How to deal with AFKs

[Kuma.1503]

You all spawn into the collesseum, ready and pumped for some good old fashioned bloodshed. 

In the middle of goring each other, one weenie on your team decides he doesn't have the stomach for it. 

He insults everyone and afks in base.

There, he meets a new friend. 

It's Almorra Soulkeeper, and she's there to offer words of encouragement. 

"Get back in there and fight soldier"!

No response. The player turns his back to her and run into a wall. 

Her tiny NPC brain can't possibly comprehend the meaning behind this so she keeps on trying, getting more agitated the longer they stay.

As the afk completes his 20th lap into the wall, she unsheathes her sword and does an unavoidable stab, one shots them, spits on their corpse and says 

"The mists are no place for cowards".

 

They're booted from the match, and everyone else is offered the option to leave the game early with no penalty. If you want to get fancy you can add a different NPC in each map. Each with varying flavors of BM. 

If a player AFKs enough times they get a legnthy ban, and the NPC ports to mid with the offending player for a public execution.  

 

If the game is so poorly mismatched that you're being spawn camped and leaving is equivalent to death, add a surrender option for the losing team. That way you're not forced to run out and get farmed. 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Sebrent.3625]

Not a bad idea. However, I see people afk outside of base as well or simply run around dodging anyone from the other team but not taking part in the game.

As far as the surrender option, if you look at League of Legends, they have a team surrender option, but it is not enabled until a set time into a game to prevent abuse and it requires a successful vote by the team. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

I think one of the key problems is that people who do this afk/throw/etc. crap do not feel there is any penalty to them for doing so. If there is bad behavior and you don't punish it, it continues.

[Curennos.9307]

You can't force people to care about a match if the game doesn't put in the effort to be worth caring about. 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

4 hours ago, Curennos.9307 said:

You can't force people to care about a match if the game doesn't put in the effort to be worth caring about. 

What deterrent would stop them then?

Its already against the game's TOS, but at the same time they also reward people for AFKing with freebie pips.

Only in the ranked, competitive mode though. Of course. 😵❓

[Curennos.9307]

23 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

What deterrent would stop them then?

Its already against the game's TOS, but at the same time they also reward people for AFKing with freebie pips.

Only in the ranked, competitive mode though. Of course. 😵❓

Probably nothing, lol. Any effort anet spends on this angle is likely to be wasted, imo.

 

I won't say 'can't' because maybe someone somewhere has done it successfully, but I've never seen a game manage to punish players into doing what the game wants in a mode with population issues.

 

GW2's sPvP mode has earned the community it currently has by virtue of game design decisions (or lack thereof). People aren't magically going to become upstanding citizens in a game because you bludgeon them over the head with a cudgel. If anet wants a healthier community, it needs a healthier game mode with design decisions that result in a healthier community.

[Reikou.7068]

In the current state of the game, I would say add surrender button.

This phenomenon of AFK is because Match quality is so bad at the moment, at least on NA.  Its quite easy to see the writing on the wall even like 1 min into each match.

I really do not blame players for not wanting to waste their time "playing" under such conditions.

Fix matchmaking.  No cross-tier matchmaking, and infinitely expanding search range.  Increase queue times if needed, but I think that match quality needs to be prioritized.  The game itself needs to be worth playing, or population will keep going down the gutter.

Yes, it will expose the game as dead, especially at higher or lower MMR extremes, but at least you have the potential to increase population eventually.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Reikou.7068

[Tescao.3042]

The mind begins to work for death after the ego learns about it, unlike the heart and body. (Everyone has an ego, including me, the rest is just a matter of its inflatedness). An extra piece eaten, even if it is harmful to the body, there are even more zeros at the end of the numbers, and etc, but at the same time, the ego is afraid that it will not exist and wants to leave a name about itself. What we see in all MMOs - the decline in popularity in PvP simply comes from the fact that we begin to identify ourselves with the character we control, just like in the real world. The ego is afraid of dying or its attachments will die, so it tries to reduce those chances - Meta, Reroll, toxicity and etc. Now I'm running out of ideas how to fix this, but the bottom line is that the fear of death has spread even to MMOs and this has affected the overall number of PvP players.

Edited May 25, 2022 by DomHemingway.8436

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

i dealt with already. i stopped playing the game mode. and i won't play it as long as this AFK nonsense continues. 

 

PS: in my opinion, based on my own reasons for leaving the game mode, the decline in popularity of PvP mode comes from all this AFKing during a match. it has very little to do with fear of dying. It has a llt more to do with long Queue times, followed by 3v5s (because 1-2 people on MY team decide to throw the match or that it's not possible to win, so why try (when the score is only 100-50).

