Why is AFK more tolerated now? Why do people log in and just stay logged in if they aren't playing?

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Comments

  • When it comes to enemy-status, I'd rather not have that change. The reason is very simple: You say that you trust the playerbase to be reasonable. I assume they won't be based on what I've seen so far. Having you be free to kill by anyone in the org you're enemied to will only lead to griefing.
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Yeah, unfortunately, there are not going to be the administrative resources available to "police" that. If just being enemied to somewhere allows you to be griefed on Prime... well, that would quickly become miserable.
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  • Kabina said:
    So for example: -

    Player A is an enemy of Magnagora
    Player A can raid Magnagora Prime without repercussion of Avechna.
    Player A is at risk from Magnagoran citizens in all places except their commune.
    Magnagoran who is an enemy to Player A Organization can attack Player A anywhere.


    Yes, please.
  • Xenthos said:
    Yeah, unfortunately, there are not going to be the administrative resources available to "police" that. If just being enemied to somewhere allows you to be griefed on Prime... well, that would quickly become miserable.
    It would just mean we would need to actually stay aware and take account of what was happening. Sure, it would need some work to balance it, but something similar to this is definitely better than what we have right now, I feel.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Draylor said:


    Kabina said:
    So for example: -

    Player A is an enemy of Magnagora
    Player A can raid Magnagora Prime without repercussion of Avechna.
    Player A is at risk from Magnagoran citizens in all places except their commune.
    Magnagoran who is an enemy to Player A Organization can attack Player A anywhere.



    Yes, please.

    See, this feels like an excellent example of why this is a bad idea. :p
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  • For fighters? Sure. For non-coms? Heck no. This change would mean that if I got enemied to, say, Seren for being from Glomdoring (not too farfetched), it'd mean I couldn't step one foot outside of Glom without them being free to kill me.
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  • Heck, I wouldn't even be safe in Glom. Anyone enemied would be free to enter Glom and kill me. Yeah, I'll pass on that, thank you.
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited November 2012
    Draylor said:


    Xenthos said:

    Yeah, unfortunately, there are not going to be the administrative resources available to "police" that. If just being enemied to somewhere allows you to be griefed on Prime... well, that would quickly become miserable.

    It would just mean we would need to actually stay aware and take account of what was happening. Sure, it would need some work to balance it, but something similar to this is definitely better than what we have right now, I feel.

    "Some work"? What would you suggest to balance it?

    If you don't enemy someone, they can't raid with impunity. At the same time you can slay anyone you want to with impunity yourself, simply by enemying them.

    As such, unenemy the combatants, enemy everyone else.

    Some pretty major work would be needed from the ground up, because you know as well as I that players will abuse whatever feature exists to their advantage.
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  • edited November 2012
    Yeah, fair comments. (Hello, hindsight.)

    I was starting to think along the lines of just a single enemy could initiate the assault. (Something akin to how DECLARE works now, I guess.) Once this flag is set, nobody else can attack. That would certainly address the zergs. 

    One thing I would also like to see is enemy branding/unbranding not take place immediately, rather it would take effect on the start of the next weave. 

    All that said, and now I come to think about this properly, the more gaping holes are starting to appear. 
  • Kabina said:
    From a young mouth, I will try to offer my experience with AFK, as well as possible solutions to the problem, which will hopefully also address the issue of combat. Firstly then my experience, I am sad to say I have and do occasionally AFK on prime, usually in Ebongloms lung and I put my character to sleep for anyone who comes looking for him to see... oh he won't respond. My reason for doing this is because I don't want to sit and stare at the screen whilst I sleep my endurance back up which can take from half an hour to an hour. (And if my character is awake to rp, then it can take even longer.) Now please don't assume I want this changed, in fact endurance is a good mechanic to stop people just bashing for forever and a day.  Another reason I tend to afk if I am having a bath, or checking on dinner is I don't want to lose my enchantment defenses, as it means I then have to go and buy them continuously. But in these circumstances again I will sit and sleep in Ebongloms lung, to also benefit from Endurance regeneration, to save me doing it, ten minutes after I return or what have you.

    Solution


    Now as for the issue of AFK at the nexus, the solution is simple, bring an in game mechanic that allows raiding on the prime plane. Not only does this make it more dangerous to sit there for six hours whilst you play COD4 or watch the complete fourth series of Red Dwarf for the sixtieth time. It solves the issue of it being impossible to harm your commune/city opponents, so this is my suggestion for it: -

    Make Enemy Status mean something.

