Auto logout block

[kelika2]

Ever consider getting rid of this from TF mode?

Long TFs are pretty much not a thing anymore

No one in real time ever has to afk longer than 15 minutes in say Positron or whatever villains have

And if you are soloing ouro and afk longer than 15 minutes that means you have enough time for a 15 second or so loading screen

[biostem]

IMHO, the bigger issue is people exploiting the no-auto-logout for things like damage badges or farming Adamastor.

[srmalloy]

6 hours ago, kelika2 said:

No one in real time ever has to afk longer than 15 minutes in say Positron or whatever villains have

However, changing the auto-logout in a TF to an auto-demote could be useful — when the team leader goes idle for longer than the cutoff (with the ability to lower the cutoff in the TF difficulty screen), they're kicked from the leader position, replaced by the next highest character on the team. That would allow TFs where the leader locks up to shift leadership without the leader's cooperation so the rest of the team can continue.

[Naomi]

7 hours ago, kelika2 said:

Ever consider getting rid of this from TF mode?

 

It's been brought up a few times in passing, but I would say we're more reluctant than not.

 

I would guess that most people, including myself, would like to see the AFK timer increased longer than 15 minutes on its own but there are no definitive plans in the works at the moment.

 

The GMs and other Devs are aware people use it to farm damage and healing badges, but those can also be farmed inside of missions if it were somehow taken away. So if this is about stopping the farming of badges itself, it wouldn't accomplish that goal on its own.

 

If tons of people are farming the badges, then we honestly (in my opinion) should look at the requirements themselves and adjust them accordingly. In the past, the healing badges used to be a lot worse in terms of requirements, but back then, the badges themselves also used to be geared specifically to certain ATs before the "collect every badge on every character" culture became more prominent. The badges themselves at the moment still have pretty steep requirements for people who don't have tons of time to get them organically, if at all, as not every character has a way to heal friendly targets for that one in particular. One of the damage taken badges is also a requirement for a power granting accolade.

 

We also don't want to see players getting actioned left and right for farming, or even the occasional afk farming, since (and this is just my opinion not HC policy), it isn't so much an exploit as it is abusing the intent of a system for some other gain, which is where the GM team tends to start asking us to see if we can change things that they're getting frequent reports or complaints about.

 

Overall, the biggest concern at the moment is whether your actions are effecting someone else's gameplay. So if you're using a Giant Monster or something for such things, it's going to be looked at more sternly than if you're just healing friendly mobs or taking damage while afk.

 

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Naomi said:

The badges themselves at the moment still have pretty steep requirements for people who don't have tons of time to get them organically, if at all

I realize you don't speak for the entire dev team or GMs, but why do things need to be made attainable for all?  Why can't the stance be "yeah, this is tough to get organically, so don't be upset if you can't then get it"?

[kelika2]

3 hours ago, biostem said:

I realize you don't speak for the entire dev team or GMs, but why do things need to be made attainable for all?  Why can't the stance be "yeah, this is tough to get organically, so don't be upset if you can't then get it"?

something something auto-play phone games nap and loot

[Greycat]

15 hours ago, kelika2 said:

No one in real time ever has to afk longer than 15 minutes in say Positron or whatever villains have

 

 

Yes, people *do* have to AFK longer than that. I had to while family members were sick, for instance. Others have kids and such they take care of that have something come up suddenly. It's not uncommon at all.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

3 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

Yes, people *do* have to AFK longer than that. I had to while family members were sick, for instance. Others have kids and such they take care of that have something come up suddenly. It's not uncommon at all.

 

Agreed. 

People have lives (no matter how addicted they are to coh)

and some people fall asleep while playing, we all remember that 1 person on voice chat just snoring it up. lol

 

[UltraAlt]

16 hours ago, Naomi said:

it isn't so much an exploit as it is abusing the intent of a system

 

I'm sorry. I'm not trying to cause an issue.

 

Can you explain the difference between "Exploit" and "abusing the intent of a system"?

 

The intent of the AE (as designed by the DEVs) was NEVER farming.

The DEVs took steps to curb farming by putting timers on some of the most farmed maps so they couldn't be played repeatedly.

