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| Author | AFK. popular opinion |
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im just curious. what do people think is the solution to the problem of people going AFK in battles?
i used to play maybe 3-4 big 3 on 3 human battles a day. a few AFKs on my team (or theirs) in a run, really put me off...
since then, i have gone almost a week without actually playing any human battles at all... today i played 1, cus i had some spare time, and thought i might just get lucky.
i go in with my fave arts, and a full 75 skel bowmen. yeah! lets have a good fight! happily, all 6 of us had some great arts, and it looked like it may be very interesting... having played 342 battles, and having lost only 30, i always try to keep that ratio looking healthy. every loss hurts me more than most.
after the first few turns, it becomes clear one of ours wasnt there. at that point. the game didnt matter, there is nothing we could do, 2 v 3... i wanted to just walk away. but that would make me as bad as him. so i play on for 30 mins, in a game i know i cant win. already having written off my 45 recruited skels, with a market value of around 1500 gold. and the value of the arts i had equipped. i am just 1 person out of 5 that have been deprived of their time and enjoyment. can u feel how annoyed i am, thru this message?
not as annoyed as i should be. because i am so resigned to the fact that this game can be such an unrewarding pit of rubbish. all because 1 person couldnt be bothered to play the game he joined. i know, it IS possible that this person had some PC problems, or net problems, or whatever else may have happened. but it is massively more likely he just walked away..
his punishment? well, he gets 2 hours (?) of bad luck.. wow. the guy who just walked away from his PC, and prolly wont be back for the rest of the day, just got 2 hours of bad luck...
that will teach him not to do it again...
except of course it wont. he likely wont even care about this punishment, while the other 5 really do.
i know the solution i would use. a much, MUCH harsher punishment. 5000 EXP + 1000 gold, something along those lines. not nice in the event of technical problems, but it would certainly stop a few of these issues.
but i would love to hear some other solutions - AI taking over the AFK guys units would be a pretty obvious solution that i would look into. but maybe there are others?
in any event, please brainstorm, or just have a good old cry to me about it, i feel your pain. | actually, if there would be a potion for 1k gold that would make me lose 5k xp,i would be game,
it is the faction thingy, not the combat lvl that counts | | AI never gonna work, just imagine people get in game afk and let computers to play for them and then they get exp and skill points. AI is kinda encouraging the afk thing | although this has been said MANY TIMES, i'm saying it again.
WE SHUOLD HAVE A SURRENDER BUTTON!!! | but if you surrender theres always the chance that they will kill you anyway... Thus all your troops being killed.
Also you will still lose durability on your Arty's(Which is annoying)
you surrender!? eh? Come on... As if! Its a game you dont charge into battle screaming bloody murder then when you start to lose you say ok I surrender dont hurt me?
As for the AFK there is no answer really, AI takes over not likely (as Death said), surrender (NEVER), if a player is AFK then a member of the opposite team withdraws as well (maybe), bigger punishments for AFK (but wait what if its a power cut or the internet just stops! Not fair if its an accident!) I can't see any great ideas to solve this problem so I think we just have to sit tight and ask the big cookie in the sky that all your team mates are alive. Or wait for the developers to come up with a great idea thats win, win.
BIG LOVE, Olek. | surrender button isn't that bad after all.
but if a button with effects will be better.
what i mean is if someone surrender, he keeps his current troop,but lost all his exp he gain so far.the players from the other side suffer a 1/3 power decrease (or the other player in the same side gain extra 50% power??)
in that case, if doesn't matter is people surrender at the beginning.
in the mid game: if he did quite a lot of dmg, he won't leave cause he lost all exp. if he is useless, then it doesn't matter he surrender or not. | guys, u simply post negatives, instead of doing a few seconds thinking for yourselves, come on...
