Those who leave dungeon right away or magically disconnect...

[Polorboy]

Ok, going to try to keep this civil. It is a real pain in the a$$ when I am waiting for the df to get into a dungeon and then as soon as the dungeon loads the tank, yes it is always the tank, disconnects. They are avoiding the penalty by unplugging their computer/system. Then those of us who are stuck in there have three options. 1) One person can take the fall and get penalized for doing nothing wrong, 2) we can wait 15 minutes to vote abandon, 3) we can hope that another tank comes along who will not suddenly and mysteriously disconnect as soon as the dungeon loads (that is never going to happen).

My solution: well the server, or whatever it is they use to keep track of who is in which dungeon, will know who just logged in and who just left, either by being "disconnected" or leaving the right way.So, there should be a timer that if a person suddenly became disconnected during the opening cut scene or within 2 minutes (or slightly less) of it, should get a very large penalty on using the duty finder or any dungeon for that matter. Just to make it a real pain for them to get back in and do it again. Even prevent them from logging back in for like 30 minutes on top of it. If they legitimately got disconnected in that very small time frame of watching the cut scene to two minutes into the dungeon that will just be tough luck. I have been disconnected, legitimately, early on in getting into a dungeon, but never during the cut scene or within a minute or two of the dungeon loading. The thing is I try to get back in as quick as I can so we can finish the dungeon and usually I can get back in pretty quick.

You could even go as far as keep track if they are trying to log back in again within a time span. The server has to know where you were since it puts you back in the same dungeon with the same players if you do log back in after legitimately being disconnected. If they are trying to log back in then don't put the ban on them.

I know this kind of stuff is possible, I am about to graduate with my BS CS degree and I have even taken classes on game programming specifically. The "object" representing that character can be kept in a container (first thing I am thinking of is a queue but that might not be the best, depends on what constitutes a "character") when first joining a dungeon that checks: 1) are they disconnected or in the process of disconnecting, 2) at what point did this happen (ie what else was loading)?, 3) if they are gone, hold them in the queue (or other container) until it either times out, at which point they get a ban the next time they log in, or they start the process of logging back in, which will get them back into the same dungeon, and the don't need the penalty. If they are logging back in with a different character then I would penalize the account (ie all the characters on it). I know the code around that is probably complex and there are a lot of things to keep track of.

Still, you guys at Square have some pretty talented programmers. I mean to pull off a complete rewrite in a year is epic, and that is lost on a lot of players in this game. There has to be a better way to handle this stuff than just using a "band-aid" that fixes more false positives than it does the real problems.

[Polorboy]

I am reading through my above post and I already see a flaw in my logic. If a person is legitimately disconnected and can't log back in then they are going to get a ban. One way to handle that is to let them petition to SE to say "hey, I got disconnected, here's what happened...". I don't know. I am not going to change my above comment because this stuff can't keep going on. There has to be a better solution though than slapping people with 30 minute penalties for someone else being a jerk.

[Maku]

3) we can hope that another tank comes along who will not suddenly and mysteriously disconnect as soon as the dungeon loads (that is never going to happen).

For three to be possible that means that the fourth person would have dropped out of the part completely. When you only have three people in the party you can leave without any penalty.

[Polorboy]

For three to be possible that means that the fourth person would have dropped out of the part completely. When you only have three people in the party you can leave without any penalty.

This just happened to me today. Tank disconnected right away, I offered to leave first since I was going to log anyway, I got the 30 min penalty.
So, there was three of us because the tank left (disconnected). I left technically second but first since it was the "correct" way of doing it. I got the 30 min penalty.

[OPneedNerfs]

Why not just vote kick the disconnected player before leaving? It's even one of the legit reasons to kick.

[wildgalax]

not sure if you can kick in the first 5 min

[Maku]

This just happened to me today. Tank disconnected right away, I offered to leave first since I was going to log anyway, I got the 30 min penalty.
So, there was three of us because the tank left (disconnected). I left technically second but first since it was the "correct" way of doing it. I got the 30 min penalty.

I meant that if his name totally disappears from the party window. If he just disconnected he will be in the party still for a few min till you will be asked to drop him and then you can leave.

[TomTom1968]

You can't make a DC check to dish out bans because as OP mentioned, it might just really be a DC and not intentionally pulling the plug.

You also won't change players, they will always find a way to get what they want quickly giving a damn about others.

Easy solution to this problem would be to allow the group to disband as soon as somebody has a disconnect. Some groups may wait for a backup player, others would go out instantly and queue for the next one. It should be their choice and it should be independent from the 15 minute wait timer.

[Cspr_Answrth]

I think the solution to your problem is... you should be a Tank, therefore you never have to worry about it. AND, you can fix it for the community.

Thanks for your inevitable agreement!

[Deroth]

I don't know why you're stating this is a tank thing, I've only seen dps do that (force DC while everybody is still loading the dungeon.)

No idea why, always seems to be on AK and WP; if it was PS I'd understand. Lol