing them to watch if an event is failing and either contribute/leave. ……

Report functions for AFKing, griefing, and trolling would all be misused. Lets all be real about that, please. So with that said I can’t support the OP’s suggestion for such a report function.

I would, however, support some form of severely reduced AFK timer for anyone standing within the perimeter of an active event. AFK elsewhere in the map? In an outpost? In the middle of nowhere? All good. But the moment your character has entered an active event then the person behind that character should be engaged and contributing. If not — then please make them gtfo. There are people that would happily take their place.

I dunno, Vinewrath succeeds enough that if afk really is that prevelant, ts clearly not that big of an issue. And really, I see on map chat people going “AFKERS! Ruining the run!” And see maybe a handful of players who might be afk, it’s frankly hard to tell while I’m, yknow, actually doing the event.

And I dunno, it’s an online game. People go afk. A delivery comes. You gotta go to the bathroom. It happens, keep calm and carry on.

Seems like just an irrational reasoning for a bad vw run to me. Afk is rarely that much o;f an issue from what I’ve seen. Usually it’s just a lan getting knocked out by slingers or lanes just not getting a boss down multiple times. And in either case, afk would not be a significant factor.

AFKers are certainly annoying and, in a close call situation, they make it more difficult to succeed.

However, I have yet to see the presence of AFKers alone matter to the success or failure of the events currently in the game. People are always going to have to go AFK from time to time (babies, on-call emergencies, neighbors, barking dogs, etc.). We don’t need to identify all of these situations, let alone punish people for having a life outside the game.

I think, therefore, the OP’s main points can be reduced to:

• It should be harder to AFK and get rewarded.
• It should be easier to identify those are who deliberately leeching the game and it should be more obvious when ANet takes action against them.

Perhaps I should have clarified it a bit more in the original post. My issue with players who go afk, is that shortly after actively targetting and attacking a mob, they can then gain the rewards from the event later on. That’s the issue which I should have stated clearly at the start. Because they stay put where they are, everything has scaled up, inactive or not, doesn’t matter. They are there, scale remains.

I have even tried to get the attention of most of them via tells and gotten no respose, or from the few that gave me some outright offensive language for asking them to help out with the event. One of which even threatened to have their entire guild report me for offensive language and get me banned. The chat log for that, if a gm read it, would have seen that person I was talking to wasthe only one using offensive language.

One last thing for you to consider. As to some mechanics related to scaling. Follow a Chest Train in SW. Once you come across one of the bastions held by the mordrem, go attack 1 target and see how long it takes you to kill it. Once the train leaves the area, try again and watch the difference. Most trains generally just bypass the bastions anyhow, but their mere presense in the area is what drives up the scale. Doesn’t seem to matter if they participate or not.

I have taken screenshots of all the people that I have spotted afk. Just idling there on the ledges mostly out of range of all hostiles. Not moving since pratically the start of the event. Still there 15-20 minutes later in most cases. I would list names of them if I felt the need to. Even list their guilds names as well. But that would not solve anything. I have them merely for reference sake, of who not to associate with. Lazy, Arrogant & Freeloading rude people.

@Azhure.1857

I like your idea. Straight, simple, and to the point.

Azhure.1857:

Sane.5072:

……To address afkers which can become a problem there are better solutions, maybe a shorter afk time so that those people need to regularly check in, forcing them to watch if an event is failing and either contribute/leave. ……

Report functions for AFKing, griefing, and trolling would all be misused. Lets all be real about that, please. So with that said I can’t support the OP’s suggestion for such a report function.

I would, however, support some form of severely reduced AFK timer for anyone standing within the perimeter of an active event. AFK elsewhere in the map? In an outpost? In the middle of nowhere? All good. But the moment your character has entered an active event then the person behind that character should be engaged and contributing. If not — then please make them gtfo. There are people that would happily take their place.

Yeh. Port anyone to the nearest wp after 30 seconds (during an event)

Welcome to the issue of open world content. This is why many people who want to play at a higher level in the game are so dead set on instanced content, it allows you to avoid players who don’t share your same play style. Private instances of open world would be nice too. However that’s not ANets goal, they WANT you to carry those AFKers, they want the most braindead of players to still be successful even if it means they have to force more competant players to carry them on their coat tails. If they didn’t do this those players who simply suck wouldn’t be able to be successful, and ANet is against that idea. This is why I’m so skeptical about their claims of “hard content” in HoT, sure it might be well made content but when they allow zerging, well, each individuals contribution is not as important and it simply allows mediocre play to still prove successful. If they prove me wrong no one will be happier than I but I have serious doubts they can pull it off or even truly want to.

What needs to happen is the threshold for earning a bronze needs to be increased greatly.

As someone else said, the game down scales on detecting inactive players, maybe this needs to be done faster, and the game needs to auto kick AFK Faster aswell.

So the game already has the means to control AFK players.

The event does not need to be easier. Completes fairly well when players work together properly.

Maddwarf.8064:

Perhaps I should have clarified it a bit more in the original post. My issue with players who go afk, is that shortly after actively targetting and attacking a mob, they can then gain the rewards from the event later on. That’s the issue which I should have stated clearly at the start. Because they stay put where they are, everything has scaled up, inactive or not, doesn’t matter. They are there, scale remains.

All those trying to afk within a lane will get killed very fast by mordrem. And dead players do not influence scaling anymore.
Problem solved.

DarkWasp.7291:

GW2 actually has a lot of casual players. It’s a game you can pick up and drop whenever you like.

It feels wrong reporting someone because they rushed off to go tend to their crying baby in the other room and forgot they left the game running as they sat down with their spouse to watch sitcoms.

Are you really this naïve…

Sure there might be an occasional incidental afk, but it is a known issue all over the event system not just Vinewrath.

Scaling is one issue for sure, but why should some afk’er be able to jump in tag an event for a second or two then afk for the remaining 99% of the event, likely die, upscale it for others but then reap the same rewards at the end.

Sorry but ANET’s inability to set out a suitable participation/risk/reward strategy has seen the game fast become nothing more than a zerg/ failtrain and afk fest.

I agree with the OP.. afk’ers are a black mark on the game, sure there has to be a short a grace period for sure to allow for unforeseen circumstantial issues, but after that egg timer has run dry they should be removed to their home instance and any reward status removed. If this happens more than “x” times before daily reset then an automated account wide penalty system is enforced, which increases the more time your penalised to the point that if your constantly abusing the system a GM then has the authority to levy a wider range of punishments including a warning/temp & perma bans.

Then we might start to see these leechers either stay and play or leave.

Ever had the idea that it is a problem with the design of the whole encounter ?
Especially the debuff that you can’t go to the second boss after you killed the
first one, and then all you could do is fight against bags of HPs in the lanes that
don’t even give any loot .. and then you get a : sorry but you can’t go in here,
just fire for 10 minutes more onto that Husk champ with 20 gazillion hps.

afk… yes well I’m human, I need to go to the bathroom as well, sometimes i need assist my wife with diapers or make sure something else (doesn’t) happen(s) , I generally use the waiting time for the choppers for it if it’s something small and the labyrinth and/or reset for something big…

Beldin.5498:

just fire for 10 minutes more onto that Husk champ with 20 gazillion hps.

I know that feeling. High HP from the player scaling. High base toughness and unconventional condition stacking needed. Takes just as long to kill as a Vinewrath champion, with support of Arrow carts and mortars. No reward for pounding it for 3mins to save the courier when a SECOND one will spawn eventually…