Help with ToT AFK issue

[MsSmart]

Hi:

 

     While ToT can be fun, yet all good things may have unintended consequences.

 

     Because ToT is an excellent place to PL your lowbie alts, and thus serve as pseudo-farm,  a disproportionate percentage of the population rushes to PI/Grandville to ToT. Because the server population is frankly not that high,  trying to do any content even the weekly is impractical, unless spending close to 45 min begging for folks to join you TF is considered by you as practical.

 

     But be as it may, there is not much that can be done about this, folks chose to do what they want to do. Even if its to shamelessly exploit an event to get PLd. Remember how many of us criticize players who are always asking to sit at a farm instead of playing? Well, ToT is those folk's dream come true.

 

     So the reality is while ToT is going on, it is likely to be the only game in town, unless you are willing to personally be begging everybody to join your TF for over half an hour or more. Given this, you join the ToT, what else is there besides not playing the game you missed for so many years and is back?

 

    So you endure the Pld crowd, but what really rubs salt on the wound, is that over 80% of those PLd folks, so used to by afk while door sitting, go AFK, they do not knockon doors nor throw a punch at baddies to help the others in the team get a share of exp. This is the issue, I am asking for suggestions or recommendations on how to mend.

 

    A potential solution, is only for ToT leagues, which can be detected by killing flag mobs (tot mobs), is to decrease the AFK timer of 15 min before you get disconnected to 5 min, and hope this will force these folks to be pro-active.

 

   Some raid leaders has asked other team leaders to check on their team and report who are those on extended AFK. But this suffers from another unintended consequence. There are not enough level 50s present consistently to lead the ToT groups, the PL greed is that bad. So when you find the level 50 is one of those going AFK you are in a dilemma.

 

The controls of a league, only allows the league leader to boot folks. Maybe if any leader could boot folks from their own team, may help with the removal of AFK folks abusing the good will of others.

 

Any suggestions that could help mitigate this issue?

 

Hugs

 

Sue

 

Incidentally, I do not mind helping, but when I find 3 out the 5 in  my group are AFK, and I can't get the League Leader to boot them, I leave the league and go watch tv...

 

 

 

[TheZag]

Leechers are gonna leech.  If the team leads and league leaders wont boot them,  then there is nothing to be done.  Its impractical to add something to the game to boot players from a team when the solution has been part of the game since day 1.

 

[Snarky]

Just joined a Silver Mantis. It filled quickly. Ran fast.  Depends on what you are trying to lead I suppose.  

[Rudra]

Not going to happen. Can't force players to participate in anything they join. Frustrating to see, but nothing can really be done about it.

[krj12]

Yep, noticed this on a few tot teams.  Some teams ( active), the xp flows in like crazy.   Then others,  where I'm probably the only active player, it barely trickles in.

Not much to be done for it though, unfortunately.

[Glacier Peak]

Lots of places to go...

 

Zones

Trick or Treating only works if the player is in a zone with a level appropriate for their current combat level. The following are the appropriate levels for various zones:

 

 

Heroes:

01 - 11 Atlas Park

01 - 11 Galaxy City

05 - 15 Kings Row

05 - 15 The Hollows

07 - 15 Perez Park

10 - 20 Steel Canyon

10 - 20 Skyway City

10 - 20 Faultline

11 - 20 Boomtown

20 - 30 Independence Port

20 - 30 Talos Island

20 - 30 Striga Isle

20 - 30 Terra Volta

21 - 30 Dark Astoria

20 - 30 Croatoa

30 - 40 Brickstown

30 - 40 Founders' Falls

30 - 40 Crey's Folly

33 - 40 Eden

40 - 50 Peregrine Island

40 - 50 Firebase Zulu

 

Villains:

01 - 10 Mercy Island

05 - 15 Port Oakes

10 - 20 Cap au Diable

20 - 30 Sharkhead Isle

25 - 40 Nerva Archipelago

30 - 40 St. Martial

40 - 50 Grandville

 

Praetorians:

01 - 08 Nova Praetoria

01 - 08 Underground Nova

09 - 15 Imperial City

09 - 15 Underground Imperial

16 - 20 Neutropolis

16 - 20 Underground Neutropolis

20 - 29 First Ward

30 - 39 Night Ward

 

All:

Since all PvP zones automatically exemplar anyone entering to a specific level, anyone entering the zone is brought to a combat level appropriate to the zone, so all zones are appropriate for Trick or Treating for anyone of a high enough level to enter the zone.

