Kicking needs to be changed.

[Riou Insuiko]

I've seen countless times where there are AFK players, those hampering the team (obviously hampering like giving away vehicles, trying to stand in front of MCT and throwing c4 on people's face, etc), and other egregious examples where voting to kick that player simply fails. When something isn't even a matter of opinion, like someone being AFK, it should not come to a vote as to whether or not they are removed from the game. Especially when fellow players have the perverse incentive to vote no simply to troll/hamper.

I think that at least 2 things should happen, but possibly a third and fourth.

1 - Server moderators should be more responsive to these issues and remove the players. Obviously if a server moderator is playing the game and in the middle of some intense combat they should not be expected to drop everything to kick them, but between deaths at least take care of AFK, hampering, etc players.

2 - Team commanders should be given the power to kick another player on their team from the game. This can be very easily abused but is the easiest way to make up for server moderators failing to catch these people. People abusing this should expect to be banned from any relevant servers. It's a utility to remove AFK players and people blatantly ruining the match for their team by giving vehicles away for example, blocking doors or beacons with vehicles to stop a repair, etc. NOT to be used for people who aren't following the commander's orders, like preparing for a rush, or generally following the team strategy. Also does not apply to new players who might just be learning the game. I also think that team commanders should be able to automatically disable team members from planting mines without a vote.

3 - An automatic kick for AFK players. Set to 5 minutes. Requires progressively more activity the more the timer counts down. As to prevent people from standing and just moving their cursor every few minutes. AFK actions like repairing should be fine. If someone isn't even doing that and is instead standing in a building shooting at a wall with a solider or something like that it should be easy enough to identify and remove them. This suggestion does not tackle the issue of actively hampering players who won't even have a kick vote passed on them because they'll either just rejoin or whatever.

4 - Kicking more than once from a match should result in the inability to return to the server until the current match is over. Someone who is going to go AFK more than once should have the responsibility of voluntarily leaving the match and rejoining when they are ready instead of the freedom to repeatedly joining and go to the bathroom, cook dinner, or whatever else someone is doing when they log in and go afk. Someone joining with the intention of AFKing until they have enough credits to buy what they want should not be allowed to do so in my opinion. 

Ultimately, regardless of whether my suggestions are considered, I think that something needs to be done. It's too annoying and frustrating to be struggling for survival in a match only to have 3 of the people on your team with their thumbs in their ass AFK doing god knows what and one idiot repeatedly throwing C4's on people's head, running in front of MCTs, etc and when you go to vote them out of the match you'll have idiots who either vote no to troll or because it's their friend, whatever. It's hot garbage and I hate it. 

[NodSaibot]

moved topic to appropriate section

[Reivax]

13 hours ago, Riou Insuiko said:

1 - Server moderators should be more responsive to these issues and remove the players. Obviously if a server moderator is playing the game and in the middle of some intense combat they should not be expected to drop everything to kick them, but between deaths at least take care of AFK, hampering, etc players.

2 - Team commanders should be given the power to kick another player on their team from the game. This can be very easily abused but is the easiest way to make up for server moderators failing to catch these people. People abusing this should expect to be banned from any relevant servers. It's a utility to remove AFK players and people blatantly ruining the match for their team by giving vehicles away for example, blocking doors or beacons with vehicles to stop a repair, etc. NOT to be used for people who aren't following the commander's orders, like preparing for a rush, or generally following the team strategy. Also does not apply to new players who might just be learning the game. I also think that team commanders should be able to automatically disable team members from planting mines without a vote.

3 - An automatic kick for AFK players. Set to 5 minutes. Requires progressively more activity the more the timer counts down. As to prevent people from standing and just moving their cursor every few minutes. AFK actions like repairing should be fine. If someone isn't even doing that and is instead standing in a building shooting at a wall with a solider or something like that it should be easy enough to identify and remove them. This suggestion does not tackle the issue of actively hampering players who won't even have a kick vote passed on them because they'll either just rejoin or whatever.

4 - Kicking more than once from a match should result in the inability to return to the server until the current match is over. Someone who is going to go AFK more than once should have the responsibility of voluntarily leaving the match and rejoining when they are ready instead of the freedom to repeatedly joining and go to the bathroom, cook dinner, or whatever else someone is doing when they log in and go afk. Someone joining with the intention of AFKing until they have enough credits to buy what they want should not be allowed to do so in my opinion. 

