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invance afker solution(s)

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So with recent invance trouble, having figured out it would be impossible to automatically punish people for being afk for x amount of time due to gatekeeper, or theres only 2-3 mobs left.

 

So an alternative would be possible. people going into the map get their names recorded, and how long they are afk. afk timer would reset if they attack anything.

results could be shown on a webpage where only mods have access to. from there they could check which person is afk for what amount of time, how much monsters are left and how much time left. so from that info they could realistically say "this person is obviously Afking" or "this person is afking, but theres only a few left so he/she might not have found anything/no space to attack"

and then possibly deal with them after the invance. not only does a mod have to be there personally to babysit, go on rumors etc, but after a few time-offs for certain people from invance, or maybe ban for a day, 2nd offence 2 days etc. people will learn they can't go afk without mods knowing.

 

if this is possible it might be a good solution to our afk problem, don't know how hard it would be to make but it might be worth a shot.

 

2nd suggestion i've seen in WoW battlegrounds. an option to report afkers by right clicking their name and select "report afk" option. if enough votes come in the person can be zapped out automatically.

this would be open to abuse ofcourse, but like most things abusing features in a way they aren't meant to be is punishable. after a few cases of people reporting someone afk for no reason he/she might get punished and that would prevent people from abusing it in the future.

 

ofcourse they might not be perfect solutions, but they give the option to single out people. it's always easier to deal with a few people breaking rules then have a whole invance team of people argueing, getting an invance time-off, or get new rules put on and start the cycle again. new rules will just have people try and circumvent them, and will result in finger pointing which isn't that accurate to determine if they really did something wrong.

 

anyway feel free to tear it to shreds, add to the suggestion, change something so we can work something out that permanently solves it.

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What was the objection to the old idea of giving to each player a reward (xp) in proportion to the total amount of damage that the player has caused to monsters, again?

 

The problem would largely cure itself: if you are afk in the instance, and not fighting, you don't get xp. The more damage you deal, the more you contribute to winning the invance, so the higher your reward.

 

As for bagjumpers, this solution would not be worse than the current situation.

 

 

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1. I like the timer idea. After 5 minutes of not attacking anything, a message gets sent to #abuse to the mods, rather than getting booted. If a mod checks it out and he/she is truly afk, the mod can boot. If multiple reports come in, they can be booted. Could there be a command made for the gatekeeper to use to negate this?

 

2. Multiple waves (3?) of easy/medium/hard critters spread out through the entire time limit of the invance. Shorten the time limit to maybe 1.5 hours. This way, nobody has any excuse to hang around doing nothing for the last 45 minutes or however long because there are only "too hard for me" creatures left.

 

3. Individual invance bans.

 

4. Cap how many people can enter an invance. First come first served. 20? 25?

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i like the idea of damage to exp but maybe a few multupliers for arrows and magic.

 

but the down side is tank's deal little damage and gatekeeper deals 0 damage if there is a good team.

 

and take in effect training arrows and pk arrows also.

before anyone tries to flame me about training arrows.

 

im in 60-80 invance so i bring a mix of both.

its cheaper to kill a leopard and hawks with 2 training arrow hits than 1 pk arrow.

i also use them to cut clops hp in half to make it easier for melee when they first spawn.

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exp based on damage would be a problem for gatekeeper indeed, and i believe that was the reason not to go with that suggestion.

although if it'd be possible to use walk-able tiles to determine whether or not the exp you get is based on damage that could work.

 

in the whole invance you get exp based on your damage, but if you'd be on that 1 gatekeeping tile you'd still get a fixed amount of exp like right now.

best example i could give is civilization 2? if anyone knows that game its a turn based strategy game with maps made up of 100s of tiles each one being different, some you can move 2 turns, but on mountains 1. some tiles got different resources then others etc.

if that's possible there i can imagine certain events being possible on certain tiles in EL and on some not.

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Getting xp according to how many damage you dealt is not a good idea IMO because it'll favor higher players and will increase the gap between low and high players even more.

 

I like the suggestion of Aislinn about having several waves, it's a good way to have something to kill for everyone all the time.

EDIT: Moreover the number of waves could depend on the number of players that are currently in the invance...

 

Another solution could be to split the 120+ invance into 2, a 120-140 and a 140+. The 120-140 could be made just a bit easier than the current 120+ by replacing the MBs by bulas and reducing the number of dragons. The 140+ could have only nasps, giants, dragons, bulas, MBs...