 

20 - 50 Siren's Call

30 - 50 Warburg

15 - 50 Bloody Bay (Bugged. Trick or Treat range appears to be levels 10-20, but since all characters are set to level 25, they no longer meet the level requirement.)

35 - 50 Rikti War Zone

35 - 50 Cimerora

40 - 50 Kallisti Wharf

[The Chairman]

3 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Lots of places to go...

 

Zones

Trick or Treating only works if the player is in a zone with a level appropriate for their current combat level. The following are the appropriate levels for various zones:

 

 

Heroes:

01 - 11 Atlas Park

 

Villains:

01 - 10 Mercy Island

 

Praetorians:

01 - 08 Nova Praetoria

 

 

(Quote snipped for brevity)

 

For the record: ToT does not appear to function in AP this year. I have not verified, but I would assume Mercy and Nova Praetoria would be the same.

[The Chairman]

1 hour ago, The Chairman said:

 

(Quote snipped for brevity)

 

For the record: ToT does not appear to function in AP this year. I have not verified, but I would assume Mercy and Nova Praetoria would be the same.

 

I stand corrected:

 

 

[Sneakers]

Only takes two or three strong toons to take out the enemies anyways.

What difference does it make if the low-level characters click buttons or not?

They can't even do any real damage anyways.

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Sneakers said:

They can't even do any real damage anyways.

While sidekicked up? They still do real damage. Not great damage, probably, but they can still add to the damage.

 

As already stated though, you can't force people to actually participate. If the league leader doesn't like AFK'ers, the league leader can remove them. I don't see that happening though.

[Sneakers]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

While sidekicked up? They still do real damage. Not great damage, probably, but they can still add to the damage.

 

As already stated though, you can't force people to actually participate. If the league leader doesn't like AFK'ers, the league leader can remove them. I don't see that happening though.

 

Yes while side kicked. 

That is if they can even hit their target.

The damage they do is usually negligible.

Sure its a real number but usually doesn't even scratch the surface.

 

Those characters would spend a hour trying to defeat a ancient mummy were it not for the 50 incarnates.

 

And to the OP. If your so upset about it then why not stop participating in the TOT FARMS.

Because that's what you're talking about. You're not talking about toting. You're talking about the tot leagues that click the same doors over and over never leaving the area. 

Once you get the badges the only purpose is farming inf and exp.

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 10/15/2022 at 8:13 AM, MsSmart said:

     But be as it may, there is not much that can be done about this, folks chose to do what they want to do. Even if its to shamelessly exploit an event to get PLd.

Kicking people who are AFK on the ToT League on My Island isn't going to cause people to join your Task Force.

 

And you can call it an exploit all you want but at least one Homecoming staff member is on record as recommending that people join the ToT League on My Island. Sooooo... by definition it's not an exploit.

 

The OP is literally a "solution" to a non-existent problem.

[biostem]

On 10/15/2022 at 12:13 PM, MsSmart said:

A potential solution, is only for ToT leagues, which can be detected by killing flag mobs (tot mobs), is to decrease the AFK timer of 15 min before you get disconnected to 5 min, and hope this will force these folks to be pro-active.

 

   Some raid leaders has asked other team leaders to check on their team and report who are those on extended AFK. But this suffers from another unintended consequence. There are not enough level 50s present consistently to lead the ToT groups, the PL greed is that bad. So when you find the level 50 is one of those going AFK you are in a dilemma.

 

The controls of a league, only allows the league leader to boot folks. Maybe if any leader could boot folks from their own team, may help with the removal of AFK folks abusing the good will of others.