Ultimately, regardless of whether my suggestions are considered, I think that something needs to be done. It's too annoying and frustrating to be struggling for survival in a match only to have 3 of the people on your team with their thumbs in their ass AFK doing god knows what and one idiot repeatedly throwing C4's on people's head, running in front of MCTs, etc and when you go to vote them out of the match you'll have idiots who either vote no to troll or because it's their friend, whatever. It's hot garbage and I hate it. 

@Riou Insuiko hi

as first point, it depends of time. Servers haven't 568 moderators, so they can't react at every hours. Also, trust me all the mods i know react asap to check IRC and join the game to check if things happens. anyway, the best way to moderate is still to be ingame when it's the playtime, but many of us have a real life (sadly :p) which doesn't let us play when it's the populated hour  but afaik all mods i know do their best to be reactive and quickly act regarding of the kind of issue 


as second point, *Team commanders should be given the power to kick another player on their team from the game* No. A big no. Because people will abuse of it. Not "could probably", but "will", i'm sure and i can bet you all my beers. Imagine a shitty commander, if someone complain about him he kicks him. Nah, it's rly a bad idea. They could kick noobs to only have skilled players with them. Nah, that's really a bad idea.

about this point, * I also think that team commanders should be able to automatically disable team members from planting mines without a vote* I agree, but it could be maybe hard to code, so.. i don't know if it's possible, and if it is, how long it could take.


as third point, *An automatic kick for AFK players. Set to 5 minutes.* It existed last year  i remember that, but i don't remember why it have been removed. Maybe many players complained about that? When you have a call, or smth, or your wife ask u to wash the dishes, then you will be kicked. If the server is full, it will be a pain to wait and refresh every seconds to join. I guess ppl complained about that, but i'm not sure it's the reason why it have been removed. Good question


as fourth point, *Kicking more than once from a match should result in the inability to return to the server until the current match is over.* I agree, as a kind of "temporary ban". But TBan are relevant of moderation, not of playerbase  anyway, that's a good point


as fun fact, i remember these ppl who spend more time AFK than to play.. like ex7tratesmth (pls change your name dude) who spent so many hours AFK than i'd time to take a shower (and it take rly long time haha) and to eat (around one hour lmao) and when i've been back, he was still afk
idk what they do when they are AFK, like these players who can stay afk for hours.. i guess watch p0rn on phone doesn't take hours, so.. wtf they can do while they are AFK? they forgot to turn off the game? or.. idk

now, about your last sentence.. "It's hot garbage and I hate it."
i've only one thing to reply.
Welcome to RenX PUBs 

[limsup]

1 hour ago, Reivax said:

as third point, *An automatic kick for AFK players. Set to 5 minutes.* It existed last year  i remember that, but i don't remember why it have been removed.

It is a configurable server side option, which can be set as the server's owner / administrator sees fit. Some did set it for that 5 minute leniency, and got massive flak from people (most often complaining how they cannot go to eat/drink/smoke/toilet et cetera...), so they either tend to set it higher than that, or let the moderators or players themselves deal with it (AFK kickvotes do generally tend to go through by a wide margin).

16 hours ago, Riou Insuiko said:

Ultimately, regardless of whether my suggestions are considered, I think that something needs to be done. It's too annoying and frustrating to be struggling for survival in a match only to have 3 of the people on your team with their thumbs in their ass AFK doing god knows what and one idiot repeatedly throwing C4's on people's head, running in front of MCTs, etc and when you go to vote them out of the match you'll have idiots who either vote no to troll or because it's their friend, whatever. It's hot garbage and I hate it. 

Technically I agree with almost all of the above, but the reality of war means you'd always have a few of these people, kind of hard to filter out algorithmically...

[TheOlsenTwins]

I guess the auto AFK kicker was disabled to make it easier to fill up the server. Maybe it can get another option to be only active when there are more than x people on the server.

The problem for me are not people that are afk for some time during the match (because they will com back 95% at the time), but the ppl that are afk since start. Because especially in small games every person counts and if play 6 vs 6 and one team has 3 afks, this i just tedious.

Couldn't it be made, that people only join a team after after agreeing to a overlay box (like that box right now on AllNoobs) It is like that on many other Multiplayer games.

[scrin-124678]

The auto kick system was for me not working great.