    The way I suggest doing this is that, if you have been labelled an "Enemy" of an org, then that org territory loses the protection of Avechna whilst you are in their territory, but also, you lose the protection to Avechna in all places bar your own commune/city to anyone in that organization, unless they are likewise enemies. This will encourage players to think twice before pulling stupid actions which their character would likewise not do if there was realistic repercussions.

    So for example: -

    Player A is an enemy of Magnagora
    Player A can raid Magnagora Prime without repercussion of Avechna.
    Player A is at risk from Magnagoran citizens in all places except their commune.
    Magnagoran who is an enemy to Player A Organization can attack Player A anywhere.

    Possible Abuse

    The problem arises that the organization suddenly removes enemy status from all players in the raiding party, to counteract this, do not allow them to unenemy a player within 1 hour of being inside their territory. The second issue is that everyone just enemies everyone, for this I would trust in the playerbase to be reasonable, and continue using the enemy status as they have been, without using it to just kill people without revenge, as such would be bad RP. Or put in serious punishments in place for anyone found doing this.

    Hope this helps!
    Kabina

    We're not going to make it so that if Celest enemies you, Draylor can hunt you down anywhere on Prime without repercussion. Sorry.
  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    edited November 2012
    Yeah, that sounds like a bad fix. 

    What I don't like about Avechna is that it causes prime conflicts to devolve into one of four cases:
    1) You are ganked and die before you can mount too much defense or call for help. Often leads to 4.
    2) An entire org beats on the declaring party, or they run away to their safe zone (Impenetrable cities. Communes, not so much).
    3) Staring match, as no one declares anyone else.
    4) Neener-Neener, you hit me once, a week ago, so now I can screw with your org affiliated zones (like centaurs for Serenguard) and do whatever I want, and you can't touch me at all, or I peace you... and come back to neener-neener you some more!

    My suggested fix involves a few steps (though this fix increases the complexity of Avechna in exchange for making it less binary):
    1) Make karma curses mean.. something. 
    2) Make different levels of curses, and some non-domoth related curse-type things.
    3) Make different levels of 'blame'. Hit once, negligible. Hit twice (what normally gets an avenger kill on you now), hit with curse level 1. You also do less damage to the person, take more from them, and have a miss chance applied. They lose less, you gain much less.
    4) Hit again, curse level 2, twice as strong as 1. Maluses increase. Losses lower again for them.
    5) So on, until you rapidly reach the point that you cannot do anything to them anymore, and they'd lose nothing anyways. Additionally, you're saddled with a NASTY curse that you (at this point) have no way of getting rid of but waiting. Doesn't tick down if you aren't online.

    Fix 2:
    1) Make curses do something, not as bad as above suggestion.
    2) Drop avenger-ing death.
    3) Avenger is now just for curses.
    4) Introduce PK guidelines. No pk-ing people for no reason. They tell you that you're a bleepity bleep, you kill them... once. They get to curse you if you hit them again, but not kill. If you want to kill them again, fine. 
    5) Killing people without any RP reason to kill them (and no, 'From warring org', 'is enemy, on neutral ground', 'I'm a psychopathic killer' are not valid) is grounds for punishment.
    6) Move on, RP improves as random ganks and pk-free zones are eliminated.

  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    Enyalida said:
    Fix 2:
    1) Make curses do something, not as bad as above suggestion.
    2) Drop avenger-ing death.
    3) Avenger is now just for curses.
    4) Introduce PK guidelines. No pk-ing people for no reason. They tell you that you're a bleepity bleep, you kill them... once. They get to curse you if you hit them again, but not kill. If you want to kill them again, fine. 
    5) Killing people without any RP reason to kill them (and no, 'From warring org', 'is enemy, on neutral ground', 'I'm a psychopathic killer' are not valid) is grounds for punishment.
    6) Move on, RP improves as random ganks and pk-free zones are eliminated.

    This sounds like it's approaching Achaea's "pk cause" system and we don't want it. And it sounds a little care-bear.
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  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    Really? I don't find it okay that a midbie character from Gaudiguch can be wandering on Faethorn and be ganked/killed by a Hallifaxian who has never met, interacted with, or observed that Gaudi ever, just because "He Gaudi. Gaudi Baaaaad.". No repercussions. That's what we've got right now. 
    Compare that to a system in which players are encouraged to RP conflicts, and have reasons for wanting to kill people from the other orgs. You want to kill that Gaudi because you tried to get him to convert and he waggled his tentacle at you suggestively while maligning your mother. So you kill him. 