 

Any suggestions that could help mitigate this issue?

You have to accept that seasonal events are going to pull people away from the regular stuff.  Next, you have to understand that people are going to take the path of least resistance.  Third, you have to be able to step outside of your own experiences/perceptions and try to be objective about things - it is just as likely, maybe even more likely, that the lowbie currently being PL'd by ToT-ing could turn out to be an excellent teammate once the event is over and things are back to normal, than they be some blubbering "noob" who knows nothing about how to play their character.  Finally, any step you take to try and tweak the AFK timer for 'special circumstances" or otherwise empower people to remove others from teams, (instead of trying to persuade people to be more active), only serves to sour the game to them.  For instance, a better "anti-AFK" approach may be to implement a system where you must cycle between the use of 3 powers within a 20 second period of time, in a fashion that does not exhibit the kind of precise power activation timer one would expect from a bot/script, in order to get the 5x XP from the event EBs or something.  Even then, is the kind of work it would take to implement such a system the best use of developer resources?  You could always try to create your own league and enforce the rules as you see fit, just to see how well it goes over...

[MsSmart]

On 10/17/2022 at 4:07 PM, Sneakers said:

 

Yes while side kicked. 

That is if they can even hit their target.

The damage they do is usually negligible.

Sure its a real number but usually doesn't even scratch the surface.

 

Those characters would spend a hour trying to defeat a ancient mummy were it not for the 50 incarnates.

 

And to the OP. If your so upset about it then why not stop participating in the TOT FARMS.

Because that's what you're talking about. You're not talking about toting. You're talking about the tot leagues that click the same doors over and over never leaving the area. 

Once you get the badges the only purpose is farming inf and exp.

 You missed my original reason for the posting, my true complaint is the inability to form teams to do "other" content, unless spending over half an hour begging for players to join is totally acceptable and enjoyable. So if you can't start something, due to ToT, you may feel like, what the heck, might as well ToT. So you do "second best" of choice of what to do, and you consistently end up in a team were 5 out 8 are AFK, which seems like rubbing salt on a wound. For this week, I have avoided ToTs all together, just too burned out of them, and happily others are getting that way too, and teams to do other content are now being possible to form in a reasonable amount of time

[Rudra]

As @biostem said, events are going to pull players away from other content. It happens with every event every year. Especially when new badges are added to said events when they are re-released. Also, when you get something that has such a large draw and is open to all levels for rapid leveling, as is actually encouraged by some devs and players for ToT'ing, you are going to get players that choose to do nothing after joining. It is unfortunate, but also inevitable, and there is nothing that can really be done to change that without punishing the player base writ large to stop whatever proportion is just passively earning.

 

All that said? As you are noticing, the focus on events dies down after a week or two. This happens every time as well. To the point that latecomers to events struggle to get new badges or large enough teams for event specific elements after the first couple weeks. While this is not the solution you want, nor a solution at all for that matter, just waiting a week or two for a large enough player base to be bored of the event alleviates the problem of forming teams/leagues for other content.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to correct capitalization.

[Lyrium]

8 hours ago, MsSmart said:

 You missed my original reason for the posting, my true complaint is the inability to form teams to do "other" content, unless spending over half an hour begging for players to join is totally acceptable and enjoyable. So if you can't start something, due to ToT, you may feel like, what the heck, might as well ToT. So you do "second best" of choice of what to do, and you consistently end up in a team were 5 out 8 are AFK, which seems like rubbing salt on a wound. For this week, I have avoided ToTs all together, just too burned out of them, and happily others are getting that way too, and teams to do other content are now being possible to form in a reasonable amount of time

I don't know in what server or at what time do you play, but I've never seen (in Excelsior) teams taking 30m to recruit due to ToT. I've been in Posi, Synapse, Yin, Manticore, DFB, DiB, ML, Eden, ITF, iTrials.... all of them filled in minutes

[twozerofoxtrot]

Sue is on Everlasting,  and is one of my favorite folks there cause she's very positive and always value added to any team.