Edited by Schmurk

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2. Multiple waves (3?) of easy/medium/hard critters spread out through the entire time limit of the invance. Shorten the time limit to maybe 1.5 hours. This way, nobody has any excuse to hang around doing nothing for the last 45 minutes or however long because there are only "too hard for me" creatures left.

 

I disagree with this idea. Nobody has an excuse to do nothing atm. If you are in cap, you can help. It is about teamwork, and every fighter means 5 def penalty on the critter. If the lower a/d/stats/armor has to tank all the time, the higher ones surrounding him/her should step up and remove their plate.

 

If their are just rangeable critters left (dragons/mb), the team benefits if the non-rangers stay out of the fight. So let them stay out then or let them search for the last critters.

 

Another solution could be to split the 120+ invance into 2, a 120-140 and a 140+. The 120-140 could be made just a bit easier than the current 120+ by replacing the MBs by bulas and reducing the number of dragons. The 140+ could have only nasps, giants, dragons, bulas, MBs...

 

This is a very good idea!

 

 

To be honest, I couldn't care less for people that afk in invance. I do them to have fun in the first place and less people participating, means more fun for me :)

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I've told what I think about this situation on chan 6 yesterday.

 

Just seperate the 120-140 and 140+, and give 140+ TONS OF SHIT so that they can't call it "easy exp" anymore.

 

 

In my personal view, 40-60 should be the easiest and 120+ should be the hardest invance, but in reality, that's totally the opposite (And I honestly think 100-120 is the hardest). That's because there are way too many people in 120+ range.

 

 

Also the problem is that there's a big gap between 160 a/d and 120 a/d, and they are in the same range. 160's bitch because the invance is too easy and 120's are useless, 120's bitch because invance is already too hard for them except some monsters or they are rangers and they will probably will #abuse'd because they won't be able to attack things after a while and forced to go afk (not afk but not doing anything).

 

If you make 120+ even more harder, it will be more people afk, that's the obvious, then don't blame them for not doing anything. "IF" they are in that range, the invance should be made so they can do something useful in there.

 

 

 

 

 

Note: I don't say that all 120's are useless in 120+ invance with melee. Some of experienced 120's are really doing a great job, But with the dailies etc and grinding spawns and NO PK, most of the today's 120's have no "fast thinking and acting" capacity in EL. I don't blame you though.

 

 

 

-Kaddy

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But with the dailies etc and grinding spawns and NO PK, most of the today's 120's have no "fast thinking and acting" capacity in EL.

 

Heard it here first folks: dailies have been shown to directly result in decreased reaction times and a lower IQ. Do them at your own risk.

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although if it'd be possible to use walk-able tiles to determine whether or not the exp you get is based on damage that could work.

I thought about this but I see two problems:

1. People taking turns hopping on and off of it, to get the timer immunity.

2. If it was coded so only x amount of time on the tile granted the immunity, that doesn't allow for the gatekeeper to get off to let people through, or to fight anything if needed.

 

 

Also dividing up the range into 120-140, 140+ or 120-150, 150+ was discussed. However, while that would work great for the grossly overpopulated euro time zone window, it can't be done for any other time slot. There just isn't enough selection to choose from as it is, which is why they usually get invances ranging from only 5-10 people. That's why I chose not to include this option in my list.

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It's not that simple what Kaddy says. 120+ invance can be very hard, or quite easy, depends when it going on, i made many hard ones on early morning,only few ppl on team, but ofc if it runs on weekend prime time, it's relatively easy. And what comes that "fast thinking and acting"..i lolled that...i think ppl learned that a lot in instances.

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although if it'd be possible to use walk-able tiles to determine whether or not the exp you get is based on damage that could work.

I thought about this but I see two problems:

1. People taking turns hopping on and off of it, to get the timer immunity.

2. If it was coded so only x amount of time on the tile granted the immunity, that doesn't allow for the gatekeeper to get off to let people through, or to fight anything if needed.