     Make Avenger a discouragement of harassment, not a stopper of all conflict, introduce RP based pressures against general conflict. 

    Second, this 'we'. Meaning you? I sure want it. I know of at least a few others who would prefer it... 

    This is getting beyond the scope of this thread.
  • edited November 2012
    We are not going to remove/reduce the functionality of Avechna, come up with arbitrary PK rules and then police them. The admin have better things to do with their time, especially when it becomes a venue for attacking admin as 'biased' or otherwise maligned because player X doesn't like the decision handed down. The avenger system, as-is, functions pretty well, and aside from the occasional bug, it functions exactly as intende. The world is at war with one another - the nations are rarely friendly, and if a BT wants to jump a Seren, have at it. They are your mortal enemies, after all.

    To ensure things are not so bad that the game is unplayable, 90% of the game falls within the realm of the Avenger and is protected. Unless, of course, you're enemied to the territory you're in - then you're open PK again. You don't have to bash prime, or loyal mobs. There's plenty out there that aren't loyal, and then there's always influencing.

     The higher planes being open PK is fine IMO - who cares if hallifaxians are jumping gaudis in Faethorn? Why are they there to begin with? Every org has 1 or 2 planes in which it's 'their' territory, everything else is owned by another org (or is Astral/Urlach Catacombs, which is deliberately dangerous and open PK - such areas are not uncommon in games (even Achaea has them)) or Faethorn (and there's not much point to being in Faethorn aside from the Fae/moving to territories that are owned by other orgs). If you're in your own territory/owned plane and are attacked, that's just the nature of being raided.

    In a game where people can go from newbie to Demigod in a few weeks, off-prime XP loss from a death (conglutinate was lowered specifically because people felt off-prime losses were too high) or even on-prime XP loss from a death are pretty quickly mitigated, either by being bashed/aetherbashed/influenced up after the fact or a multitude of death avoidance skills that are so common now there's literally no excuse to pray in almost any org.

    Anyways, you're welcome to take it up in another thread (the Lusternia Direction one seems logical, or make another one) but I can promise you, 100% guarantee, that any suggestion that starts with, ends with, or otherwise contains the idea, suggestion or implication of altering the Avenger system, particularly in the area of diminishing its effectiveness or removing it, is going to go about as far as a sumo wrestler being tossed about by a midget. Sorry, it's just one of those things that aren't going to be up for discussion, and I'm sure Estarra has said this dozens of times.
  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    Yeah, that's pretty care-bear. Especially considering it's really not that common, and death is virtually without cost 95% of the time.

    Look, you can't just make things up or blow things wildly out of proportion just to make your argument more appealing. There are no rampaging hordes of griefers harassing said midbies across the prime plane. Certainly not more than once a RL month (lol did you really say week? it's 30 days).

    This sounds like the Voter ID laws. You're complaining making a rare "problem" sound much worse than it actually is so that the game will be changed in a way you want it to be. No ma'am.

    And by "we" I mean most players who have played achaea and know the cause/issue system is total crap, and the admin who have stated repeatedly it'll never happen. We.
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  • Let's avoid using political hot-button issues as trying to prove our point. However strongly you may feel about the topic, RL politics isn't something we should breach on the forum. Too contested and prone to face-foaming.
  • edited November 2012
    One thought I had (no idea if it's good or not, since it's not in my playground): What about borrowing the soldier concept from Achaea? Soldiers can kill eachother all day on Prime with no threat from Avechna. It would allow Draylor and, let's say Leolamins, to kick eachother's asses all along the highways, but wouldn't mean you could attack Herby mcHarvestingpants, even if they're in an enemy org.
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  • Oh, and just to address the point before it's brought up:

    Becoming a soldier is free, but have to be done at your own Nexus.
    Once a soldier, you wouldn't be able to stop being a soldier until after one IC year have passed.
    You have to be at your Nexus to stop being a soldier.
    For orgless, your Nexus is the Portal of Fate.
    Introduce another WHO-list called SOLDIERWHO.
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  • I'm very against bringing over Achaea's PK rules and cause concept. It's messy.

