AFK Racing Solution

Recently there's been more afk racers and it's getting annoying. I don't want to wait forever waiting for them to finish just so they can get free MGP and exp for doing literally nothing. It's not fair to the rest of us. So I've come up with a couple solutions that might deter these people:

Solution 1: 8th place wins NOTHING. Yep, you pay the 10 MGP to race, but if you come in last place, you don't even get that back. And no bonus for you.

Solution 2: The race ends at 7th place. We already know who the 8th place is, so allow the people that actually raced to get their bonus chance and leave so they can enter other races.

Any other suggestions are welcome, just keep it civil please :cool:

Why are you so concerned that people do this? The way I see it:

The highest reward about chocobo racing is chocobo racing itself. 150 MGP...50 MGP...what for? To earn one million and buy a vanity mount or a card? If people want to afk for a few lazy MGPs, in the long term they'll realize they are fooling themselves, because they are losing out what is most enjoyable about chocobo racing...and that's racing.

I rarely encounter any afkers in my races, but if I ever encounter one, it's basically one competitor less (or just treat it like another clueless NPC). There's absolutely no harm in this.

It was literally the same thing with PVP wintraders. They would spend 2 weeks earning wolf marks win trading and then brag about a full lionsmane set xD, when the supposed fun from PVP should come from PVP itself...not from a silly gear you've earned artificially.

So my piece of advice, enjoy Gold Saucer, and raise your concerns when something really is gamebreaking.

The thing with PvP win trading is that you are not bothering anyone on the instance you make a group specially for that. With afk chocobo racing you are bothering other people. You may see that 15-30sec is not much but for me is time that if u raced i wouldn't have to wait. I'm up for 8th place to recive no reward, you are not lossing much mgp anyways.

Also, the way racing works, I do not blame occasional afkers, I know I've afked a few matches (though I do it only against NPCs). Chocobo stats are brutally random, and the abilities they inherit and learn too, you can happen to have a brilliant G4 chocobo with Choco Dash III and Choco Cure III, with 4 stars in Stamina and 4 stars in maximum speed...only to breed it with another one to get your G5 gen chocobo and end up with something like Choco Esuna and Increased EXP, along with 1 and 2 stars on Maximum Speed and Stamina. Trust me you are bound to have a BAD TIME with such chocobo, so your only solution is breeding another one and spend 2-5k MGP + 6 hours and crossing your fingers...or move on, accept it and occasionally get frustrated with your terrible chocobo and afk a few races that you know you don't even stand a chance in the first place.

The bonus exp is already limited to 2nd to 7th, don't need more of penalty. By doing this you would also be discriminating against niche 8-man premade races by excluding the guy who happens to suck most.

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Originally Posted by Myrhn

The thing with PvP win trading is that you are not bothering anyone on the instance you make a group specially for that. With afk chocobo racing you are bothering other people. You may see that 15-30sec is not much but for me is time that if u raced i wouldn't have to wait. I'm up for 8th place to recive no reward, you are not lossing much mgp anyways.

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Actually you are bothering people, and not just bothering, you are completely destroying any remote chance for newcomers to have a fair competition in wolves den. People running around in full direwolf i90? That turned wolves den into a graveyard. Anyone who enjoyed wolves den back then when the mode was still alive and wants to come back for some 4v4 fun, simply can't do it, and we owe half of that work to wintraders. That was more unfair and gamebreaking than afking in a chocobo race if you ask me.

I don't afk and still come last, I keep trying because I know even coming last at least I get a bit of a reward. If it starts costing me precious mgp to race, then that'll just kill it for me. I like it but I'm not gonna risk losing mgp every time I play, even if it is only 10 per race.

I havent tried it yet. But solution 2 sounds great.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

The highest reward about chocobo racing is chocobo racing itself. 150 MGP...50 MGP...what for? To earn one million and buy a vanity mount or a card? If people want to afk for a few lazy MGPs, in the long term they'll realize they are fooling themselves, because they are losing out what is most enjoyable about chocobo racing...and that's racing.

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This^

no changes needed. ^_^

Or just put a timer so that if someone hasnt moved from the starting blocks for 30 seconds after race begun will be automaticly disqualified.

Or even better, make all chocos auto run out of the starting blocks because once out on the racetrack u cant stop completely anyway.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

Actually you are bothering people, and not just bothering, you are completely destroying any remote chance for newcomers to have a fair competition in wolves den. People running around in full direwolf i90? That turned wolves den into a graveyard. Anyone who enjoyed wolves den back then when the mode was still alive and wants to come back for some 4v4 fun, simply can't do it, and we owe half of that work to wintraders. That was more unfair and gamebreaking than afking in a chocobo race if you ask me.

