Was posting in the Inspect thread and it got me to remember my last raid guild on p99 and the sheer amount in ninja-AFK ppl on raids that were usually afk for most or all of the fight, yet somehow magically were never afk for the kill, loot rolls or DKP confirmation. On checking the website, I remember seeing that these AFK people were some of the highest DKP in the guild, yet they contributed almost nothing so often on raids by being ninja-AFK the majority of the time. As a mage it was easy for me to notice this stuff when OOM and nothing else to do to contribute to the raid until you have mana for DPS again.
Being a raidleader is rough as hell. It takes time, planning, patience, tolerance, the ability to organize large groups and keep them active... and it might be nice to have something to help make life easier overall for the raid and raidleader. I'm wondering if a feature for dealing with ninja-AFK would work out and am wanting to hear from players and raid leaders alike on this matter. My oldschool solution? I used to just ask one of my officers to watch the raid and tell me who was constantly not doing a damn thing, but that's not a great solution imo.
We all need to go afk sometimes, that's why most games have an AFK feature and it only takes about 4 seconds to type in raidchat or groupchat "AFK, theres some1 at the door, back in 2 mins" or whatever but in my experience in the last year or two on raids and even in 6 player groups, most AFK's are ninja AFK and there to soak up items, EXP and/or DKP and they create more probems and inconveiences than they help solve
My question for the players and raidleaders: Would you like to see some kind of feature coded in that a raidleader can enable during a raid that will indicate privately to the raidleader that someone or multiple people have not performed any action of any kind for "X" period if time, and now their name would turn neon orange automatically so everyone knows they are afk if they are afk for more than a set preiod of time, and auto-says AFK in their name or something so you can monitor who is wasting the raids time versus who is contributing? (Something other than raidcheck of course - once ppl pass a raid check they can AFK all they like and if no one notices, they get away with it as almost no one does a raidcheck during a fight that I have ever seen)
Is AFK a problem in your guild on large raids that you are aware of? Is it influencing wipes, forcing long set up and re-set up time and overall raid times, including target TTK (time to kill) due to lack of DPS or CC from AFK people? Would you like to have some kind of parser in-game that shows whether or not people were active during raid fights? I remember doing some math, and the TTK on a lot of raid targets would have been considerably lower without the ninja-afk people
If you think this might be a cool feature, post some ideas on how you think it would be best implemented?
Imo, this would help identify the bottom feeders and make raids go more smoothly. Would it be a required feature? no. Would it be awesome to have if I was a raidleader? Hell yes
More players not ninja-AFK = improved chance of conquering content, less wipes etc.
- edited for the usual, spelling
As a former raid leader in EQ 1 and guild leader in WoW (and a guild member in a few other games), I'm in favor of that. Not that it was ever a massive problem in my guilds, but there were a few people like that, and the sooner they're kicked out of the guild, the better it is for the guild.
Now, everyone has to afk now and then, I'm not a fanatic about that, the others can pick up the slack for a few min from time to time, but if someone intentionally abuses that, and is almost never there for real efforts, he should be kicked out.
While it is certainly possible for a raid leader to just watch everyone in-game, without any coded-in tools, the raid leader has a lot on his mind, so if there's any automated feature that would tell him (and everyone else) when someone isn't moving or doing anything, it would help. Once there's a large orange sign above his head (or just his name is written in some flashy color - maybe make it so that if he puts afk tag ahead of time, display him in dull gray, but if he doesn't, and goes ninja-afk, display him in bright radioactive orange), others, including the raid leader and guild officers, can check on him personally, and if he does it too often... boot.
I almost always run some kind of log parser, so it is blatantly obvious to me when someone isn't pulling their weight. I don't think anything needs to be built into pantheon when 3rd party tools to make combat logs human-friendly exist. Seems to me something the raid leader should be pro active about than expecting the game to do it for them. Just my opinion tho.
Portalgun said: ...Is AFK a problem in your guild on large raids that you are aware of? Is it influencing wipes, forcing long set up and re-set up time and overall raid times, including target TTK (time to kill) due to lack of DPS or CC from AFK people? Would you like to have some kind of parser in-game that shows whether or not people were active during raid fights? I remember doing some math, and the TTK on a lot of raid targets would have been considerably lower without the ninja-afk people
...
Yes, because people will take advantage whenever possible, however there are degrees. Stepping away for less than 1 minute to get a glass of water is different than going down to the corner store for 15 minutes to pick up some smokes/food. I've seen both in EQ1 in the past week. During both AFK's, each character got full XP while being away as the rest of the group is chain pulling / chain killing.
IIRC, EQ2 has a ready check feature, and that worked pretty well. In EQ1, I've seen the same person raiding with a Mage while XP'ing with a Necromancer, on two different computers/characters/accounts. /follow and send in pet one on, /assist and cast three dots then FD on the other. Both are contributing, but neither audience is getting the full attention of the player.
Many players would argue that if you can, what's harm? Personally, although I am technically aware it's impossible to enforce, I would prefer all my groupmates/guildmates are present and contributing 100% when we're working on a group/guild goal. Doesn't seem unreasonable, but as time goes on, there is less social stigma against anti-social behavior.
