47 replies to this topic

[Vasces Diablo]

I alwyas just assume that AFK"s have encountered a black screen of death.

[pcunite]

For disconnects, allow me back in! If a mech has not moved (keystroke or mouse) by the time the game is over, give them no points and no repair bill. The bigger problem is that this game is a role playing game that requires every single mech to win against a good team.

[Belorion]

rolly, on 24 November 2012 - 03:58 PM, said:

Hey I'm a new dad here. Just last night the baby needed me right at the opening, so regardless of what the situation is in MWO, (if I launched or not, in combat or running full speed) I'm going AFK. Surprisingly my Raven was still there where I left it. I'm sure everyone thought I was farming. Other times I have to stop simply to fix the graphics bugs when I try to fullscreen or swap to Thermal or Night vision.

There are legitimate reasons for going AFK and its not all about farming. RL does intrude on gaming now and then.

Of course there are, there still is no reason you should get rewarded for the time you are afk. Stuff happens... launch again. You didn't do anything for the away match so you get no reward.

[Bloody]

the better solution would be to make sure the players are more less inclined to farm and more to play the game. But the current system has a grind element and players have to realize that this is a development decision.

[Black Ivan]

For more the a few players coming out with the minimum amount of money seems okay, irrelevenat if they crash the game for others who want to play.

PGI needs to add a ingame report function for AFK-lers and add some serious penalties to punish those people.
I'm fed up with loosing matches because 3 or more people on my team are AFKlers.

Edited by Black Ivan, 25 November 2012 - 12:54 AM.

[Sirous]

I don't assume anything except that they are AFK, if they haven't moved and it hasn't said they were disco'd. Any number of things could have gone wrong.

[Ricama]

Let them rejoin the match. Full death and destruction, mech stays put but you can rejoin the match ... in fact you don't have a choice in the matter, unless you leave through the menu (and take whatever penalty given for leaving a functioning mech midgame) reloading the game sticks you back in your mech.

[elbloom]

Ricama, on 25 November 2012 - 01:24 AM, said:

Let them rejoin the match. Full death and destruction, mech stays put but you can rejoin the match ... in fact you don't have a choice in the matter, unless you leave through the menu (and take whatever penalty given for leaving a functioning mech midgame) reloading the game sticks you back in your mech.

This would be the epitome of a solution to our nasty problem here. combined with a cranked reward system that more than our current thing rewards ACTION and not AFK.

[BigJim]

Lefty Lucy, on 24 November 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

yeah, i voted "we don't have enough data" because while AFK farming *does* happen, CTD with no disconnect happens too.

Yep.

Whenever I'm on TS with the guys and I CTD I ask them if they've seen a "BigJim has disconnected" message, and if when the pugs kill my corpse, the guy got a kill for it.

In almost every case, it's as if I was just AFK.

I also get the odd freeze on map-load, and when I restart the client my mech is locked in-game, so I know that happens too, where you appear to be AFK and your mech is just sat on the spawn.

That's why I don't worry about it when I see others (seemingly) AFK.


Makes me pine for getting 8v8's back, where if one guy crashes the enemy team have a matching-class mech either sit out or disconnect..

Edited by BigJim, 25 November 2012 - 03:12 AM.

[JPsi]

I'd honestly just prefer it iff we had the LoL system for dcs/reconnects. You dc/restart client, you have the option to join back in. You also cannot start another game until current one is completed. Lobby and in game reporting system would be nice also.

Implementing both of these would in my opinion, help on both sides of this issue. Suicide farming would be prevented as there's no point in leaving early. Those that do DC can get back in thus making afkers a little easier to spot.

I'm aware that those who don't like to be stuck spectating till end of match prolly hate this idea, but it feels like the better option for making games a little more enjoyable.

[van Uber]

Belorion, on 24 November 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

CTD leads to a discon much more often than not. So I answered no even though your phrasing is wrong.

My experience is quite the opposite (but I'm not implying thats how it actually is). My friend got a ctd every single time he tried to start a game with a trial Cicada and me being in group with him could see his inactive, but connected Mech in all cases. We spent an entire evening like this: Commando, Catapult and Atlas were ok, but the Cicada created ctd without disconnect.

[Elfman]

They need to give the option to rejoin a match when you crash. The other evening I gave up trying to play after 15 out of 20 games I crashed to desktop. Next day without anything changing my end played all night with no crashes.