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Please tell me how queing with the people that im win trading is bothering you? You wont even get in the same instance.

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Originally Posted by Devils_Lawyer

Or just put a timer so that if someone hasnt moved from the starting blocks for 30 seconds after race begun will be automaticly disqualified.

Or even better, make all chocos auto run out of the starting blocks because once out on the racetrack u cant stop completely anyway.

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Have you ever done afk racing? You move regardless of input. You just generally will be ~10 seconds from the finish line when it times out (20 seconds after 1st place crosses the line).

I don't get why people are so fixated with punishing AFKers via no rewards. All it would do is cause people who fell behind due to bad luck purposely going AFK because they know that they lost out, ergo they have zero incentive to keep playing and not care if they are holding back the others.

Both of these solutions are bad. #2 doesn't even make any sense, the race already ends early if last place takes too long to finish.

The real solution is to make placing high actually give an amount of MGP that people would care about. Right now people AFK races to slowly raise birds in hopes that racing becomes worth a damn later.

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Originally Posted by KillyBamp

I don't afk and still come last, I keep trying because I know even coming last at least I get a bit of a reward. If it starts costing me precious mgp to race, then that'll just kill it for me. I like it but I'm not gonna risk losing mgp every time I play, even if it is only 10 per race.

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It is only 10 MGP. If you ever fall below 500 MGP you can buy it all back up for a very minor price in gil.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

I don't get why people are so fixated with punishing AFKers via no rewards. All it would do is cause people who fell behind due to bad luck purposely going AFK because they know that they lost out, ergo they have zero incentive to keep playing and not care if they are holding back the others.

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I've read this argument before. Could anyone explain it to me? Because the only way to fall behind is to run out of stamina. At which point going afk or not does not matter one. Bit.

8th place gets 30 minute cool-down before running another dungeon/race.

I'd like to see a suggestion that doesn't also negatively effect legitimate players who happen to draw the short straw and still come last. Perhaps something along the lines of:

"Change nothing, because the system is fine and afk racers are far and few between"?

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Originally Posted by Myrhn

The thing with PvP win trading is that you are not bothering anyone on the instance you make a group specially for that. With afk chocobo racing you are bothering other people. You may see that 15-30sec is not much but for me is time that if u raced i wouldn't have to wait. I'm up for 8th place to recive no reward, you are not lossing much mgp anyways.

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Win trading in battlefields IS by far more bothering.
AFK player just mean one chocobo less.

If you want to save time, ask Square for a quick drop out after the race or to skip the intro completly.

I don't do this afk racing, because you gain x times the Xp when you win the race, but I also don't get the massiv anger about it.

Changing anything to punish people who come in 8th place might punish real players. Maybe have an input detection of some kind?

The way I see it, finishing way back of the pack is not hacking, botting or RMT so I can't support any action on any player either wilfully being last or being unlucky enough to be put in a position where they couldn't possibly keep up like I was once or that they're not 100% sure of how the racing works yet, and in their case, we all desired to learn to race big cute fluffy feathery chickens when we walked in to Chocobo square for the first time. Action against AFKers would risk action on new racers, which would backfire on us because it'd make us look all serious business and that newcomers aren't welcome to race said big cute fluffy feathery chickens when we should be welcoming them with open arms to join in the fun, haha.

Too much risk of getting it wrong, is what I'm trying to say. I've seen this plenty, but it's no bother for me. More easy MGP for me is all I say!

I got utterly destroyed by item choice and narrow passages + briars and came in 8th with a pedigree 6 chocobo at the top of her point range for the category she was in with max speed and endurance so...it can happen.

make it so people in pt gets excluded from 30 minute timer, people who solo queue and get 8th prob afkers. just saying/

I think people are confusing DNF with 8th place. There is a difference and if you are legitimately racing and still DNF, then there is no way you are enjoying it in the first place. DNF should be penalized without question. There is no excuse for a DNF

If you come in last/DNF with over 50% Stamina, you were clearly not playing legitimately and deserve no reward and a timed lockout from Chocobo racing.

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Originally Posted by Mirakumi

8th place gets 30 minute cool-down before running another dungeon/race.

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Don't lik this idea, just because someone comes last doesn't mean they are afk. There could be 8 people in the race, or you get unlucky and are spammed by meteors.

I can only seeing these solutions going over so well in an NPC only race at the higher ranks