    When I was a newbie (not Alacardael - my very first Lusternian character, Celestine, forgot the name), it was very firmly taught to me that the higher planes are dangerous and that I could be killed anywhere there (even in Celest-protected planes like Water and Celestia). It made me very nervous the first time I transversed, but it was also exciting. Do we not teach new players this anymore? I thought we were trying to restart combat, not further restrict it.
    If it's broken, break it some more.
  • To add a bit more incentive to the soldier concept, perhaps soldiers would only lose 25% XP in neutral territory and 50% in org-controlled territory?
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  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    I'm very against bringing over Achaea's PK rules and cause concept. It's messy.

    When I was a newbie (not Alacardael - my very first Lusternian character, Celestine, forgot the name), it was very firmly taught to me that the higher planes are dangerous and that I could be killed anywhere there (even in Celest-protected planes like Water and Celestia). It made me very nervous the first time I transversed, but it was also exciting. Do we not teach new players this anymore? I thought we were trying to restart combat, not further restrict it.
    No, I know a lot of people stopped teaching this. I know this because I can spam tells from other orgs when I kill someone off prime about how horrible I am and how I'm ruining the game.
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  • I'm not a fighter but find being wary when on the planes exciting, like Alacardael says. People I've encountered have been reasonable and either warned me or just killed me once and left it, which is fine.
  • We're going way off topic, by the way.

    AFK-ing is a problem when it becomes widespread in an org. Here's the perspective: It's not a problem when a Shadowdancer newbie asks Celina for help and she doesn't respond due to being AFK, because she won't even when she's not anyway. However, it becomes a problem when a Shadowdancer newbie asks Celina, Xenthos, Ssaliss and Svorai for help and they all don't respond, and they are the only ones online the newbie can see.

    AFK-ing in any other situation has a minimal impact on the game, negative or otherwise. Anyone who's got the experience will shrug off an unresponsive player after 5 minutes and find something else to occupy their time. The worst thing that can happen is two players getting huffy at one another. No big deal. No one cares about the people who stand around at the plex, anyway. Like Xenthos already mentioned, vote weight difference is negligible - I log in for less than an hour for two weekdays, and only a couple of hours for the other three. I get more time to spend on the weekend, but only if I'm not out doing other things. I haven't had my vote weight drop beneath 9 for the past 2 months. Most people who play this game hardcore clock a lot more hours than I do just logging in to bash. Most RPers spend hours doing nothing but emoting at each other. AFK bots will get an extra vote weight over these people, if that. Big deal.

    So, if newbies getting snubbed is the only problem, do we have a solution? Yes, the answer is the collegium system. Lusternia already has an org-based, not guild-based, system in place for newbies. This ensures they get maximum coverage for help, anyone from the org can give them pointers to start them out, even if their actual GM is AFK at the nexus. A single AFKer isn't going to break the game for newbies of an entire org, because they do have other avenues to seek real help. If the entire org's leadership is AFK visibly frequently, then obviously you have a problem that needs fixed, but I highly doubt any org's that bad off. Even mag has a couple of competent people around during off-peak, sometimes.

    What players need to do is to nudge those who are chronically AFK to do it off-prime. That's all we need to keep the people a newbie can see able to respond 90% of the time. AFKing in itself isn't a problem. Accidentally snubbing newbies is, and it's not a difficult solution to fix that. There's still going to be those newbies who are unlucky enough to be caught out during off-peak, when the only person around is unfortunately AFK, but that's not a solvable problem when the amount of people online during off-peak hovers around less than the 28 guilds in existence.

  • I like the magnagoran afk check myself.

    When we go aetherbashing we have a mage start chasm on anyone who becomes unresponsive.

    Murdering people at the Megalith causes drama, for some reason, so I usually just ignore it.

    I have fallen asleep at my keyboard while off prime but thankfully someone friendly noticed and put me somewhere safe. So i know it can happen innocently enough.

    In very public places a roledock is fine but no need to punish people further. It's usually embarassing enough as is.


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  • Enyalida said:
    5) So on, until you rapidly reach the point that you cannot do anything to them anymore, and they'd lose nothing anyways. Additionally, you're saddled with a NASTY curse that you (at this point) have no way of getting rid of but waiting. Doesn't tick down if you aren't online.
    Hey look, the AFK thing coming back.

    The reason AFK is more tolerable now is Lusternia has grown quiet, the conflict has died, raiding is too much work/too little reward/too many defenses.  Many of the influential people have no motivation to bash or influence.  They log on so they can talk if someone pokes them or a revolt pops up or something but their otherwise just do other things.

