17 replies to this topic

[Duncan Aravain]

Lately I have been noticing an increase in the number of players (one or even two) who fail to move after the match starts. Their ping is fine, they don't disconnect, and they fail to respond to either VOIP or team chat. This condition lasts until our team in under 2 or so mechs, where they then spring to life and engage the enemy. After taking out any heavily damaged enemy mechs that first engage, they usually succumb to enemy fire and our team loses (in part to their lack of match participation).

Besides being a hindrance to our teams' chances to win the match, as well as padding their own stats in part, what the heck is going on? Is it merely some "tactic" to pad their stats with minimal effort? I cannot believe it is some bot, since many of the times after I have died I have ridden along with them and there seems to be pilot control over certain actions. Does this violate the TOS in some way or is it merely a form of self entitlement and I should shrug and move on?

Edited by Duncan Aravain, 31 May 2016 - 11:29 PM.

[Guitar Czar]

On Sunday I think I started a match when immediately my room mate came home and my dog escaped, prompting me to abandon my computer and chase after him. Upon returning I think I was the last one alive and went and died respectfully.

...but I guess I can see how it's kind of hard to imagine that sort of thing happening over and over

[Aeon Veritas]

I think it's due to the sometimes long wait times that some people resort to do other things during the wait...
And maybe they don't get the blinky icon in the taskbar becasue "ohh, look, this funny cat vid is sooo funny I have to watch it again"?

[Alistair Winter]

I haven't noticed any trend and I doubt there is one. However... it's usually more profitable in the long run to be passive during the first part of the match, if you're in the solo queue and just trying to get a good match score.

Hide, wait for your teammates to take some damage, let the enemy focus fire on your teammates, then join the fighting when no one is focusing on you. There's a reason why selfish players do this. It's not because they don't know any better. It's because the game rewards this behaviour. Winning is not as important in MWO as getting a good match score. And you get good match scores by doing lots and lots of damage.

Anyway. If I join the fighting late in the match, it's usually because I'm browsing the forums.

[SmoothCriminal]

I usually read a book/play candy crush/go watch TV/cook dinner while the MM hums away - so I would put this down to people just not concentrating instead of some new selfish tactic.

[Tarogato]

I tend to afk at the beginning of matches a lot. I'm either reading reddit, these forums, or watching a youtube video. You have to do something, because queue times are so long, and it's easy to not notice that a match has started.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Aeon Veritas, on 01 June 2016 - 03:03 AM, said:

I think it's due to the sometimes long wait times that some people resort to do other things during the wait...
And maybe they don't get the blinky icon in the taskbar becasue "ohh, look, this funny cat vid is sooo funny I have to watch it again"?

See this is why you use steam so you can shift tab to do your porn browsing and not miss your match

Edited by Narcissistic Martyr, 01 June 2016 - 06:30 AM.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

Duncan Aravain, on 31 May 2016 - 11:27 PM, said:

Lately I have been noticing an increase in the number of players (one or even two) who fail to move after the match starts. Their ping is fine, they don't disconnect, and they fail to respond to either VOIP or team chat. This condition lasts until our team in under 2 or so mechs, where they then spring to life and engage the enemy. After taking out any heavily damaged enemy mechs that first engage, they usually succumb to enemy fire and our team loses (in part to their lack of match participation).

Besides being a hindrance to our teams' chances to win the match, as well as padding their own stats in part, what the heck is going on? Is it merely some "tactic" to pad their stats with minimal effort? I cannot believe it is some bot, since many of the times after I have died I have ridden along with them and there seems to be pilot control over certain actions. Does this violate the TOS in some way or is it merely a form of self entitlement and I should shrug and move on?

I usually get up to mix a drink during the map voting process and come back when my team has already began to move. It's a great way to catch lights trying to back-bite our team and have yet to hear one complaint.

[FrontGuard]

Perhaps PGI can add a Idle Mech counter that keeps track of time spent doing nothing and deduct from the score of peeps with allot of it.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

FrontGuard, on 01 June 2016 - 06:35 AM, said:

Perhaps PGI can add a Idle Mech counter that keeps track of time spent doing nothing and deduct from the score of peeps with allot of it.

You'd have to assume everyone plays for the score, and not just to win then.

[FrontGuard]

A banana in the tailpipe, on 01 June 2016 - 06:45 AM, said:

You'd have to assume everyone plays for the score, and not just to win then.

Yes that's correct. The people who do this do not care about their team, they just want a high score.
So... You deduct time doing nothing from their score so they stop doing it.
Is that not logical?