In the past, in 2004 in EQ1, people were on the ball when it came to being on time, buffing, travelling, having consumables, knowing the target, etc. Today? Totally different story. Many returning or new players have no concept of these things, and raid leaders are extremely hesitant to boot people (or not invite them) if they're unprepared. In the past though, it was expected that you would be disciplined if unprepared. Do it more than a few times and you don't get to raid. Find another guild. Just seems like it never happens, now.
There's a word for those afkers that aren't participating in the raid by doing their part through-out the raid. They're called leeches and should be booted. Not sure why they think the rest of us don't notice their non-participation. :P I should add...there are legit absences, but you do the raid leader the favour of letting them know you need a bathroom break, or your kid just fell and hurt themselves. Legit reasons.
There is an easy solution to this. Don't make raid encounters simplistic. Make people move around. Build it into the mechanics that you cannot just stand still the entire time. If you need to med then you'd need to remove yourself from attack range (meaning you would be too far away to cast). Make the hit boxes small on raid targets, so that casters and ranged dps need to be within a short distance to attack and make this distance obvious (some kind of target ring that shows the hit box you must stand within). Make the raid encounter so that if you must AFK, you must obviously withdraw yourself from the encounter to do so or you will die.
Just to clarify, this would not be something that would address or affect anyone except the people that ninja-AFK and are repeat offenders and are not contributing worthwhile amounts to raids.
It's not something to force 100% raid attention from everyone at the raid, or tell them they cannot AFK. It would also not be something the raidleader would need to monitor or look at during the raid unless they wanted to, rather more to see after the fight to know what took place and make future plans and informed decisions accordingly for the next raid.
It is not intended to be a "rat someone out" tool as much as it is a tool to help raiding go more favorably for your guild if they wish to use the anti-ninja applet on their raids. Would be optional of course, the raid leader would have to consciously enable it on purpose to have it monitor the raid.
The major problems with a system as you describe is, what is the time frame on inactivity? How long as a mage would you sit medding before you could start DPSing again? 2 minutes? 5? How long does a raid fight last? In EQ Fights can last from 10 minutes to the better part of an hour or more. It would be too inconsistant in my opinion.
Just simply making it impossible to stand still and stay alive while in range of engagement would seem to be a more consistant way of dealing with the issue. If you need to afk, thats fine, just move out of the engagement range and AFK. You'll be fine (unless the raid wipes). If you need to med, move out of engagement, med, and return. You will be noticed moving around and everyone will understand that you must move away to med and that until you do and return your useless. The raid UI could be setup to show mana levels so that it is easily shown when someone is low on mana and medding, or FM and just AFK for some reason.
We want the raid encounters to be fun and interesting anyway. Not just stand around autoattacking. Making mechanics that force people to move around, halt dps to avoid spells or some such, and jump/duck/crouch/dance to stop a dot or something like that would force participation from the raid and make the encouter more interesting. Hopefully they can come up with better mechanics than "Don't Stand in the Red", but we'll see.
kellindil said:There is an easy solution to this. Don't make raid encounters simplistic. Make people move around. Build it into the mechanics that you cannot just stand still the entire time. If you need to med then you'd need to remove yourself from attack range (meaning you would be too far away to cast). Make the hit boxes small on raid targets, so that casters and ranged dps need to be within a short distance to attack and make this distance obvious (some kind of target ring that shows the hit box you must stand within). Make the raid encounter so that if you must AFK, you must obviously withdraw yourself from the encounter to do so or you will die.
I am really trying to understand this...are you advocating for a DDR type raid with Hit or AOE boxes like in wildstar?
Sevens said:kellindil said:There is an easy solution to this. Don't make raid encounters simplistic. Make people move around. Build it into the mechanics that you cannot just stand still the entire time. If you need to med then you'd need to remove yourself from attack range (meaning you would be too far away to cast). Make the hit boxes small on raid targets, so that casters and ranged dps need to be within a short distance to attack and make this distance obvious (some kind of target ring that shows the hit box you must stand within). Make the raid encounter so that if you must AFK, you must obviously withdraw yourself from the encounter to do so or you will die.
I am really trying to understand this...are you advocating for a DDR type raid with Hit or AOE boxes like in wildstar?
Yes, as a matter of fact Pantheon should only be playable with a DDR pad as an input device. Clearly that is what kellindil was implying.
Liav said:Sevens said:kellindil said:There is an easy solution to this. Don't make raid encounters simplistic. Make people move around. Build it into the mechanics that you cannot just stand still the entire time. If you need to med then you'd need to remove yourself from attack range (meaning you would be too far away to cast). Make the hit boxes small on raid targets, so that casters and ranged dps need to be within a short distance to attack and make this distance obvious (some kind of target ring that shows the hit box you must stand within). Make the raid encounter so that if you must AFK, you must obviously withdraw yourself from the encounter to do so or you will die.
I am really trying to understand this...are you advocating for a DDR type raid with Hit or AOE boxes like in wildstar?