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

some people fall asleep while playing

 

I have seen the "wall running" and, unfortunately, I have done it myself a time or two.

 

qwerty face is real.

 

[UltraAlt]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:30 AM, kelika2 said:

Ever consider getting rid of this from TF mode?

Long TFs are pretty much not a thing anymore

 

Honestly, I haven't seen anyone lock up a task force by being AFK for a long time, but I have seen it happen ... and, I think most people will agree, that when it happens it is a real killjoy for the others on the task force whether it is intentional or not.

 

The respectful thing to exit missions when you know you are going to be AFK for any prolonged period of time.

Remaining in a mission for a quick bio is one thing, but to stay in a mission with the intention to leech is an entirely different thing.

Saying I have to go eat and staying in a mission is unacceptable from my point of view. It is obviously intentionally taking advantage of the rest of the team. I fully understand that some players like and condone that type of behavior.

 

This being said, if the afk player isn't the task force leader, the leader does have the option to kick the player.

[UltraAlt]

18 hours ago, srmalloy said:

replaced by the next highest character on the team

 

It seems that you are assuming that the highest level player on the task force will always have the star.

Anyone that is on the taskforce is high enough level for that taskforce.

 

Why should it go to the next highest character on the team?

Why not to the next character listed on the team?

 

If it is an issue of the active mission level after a leadership change, the group logging out and back in again should reset the current mission to the current team leader (who at that point would be whomever logged back in first after everyone had logged out or the one that didn't log out when everyone else did).

... but, of course, the AFK player wouldn't be logging out ... but they could be kicked, and that would really be the point of changing the leadership in the first place.

Edited June 13, 2023 by UltraAlt

[TheZag]

I wouldnt mind having a vote to demote if someone is idle long enough to get the afk tag.  When we're partway through a TF and the leader just stops moving,  it kinda sucks.

 

Its great that you made it in time to stop the baby from grabbing the cat barf just so they can make a boom-boom so big that it runs up their entire back so you had to wash, dry and clothe your child before cleaning up after the cat.  What about that means we have to all wait around for the next mission,  assuming that the team thinks you are coming back at all and didnt disband already?

 

[Naomi]

10 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Can you explain the difference between "Exploit" and "abusing the intent of a system"?

 

Sorry, that's kind of poorly written. They're both one and the same, really.

 

What I meant to say was that I don't personally like to use those words specifically at players depending on the context and intent of the designer, programmer and player.

 

I had a wall of text going into the philosophy and all, but at the end of the day, I didn't mean to say using those words is necessarily wrong, in fact I would agree it isn't, mostly that in a case like this, I would prefer not to use them or use something less harsh, like "avoiding the timeout". That's what the Roleplayers do who jump on AE Task Forces when they idle around Pocket D alt-tabbed.. to really say they're "exploiting" or "abusing" the timeout to me just sounds a bit harsh there, even if it's technically accurate I guess, but again, context of everything comes into play.

 

What I don't like is when a system is hastily or poorly designed and developers or designers finger point at players or players finger point at each other instead of the devs or expecting players to behave like well behaved robots instead of ants in a sand box and then being surprised when they tunnel under instead of over after you've installed a dome, provided of course, their actions or "exploits" aren't causing harm to the game or other players.

 

On 6/12/2023 at 9:08 PM, biostem said:

I realize you don't speak for the entire dev team or GMs, but why do things need to be made attainable for all?  Why can't the stance be "yeah, this is tough to get organically, so don't be upset if you can't then get it"?

 

It depends on the reward and a lot of other factors involved. My opinion on insane badge number requirements specifically with damage or healing is that they end up being worth more on the AT or class it wasn't designed for to begin with and you're left with this weird scenario where you look at a support class that has the badge and shrug, but if a Brute has it and they used Aid Other for 5 years of playing the game it's like the holy grail of bragging rights that you have just created, even though you designed it to be a reward for the support class as THE design goal or intent of such high numbers. Just don't be surprised when people start trying to exploit or farm for it as a side effect.

