Activity check on game start

[Ryz]

Hello,

Just thought about this. Lately I've seen some games where people were afk during a game, which is hard(er) to spot, but I also noticed a lot of (temp) afk's when a new map starts. I can imagine these people are getting a drink, smoking or whatever, but still they auto join the team.

I was curious about the following. You need to press a key to spawn, but why are the people 'auto' joining the game as a zombie PT watcher? Would it be possible that these people enter the server and just not get placed in a team but occupy a server spot until they click. This would prevent teams from starting with 3 or more afks which is especially hard on rushy maps like Volcano.

No clue IF this can be easy implemented, but worth a shot. It doesn't hurt the players, but it would make a game start a bit more balanced in some cases. Food for thought!

[TK0104]

Hello,

Just thought about this. Lately I've seen some games where people were afk during a game, which is hard(er) to spot, but I also noticed a lot of (temp) afk's when a new map starts. I can imagine these people are getting a drink, smoking or whatever, but still they auto join the team.

I was curious about the following. You need to press a key to spawn, but why are the people 'auto' joining the game as a zombie PT watcher? Would it be possible that these people enter the server and just not get placed in a team but occupy a server spot until they click. This would prevent teams from starting with 3 or more afks which is especially hard on rushy maps like Volcano.

No clue IF this can be easy implemented, but worth a shot. It doesn't hurt the players, but it would make a game start a bit more balanced in some cases. Food for thought!

I say they Just add an auto-kick system where you will be kicked in 5 minutes if you don't move. This will help the "Team AFK joined the game" problem and fixes the unbalanced teams.

[Ryz]

I am all down to activate / tweak the AFk system. Few days 3 people where AFK, we vote kicked them and they returned. No reply to chat or whatsoever. I assumed I made a mistake, but checked and at least two persons (from the three kicked) mentioned that they noticed they left the game and that's why they rejoined. The planned on playing later, but wanted to have a spot now.

Result: Nod 14 people, GDI 13 with 3 AFK. Not really much fun.

The fact is that kicking them on start is different, cause it would also kick people who are away from the PC for a few minutes. Sure if you have to be kicked when AFK for 5 min (if you ask me), but what if you grab a drink between games? And some people tend to forget about a game after one round....

If it's up to me you do not get kicked immediately, but it all is used for balancing teams. No more Volcano or Snow where GDI has 4 or 5 AFK's the first minutes and you get crushed before 1/3rd of the team becomes active...

[HaTe]

I like this suggestion.

Just make it so that a player has to press a button in order to be assigned to a team, rather than assigning them to a team automatically.

The AFK bot also desperately needs to be reactivated. Not sure why it was deactivated in the first place as it seems to have been working just fine.

[Henk]

And may I suggest that the people who haven't been assigned have white names, and are all shown on the bottom of the scoreboard with 1 line extra spacing from the people who have been assigned.

[Fffreak9999]

Good Afternoon,

On CT servers the AFK kick bot is enabled and has been for some time.

It is just not that efficient, but I do see people being kicked for idle.

[DoctorB0NG]

Good Afternoon,

On CT servers the AFK kick bot is enabled and has been for some time.

It is just not that efficient, but I do see people being kicked for idle.

Believe it or not the kicker is actually disabled but has a value of 300 sec set for the time variable. For some reason even if it's disabled yet has a time set, it will continue to kick people.

[HaTe]

It was enabled a couple of weeks ago (confirmed working), but then as of about a week or so ago, it hasn't been kicking afk players at all. Something went wrong.

[Agent]

var globalconfig bool bKickLiveIdlers; // if true, even playercontrollers with pawns can be kicked for idling

This should probably be enabled.

[Ryz]

Hmm no clue about the kicker, but I watched a person standing at exact the same spot for a long time, only to see him in another building the round after and so on....

Glad people are checking this topic, hope it leads to something, sorry for the extra work!

[Kil]

var globalconfig bool bKickLiveIdlers; // if true, even playercontrollers with pawns can be kicked for idling

This should probably be enabled.

There was a thread a while back about the lack of AFK kicker but apparently the built-in one has some issues where it can kick active people in some cases. Probably can't fix it tho seeing as it's mostly native and barely exposed to script.

[Agent]

In PlayerController:

var float LastActiveTime; // used to kick idlers

We /could/ have a timer that checks the value of this and display a warning when it exceeds 90% of 'MaxIdleTime'. We could also have some basic console command to reset your idle time that you're given the option of entering.

Some relevant inline documentation from GameInfo:

/* KickIdler() called if

if ( (Pawn != None) || (PlayerReplicationInfo.bOnlySpectator && (ViewTarget != self))

|| (WorldInfo.Pauser != None) || WorldInfo.Game.bWaitingToStartMatch || WorldInfo.Game.bGameEnded )

{

LastActiveTime = WorldInfo.TimeSeconds;

}

else if ( (WorldInfo.Game.MaxIdleTime > 0) && (WorldInfo.TimeSeconds - LastActiveTime > WorldInfo.Game.MaxIdleTime) )

KickIdler(self);

*/

event KickIdler(PlayerController PC)

{

`log("Kicking idle player "$PC.PlayerReplicationInfo.PlayerName);

AccessControl.KickPlayer(PC, AccessControl.IdleKickReason);

}

[HaTe]

orrrr you can just have it so that if a player's points don't increase at all in 7 minutes, send them a PM that they need to respond with !here every 20 seconds for a minute. If no response comes, it kicks them out of the game. I really just think that's the best way to avoid false positives and yet still work effectively.

