Is afking in chocobo races a bannable offense?

[Lemuria]

Would someone who is actively avoiding lathered (that's what you're meant to do before the final stretch, no?) and/or using tablets/potions even be getting close DNF though?

Actually, even if you don't accelerate throughout the entire race, you'll still lose a significant amount of stamina overall. It's auto-depletes and doesn't regen unless you use a potion. Using stamina as a means to tell if someone is afk is just foolish, since it could be a player who is actively finding and using potions but had a bad run of luck against briars.

So... exactly why are people complaining that they have one less opponent to compete against now?

[LaylaTsarra]

They should fix it so people who choose to afk and do nothing receive no rewards. To get a reward someone should be required to actively play in the game to do so. It's not rocket science. Those who choose to subvert the system are basically cheating in my view but it's SE's fault to have provided them the opportunity to do so.

Is it against the rules? No. Should it be fixed? I would say yes it should.

[MageBlack]

Would someone who is actively avoiding lathered (that's what you're meant to do before the final stretch, no?) and/or using tablets/potions even be getting close DNF though?

Yes, I have come in last even doing this. Since I have played quite a few races, i have tried many different strategies to see what gives me the optimal racing speeds. To date, i have not yet tried doing nothing at all to see where I land (the thought honestly hasn't even crossed my mind). But I do know situations I have come very close even after trying my hardest. Other choco racers within my rating level have had faster top speeds (increased by food) or a sprint item they use right out the gate or other items that get used right off the hop and really can screw with your whole race.

Again, my only real beef with what you were saying is that "wasted time" is a bad argument to make for why something should be done about AFK'ers. There are so many variables that can come into account for why someone may not have used stamina or whatever. At best, deny rewards to any players who do not press any buttons during the entire match, but even then people will come up with ways to get around it (tape down the analog stick/a button, Input programs, etc) if you are THAT bothered by a possible 5-30 second "waste of your time" even over a prolonged period of time, then why is this particular waste of time a bother to you? There are so many other ways time can be "wasted" in this game. You would have to be running into the same AFK'er many many times for this to add up. Hopefully you can identify the ones doing it and once you have had them in several consecutive matches, take a 5 min break to offset your queue times and hopefully you wont run into them again.

PS: My technique of reducing the amount of time lathered during the match really does help. While lathered you lose Stamina faster so even just holding off my dash for a few seconds for it to go away gives me more of a boost left at the end for the last lathered push. That was something i did for a few matches and have since moved on to a hybrid of using lathered and trying to strategically use/get items. It all adds up.

[Chihaya]

Breaking news - You play a game to AFK

Why is this even a thread.

[Yumi_umi]

Breaking news - You play a game to AFK

Why is this even a thread.

You post in the forums to ask questions or state opinions/ share info.
Why did u even post this? Simple,
Cuz u can and no one is going to stop u ( except for forum mods ) lol.

[Feron]

The game allows you to do it, the end. All SE has to do if they want to prevent this is to not give out rewards if you don't finish the race.

Logically, every single exploit ever encountered in any game ever would fall under this rationale. And obviously, many of them are/were bannable offenses.

[Yumi_umi]

I was wondering how afk choco racing would go on patch release as i was like if u could do it in pvp WD/FL then it should work in here too lol. But i actually wanted to try and race despite my lag so i never ended up trying the afk method. Good to see it being brought up for discussion Xp

[Chihaya]

You post in the forums to ask questions or state opinions/ share info.
Why did u even post this? Simple,
Cuz u can and no one is going to stop u ( except for forum mods ) lol.

Because

I understand the whole thing perhaps not being entirely morally correct

and along with rest of the posts is nothing more than saying "I know I'm probably doing something wrong, but give me your sympathies and help me justify my actions."

Why are we encouraging people to do this BS.

[Sasha]

I gotta agree here, we should just ban all people that afk the whole race but we can't stop there. SE should ban all the people that do not skip the 16 second opening cutscene as well, along with anyone that gets DNF.
All this wasted time adds up to an average of 25 seconds per race (I've tested) and this is unacceptable.

[314159265358979323846264338327]

Wait, you're saying it's morally wrong? Whose morals? Your morals? Not my morals.