 

At the height of ToT it was definitely a drag on recruiting, and it was especially noticeable in off hours. It's not as bad in our third week of it. Which was this last week, right after Sue posted.

 

But taking 30 minutes to fill a group isn't unheard of on Everlasting, either. Sure it's the second largest sever, but a good chunk of the population are talking among themselves in SG bases and custom content as well. The opposite is also true. Just depends on when you're playing. 

[Marine X]

1 hour ago, Lyrium said:

I've never seen (in Excelsior) teams taking 30m to recruit due to ToT

Excelsior has the largest population so the problem that @MsSmart is bringing up may not apply there. I play on Reunion, and during off hours, the Crickets are deafening at times. I love the Halloween events but they do tend to take center stage, meaning that other activities can be impacted. It's always been this way and will be over soon enough. 

[Lyrium]

47 minutes ago, Marine X said:

Excelsior has the largest population so the problem that @MsSmart is bringing up may not apply there. I play on Reunion, and during off hours, the Crickets are deafening at times. I love the Halloween events but they do tend to take center stage, meaning that other activities can be impacted. It's always been this way and will be over soon enough. 

That's why mi fist sentence is "I don't know in what server or at what time do you play" 🙂 I live in Spain so I used to play on Reunion, and it's pretty much a ghost town compared to Excel. Once I moved to Excel, I never looked back (I'm not saying people should move to the most populated servers, just sharing some info)

 

On the other hand (and again, my opinion), I think most of the AFKers in ToT would not join the OPs teams anyway. The people AFKing in ToT are the sames ones who AFK in AE when Halloween event is not present.

 

ToT only lasts a few weeks, I don't think is such a big problem

[Meknomancer]

I play most of the servers and if your forming up for weekly's/tf's/non-event teams then every server outside of excel will usually have to spam lfg for 30 minutes to get 4-5 people (i play euro hours, i know it gets really busy after i log so everlasting/reunion/torch/maybe indom may be able to fill teams faster but during the day when i'm on every server except excel is pretty much empty and i'll often see the lone player spamming lfg on a newly made toon get 0 response for an hour til they give up). Obvious answer is just to move with the population, play on excel til the other servers pick up.

 

As to the ToT....its my favourite event and i could happily enjoy it all year round. But you will see the strangest stuff from other players. I didn't really notice it the past couple of years but this year seems to be different. Players making multiple teams of all masterminds and leaving pets on aggressive at PI motel, never clicking a single door- just waiting on active ToT leagues to do so then using fold space to pull those mobs to themselves.

 

But my favourite so far is the level 1 toon that zoned into PI. Several low level toons were spamming broadcast for space in a league (which was full). The level 1 toon then demanded a 50 leave the league so it could join. When that didnt happen the player demanded several of the level 50's leave the league and form a new league and invite all the lowbies. You can imagine what everyone was thinking. What i don't understand is why anyone would make a new toon and instantly zone into somewhere like PI/GV where they are unable to do anything. No low level toon on a ToT league in PI is running about clicking doors spawning level 54 eb mobs and thinking they are gonna survive 5 seconds unless they hop back onto the afk incarnate buff/healers. A single mob will throw all their attacks at the person who clicks the door. And what can you do with the lowbie. You can't hit anything. You can't do any damage. Why not ToT in level appropriate zones.

 

As long as the events run players will be looking to get levelled up by others its just that simple and its always been that way. Now that fire farms arent what they used to be theres way less farmers willing to take doorsitters. It isnt just the fact that they have to share the purple and pvp drops with sitters its much harder to go afk and even actively its slower/less inf. So get used to seeing all those who like to make hundreds of new alts and then have someone else level them while they afk jump on every event team going as long as they can.

[Lyrium]

2 minutes ago, Meknomancer said:

But my favourite so far is the level 1 toon that zoned into PI. Several low level toons were spamming broadcast for space in a league (which was full). The level 1 toon then demanded a 50 leave the league so it could join. When that didnt happen the player demanded several of the level 50's leave the league and form a new league and invite all the lowbies.

 Wow, that would be insta-ignore for me