[A banana in the tailpipe]

FrontGuard, on 01 June 2016 - 06:54 AM, said:

Yes that's correct. The people who do this do not care about their team, they just want a high score.
So... You deduct time doing nothing from their score so they stop doing it.
Is that not logical?

Deducting time from the score, aka, score from the time has the same effect. The player does not participate until they feel it's worth it and they are earning points.

Edited by A banana in the tailpipe, 01 June 2016 - 06:56 AM.

[meteorol]

Damn, this would probably the most boring "strategy" ever.

Luckily it isn't a strategy of any sort. People just go AFK while waiting for matches, because it can take ages (especially in groupqueue)

[FrontGuard]

A banana in the tailpipe, on 01 June 2016 - 06:56 AM, said:

Deducting time from the score, aka, score from the time has the same effect. The player does not participate until they feel it's worth it and they are earning points.

Sorry, am I confused? If you give a point to each 10 seconds of nothing time and deduct it from the score wouldn't that serve as a reason to Not waist time?

[Tordin]

It could be innocent things like "late to the match, had to get something" or IMO saboteurs, griefers, party poopers. Because of reason like "I hate this game but will join random matches to ruin games for random teams" or "crap we got this map, i need to harshen this match by not helping this team".
People with this in mind can appear to be afk, not responding, low ping and no disconnects. "Clever" devils....

Pick your poison

Edited by Tordin, 01 June 2016 - 07:42 AM.

[Khereg]

Aeon Veritas, on 01 June 2016 - 03:03 AM, said:

I think it's due to the sometimes long wait times that some people resort to do other things during the wait...

Guilty every now and then.

Switching out laundry, making tea, answering one of the chilluns' - life stuff.

[KodiakGW]

OP, I have also seen this. In my case, most of the time they spring to life as soon as they start taking damage. Almost like they are baiting people to rush to them for an easy kill of a disconnected mech. That way they have easier kills of already damaged mechs. Piss poor behavior IMO, and I report them for it. Of course, we all know those reports are ignored. Right into the trash bin when they arrive in the morning.

You know, this is yet another thread with people complaining about long wait times in solo queue. I play NA and EU servers at 9PM-12AM EST when I can on weekdays. I've never had to wait more than 30 seconds. It's the same during weekends. In fact, last night I got one game as soon as I clicked the button. So I don't know why so many say they have long wait times. If it meant I would get better games, I'd be happy to wait longer. So maybe those people need to get in touch with support to find out why, if they are playing the same servers and times I am.

Even if I had long waits, I wouldn't go off to do anything when I'm playing. You never know how long the wait will be. At the most, tab out to check or clean up e-mail while keeping an eye on the task bar. Call it showing preemptive respect for my next drop team.

[Cy Mitchell]

I play in QP almost exclusively now and I too have seen what seems to be an increase in this behavior. I know some players get interrupted and have to take care of stuff in RL but I never have a wait of more than 20-30 seconds maximum even when I played a Kodiak and the Assault queues were 40+% Assaults. If I sit down and queue up for a game then I try to be on hand when the game starts. Yet, I have seen a lot of cases where a member of my Lance does not move or moves up but then hides until well into the match before joining the fray. It does bug me if I am in the mix dealing and taking damage while some guy is hiding and waiting for the rest of the team to soften up the targets for him to steal kills.

I guess that in reality the players that do this are smarter than I am. I admittedly tend to be too aggressive early on and will often pay the price. I might get a kill or two and 300-600 damage before I drop. Sometimes I will lead the charge and get focused fired down with less than 100 damage. It is a bad trait that I need to correct. Still, I do not think that hiding for the early part of the game and not dealing any damage so you can boost your match score by only fighting damaged opponents is acceptable behavior from myself or any team member.

I have also seen a couple cases of obvious sabotage in the last week. In one case, a pilot of a Battlemaster parked his Mech just outside the Domination circle and never moved or fired a shot the entire game. The only thing I could figue out in that one was that there was someone on the other team that shared a unit Tag with him and maybe he was helping that player get a win. If so, it worked.

In another case, we were playing conquest and a Hunchback pilot spawned and moved into River City but then just parked it. We were ahead on cap points and could have easily won if he would have parked in a cap circle to hold it for an extra second or two but he never moved. When a female player announced that she had reported him for non-participation he called us all "Lame". LOL.

I think if you queue up for a game then you should be prepared to play it and at the keyboard ready to go. If you do not get the mode you like then play what you got anyway. You will get what you want next time. If you get called away for a moment try to leave your Mech in a position to help your team's cause if at all possible. If you do stuff like this just because you want to be an a$$hat then I am sorry, I cannot help you.