[Suggestion] Stop players AFK for 30+ minutes from gaining XP/CP/EP

[Sp1cyryan]

This would go a long way towards fixing botting issues without having to ban players.

If it wasn't clear, players who move again would restart the clock. This would use the existing auto disconnect function in the game already.

[Pixela]

a) it wouldn't work, people would make addons to do something every 30 mins

b) people want to afk grind

Remember when they added Abyssea and it was super easy to level jobs, and people still preferred to afk level in worm parties.

[Sp1cyryan]

a) it wouldn't work, people would make addons to do something every 30 mins

b) people want to afk grind

Remember when they added Abyssea and it was super easy to level jobs, and people still preferred to afk level in worm parties.

A) Things aren't pointless unless every single person circumvents.

B) That is the problem.

[Alhanelem]

A) Things aren't pointless unless every single person circumvents.

every actual player likely will, because this punishes legitimate players as much as it does bots.

I don't have a problem with people going afk in an actual people party.

[Venat]

hard enough to find get people to play with each other on the game to even exp. hence why everyone turned to afk exping. the game needs server merges so we can play with other people.

[Sp1cyryan]

hard enough to find get people to play with each other on the game to even exp. hence why everyone turned to afk exping. the game needs server merges so we can play with other people.

If there are enough players to AFK in a party then there are enough to team up. Allowing them to AFK only makes it worse. People have talked about server merges for a decade or so now. Since they aren't apparently coming anytime soon then it further underscores the need for alternative solutions.

To anyone else, it's really simple. If you don't want to play then it should be designed that you don't get to reap the gains. Gaining without playing only blows back on players who do actually want to play.

[Alhanelem]

But it's like I said. I really perosnally don't mind AFK people, as long as they're real people. If they're AFK, it means we (probably) kill slower. But if we're okay with that, who are you to say we can't do it? The AFK person in my party is only hurting the other 5 people with them, they don't hurt you or anyone else.

"It's my 12.95"

[Pixela]

The reason people pay for CP/ML is very simple, it's very slow to solo and people have high expectations (or the person thinks that way) to join a group. I remember ages ago asking a player if they wanted to group up and they said no because their gear was very poor and didn't want to slow me down (they had better gear than I did). Ultimately I added them and we had a good few hours getting CP, we set up a skillchain and killed much faster than we were previously alone.

If Square want to fix the AFK leveling situation, they need to do things to make it better to get your own. One such suggestion I made earlier in another thread, to allow players with trusts to display the LFG flag, this allows players to signal they want to group up and others will feel less afraid to ask if you do that. This gives them a greater chance to group up on location, it's more fun to group up than solo.

You can't stop people wanting to buy cheap CP/ML, you have to make it better for them to get their own without making it so easy it's no longer an accomplishment for serious players.

If you like to group up and are well geared, goto places you know lesser geared players are and ask them to group up with you.

Allow players to group up easier instead of making it harder as it currently is, add personal RoE objectives to reward players for doing specific things and that reward them with CP/ML (for instance 20 ws on an apex level monster or curing a party member), increase the level of trusts a little more when in a party. Things like this.

[Catmato]

the game needs server merges so we can play with other people.

We do not need server mergers. If you are unhappy with your server, pay to transfer instead of trying to make everyone else miserable.

[Tarmarkvar]

The reason people pay for CP/ML is very simple, it's very slow to solo and people have high expectations (or the person thinks that way) to join a group. I remember ages ago asking a player if they wanted to group up and they said no because their gear was very poor and didn't want to slow me down (they had better gear than I did). Ultimately I added them and we had a good few hours getting CP, we set up a skillchain and killed much faster than we were previously alone.


Ugh, aint that the truth? I get 18k an hour soloing master levels. I set up groups that get 40 to 75k per hour. But then people tell me it's too slow because they can do better in some cleave party in Nest. It's annoying to deal with that kind of criticism.

[Sp1cyryan]

Ugh, aint that the truth? I get 18k an hour soloing master levels. I set up groups that get 40 to 75k per hour. But then people tell me it's too slow because they can do better in some cleave party in Nest. It's annoying to deal with that kind of criticism.

Can't go through life avoiding criticism. Know what's what, say what's what, and go on with life knowing what you are doing. Most people in this game don't, and you can tell them that to their faces. Gift horse and birds in the bush and all that.

[Alhanelem]

At least people are playing together right? :P

[Afania]

This would go a long way towards fixing botting issues without having to ban players.

If it wasn't clear, players who move again would restart the clock. This would use the existing auto disconnect function in the game already.

It wouldn't work. Because bots can send out keyboard input signals to avoid being disconnected.

One way is to have the GMs send random tells to players in popular CP camp every 30 min or so. If they didn't reply proper human message they get disconnected.

Another possibly better way is to create "raid instances" that requires actual playing skill and gives better EP/hr than bot friendly CP camps, so real players gets better EP reward than people afk botting EP.