I really think Ryz's suggestion is something that desperately needs to be considered too though. So many games are decided off the start simply because of afkers on one team at game start.

[Agent]

Could always just add a "Team Selection" screen to deal with early-game AFKs. This would also allow players to get on their preferred team a little easier.

...But that requires a UI programmer.

[Kil]

...But that requires a UI programmer.

Yosh X-D

But ye given that code snippet it looks like the issue could probably be worked around then - just add some other check to force update the last active timer.

[yosh56]

Yosh X-D

I will murder you.

[Agent]

I'm not hearing a no! :-D

[Ryz]

Hope someone really looks at this....

Just had one of these games again... After a long, unbalanced game Trainingyard got voted. We played 16 vs 16 but started with 10 active players, while whole Nod seamed to be active. After we lost half our buildings we kicked 2 afks around 4 min mark. Than, with 14 playing (2 became active, 2 got kicked) the final afks joined at minute 5 to witness the PP go down...

People who know the game a bit tend to switch to the team with the most rush chances, making the balance worse. After the map some people ragequit, but sometimes a load do.

Edit: today another game of Snow with 3 afk in one team... Server got empty as soon as we killed the Bar. From 30 ppl to 10....

[Ryz]

Small update on this:
- The last few days I noticed up to 1/3rd of the people afk (in smaller games 6 afks is a lot). The normal 'afk kicker' doesn't seam to work since multiple players stay afk game after game after game, but they still join. Is the above still considered?

[Madkill40]

Change AFK kicker to 90 seconds.

Add faction selection for the beginning of rounds via mutator: i.e. F1 for Nod, F2 for GDI?

[Ryz]

34 minutes ago, Madkill40 said:

Change AFK kicker to 90 seconds.

Add faction selection for the beginning of rounds via mutator: i.e. F1 for Nod, F2 for GDI?

That would be good. Or just move afk's to team 'neutral' if the server isn't full and stop there money income. Yesterday a person was 'PT staring' till he reached 1500, bought a mammy, lost it and went back to stare to a PT.... 

[Agent]

3 hours ago, Madkill40 said:

F1 for Nod, F2 for GDI?

Or, you know, an actual UI.

[Madkill40]

38 minutes ago, Agent said:

Or, you know, an actual UI.

But in the meeeeaaaaan time

[yosh56]

2 hours ago, Agent said:

Or, you know, an actual UI.

They say, knowing they won't even look at anything regarding a UI. 

[Ryz]

I will just necro this topic next year

[Ryz]

Again something on this issue.

This week I've played a lot of games where the server pop would go from 60 to zero in just 3 or 4 games. Main reason(s) besides often very unbalanced teams skillwise is still the afks. Today I've played several games after eachother where afks are there for multiple rounds. Cause we had small games at that point I was running everywhere and had no time to kick them. When we finally removed them it was 9 vs 11.... Than ppl started to ragequit and our entire base got slaugtered or vise versa. Next game we had 3 ppl left when it started cause nobody liked the past game.

Since you can't switch easily (unless you reconnect or disconnect) I see less ppl try to balance. In the end these unbalanced games with afks are one the main reason the server empties early(er). Maybe something to really, really look into?

Edited October 15, 2017 by Ryz

[Madkill40]

I go for a piss and get an AFK-kick message yet somehow other players avoid the auto-kick?

[Radeon3]

There's a reason why always 1-2 vote against kicking AFKs or glitchers. I wouldn't be suprised if the AFK zombies' only purpose was to send money to their owner in an other client.
Restrict 1 unique ID per server to see their numbers dwindle.

[Ryz]

4 hours ago, Madkill40 said:

I go for a piss and get an AFK-kick message yet somehow other players avoid the auto-kick?

Yeah I really don't get why some persons stay in the game round after round while being afk... I usually leave when I am afk for longer than a few min, but last time I forgot and got autokicked.  Some people not... 

 

3 hours ago, Radeon3 said:

There's a reason why always 1-2 vote against kicking AFKs or glitchers. I wouldn't be suprised if the AFK zombies' only purpose was to send money to their owner in an other client.
Restrict 1 unique ID per server to see their numbers dwindle.

Not sure about that, but I've thought about it. I guess these persons were really afk in the example of yesterday, cause they have a large sum of money when I tried to kick them. Also it's a list of 5 ~10 people who do this very often. If I see their names with 0 points after 30 min of the game I know enough... I look up where they are, pm them and if they don't reply and move in the next 5 or 10 min I try the votekick.

