Dead classed as AFK

[DarkOvion]

This has happened before.

Was doing an alert (nightmare archwing) and I died just before the end.

I did 70-80% of the work, but ran out of revives (Itzal, no shields and explosive death modifier - died reviving others).

Due to my being dead and not moving during the time it took to clear up the stragglers, I count as AFK and don't get the rewards.

This is terrrible.

I contributed heavily, I did the work, and yet I get no reward - and on top of that the alert still counts as completed so I can't redo it.

The AFK system really needs to be able to cope with such things.

Edited November 8, 2016 by DarkOvion

[Dumfing]

It should be that the game doesn't even think you've run the mission if you afk too long in it

[NativeKiller]

IIRC, D.E is maintaining this AFK policy because some people used to just kill themselves and stay dead until the mission timer ran out.

 

...It's really sad though. :(

[DarkOvion]

Just now, NativeKiller said:

IIRC, D.E is maintaining this AFK policy because some people used to just kill themselves and stay dead until the mission timer ran out.

 

...It's really sad though. :(

It's not just sad, it's obnoxious.

If you have put in the most effort, or even plenty of effort, and died in the last 5-10% of the match, you should not be disqualified from the EoM rewards. ><

[NativeKiller]

1 minute ago, DarkOvion said:

It's not just sad, it's obnoxious.

If you have put in the most effort, or even plenty of effort, and died in the last 5-10% of the match, you should not be disqualified from the EoM rewards. ><

Oh, trust me, similar things had happened to me as well.

 

I agree that it's really obnoxious, it's just I kind of get why D.E maintains such an AFK policy even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

[DarkOvion]

Just now, NativeKiller said:

Oh, trust me, similar things had happened to me as well.

 

I agree that it's really obnoxious, it's just I kind of get why D.E maintains such an AFK policy even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

Thing is, it would be THAT hard to account for it.

Simple marker to say you were active for X% of the match, rather than just 'for the last 60 seconds', or if you've achieved X.

But hey.

Bringing the feedback might help.

Might not.

[Zhoyzu]

At the very least you should be able to run the mission again.

[NativeKiller]

Just now, DarkOvion said:

Thing is, it would be THAT hard to account for it.

Simple marker to say you were active for X% of the match, rather than just 'for the last 60 seconds', or if you've achieved X.

But hey.

Bringing the feedback might help.

Might not.

Yeah, the AFK policy really does need some work.

 

We all know that it does, and sooner the better!

[NativeKiller]

Just now, Zhoyzu said:

At the very least you should be able to run the mission again.

Not if the alert closed due to the time limit running out. :3

[DarkOvion]

10 minutes ago, NativeKiller said:

Not if the alert closed due to the time limit running out. :3

Eeeeh, that's still a really bad system at that point.

When you put in 10-30 minutes on a mission, die and then due to a couple of minutes you get little to nothing, it doesn't sit will.

[taiiat]

yes, that will count as being AFK.

so don't let that happen.

[Implodingbanana]

24 minutes ago, taiiat said:

yes, that will count as being AFK.

so don't let that happen.

kinda hard when OP is dead. The AFK system needs a few tweaks to improve it, this is one of those faults.

[taiiat]

6 minutes ago, Implodingbanana said:

this is one of those faults.

it really isn't.

in a Singleplayer game i'd perhaps agree. it's the way it is for good reason.
use the options available to you to avoid the problem occurring.

[DarkOvion]

Just now, taiiat said:

it really isn't.

in a Singleplayer game i'd perhaps agree. it's the way it is for good reason.
use the options available to you to avoid the problem occurring.

I'll just stop saving team mates, or participating then.

Generally, it's not a problem, but when something nasty happens, and you can't do anything about it the answer to a flawed system really isn't 'just deal with it'

[GeoffFromAccounting]

Just now, taiiat said:

it really isn't.

in a Singleplayer game i'd perhaps agree. it's the way it is for good reason.
use the options available to you to avoid the problem occurring.

Except OP is kind of... dead. There are no options when you're dead with no revives left except to sit back and watch your teammates doing stuff

[taiiat]

Just now, Ninjaboy00 said:

Except OP is kind of... dead. There are no options when you're dead with no revives left except to sit back and watch your teammates doing stuff

the option is to quit and start the Mission again because you can see the Mission won't complete before you are marked AFK (with good reason).

if you don't like that, change human nature to ensure nobody ever does abusive things.
not practical? yer darn tootin' - so restart the Mission.