 

If you want to make something impossibly-locked then that's one thing, but if it's open-to-all yet meant or intended to be something else.. then I think that's ill-considered design by at least some measure. You'll end up with people farming it or complaining about how hard it is to get no matter what you try to tell them was the design goal.

 

 

[biostem]

27 minutes ago, Naomi said:

Just don't be surprised when people start trying to exploit or farm for it as a side effect.

I'm not surprised, I just don't see why such activities should be further enabled.

 

27 minutes ago, Naomi said:

If you want to make something impossibly-locked then that's one thing, but if it's open-to-all yet meant or intended to be something else.. then I think that's ill-considered design by at least some measure. You'll end up with people farming it or complaining about how hard it is to get no matter what you try to tell them was the design goal.

But when you get right down to it, isn't "intent" all that really matters?  CoH was intended to be a way for us to bring our various hero and villain concepts "to life" in some form, a way to create something that, from the character creation screen to the last time we ever play them, involves making decisions that impact the course that character took and brought us both enjoyment and fond memories.  Along with all that, though, comes having to say "I want to do this with the character, which means I can't do that", which involves *not* being able to attain certain milestones/badges/etc.  If the dev team took a stance that "exploiting the various game mechanics in order to achieve things you really shouldn't be able to" was wrong and that they would take steps to combat it, then so be it.  All that permitting or encouraging such behaviors does is to devalue those players who did attain those things through legitimate play, and given how much the consequences for making bad decisions in-game have been lessened, shouldn't there be a concerted effort to retain the meaningfulness of those "insane badge number requirements"?  I mean, do you really want 10s or 100s of people AFK in Echo:DA to farm merits?  How long until we just have the beta server freebies menu, then?  The more things get devalued, the shorter player retention becomes, since everything you attain becomes worth less and less...

Edited June 14, 2023 by biostem

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

But when you get right down to it, isn't "intent" all that really matters?  CoH was intended to be a way for us to bring our various hero and villain concepts "to life" in some form, a way to create something that, from the character creation screen to the last time we ever play them, involves making decisions that impact the course that character took and brought us both enjoyment and fond memories.  Along with all that, though, comes having to say "I want to do this with the character, which means I can't do that", which involves *not* being able to attain certain milestones/badges/etc.  If the dev team took a stance that "exploiting the various game mechanics in order to achieve things you really shouldn't be able to" was wrong and that they would take steps to combat it, then so be it.  All that permitting or encouraging such behaviors does is to devalue those players who did attain those things through legitimate play, and given how much the consequences for making bad decisions in-game have been lessened, shouldn't there be a concerted effort to retain the meaningfulness of those "insane badge number requirements"?  I mean, do you really want 10s or 100s of people AFK in Echo:DA to farm merits?  How long until we just have the beta server freebies menu, then?  The more things get devalued, the shorter player retention becomes, since everything you attain becomes worth less and less...

The flip side of that argument being that in a day and age where attention spans are already known to be low, making things available but seem unattainable is a good way to frustrate players and possibly even drive them off. Everything eventually becomes attainable in this game, whether intended to be or not. The only things I see that don't follow that are the badges for starting as a Praetorian or Temporal Warrior. Master of runs used to be elite status badges. Then players found tactics and tricks to make those badges available to all. (And let's not address what incarnate powers did to that equation.) Other badges players found farms that let them get them. And considering that some players use those badges to describe their character rather than just to declare they cleared that milestone, I can't fault them for it. I suspect even the Hard Mode badges will eventually become available to all players as the community learns and develops tactics and tricks to deal with it.

 

Your argument reads like an anti-farming argument. And for all that farming frustrates me, for some things at least, especially power leveling, it's part of the game now. (And always has been if we're honest about it.)

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Naomi said:

I had a wall of text going into the philosophy and all, but at the end of the day, I didn't mean to say using those words is necessarily wrong, in fact I would agree it isn't, mostly that in a case like this, I would prefer not to use them or use something less harsh, like "avoiding the timeout". That's what the Roleplayers do who jump on AE Task Forces when they idle around Pocket D alt-tabbed.. to really say they're "exploiting" or "abusing" the timeout to me just sounds a bit harsh there, even if it's technically accurate I guess, but again, context of everything comes into play.