[Radeon3]

26 minutes ago, Ryz said:

Yeah I really don't get why some persons stay in the game round after round while being afk... I usually leave when I am afk for longer than a few min, but last time I forgot and got autokicked.  Some people not... 

Because they aren't AFK. All you need to do is Alt+Tab, press a button and Alt+Tab again. You can even write a simple autohotkey script to do it every 4 minutes which also includes the donation to the "host". A single button money boost.

If some people don't like to play fairly then unfortunately some restrictions gotta be made. With this restriction we would see less zombie startfire engies for sure which is the boosted version of money making. Or people who "play" for both sides.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Radeon3

[Madkill40]

@Radeon3 How would you do the unique id though? Cos if two people or more are in the same household and only one can play that may cause a bit of an issue? So that rules out IP-address as 'unique id'. 

[Sn4ke]

20 minutes ago, Madkill40 said:

How would you do the unique id though? Cos if two people or more are in the same household and only one can play that may cause a bit of an issue? So that rules out IP-address as 'unique id'. 

HWID

[NodSaibot]

HWID is terrible. Some people don't have one and a lot of people's match and change.

 

On CT, you are kicked from 5 minutes of inactivity.

[Radeon3]

@Madkill40

As Sn4ke said, HWID.

@Sarah! It's still way more reliable of than Steam ID or IP.

[NodSaibot]

1 hour ago, Radeon3 said:

@Madkill40

As Sn4ke said, HWID.

@Sarah! It's still way more reliable of than Steam ID or IP.

No, not really. They all suck

[Agent]

HWIDs are currently incomplete, and can be expected to be finished in the future.

[Madkill40]

Unless its possible to only allow one instance of RenX to run at a time per computer..? Like hardcode this in or summin.

[Agent]

It's certainly possible, but is it desirable? Back when EKT and TmX were around for example, server owners would go decent lengths to seed their servers to encourage players to join (disclaimer: I did this as well with up to 4 simultaneous clients). There is no telling what the future may hold, but if we get a larger active player base again, this practice will likely resume as servers and communities begin to compete for players.

It's also conceivable that a player could exploit such a mechanism to prevent another player from joining. If someome really hated Madkill for example, they could theoretically snag his HWID to prevent him from joining a server.

If it were implemented, it would need to be a server option.

[Ryz]

On 16-10-2017 at 11:20 PM, Sarah! said:

On CT, you are kicked from 5 minutes of inactivity.

In theory yes, but in reality people can be afk map after map while never moving....

[NodSaibot]

1 hour ago, Ryz said:

In theory yes, but in reality people can be afk map after map while never moving....

I check score and credit counts for players on my team every game and PM check for Afkers. Not sure about other mods.

[Ryz]

21 hours ago, Sarah! said:

I check score and credit counts for players on my team every game and PM check for Afkers. Not sure about other mods.

Some of them do, but last week 'our' base got rushed while it was 11 vs 11 with 2 afks on our side. Cause I tried to save buildings (which failed) I couldn't kick afks. At the moment were I was able to half our base was gone. The other team even had a moderator on it...

Offcourse this is just one situation and this isn't the problem, it's more about the issue in general.

[NodSaibot]

12 hours ago, Ryz said:

Some of them do, but last week 'our' base got rushed while it was 11 vs 11 with 2 afks on our side. Cause I tried to save buildings (which failed) I couldn't kick afks. At the moment were I was able to half our base was gone. The other team even had a moderator on it...

Offcourse this is just one situation and this isn't the problem, it's more about the issue in general.

Did you tell the mod?

[isupreme]

I like this idea.   Anything that presents even like teams is a worthy goal.

[Ryz]

On 21-10-2017 at 12:22 AM, Sarah! said:

Did you tell the mod?

In general chat it was said various times yeah. But I'dd rather not blame someone cause it's not about that one game but about the bigger picture!

[NodSaibot]

5 hours ago, Ryz said:

In general chat it was said various times yeah. But I'dd rather not blame someone cause it's not about that one game but about the bigger picture!

It all starts with 1 game.

[Ryz]

On 23-10-2017 at 3:16 AM, Sarah! said:

It all starts with 1 game.

True, but it's not my kind of style to accuse people personally.  I know people might say that I rant about bad teamwork or do stuff like that, but I guess that there aren't many occasions where I personally 'attacked' someone and I wasn't planning to.

Like I said I rather see a 'code change' implemented so ppl don't join but go to spectator! I don't get why this is so hard. Right now you need to press a button to 'gain control.' That same method could work to 'gain control' and assign someone to a team. No UI or anything required. 

Edited October 24, 2017 by Ryz
Edit

[NodSaibot]

6 hours ago, Ryz said:

True, but it's not my kind of style to accuse people personally.  I know people might say that I rant about bad teamwork or do stuff like that, but I guess that there aren't many occasions where I personally 'attacked' someone and I wasn't planning to.

Like I said I rather see a 'code change' implemented so ppl don't join but go to spectator! I don't get why this is so hard. Right now you need to press a button to 'gain control.' That same method could work to 'gain control' and assign someone to a team. No UI or anything required. 

I never said call them out