[GeoffFromAccounting]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

the option is to quit and start the Mission again because you can see the Mission won't complete before you are marked AFK (with good reason).

if you don't like that, change human nature to ensure nobody ever does abusive things.
not practical? yer darn tootin' - so restart the Mission.

That works in solo, doesn't exactly work in a group setting unless you plan on pulling the entire group from the mission just so one person doesn't get flagged AFK while they're dead and incapable of doing anything.

As much as I agree with AFK flags, they also need to work to flag people who are actually AFK and not people who have just died in the last parts of the mission

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, Ninjaboy00 said:

they also need to work to flag people who are actually AFK and not people who have just died in the last parts of the mission

if you're dead, there is zero difference between a Player that is or isn't AFK.
you aren't participating either way.

so that works. there isn't a problem here. because the only solutions are either changing either all of humanity, or having infinite Revives.
neither of those are practical solutions.

[djternan]

9 hours ago, taiiat said:

it really isn't.

in a Singleplayer game i'd perhaps agree. it's the way it is for good reason.
use the options available to you to avoid the problem occurring.

You could just sit with your back to corner on an invisible Loki and never actually participate.  Just move enough to not be afk.  That prevents the problem from occurring.

 

If you're actively participating and contributing to the success of the group you should get the reward.

[Tsukinoki]

50 minutes ago, djternan said:

If you're actively participating and contributing to the success of the group you should get the reward.

9 hours ago, Ninjaboy00 said:

As much as I agree with AFK flags, they also need to work to flag people who are actually AFK and not people who have just died in the last parts of the mission

How do you define that programmatically?

Seriously: How do you define via an algorithm if someone is contributing to the success of the group and the mission or not?

For instance:
Is someone that runs 3-4 tiles away from the group in an MDef mission and kills enemies there, which doesn't prevent other enemies from getting to the group and doesn't protect the objective contributing to the success of the group?  Sure they have kills and damage dealt/received but they aren't really contributing anything.
So say they die and are out of revives and its more than 2 minutes away from extraction so the AFK timer will trip for them.
Should they get marked AFK or not?  And how is the game going to decide that?

Another example:
Someone is playing a Nyx and brings 1 or 2 weapons to level that aren't modded well but has modded the Nyx for long range and duration for Chaos and Mind Control.  She is running around and really helping the group survive and keeping the enemies off of the group yet has very low kills and damage compared to everyone else.
She dies and is out of revives and the timer trips before the mission is over.
Should she get marked AFK or not?  And how is the game going to decide that?

Another example:
Someone is playing a SotD focused Nekros (which btw the kills and damage don't count for the nekros that summoned them).  In a survival mission his desecration is keeping the life support percentage up very high and his shadows are doing a very good job, but like the Nyx he didn't bring well modded weapons as he is leveling his loadout.  Therefore he has really low damage dealt and kills attributed to him.
Same thing as the previous scenarios.
Should he get marked AFK and not get the reward?  And how is the game going to decide that?

Another example:
Say a group is doing a medium level sabotage mission and decide to do the fire escape.  There is a major AoE nuker in the party (be it abilities or the Synoid Simulor/tonkor/whatever-god-tier-weapon).  One of the members is really falling behind in kills/damage because they simply can't do much with that nuker in the party killing everything before they have a chance.
Due to the fire they die and lose their revives (I've seen this happen quite often....especially since people won't revive them in case they are lit on fire and killed during the revival process).
Should they get marked AFK and not get the reward?  And how is the game going to decide that?  After all they were dead longer than 2 minutes and had very low kills and damage (through no fault of their own).

That's the problem with saying "Oh if you're actively participating up until the point that you lose all revives you should get the rewards of the mission"
Because how do you programmatically define "actively participating".
Whats the cut-off values?  What about support frames or frames that have other ways of participating that don't meet those cut-off values?  Or what about the nukers/rushers that can easily keep the rest of the team below those cut-off values?
Simple thing is that computers are horrible when it comes to determining things that require judgement like that.  Computers just aren't sophisticated enough to be able to make the judgements here that are needed to be "fair".
Because of that DE takes the safe route: If you are dead longer than 2 minutes you don't get rewards.  Sure it can screw over people who were actually participating, but it completely stops the people who would self suicide early on and get the rewards for the mission.