[Jumpel.3972]

I think they should base the number of pips you win on the point your team make. Like if you end losing by 300-500 you get 3 pips and the winning team get 5 pips (+ maybe a winning bonus).

It will encourage people to play until the end to get more reward and in same time punish big throwing

[Abyssisis.3971]

Add a vote kick for the team with the afker. The afker reward track is reset to the start of the tier and they lose 100 rank points.

[Shaogin.2679]

21 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

You all spawn into the collesseum, ready and pumped for some good old fashioned bloodshed. 

In the middle of goring each other, one weenie on your team decides he doesn't have the stomach for it. 

He insults everyone and afks in base.

There, he meets a new friend. 

It's Almorra Soulkeeper, and she's there to offer words of encouragement. 

"Get back in there and fight soldier"!

No response. The player turns his back to her and run into a wall. 

Her tiny NPC brain can't possibly comprehend the meaning behind this so she keeps on trying, getting more agitated the longer they stay.

As the afk completes his 20th lap into the wall, she unsheathes her sword and does an unavoidable stab, one shots them, spits on their corpse and says 

"The mists are no place for cowards".

 

They're booted from the match, and everyone else is offered the option to leave the game early with no penalty. If you want to get fancy you can add a different NPC in each map. Each with varying flavors of BM. 

If a player AFKs enough times they get a legnthy ban, and the NPC ports to mid with the offending player for a public execution.  

 

If the game is so poorly mismatched that you're being spawn camped and leaving is equivalent to death, add a surrender option for the losing team. That way you're not forced to run out and get farmed. 

 

 

 

Your individual reward and rank gain/loss is based on how the team performs, so there is no downside to going afk, and no way for Anet to definitely determine that a player is afk unless they literally stand there doing nothing. Even if you force them to leave spawn, they can just auto run to their death over and over. You can't stop this in any way in a solo queue environment.

13 hours ago, Reikou.7068 said:

In the current state of the game, I would say add surrender button.

Adding a surrender button just gives more power to the afk player and makes it easier to manipulate matches.

4 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

Add a vote kick for the team with the afker. The afker reward track is reset to the start of the tier and they lose 100 rank points.

This will 100% be abused. Have you met the PvP players here!?

[Abyssisis.3971]

5 hours ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

This will 100% be abused. Have you met the PvP players here!?

Ofcourse it will, pos players will exploit anything anyway. But at least some matches will be spared that 1 guy who think he is top dog, and abuses his team for losing mid fight only to sit in the spawn while he talks smack about his team.

[JTGuevara.9018]

You're on the right track with the auto-kick, however, there's no need for public shaming. Bans, though I support, would also get circumvented. (They'll find a way)

 

No. What needs to done is to bring actual in-game consequences. There's no actual consequence for misbehaving and match manipulation in gw2 pvp. It's more of a slap on the wrist. If anything, those who play by the rules suffer the consequences!

 

For consequences, one, subtract loot and attack their pockets. They'll get the message. Nobody likes to lose rewards or feel that they've wasted their time doing something. Basically, you afk, you lose 5 gold. Any subsequent attempts, 5 more gold. If the player has no 5 gold, take the rest. Two, reset their ranked rating to 0. (So nobody is matched up with them). I also propose that for any subsequent afk attempts, afks receive negative pips and are banished to a proposed purgatory ranked division below bronze, where only afkers are permanently matched with each other. The only way out is to play fair.

 

Some people may say this is too "strict", but that is fine with me!

[Zoser.7245]

Nice, from the afks to the bot legion! At least they will do something ✌️  lol  🤣

Although i'm not sure if extending the match in that way and lose anyways is the right thing. Because i have no doubt that those afks will end using bots. At least, the afk match ends sooner. I would prefer a surrender option available after certain time in the match. Or both things  added, the anti-afk and the surrender option.

As passive as they are against using bots, the surrender option would work better.  Although understandable, the bots fill the queues... 🙄😏

Edited May 26, 2022 by Zoser.7245

[VyPR.3412]

Thoughts on community-based GM's to monitor/take action on reports? Better data/telemetry to corroborate idle player reports, and then harsher, progression based (loss of rank, pips, track progress) for those who they can prove did it?

[pukish.5784]

You still get stress while AFKing. Better play other games/hobbies for Quality of Enjoyments. This ranked pvp is waste of time right now unless you are top level players or masochist.

[Buran.3796]

   1) Quit button for team vote. If a team surrenders loses the match and doesn't get any reward but the match ends.

   2) Better rewards for winning (more peeps and gold) and no rewards for loses. 

   3) A new game mode which people cares about. A 15 vs 15 guild vs guild or a remake of Guild Wars 1 8 vs 8  PvP (I still don't understand why they ditched the posibility if it was as popular as people claim).

 

   Being said that: a team of afkers vs a team of afkers still will provide a loser team and a wining one, and over time those players stll will have the same amount of earnings as a gold III player.