 

I think what the original intent was to keep those in a taskforce from ruining other players experience because they can't proceed to the next mission because a player is AFK in a mission. (of course, if they aren't the team lead, they can be simply kicked from the team.)

 

I'm not going to lie. I do a bit of marketing. I do "alt tab" to do other stuff while I do marketing. Sometimes while waiting for it to finish rotating out of the locked status during influence retrieval. Sometimes because want to see what is going on in a news story that I'm listening to. 

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but the "alt-tabbing" afk while RPGing is different on some levels from disrupting other people's gameplay by holding up a taskforce.

Of course, I'm not farming XP when I'm AFK. I'm not even really playing the market while I'm AFK; that mostly goes on when a character isn't even online. 

(Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm assuming it cost just as much to run the servers if I'm on it all day or if I'm only on it 2 hours a week. At this point, the only issue with me being on and being AKF would be if a server was full and I was keeping other players from playing. I don't think I've ever even played on a Homecoming server when it was showing 3 red dots.)

 

I brought up Farming because that was always a sore point for me and the whole time-out and exploit/"abusing the intent of a system" triggered that linked response.

 

1 hour ago, Naomi said:

What I don't like is when a system is hastily or poorly designed and developers or designers finger point at players or players finger point at each other instead of the devs or expecting players to behave like well behaved robots instead of ants in a sand box and then being surprised when they tunnel under instead of over after you've installed a dome, provided of course, their actions or "exploits" aren't causing harm to the game or other players.

 

I completely agree with that.

The DEVS here at Homecoming do a great service to the community and game that is THE CITY.

 

I quit playing a year before the Sundown and cancelled my subscription because I didn't like the way that the game or the community were heading.

I warned a friend that was trying to get me to play on Homecoming that if I didn't like what I saw/found, that I wasn't going to play.

I've been here for several years at this point and I can't say that I have seen anything the DEVs have done that is game-breaking for me.

 

No one is going to agree with everything. We are always allowed to have input here.

Whether the DEVs read any or all of that input all or any of the time really isn't so much an issue for me. 

I agree that some people are harsh about it or feel that they have some kind of ownership over a gaming environment that has essentially been given to us for free.

Donations are donations. They aren't payment. They are a sign of respect and our love for THE CITY.

 

You and the other DEVs create plenty of things that I enjoy. The stuff I don't enjoy, I don't have to play. Sometimes I might complain about, but most of the time I simply don't deal with whatever it is and play the stuff that I want to play.

 

I've enjoyed all the new power sets and power proliferation. The ability to have different powers that can be used by different archetypes allows me many hours of creativity through character conception and gaming enjoyment by exploring content in different ways with different powers.

 

1 hour ago, Naomi said:

provided of course, their actions or "exploits" aren't causing harm to the game or other players.

 

And I think this is the intent of the original post. 

Players that do go AFK for long periods of time on a task force to the extent that the team can't move to the next mission until the last player is out of the mission is an issue.

However, this only really becomes an issue when the player that is AKF in a mission is the team lead. (because, if they aren't the leader, they can be kicked from the taskforce)

 

I understand Homecoming stance on farming.

I don't like "farming", but I'm not trying to argue with the DEVs stance on it.

I'm trying not to even bring it up these days.

Seriously, the farming of AE missions entirely corrupted and, to a very large extent, took over the AE from the get go. It really disgusts me that a system that was built for players to be created for players to use their creativity and share with others was corrupted into an exploit tool. It really hurts me somewhere deep of my game design and game creation logical functions to the point of an emotional response. The DEVs said that they were going to ban accounts over it, caved, and even hid their posts about staunchly enforcing the rules. That was a long time ago.

Like I said, I'm trying not to even bring it up but I was triggered.

 

I don't put farmers on ignore any more. I only put those players that I find to be disruptive on the ignore list in-game.

As they say, the ignore list is too short, you just have to accept some things and move on.

 

I've only experienced a player being AFK in an taskforce mission once or twice since I've been back.

I'm thinking that one time, the taskforce members voted to give the player 10 minutes to come back before kicking them.

I can't even remember what happened the other time.

