Curse

Plague · Jul 03, 2007, 06:24 PM // 18:24

I was reading around through all the threads about leechers and leavers, etc., and I thought to myself, "They're making this way too hard. People are suggesting ideas that would hurt normal players in many cases." So, I thought up another idea:

I think faction should be scaled to what you're doing. That is, if you are an inactive player, you should get no reward. If you are performing actively, you should earn the right to what your team garners.

I'll explain:

In all the "PveP" areas such as Fort Aspenwood, Jade Quarry and Alliance Battles, your team earns faction as it used to, before the recent faction nerf that hurt all players that lose a match, including leechers. However, now, each player begins with a level of participation. Everyone begins at 0%. Based on your level of participation, you earn that percentage of the final faction reward. If you are a leecher, and simply stand in one spot while your teammates fight for you, you will earn 0% of whatever they earn, because you have performed 0 actions. If at the end of the match, everyone earns 1,200 faction, a leecher will earn 0 faction. Period. Someone with 100% participation (normal players) will earn 1,200.

This probably sounds iffy at this point to you. But it's simple, really. Using Aspenwood as an example, you earn 10% participation by making a kill, returning a piece of amber, or capturing an encampment. So what does this mean? It means, you only have to perform 10 actions to earn a total reward at the end of the match. That is, you can kill 10 people. You can return 10 pieces of amber. You can capture 3 encampments, make 2 kills and return 5 pieces of amber. Leechers do none of these things. Even if they give minimal effort to get to 100% participation, they will be playing more than leeching, and in the end, it won't be worth it to them to fight a bare minimum and then go back to leeching. A normal, non-leeching player will reach this goal very easily, so it will never be a problem for them.

I'll reiterate: let's say you're in an Alliance Battle. You earn 10% for a player kill. You earn 2% for a NPC kill. You earn 10% for capturing a shrine. A leecher, standing in the starting zone, will earn no faction. A player that does something as simple as killing 5 players and capturing 5 shrines, not to mention the NPCs that come with the shrines, (a prerequisite almost for being in an Alliance Battle) will never even notice it.

The math here isn't important. You get the idea. Normal players, simply by playing as they always do, will unconsciously, and very easily, earn their faction reward. Leechers, on the other hand, will earn nothing. Even leechers that try to earn the faction and find time to leech will be straining to do so. It would be a lot of work for them to be lazy.

How would you phrase this in-game? There's no need to explain the math. The game doesn't explain adrenaline precisely, or weapon mastery attributes too closely, after all. Maybe like...

"Players that fail to participate in the battle have their faction reward at the end of the match reduced accordingly."

Pretty simple. Leechers don't benefit, players aren't hurt - including players that just so happen to need to go afk for a few minutes.

Such a simple system would also allow the end reward faction to be raised substantially.

I might have missed something, but I don't think I missed anything major. All the other suggestions I've seen would hurt your average player in some way.

I'll add that the kill credit you involuntarily get when another player makes a kill across the map does not count towards your own goal. Only by physically finishing a NPC or by being near a shrine as it is captured by you or other players do you receive credit for such things. (And any leecher trying to idle next to a shrine will be killed by other players, etc.)

[edit]: As for bots that do nothing but follow players by using a macro, that's less of a leeching issue and more of a bot issue, which is up to ANet's adorable bot-catching system. And we can't fix all their problems for them.

jkyarr · Jul 03, 2007, 08:39 PM // 20:39

No love for monks huh? I wouldn't say that a monk should necessarily be doing any of the things you described as "participation". So the next time you die unnecessarily because your monk sux or didn't show up because s/he couldn't get any rewards, I want you to admit you miss us. If we'd been there you'd be alive. Don't we deserve rewards for doing our job too?

Star Gazer · Jul 03, 2007, 08:54 PM // 20:54

that is correct...or hell, even a buffing paragon, or MM necro. I wish Guru would put a ban on *leech* threads.....there have been like 400 threads regarding this issue. anet said they are looking into it. period.

Master Ketsu · Jul 03, 2007, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Ive made this suggestion numerous times. I think the best way to do it would be making it so people who use no skills, and dont attack, and dont move during the entire match ( basically stay inactive ) cannot receive faction.