   Best way to increase the quality of the matches is increasing the PvP population, which won't happen if ANet devotes almost no effort to support PvP.

   

[pukish.5784]

Population...? Yes... We need quality players. Can we import quality players from EU/other competitive rpg games?

[Buran.3796]

50 minutes ago, pukish.5784 said:

Population...? Yes... We need quality players. Can we import quality players from EU/other competitive rpg games?

   Successful competitive games (as the ones which top Twitch rankings) have strong developement support,  frequent actualizations and balance patches, and views on dozens of thousands...   GW2 has neither of those.

   Also, those games do generate most of their earnings selling cosmetics or convenience items for their PvP modes, whereas in GW2 the PvP has 0 love in terms of new content (no new skins, maps, game modes). With the game mode generating 0 income for ANet (due their own choices) and lack of views is hard for popular streamers to be appealed and for public outside GW2 to ever known that the game exist. Twitch numbers are higher when a outside top streamer accidentally plays GW2 for a while than at any significative date in the game (even release dates).

Edited May 27, 2022 by Buran.3796

[Gibson.4036]

What if the spread between win and loss mattered to the losing teams rewards? Would it matter if the losing team could look forward to better return if they managed a 500/400 game insteadn of a 500/100?

How would a vote to surrender work? Would the losers still get rewarded? In which case wouln't we end up with a bunch of farmers queuing in just long enough to surrender?

I agree with @Shaogin.2679that a surrender function would appear to just give more power to the afker.

I've had several matches recently with the same player who declares the match over and done less than a minute into the game. She did it on our team, later she did it on the enemy's team.

There are players who declare every match that has anything they don't like to be over. They don't like the team comp they see at start, they don't like the direction someone headed out of the gate top of match, they don't like that someone didn't attack one of the NPCs in Niflhel. A surrender function just makes it tempting for the rest of the team to give in to their tantrum and throw the match, because that one player has made it likely they will lose.

I've had matches with one afker where everyone else kept fighting. There were good fights, clever decaps, and the short team still managed a respectable score for being down one player. All while the one player sat around and spammed chat about their lame team.

[Cuks.8241]

Easy.

Reduce pips or just remove them when you lose. I would suggest like this.

Baseline 0 pips for a loss.

1 pip if your team reaches > 250 points.

2 pips > 300 points.

3 pips > 400 points

+1 pip for top stats stays.

 

12 pips base for a win.

[Gibson.4036]

50 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Easy.

Reduce pips or just remove them when you lose. I would suggest like this.

Baseline 0 pips for a loss.

1 pip if your team reaches > 250 points.

2 pips > 300 points.

3 pips > 400 points

+1 pip for top stats stays.

 

12 pips base for a win.

What if points had more of a curve the closer you got to 500? If I lose a game 501/499, my team has done just as well as the winning team, and a tiny moment somewhere caused them to cross the line sooner.

200 - 1 pip

250 - 2 pip

300 - 3 pip

350 - 5 pip

400 - 7 pip

450 - 10 pip

Win - 12 pip

Now if you can just get 50 more points before the other team wins, you get more for that 50 than you did for the previous, incentivizing your team to hang in there even when losing and push for the next break point.

[Cuks.8241]

 

9 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

What if points had more of a curve the closer you got to 500? If I lose a game 501/499, my team has done just as well as the winning team, and a tiny moment somewhere caused them to cross the line sooner.

200 - 1 pip

250 - 2 pip

300 - 3 pip

350 - 5 pip

400 - 7 pip

450 - 10 pip

Win - 12 pip

Now if you can just get 50 more points before the other team wins, you get more for that 50 than you did for the previous, incentivizing your team to hang in there even when losing and push for the next break point.

Imo win is still a win and the rewards should heavily skew to winners.

[Gibson.4036]

Also wondering, what if top stats was weighted a little more heavily, to incentivise actually playing?

What if defense and offense top stats got a little more weight, or even had some partial rewards at certain thresholds shy of being the top stat? That way players are encouraged to actually be fighting at points as opposed to afking and getting rewarded for their team losing (as well as encouraging players to play the game mode and not squirrel off on endless off-point fights).

[Gibson.4036]

14 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

 

Imo win is still a win and the rewards should heavily skew to winners.

I get what you're saying, but if pips are there to incentivize proper play, then anyone coming in at 450 is doing what they are supposed to be doing. More points wouldn't have made any difference in motivating their play. And they'd still be getting less than the winning team, even if it wasn't a huge gap. No one is going to shoot for "just shy of winning" because they almost get as many points as winning.

IMO, a vast gap between "win" and "lose", even in a close game, actually tells players they should give up at some point and just take the loss.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Gibson.4036