It doesn't happen all that often to me, but I think that this is far more likely to happen on Excelsior than the servers that I usually play on. That is to say, this kind of behavior has always historically occurred on the most populous server. By avoiding playing on the most populous server at the most active times a day, it greatly reduces my chances of running into those kinds of situations.

 

I apologize about going off on the farming tangent once again.

It just gets under my skin in the same way that throwing out the Champions RPG rule system to make the online game and keep the signature characters was like throwing the baby out and keeping the dirty bath water. To add insult to injury, they bought out the RPG line and released a new rule set based on the online rules to try to throw a blanket over it.

These things happen, but it really makes a sore spot.

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

It just gets under my skin in the same way that throwing out the Champions RPG rule system to make the online game and keep the signature characters was like throwing the baby out and keeping the dirty bath water.

Agreed. Just one of many things wrong with CO. I was so happy to find out about Homecoming so I could get away from that.

 

13 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

To add insult to injury, they bought out the RPG line and released a new rule set based on the online rules to try to throw a blanket over it.

Seriously?!?!?!

 

Edit: As for the OP? I think an in mission timer after the mission has been completed could go a long way to dealing with AFK'ers in missions without having to boot them. Sometimes you just don't have time to exit the mission before you step away to deal with a situation. That wouldn't solve the problem of leaders going AFK, but it would solve player in-mission AFKs without having to boot them for circumstances beyond their control. Out of mission? Unless they are positioning themselves to intentionally make things difficult for other players, who cares how long they AFK for? Especially if solo doing a Flashback.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Rudra

[Player2]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:30 AM, kelika2 said:

 

No one in real time ever has to afk longer than 15 minutes 

 

You don't know me!!

[srmalloy]

21 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Why should it go to the next highest character on the team?

Why not to the next character listed on the team?

If the TF is locked to the level it's started at, that would work, but having seen the hate and discontent over TFs that spawn max level regardless of the team level, picking the highest-level character on the team as the new leader minimizes the number of surprises with sudden level shifts. Also, consider that TFs generally have a five-level range; if the second character on the team is minimum level for the TF, making them the new leader results in the game saying "Hi! Because your old leader went inactive, a new leader has been designated; everyone else on the team will lose access to up to two powers because of the new exemplar level. Sucks to be you." — the rest of the team is penalized for the idleage of the leader and their picking a min-level character as the first team member.

[Bionic_Flea]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:30 AM, kelika2 said:

Ever consider getting rid of this from TF mode?

Long TFs are pretty much not a thing anymore

No one in real time ever has to afk longer than 15 minutes in say Positron or whatever villains have

And if you are soloing ouro and afk longer than 15 minutes that means you have enough time for a 15 second or so loading screen

 

What problem are you trying to solve here?  Others have suggested it relates to farming badges or a team getting stuck on a TF due to an AFK player or some other problem (real or perceived).

 

In other words, what did auto logout ever do to you?

[lemming]

I think for TFs, I like that many of them now when you call the contact for the next mission, that it kicks everyone out onto the street.  (unless it's me and I was trying to get revenge on some mob. 😉 )

 

Unless the person is a lead, it's rarely a problem from my point of view.

 

I think this would also have a negative effect on those roleplayers that have a character doing some emote in a base.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

I think for TFs, I like that many of them now when you call the contact for the next mission, that it kicks everyone out onto the street.  (unless it's me and I was trying to get revenge on some mob. 😉 )

I was not aware that existed. Can we get that proliferated to all content? That is such a better solution than my timer.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to remove unnecessary "was".

[biostem]

9 hours ago, Rudra said:

Your argument reads like an anti-farming argument. And for all that farming frustrates me, for some things at least, especially power leveling, it's part of the game now. (And always has been if we're honest about it.)

No, my argument is that not everything will or should be attainable for every player, that rewards should be earned legitimately, and that it is ok to not "have it all".

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, biostem said:

No, my argument is that not everything will or should be attainable for every player, that rewards should be earned legitimately, and that it is ok to not "have it all".

I understand what your argument is, and to a point I even agree with it. I'm just telling you how it reads to me and giving a response based on that reading.