For me allowing you back into to match would be perfect solution.

Yesterday for the first time ever I had a crash when about to kill a mech mid game which was annoying as I ended up with a death and no kill.

Just wish PGI would fix the issue causing CTD's.

Presently before playing each session and after any crash I end up doing a full .PAK file test using winRAR then replacing any corrupted .PAK files (After each patch I download and check every .PAK file seperatly to install and keep them in a write proteced folder)

Most times when crashing the object.pak file is corrupted I would presume from the message from the previous match ending.

[Streeter]

I only assume its a farmer when the mech is all red internals from not being repaired. The fact that its AFK and not repaired... chances of that not being a farmer are pretty slim Im afraid.

[Cid]

there are a lot of (bug)reasons to just stand around ingame, so normally i wouldn't accuse people of afk farming.

i am however really losing my patience with PGI, all those bugs make it hard to have a fun and challenging match.

yesterday i was in a game where one team had a dc at start, 1 suicide overheat guy and a suicide scout running into the opposition, followed by another dc 70sec into the game.
on the other side was a 4fps bug guy and a dc 3min into the game.

but never fear, black friday is here, so we can all show our true loyalty and shell out some more money which hopefully helps to fix the nasty bugs, and with a little bit of luck and enough financial dedication, maybe even hire some new netcode talents.

worst thing of all though is autofarm-botting: get into the game, overheat suicide and disconnect, rinse and repeat.
oh, and while overheating severely damaging your teammembers back armor.

[Dwigo]

Don't you get the message "so and so has disconnected" if they dc while AFK people just sit there?

[Chief 117]

if mech is not under control just eject it, no reason to stand there and give salvage to the enemy.

[DogmeatX]

There badly needs to be some kind of RECONNECT button so if you crash out of the game for whatever reason you can rejoin the match and continue where your mech left off (including any additional damage it may have taken while driver was disconnected)

If someone doesn't reconnect after an extended period of time their mech gets removed from the battle completely.

If they remain idle for an extended period of time and no disconnect was detected (i.e. actually afk) then just get booted out of the match.

I think this would solve the whole afk thing completely.


What it won't do, however, is stop people from suicide farming.

Edited by DogmeatX, 25 November 2012 - 05:17 AM.

[Socket7]

As a newbie, I was guilty of thinking CTD's were AFK farming. After playing a few days and having a couple of CTD's, I now realize that it's more likely these people were just victims of CTDs.

The thing I hate most are cowards at this point. Had a match were a guy "went out to scout", called out a single square on the map, then ran back to base the moment he took a single hit. He proceeded to hide and shutdown while the rest of us were torn to shreds and the enemy captured our base. Others will just kind of stop in the middle of the battlefield and wait around for the rest of the team to get destroyed and the enemy get the capture. It as if they don't know in spectator mode we can see them looking around doing nothing but hiding like freebirth scum.

[Karenai]

In my experience most CTD occur not directly on load, but in the heat of the moment.
Therefore I see everyone who ist walking a straight line or running in circles as CTD or some similar bug.
People with blackscreen can still write "sorry blackscreen" before closing the game (I too forget to do it, especially if I am in voice).

Those who farm xp/creds are mostly bots. Some even announcing it with someting like "I regret nothing!" after overheat suicide.
For AFK bots. It is less obvious then suiciding every game. But if you stand where you started, do not move and do not write anything chances are you went afk. Those bots are simple, because there is no downside to beeing a brainless bot loging into games doing nothing or suiciding.

That beeing said. There is nothing wrong with someone going afk at the start of the game, it happens, especialy with the rather long loading and wait time before a game. People stand up, go for a quick smoke or make coffee. Sometimes someone hinders them to come back.
But if someone is abusing the mechanics and going AFK very often, that is something that should be considered cheating and dealt with.
Which is fairly simple to do, if there are logs beeing made of player stats.

[Kain]

I've also had my first CTD lately, it happens...

PGI should do 2 things:
1. Just register the mech as disconnected, when such crash happens.
2. Or/And, make it a possibility to reconnect to the match and your disconnected Mech.

And for long time afk, just use the same mechanism, as above, show as disconnected after X miutes, and make the possibility to reconnect later. (Just like Left 4 Dead)

Edited by Kain, 25 November 2012 - 06:07 AM.