Yes, as a matter of fact Pantheon should only be playable with a DDR pad as an input device. Clearly that is what kellindil was implying.
What? Its not an actual DDR input device...its a DDR style raid, You know...Run over here, stand over there, do this do that so on and so forth...toons moving around like people playing Dance Dance Revolution? Get it now?
Edit: and no, im not saying a DDR style raid is bad or wrong or stupid or anything else...was just trying to get the poster to clarify if that was what he was meaning
Sevens said:Liav said:Sevens said:kellindil said:There is an easy solution to this. Don't make raid encounters simplistic. Make people move around. Build it into the mechanics that you cannot just stand still the entire time. If you need to med then you'd need to remove yourself from attack range (meaning you would be too far away to cast). Make the hit boxes small on raid targets, so that casters and ranged dps need to be within a short distance to attack and make this distance obvious (some kind of target ring that shows the hit box you must stand within). Make the raid encounter so that if you must AFK, you must obviously withdraw yourself from the encounter to do so or you will die.
I am really trying to understand this...are you advocating for a DDR type raid with Hit or AOE boxes like in wildstar?
Yes, as a matter of fact Pantheon should only be playable with a DDR pad as an input device. Clearly that is what kellindil was implying.
What? Its not an actual DDR input device...its a DDR style raid, You know...Run over here, stand over there, do this do that so on and so forth...toons moving around like people playing Dance Dance Revolution? Get it now?
You missed the entire point of my post, I think.
I was being sarcastic in response to the fact that you apparently believe the only two options for being involved in raid content is "AFK friendly, never move" and "DDR-style".
It's not that hard to understand. Making a raid that involves you to the point that you can't AFK in the middle of it is not much to ask. This has nothing to do with erratic, DDR-style gameplay.
Let's get back on track here, this discussion is intended for the ideas surrounding the implemention of something in game to help identify problematic ninja-AFK players.
The spirit and intent of this post is to look into the need or want for, and suggest and/or build upon ideas to implement something that helps make raids more efficient while having minimal impact on the game and anyone's personal experience during, before or after a raid. My suggestion has little or no impact on anyone except the players offending and allows raidleaders to benefit without extra headaches and a ton of extra time invested.
Lets avoid looking at suggestions of changing raid mechanics etc in this thread.
/end non-sanctioned Kilson impersonation
VG actually had a /readycheck command that would pop a small window up in every raid participants screen, forcing them to click either "ready" or "AFK" if left for longer than 15-20 seconds it would automatically send an AFK message, this was used often and usually prior to each fight to make sure there were no quick BIO breaks/Drink breaks as we were about to engage.
Kilsin said:VG actually had a /readycheck command that would pop a small window up in every raid participants screen, forcing them to click either "ready" or "AFK" if left for longer than 15-20 seconds it would automatically send an AFK message, this was used often and usually prior to each fight to make sure there were no quick BIO breaks/Drink breaks as we were about to engage.
EQ2 has the same. Very useful.
kelenin said:Why not just do what most games do? After a short period of inactivity someone is automatically marked as afk, as if they had typed /AFK themselves.
That is pretty much what I am shooting for with my suggestion, but would be slightly more advanced, and customizable to a degree by the raidleader.
Kilsin said:VG actually had a /readycheck command that would pop a small window up in every raid participants screen, forcing them to click either "ready" or "AFK" if left for longer than 15-20 seconds it would automatically send an AFK message, this was used often and usually prior to each fight to make sure there were no quick BIO breaks/Drink breaks as we were about to engage.
Love the readycheck and many MMO's like WoW have it and it does help, and this would be an add-on to it or be part of the ready check code
On P99, starting the fight with everyone was rarely the problem though It was the ones that did a little in the fight, then ninja AFK'd to play their other account, or whatever people do when they ninja AFK, then tab back to make sure they don't miss a loot roll. I watched the guild for a very long time, raid after raid without saying anything, and this was what I saw way too often
I've never been a full-time raid leader, but as the Tank officer for a raiding guild from Velious through GoD/early OoW I set rotations. As certain raids in that era consisted of hours upon hours of trash pulling, the main assists were sure to need AFK time here and there. It wasn't considered anything negative. If a main assist needed AFK, I would announce in guild chat, or raid chat when that came along that so-and-so is AFK, please adjust your assist macro XYZ is new main assist. So, really, it's about communication. Also, since I was specifically in charge of tanks, that meant I might have 15-20 people under me, instead of a full 60+ person raid force, and I was better able to identify if people were AFK (which by the way was very rare that people would ninja-afk, and when they did it was for a legitimately good reason).
Sometimes people would need a 15-30 minute AFK. Whenever possible, that was accomodated as well. Park in a safe place and CoH when back. Again, communication and knowing your team-mates is everything, because there are sure to be people who will try to take advantage.
Liav said:Readycheck is honestly a mandatory feature in a new game. Incredibly useful, and no reason it shouldn't be included other than a purist adherence to EQ and its low-information UI.
This is one of those quality of life improvements added in games other than EQ which should have been added to EQ and should be in Pantheon in my opinion.