 

 

haven't thought about that, auto abuse reports seems the best way then.

that or cap the amount of people in an invance, or maybe even let them make their own teams? not only would you have just friends in the team instead of placing ~50 friends and enemy's in 1 map and let them try and work together. But also have more teamwork, if someone doesn't help out good it's unlikely they will get invited back

Would save mods alot of time having to be there personally all the time stalking people to make sure they don't do anything, it can't be argued with if the report could show the amount of time a player hasn't been in combat during invance.

only downside that i can think of is that there'd be spam of #abuse reports for mods for some time, untill people get the message that you can't go afk w/o being punished.

that and coding might be difficult? but if you can track who people trade with, or who tries to log on which char it wouldn't be impossible to track who attacks something during invance and who doesn't.

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Just a quick reflection on my part.

I think any solution proposal should be measured also in terms of how much complex it is to code in the server, and how many changes it requires in the client (as all players would need to upgrade their client, which has its own schedule == no quick fix).

  • Hence, proposals based on different role of tiles, although interesting, IMHO are not practical for EL in the short term.
  • My guess, also changing the XP reward based on the amount of damage (or number of kills and the like) won't work well.
    A low-range player can do very low damage to most mobs, still it reduces their def for the sake of the other fighters while risking its stuff; most tanks will NOT try to do damage to avoid mirrors and allow the team to work better, and this is essential teamwork everytime the team is small. It's nice to have tanks take turns, but sometimes there are not enough tanks for the highest mob in the invance, and I think we should not change things to make small-team invances harder.
  • In general, any excessively automated mechanism for booting is dangerous, as the gate keeper, archer and end-of instance examples show, it is difficult to code without interfering with / limiting normal battle tactics.

The solutions we need to look for should have little impact on playing experience (except getting rid of the cheaters, ofc), and not bring too much work on the mods, but still leave them the decision.

 

My personal feeling is, in fact, that control over afk players should be left to mod, and we should go for solutions which warn them about potential violations, making it also easier to check player behavior quickly. (Post-invasion check would lead to endless litigations about supposed behaviour, I fear)

 

So I think a combination these might work

  • automated #abuse messages if too much time passes without melee/arrow shoot and/or player is still or afk (the mod will ignore them at the end of invance, and info can be provided in the message to evaluate each situation)
  • automated abuse message if someone enters with too low gear (BUT: what about one entering in leather to recover his/her freshly dropped DB ?)
  • a way for the mod to check for each player how many arrows taken/shot, counts of dropped rostos, dropped bags and so on. This should be very easy and quick to do, for it to be useful.
  • ordinary abuse message from other players (they are already there, but if combined with the above ones, probably it's easier to split real issues from incorrect reports)
  • option to zero out invasion xp for this invance (or for a given number of invances next) for a given player. This means who is caught will have to show he/she learned to cooperate for some time, before starting to get xp again
  • option to disallow a given player from entering invances (for some time, or for a number K of attempts: the NPC will answer like : "You will have to try harder to enter invances" for the next K times you try to enter).

As for bagjumpers, I cannot see any solution: it is legal to BJ, it ruins the fun in some cases, but still forces people to stay focused.

 

For sure, we shall be absolutely sure that any system put in place to detect cheaters can NOT be used as a cheap tool for other players to kick someone out of invances.

I know it would be fun to kick out BJers, but I'd definitely not risk situations where a bunch of angry players start drowning mods with reciprocal #abuse messages, or a group of people gets paid to bully someone out via #abuse ...

 

xam

Edited by massimoC

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...

Also the problem is that there's a big gap between 160 a/d and 120 a/d, and they are in the same range. 160's bitch because the invance is too easy and 120's are useless, 120's bitch because invance is already too hard for them except some monsters or they are rangers and they will probably will #abuse'd because they won't be able to attack things after a while and forced to go afk (not afk but not doing anything).

 

Actually, as a rangers I am usually rather busy till the last second, rangers arent the ones going afk unless they happened to run out of arrows a few minutes before the end and no-one had some to spare.

 

I find it real hard to do anything like sending an #abuse while in the invance, the few times I have been forced to act as a moderator while in an invance things have not worked out well. I think the invance cannot be moderated by people in range, unless they are 'timed out' and only go in specifically to moderate. Moderating an in invance above your own level can be tricky, since you are not familiar with the tactics and mobs in the invance. Moderating a lower invance is easier (been there, done that).

 

Being able to block people from entering any invances for a period of time sounds like an appropriate and not too hard to code method to punish people that break invance rules (but it also needs an undo command). Any easy to code methods to give moderators information about activities would also help in figuring out if complaints are justified, but I think most of these options will be hard to code (up to radu to judge that).