I got kicked 2 times where I was repairing an MCT and stood there for 5 mins, the auto kick system ignored that I was moving my mouse and aimed on different positions and that I opened my map many times. And even loosing all my money and re-joining in the different team was a match breaker for me.

So the auto kick system as how I saw it working where just watching that the player is doing a movment, Ignoring any inputs in the keyboard or a mouse moving..

 

When they decide to not re-write the auto kick system then a simple addition of a Warning sound and a warning text that tells you 15 sec before kicking that the system dedected you being afk would fix it.

[Riou Insuiko]

1 hour ago, scrin-124678 said:

The auto kick system was for me not working great.

I got kicked 2 times where I was repairing an MCT and stood there for 5 mins, the auto kick system ignored that I was moving my mouse and aimed on different positions and that I opened my map many times. And even loosing all my money and re-joining in the different team was a match breaker for me.

So the auto kick system as how I saw it working where just watching that the player is doing a movment, Ignoring any inputs in the keyboard or a mouse moving..

 

When they decide to not re-write the auto kick system then a simple addition of a Warning sound and a warning text that tells you 15 sec before kicking that the system dedected you being afk would fix it.

I agree with the removal of the kicker under your circumstances. If an auto kicker exists it should be able to distinguish specific actions and not solely rely on the time taken between actions. In the case of repairing a kicker would be a bad idea if it only counted you initiating the repair and started the countdown from there.  Eventually kicking you if you took no other additional action. It should identify that you are repairing and allow you to continue. I'm sure anyone who played Renegade back in the day remembered hearing "Yo!" when you were AFK for too long. Auto kicking was a staple almost from the very beginning of it's launch. It wasn't perfect there, and I don't expect perfection here, I would just like some solution to people abusing their position in the server. Especially if it's a full server and there are other people looking to join who will actively participate. 

[Riou Insuiko]

3 hours ago, TheOlsenTwins said:

I guess the auto AFK kicker was disabled to make it easier to fill up the server. Maybe it can get another option to be only active when there are more than x people on the server.

The problem for me are not people that are afk for some time during the match (because they will com back 95% at the time), but the ppl that are afk since start. Because especially in small games every person counts and if play 6 vs 6 and one team has 3 afks, this i just tedious.

Couldn't it be made, that people only join a team after after agreeing to a overlay box (like that box right now on AllNoobs) It is like that on many other Multiplayer games.

It makes a huge difference right at the start as you say. Especially in matches with fewer people. I think it's equally important when the struggle is at it's peak, even in large matches, where every participant counts. In a 32 vs. 32 match where most of the time, on the destruction of a building, people leave;  One or two people afking on top of that can amount to a pretty severe disadvantage. In an all hands on deck type situation you really can't afford to even have one person still asleep in their bunk.

[Riou Insuiko]

9 hours ago, limsup said:

It is a configurable server side option, which can be set as the server's owner / administrator sees fit. Some did set it for that 5 minute leniency, and got massive flak from people (most often complaining how they cannot go to eat/drink/smoke/toilet et cetera...), so they either tend to set it higher than that, or let the moderators or players themselves deal with it (AFK kickvotes do generally tend to go through by a wide margin).

Technically I agree with almost all of the above, but the reality of war means you'd always have a few of these people, kind of hard to filter out algorithmically...

I wish there were some numbers as it relates to how successful AFK kick votes are. I'm not doubting that most of the time they go through, but I'm suspicious of the wide margin you are suggesting. To me it feels like maybe 60% of the time they work- a majority of the time. Though anecdotally I might only be remembering the times that they don't because it annoys me or something. I don't think it's a case of something like 90% of the time it goes through. I'm playing fast and loose with the numbers, it's just a guess, I would be happy to have something more concrete.

It's not necessarily limited to filtering someone out algorithmically. In the case of someone continually misbehaving and being removed from the match.. it doesn't make sense that "they'll just come back anyway" or something like that being accepted as an excuse. I don't see why one or maybe more match temporary bans aren't issued. Not over little stuff and not frequently. Just more than 'never'.

[Handepsilon]

The afk tag cannot be avoided by simply moving your mouse around and repairing a building,  unfortunately. However,  point changes *will* list you as active player, which makes afk repping an under-siege building still viable

[Madkill40]

AFK players shouldn't just be kicked but moved into an empty server, on the off-chance it enables a 2nd server to grow