if a player goes inactive, and thus after the 5 turns he would usually die... well, with the AI idea, instead of him dying, all his troops get taken over by an AI. and here is the semi obvious bit, that you guys couldnt come up with yourself. the AFK guy receives NO EXP and NO SP for what the AI does on his behalf. indeed, the AFK guy still gets some form of mild punishment for going AFK.
surrender is a cop out, which wouldnt really solve the problem, would just be a very weak half measure, and i dont approve of those.
as for the loss of cash / EXP idea. yeah, it would suck a bit to lose something of actual value, due to a powercut. but hey, thats life. how often do you have these unforseeable technical issues? i have perhaps 1 thing per year such as that happening to me. where my computer dies, or power cut comes, etc etc. once a year i lose 5000 EXP? that is fair enuf if it makes some significant deterrant to the people who go AFK so often. and besides, if my computer has just exploded or the power is down, or some other thing that makes me unable to use my PC for the 5 + minutes it usually takes for my troops to die to AFK, then odds are, i have a bigger problem than i lost 5000 EXP in some online game. | How about adding a "AFK" counter to player info?
In the future there can be one more "AFK" constraint for joining a game. We can open a game for only players having low AFK counts. People who tend to AFK for any reason including their computer/power/internet issues, can still open games by themselves, but other players have the option not to join those games. | signed @ specter - feel the same way - wasting hours cause of some afk guys.
in fact, most player go afk after a while, if they think they will loose. its exactly THAT attitude, which whould be punished, like joining no-arti-games with full-arti-set on purpose.
- the solution -
so how to recognize that people? yes, by quantity. you all know the experience tables - imagine that for afk/quit situation > the more it happens the higher the punishment is. reason: its very unlikly to have technical problems in high quantities, but it WILL prevent the "steal away afk" behaviour. | i think that a good solution can be built from the 2 options that specter mentioned at the begining.
tha AI can take control of the players troops, but he will not be rewarded with exp or gold. If this situation repeats for 4 times, there comes a punishment in exp, gold, items, etc. | what about a cancel button ?
When someone went afk, an option will come out to all the remaining players to cancel the match, if more than half players accepted then the match is cancel. It would be as if the match did not start : no exp gain, no loss to art durability etc. | AI is the best solution.. but if AI take over, there will be no experience
it solves a few problem at a time:
1) ALLY wouldn't be so pissed off
2) PPL wouldn't be so interested going AFK purposely
3) Accidents wouldn't cause so much damage
the rest of teh solution is not feasible | | the cancel button is not a good idea. anyone would be able to cancel the match when the battle is lost for their team, that is worst than afk | | AI should take over after the second time a unit did not move. That way, it is not too obvious, so that nobody would take advantage of AI. | | the problem with the cancel button is that more than half has to agree but why would the winning team agree it would make their victory easier with 1 opponent out... | | SO the AI taking over makes far more sense | | Yes it does draconlord but still the AI systems isn't all that reliable remember is it set on a target till it dies where as a real player can strategise. | | Yes, but it's far better than nothing. | | Agree to that. | I would suggest a cumulative punishment. You get a freebee, maybe two, to accomodate for system failures. Then, each time you afk out of a battle, you lose progressively more exp. First time, 1,000, second 2,000, then 4k, 8k, 16k. I bet afk's stop happening so often then. And even if they do happen, the people who actually show up to fight will quickly outlevel the people that afk.
Otherwise, not only are you frustrated for the time you have to endure an unwinnable fight, you have to wait for your troops to replenish following the loss.
I think the number one goal for game designers in this era of competition should be increased fun factor and decreased frustration. In it's current form, a large portion of this game is simply waiting. Waiting for the afk guys' turn to end, waiting for the 3 on 2 game to end while your opposition uses 45 secs to plot each turn, waiting for a merc quest to refresh, waiting for an hour to pass so you can get some work, waiting for your troops and mana to replenish, etc. I have life to teach me the lesson of patience, the games I play need not apply for that task. |
This topic is long since last update and considered obsolete for further discussions.
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