[Alhanelem]

One way is to have the GMs send random tells to players in popular CP camp every 30 min or so. If they didn't reply proper human message they get disconnected. This doesn't work either because then you have legitimate players simply being afk getting randomly booted from the game and their parties.

We don't need to punish actual players being idle. The game has always allowed people to stay connected indefinitely.

Finding a way to punish entirely automated characters that doesn't punish people who are simply AFK is the only acceptable solution. And the only realistic way to do that is to moderate. But they dont have the staff for that.

[Sp1cyryan]

It wouldn't work. Because bots can send out keyboard input signals to avoid being disconnected.

One way is to have the GMs send random tells to players in popular CP camp every 30 min or so. If they didn't reply proper human message they get disconnected.

Another possibly better way is to create "raid instances" that requires actual playing skill and gives better EP/hr than bot friendly CP camps, so real players gets better EP reward than people afk botting EP.

No, no "raid instances", gross.

Game aren't sending any random tells either. Besides answering machine was partly made for GM tells while fish hitting back in the day, right?

So there seems to be an utter misunderstanding between solving all problems and having no impact. This suggestion does neither, and does not need to. No one change would solve all issues.

[Dzspdref]

Seems everyone has forgotten about Campaign battles from Shadow Reign times in Wings of the Goddess.
Remember when you fought and fought and THOUGHT you did a lot but actually only did 5% of the damage total, and walked away with a pittance of exp based on damage done, or if a backline job, by how much you healed or removed status effects, etc...?
Why can't they implement THAT into certain areas of the game?
THAT would kill all afk players.
They are afk, do ZERO PERCENT of help to kill the target, they have ZERO PERCENT enmity, they receive ZERO PERCENT of the spoils/exp/cp/jp/etc....

[Sp1cyryan]

There was once a problem with bots/scripts spamming BRD songs in a corner during campaign as a form of leveling up. Devs nerfed that, and can attempt something similar for XP/CP/EP leeching too.

[Alhanelem]

I don't know why you're so against leeching, as long as people are not literally cheating by using bots and such, what they do isn't my concern. Sometimes unexpected things happen and people will return if the party is still going. I don't mind if someone goes afk as long as we're still able to proceed. The party will kill at least marginally slower without their input, if it doesn't affect kill speed at all then it doesn't matter if they were AFK or not, they were useless. It only negatively affects the community if people are actually cheating. Being a leech is not cheating.

[Sp1cyryan]

I don't know why you're so against leeching, as long as people are not literally cheating by using bots and such, what they do isn't my concern. Sometimes unexpected things happen and people will return if the party is still going. I don't mind if someone goes afk as long as we're still able to proceed. The party will kill at least marginally slower without their input, if it doesn't affect kill speed at all then it doesn't matter if they were AFK or not, they were useless. It only negatively affects the community if people are actually cheating. Being a leech is not cheating.

It hinders the flow of the game while providing the same reward. In essence punishing those who actually want to play by elimination of a pool of players to pull from. The cascading effects from this type of gameplay. Be it gear or any sort of group content is plainly obvious, yet plainly ignored and taken for granted.

[Alhanelem]

It hinders the flow of the game while providing the same reward. In essence punishing those who actually want to play by elimination of a pool of players to pull from. The cascading effects from this type of gameplay. Be it gear or any sort of group content is plainly obvious, yet plainly ignored and taken for granted.
If the other players involved are okay with that "hindered flow," I don't see the problem.

Back in the old days, when we spent hours in places like yuhtunga jungle grinding for a level or two, you could make the case that this was damaging i.e. people weren't taking the time to learn their jobs and they'd go into boss fights and stuff not knowing what they were doing. But that really isn't a thing anymore. Now most of the grinding is done by people who have long since learned the nuances of their job and after grinding the 1200th job point on several jobs and now having to spend even longer grinding ML40, it's pretty safe to say a player that's AFK for a portion of that time isn't damaging their party that's cool with it, nor the community at large. As far as punishing others by taking up a party slot, that's pretty ridiculous. Just form another party? It's not that hard, there are plenty of solo players chugging slowly along with Trust that are just hoping for a party invite. I know that all too well as I like all the unpopular jobs that no one wants (on a regular basis at least), who don't realize when they ARE needed, just how much more time and effort they spent to max it out.

[Afania]

No, no "raid instances", gross.

The "raid instance" is more like one content delivery method out of many possible ones. The whole point isn't being in an instance or not, but having ML content that needs real human input for the high EP reward, so botting gets discouraged because it offers no advantage. Then people will start playing with each others again, and won't be negatively affected by bots. It doesn't have to be in an "instance", as long as actual human input/skill is required for ML content.

Although the easier solution has always been SE being more active on banning all botters, this way the gameplay doesn't have to change.