 

In the end, I hope invances can be the fun part of EL that I believe they were intended to be, promoting teamwork and challenging players.

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correct me if i'm wrong, but it shouldn't be hard to code methods to give information.

how do you find out if someone illegal multies? or which IP is on which char? how does PK central know who died? or how does lenny know which map he is/was in when he broadcasts a message with a mapname or playername? or how radu knows how much people do the tutorial. how many players are logged in and are connecting?

if all that is possible, why cant the game track which player entered the invance and doesn't do anything for an amount of time? and ofc broadcast it to the mods.

or for convenience have it broadcast to a website where mods log on to where this information gets recorded. so after an invance mods take a look, see who didn't do anything and punish them then by giving a personal invance ban.

that way mods can still enjoy invances without being interrupted having to switch to babysit mode in the middle of the invance. but rather check afterwards

if i got this right it's just a matter of getting info from the server, and make a command to broadcast it? much like how people send a #IL command to get info about invasion monsters left from the server?

 

anyone knows enough about the server to confirm if it works like that? or if it is even possible to have the server track who enters invances and what they do?

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...

if all that is possible, why cant the game track which player entered the invance and doesn't do anything for an amount of time? and ofc broadcast it to the mods.

or for convenience have it broadcast to a website where mods log on to where this information gets recorded. so after an invance mods take a look, see who didn't do anything and punish them then by giving a personal invance ban.

that way mods can still enjoy invances without being interrupted having to switch to babysit mode in the middle of the invance. but rather check afterwards

if i got this right it's just a matter of getting info from the server, and make a command to broadcast it? much like how people send a #IL command to get info about invasion monsters left from the server?

 

anyone knows enough about the server to confirm if it works like that? or if it is even possible to have the server track who enters invances and what they do?

 

I agree with infamous on the approach of providing the right information to mods.

My two cents as a programmer, on the other hand: everything can be conceptually done. However, only limited many things can be done at the same time, that is within a given constraint of server resources and program complexity.

 

I don't know the server code, obviously. As far as I can tell, all code we propose to add to the server stay in the server at all time, not only during invances. It needs to be tested and verified and still can hide subtle bugs, and will impose a load on the system in every situation.

 

The idea of the web server is nice, but:

Then you have to make it sure that ONLY mods can see it. It is a different part of the server, which is a completely separate program, I guess that shall be able to communicate with the main server. Not overly complex, but we are talking about a heavyweight production software where too much changes are likely to require a lot of testing.

 

Providing the "right" information to mods, i agree, should not be too complex.

I'm in no position to judge if gathering/storing all the required information can be a burden on the server; that needs Radu attention, I guess we don't want issues and lags whenever many players are in the same invance or invasion.

From my evaluation I see two problems 1) you can't store and access in a useful way all the actions of players over a long period of time, and 2) already the trading/IP history alone takes the mods quite some time to analyze, as far as I know, to properly show multi-ing.

If my assumptions are correct, Radu would have to choose carefully what information to provide, to avoid killing the server (and the mods :-) )

 

xam

 

(P.S. I made several proposals, I hope they are useful but they are meant as a list of ideas. What is the best set of info to detect afkers...?)

Edited by massimoC

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after doing some more research and talking to someone familiar with the EL server it is possible to keep a log file with information about who enters an invance, and if they don't attack anything. It would eat up some disk space though, not sure how much space it takes or how much space there is.

2nd if it's done right there should be no burden on the server and/or lag for people.

 

So the only question that remains is, is Radu interested in this and can he code it?

 

Aislinn would be able to review the log created after an invance, and deal with rulebreakers that way w/o having to babysit or stalk people invisible.

same goes for other mods ofc, rather than babysit they can just enjoy invance and deal with Afkers afterwards.

server keeping track of who enters and doesn't attack for X amount of time is more accurate then rumors and fingerpointing, more effective then wasting time stalking people. you can only follow 1 at a time while the rest will be dodging the bullet.

 

only downside i can think of up to this point is the log eating up disk space, but then again we don't know how much space is left, and logs can be deleted after a day or 2. another downside, but thats up to mods if they consider it a downside or not is that it would take up some of their time reviewing the log.

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Just a small remark...