    You want the AFK to stop?  Take your option(s):
    - Roledock anyone AFK in a public area on an automated timer. To not be considered AFK your actions must have been discussion at minimum. (hassle to code and being AFK could be considered subjective, since most likely it would result in timers).
    - Disfavour people who do so in public, the org has the ability to easily and readily handle these players, call them unproductive members. Most places can find RP that justifies it if they want.

    There are bunches more options, just have to get out there and look at them, and these are not grief based.  Although I fully encourage you to give me the ability to gank people in their prime city for free, you will rue the day you offered it.
  • edited November 2012
    Malarious said:
    Enyalida said:
    5) So on, until you rapidly reach the point that you cannot do anything to them anymore, and they'd lose nothing anyways. Additionally, you're saddled with a NASTY curse that you (at this point) have no way of getting rid of but waiting. Doesn't tick down if you aren't online.
    Hey look, the AFK thing coming back.

    The reason AFK is more tolerable now is Lusternia has grown quiet, the conflict has died, raiding is too much work/too little reward/too many defenses.  Many of the influential people have no motivation to bash or influence.  They log on so they can talk if someone pokes them or a revolt pops up or something but their otherwise just do other things.

    You want the AFK to stop?  Take your option(s):
    - Roledock anyone AFK in a public area on an automated timer. To not be considered AFK your actions must have been discussion at minimum. (hassle to code and being AFK could be considered subjective, since most likely it would result in timers).
    - Disfavour people who do so in public, the org has the ability to easily and readily handle these players, call them unproductive members. Most places can find RP that justifies it if they want.

    There are bunches more options, just have to get out there and look at them, and these are not grief based.  Although I fully encourage you to give me the ability to gank people in their prime city for free, you will rue the day you offered it.
    I highly disagree with basically all of your options here.
    - First bolded point: That is nearly impossibly to moniter. People have thought I was AFK because my character doesn't really talk, she just reads a lot. She is in a lot of orgs that require contemplation and quiet more than being obnoxiously -not- afk. If everyone was forced discussion just to prove something to get out being punished, it would be a game breaker.

    - Second bolded point: So what you're suggesting is say your Guild Leader went afk. I'd really like to see you call them unproductive members, get back to me on how well that plays out okay? As far as disfavoring; do that if they're mindless somewhere that is a security risk, sure, regarded if you're sure they're afk and have attempted to communicate with them.


  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    I'd laugh pretty hard if I got cdf'd for being unresponsive and being called unproductive.
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  • Malarious said:
    - Roledock anyone AFK in a public area on an automated timer. To not be considered AFK your actions must have been discussion at minimum. (hassle to code and being AFK could be considered subjective, since most likely it would result in timers).
    I would hate this if it went in. As Librarian, I regularly spend time sitting around in public places reading through new publications, writing books and proofreading stuff. I'm still paying attention and will respond if someone asks me something, but if nobody says anything, I'm going to keep on doing my work instead of looking around for someone to talk to.

  • Iytha said:
    I would hate this if it went in. As Librarian, I regularly spend time sitting around in public places reading through new publications, writing books and proofreading stuff. I'm still paying attention and will respond if someone asks me something, but if nobody says anything, I'm going to keep on doing my work instead of looking around for someone to talk to.
    Usually if I'm considered "AFK" I'm doing things similar to this. When I was librarian I'd often take the publication into word to proofread. I could use the spell check as an initial check, and since it's easier for me to read black on white I'd continue editing that way. 

    There are lots of other reasons I could seem AFK: 

    * Working on a design
    * Reading ANYTHING (It's so easy to miss things if you are reading a book, help file, letter, ect.)
    * Composing something outside of the editor
    * Having a conversation in tells with someone (Sometimes I forget where I am when I do this)

    I spend more time in my manse doing these things now, because I don't have novices asking me questions. When I was in the guild I'd try to be on prime as much as possible, so that I could make myself available to those who might need it. Sometimes I would miss a tell or two, but more often than not I would be able to help more people doing my work on prime. Novices don't know that you are off prime and are very unlikely to ask for help when they can't see who is around. 

    I have missed tells and conversations by doing any of the above. I think that people should really take this into consideration when they say people are being AFK. These people might actually be doing something instead of just purposely being AFK to raise their vote weight. 
  • Dead topic I know
    Attempt of humor as follows:
    Problem fixed through the creation of master sage new algorithmic AI programmed to learn and overcome....Lusternia Cyberdyne is born...whole new problem...AFK AI
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