Also good luck defining:

9 hours ago, Ninjaboy00 said:

they also need to work to flag people who are actually AFK

Because seriously: How exactly can you define "actually AFK"?
Is it the people with super low damage/kills (or no damage/kills) compared to the rest of the team?  Then what about rushers/nukers that can completely prevent them, even though they are trying, from hitting those arbitrary cut-off values?
Is it people who sit in one place for too long?  Then what about the people who just follow behind the group and don't do anything but move around after the group?
What about the people in an invasion/crossfire mission that can't get from the Grineer side of the map to the Corpus side due to a glitch with the boarding pod zone?  Or what about the glitch in the corpus to grineer one with the space-walk that could end with people stuck in geometry that /unstuck might not get them out of?  Or what about the glitch where the teleport zone in the space-walk disappears and they can't go through it?  They stopped all participation after a certain point (again not willingly) that could be quite early in the mission.  So are they AFK or not?  And depending on how you define AFK (low kills/damage or not staying with the group or just not moving at all) they could potentially fit into one or more of those groups.

While yes, it would be nice to have a better flagging system the problem is this: How do you programmatically define participating vs AFK?  What sets of criteria are they and what numbers have to be met?  And what about glitches and other problems?  Or the aforementioned nukers?  Or the slew of other things that can't be easily defined programmatically that could skew things one way or the other.

Simple fact is that DE is doing what they can.
Sure it occasionally hits people that don't deserve it, but its honestly the best approach that they can currently take.

Edited November 8, 2016 by Tsukinoki

[Liminal]

8 hours ago, taiiat said:

if you're dead, there is zero difference between a Player that is or isn't AFK.
you aren't participating either way.

so that works. there isn't a problem here. because the only solutions are either changing either all of humanity, or having infinite Revives.
neither of those are practical solutions.

I disagree, a player that died could have contributed. The time a player was active should be taken into account. There are always other options, the system can be improved.

And about "not letting it happen", not dying isn't always under your control (say "hi" to that spammy Ash that just got irradiated) and you don't always get to an alert with enough time to run it twice, or maybe you picked up a sculpture or found a rare container. If you spent a lot of time playing that match and doing stuff and you were only "afk" while dead, you should not be punished.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

Can't remember running out of revives ever since Solo Endless Void was a thing.

I mean, you get a generous 4 revives by default, 6 if you have two arcanes... Then there's the fact other players can revive you a gazillion times for free if you stick near to each other enough. There isn't really any excuses to run out of lives in any star chart mission.

Sucks to lose an alert due to this "feature", I can understand, but now that you know, just abort the mission when you run out of lives, then run the mission again, this time equipping survivability mods. Redirection+Vitality+Life Strike+Medi Ray+Guardian+Health and Shield Pizzas should fix any survivability issues you might have.

That said, the game should probably include an algorithm that takes note of the amount of kills and damage dealt by each player before their last death and that awards the reward if said death occured late enough in the match. I mean, if you have 75% of the kills and died a minute before the end, you should probably get rewarded, but if you had 3% kills and died 1 minute into a ten minute match, you don't deserve a reward.

Edited November 8, 2016 by (PS4)Stealth_Cobra

[ariivanasan]

use limbo and ran on the level. wait untill mission will be complired

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, The_Doc said:

I disagree, a player that died could have contributed. The time a player was active should be taken into account. There are always other options, the system can be improved.

right, so people then participate a bit and commit suicide and leech for most of a Mission.

it's as it is with good reason. and those that would like to complain about it, don't have a better solution that still prevents the abusiveness it exists to prevent, while achieving their goal.

those that lack that experience, for some reason won't remember that before things worked that way, instead you'd have a Player that commits suicide or puts in very little effort in the Mission, and then spends most of the Mission dead, AFK.
because it doesn't matter if they're looking at their screen or not, they're AFK. because they aren't participating.

Game Design is more complex than people think.

Edited November 8, 2016 by taiiat

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

54 minutes ago, (PS4)Stealth_Cobra said:

then run the mission again, this time equipping survivability mods. Redirection+Vitality+Life Strike+Medi Ray+Guardian+Health and Shield Pizzas

Enjoy getting banned for hacking