People going offline instead of leaving...

[Pantz]

Having to go, doesn't have to mean you have to shut down your computer. Sometimes you may simply have to do something else. A run taking longer than expected. Having forgotten about an event in another game you were supposed to join. Etcetera. There can be a great number of reasons.

Yes, but that doesn't change anything, does it? Whether a player went afk or switched off his computer when he had to go, the fact is that the party would get penalised by having the vote-kick cooldown start after they vote-kick that player. Whether the player legitimately logged of because he had to go or not doesn't matter. End of the day, the remaining party member gets penalised. Sure, you can add a deserter's penalty for those that log off but that doesn't solve the problem at all. The vote-kick timer would still exist and the problem still remains.

The problem here is not players needing to go. It's the vote-kick system. I have played other MMOs where vote-kicking for offline ignores any vote-kick cooldown. It definitely should be implemented here too, whether the player legitimately had to go or not.

Let's not argue semantics on whether a player switched off his computer, exited FF14 or logged off. End of the day, the player is still offline and the remaining party members are affected.