 

There are probably some fighting tactics that enhance this game - but the players do less attacks. The following situations come to my mind:

  1. Scout
  2. Healer
  3. Guard

I would just like to make a note that reducing such possibilities could reduce the fun in the game.

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An alternative solution :-

Make the blue dragon pinnable - but remove the pin spots in the regular cave.

 

That way everyone can go make a huge pincushion of the dragon(s) - and no excuse for anyone to be afk if they are still alive.

 

The invance map has enough pin spots for this to be possible.

 

Or along those line - add a static 'target' with insane hp that needs to be destroyed - it is non hostile - and non mobile - so just ranging to take it out.

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Just a small remark...

 

There are probably some fighting tactics that enhance this game - but the players do less attacks. The following situations come to my mind:

  1. Scout
  2. Healer
  3. Guard

I would just like to make a note that reducing such possibilities could reduce the fun in the game.

 

everyone scouts, but they attack things they find. or announce on channel if they need help, then attack with a group.

healers do something, so in the logs they wouldn't show up as not doing anything.

Guard, as in gateguard? this would have to be made clear to Aislinn or other mods who is on gate, and if he/she switches with someone.

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What was the objection to the old idea of giving to each player a reward (xp) in proportion to the total amount of damage that the player has caused to monsters, again?

 

 

You can do little damage and still be ABSORBING damage and because you are not doing damage you get no drops but you are contributing by (1) taking damage others would be taking and (2) reducing defense of creature if only one other person is on it. I am not a great fighter but I will often engage giant just so other will be able to kill it more easily. This has cost me a rosto a number of times as in last invance. If it was based on amount of damage I'd avoid things I could not hurt especially those surrounded by those w/thermal swords. Same thing for luring dragon away from gate; many times I have attacked dragon going towards gate to keep it off gatekeeper then dissing it. Bad strategy when you are getting rewards per damage done.

 

Often an archer will be shooting a monster and while I probably can not do much damage to monster if I attack if fighter fighting disses archer can be creamed so I will often protect archer engaging monster if it get loose or if another creature comes in area when archer is busy. No damage, no experience - go someplace else I can damage something.

 

Should people hunting rat be punished for not attacking? Some of them occasionally use invisibility spell to avoid being trampled on by creatures like blue damage. I have used that as well as teleport to range to find / kill rat. No experience because you are not beating on something with a sword? Let someone else chase rat.

 

Now I do not AFK in invasion unless I grue, not even sitting at feet of some monster while others beating on it.

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Just got another idea...

 

Give less XP for completing invance, but double XP for all att/def/range during an invance

(contra: nobody will want to be gatekeeper)

...or...

adjust XP according to hits taken + damage dealt ... no matter whether by sword, or arrows, or...ermm.. summons ;) ..

divide a pool of total XP which is constant for every invance among the participiants again according to their points gained

perhaps add a certain amount of points per minute for sitting in the gate

 

this said, why bother ? ... it won't be possible to satisfy everyone here, so it can as well stay as it is...

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Generally there's no progammatic solution to social problems. IMHO invances work pretty well - especially as also the gate keeper or tanks profit from the current way it is handled. All other solutions only seem to make those roles less attractive or at least complicating the process. The few times where people abuse the system surely can be reported and then be dealt with by moderators in due time.

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problem with using the #abuse feature though is mods can't go to the invance themselves and participate, they'll have to go in godmode and look around at gate see if the #abuse is true. and they have to be in that invance range to be able to check, I think Aislinn told me that once. for example a 110 a/d mod can't go to invances below like 40-60, 60-80, 80-100 and the one above their levels, 120+.

 

plus an abuse resulted in Me_ow being pulled out of the invance, and later it turned out that according to Radu, Me_ow didn't do anything wrong. in the discussion that followed people said she wasn't doing anything, while others said she did help out.

Social problems contribute to that, enemies are more likely to #abuse eachother, while both parties have friends to back eachother up by either confirming the #abuse or to defend the #abuse'd person.

 

so in order to get rid of these uncertainties and conflicting stories from people it is better to code a solution that keeps track of who enters and who has been idle for a certain period of time.

easy solution, mods don't have to be there in person to keep an eye out, and they can participate in them themselves. plus they'll have a reliable source of information to prove who has been AFK and who hasn't

Edited by Infamous

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