Basically the only update anet should put in is "If you dont do anything, you get no reward"

roflcopter2445 · Jul 03, 2007, 09:15 PM // 21:15

This helps a lot. Finally, no more leechers

Kratos Angel · Jul 04, 2007, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Wow Plague, your idea is the probably the best idea I've ever seen here, and especially, the easiest to set and most efficient against leechers.
However, you should earn like 1 or 2% for each spell or skill you cast on allies to heal, or buf them.
Well, I would even say 5% for each skill that heals(a monk skill that targets an ally I mean), maybe that too for support.
And you shouldn't be forced to finish a guy, just help with killing him.
Then it's a perfect idea, simple, but good.

jkyarr · Jul 05, 2007, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Rather than put together sketchy logic about how many times profession A has to carry out action X to get a reward, how about logic akin to the "skip this cinematic" only make it the "kick this party member for the team and return them to the outpost"? All party members have to agree (except the candidate who's being booted), as they do in order to skip a cinematic. The only catch to this is that rewards would have to be awarded in real time to avoid 7 players kicking the 8th in order to split his/her loot at the end of a match/mission. To ensure that loot wouldn't be a factor they could even remove any loot from the mission/match that was assigned to a player that was booted.

The whole reason the Leecher was invited to be part of the team was because they were counted on to add a certain value. If they are actually adding that value and contributing to the team then why would the everyone else on that team choose to boot them? Even a player with 60% DP can get a spell or 2 off before they're killed again, so I see no incentive for such a system to be abused. The remainder of the team would have to go the duration of the mission/match without the person they kicked... If that person was contributing then that's enough of a penalty for the abuse as it is.

Patrick Smit · Jul 05, 2007, 09:29 PM // 21:29

I think this is indeed a nice idea, even monks should be able to cap a few shrines. Kill counts should be considered carefully. I would suggest being in "earshot" (or twice aggro range) when the kill occurs would be enough for the monk to benefit from the kill as well. In that way you don't need to "discuss" who made the killing blow. All get the x % towards the 100% needed.

If for whatever reason none or not all of the players reach 100% but are above 0% they get their relative share of the faction earned, leechers with 0% get nothing ^^

Using skills should be not be considered, they will start casting spells on allies in the base using macros

Kaida the Heartless · Jul 06, 2007, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Best idea so far.

Master Ketsu · Jul 06, 2007, 04:15 AM // 04:15

Also, changing faction rewards to award people for unique actions rather then a massive faction bonus for winning/losing can help greatly as well.

Losing team: 25 faction
Winning team: 250 faction

Help cap an alter = 75 faction
Solo cap an alter ( determined by only you being the contributer to the bar growth for at least 50% of the time ) = 150 faction
Unique kill in ( while in range ) 20 faction

Patrick Smit · Jul 06, 2007, 06:00 AM // 06:00

With unique action u should be careful:

player 1: I'll come and help capping!
player 2: engine go red off U are wasting my faction farm. go get your own shrine.

I think the initial idea combined with the "be in range" condition for skills and caps will virtually guarantee that all active players will get 100% of their share and leechers none.

If this works for FA and the like I don't know, I never play em so can really tell what the range should be.

Dervish Warrior · Jul 06, 2007, 11:19 AM // 11:19

i think, because of some newbies to the game, they can not earn anything, even though i personally dominate in Alliance Battles

Others can not

I suggest to avoid leechers, to play the into movie twice, and then kick them, that way, if people actually do watch the movie, they can, but they only need to watch once

on another note.. NEED MORE AB SERVERS!!! please, AB waits can be up to 30min, it is horrid

gameshoes3003 · Jul 06, 2007, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Or you can deal with it and have fun...
Don't let someone else's actions ruin your game =D

Ninna · Aug 09, 2007, 01:01 PM // 13:01

another way that may diminish leeching is what World of Warcraft is trying in an upcoming patch

http://wow.warcry.com/news/view/75781-New-2-2-PTR-Patch

Quote:

- A new feature for reporting players as being AFK in battlegrounds by right clicking has been added.

When enough reports are registered, a 30 second debuff will begin to count down.

Once the timer is up a new debuff will appear that will prevent the player from gaining any honor while it is on. This debuff can be negated as soon as the player engages in combat.

this wouldnt hurt any GW class because your team needs to be reporting you before any Faction blocking debuff will occur

MithranArkanere · Aug 09, 2007, 01:13 PM // 13:13

And what about monks?

Monk bot:
- Go to Gunther
- Spam Orison of Healing.
- 100%

If you do not allow monks to get 'action' just by healing, you force then to attack and get near enemies, when they could be perfectly effective jst by allies, and if you count skill uses as actions, bots can make them.

Ninna · Aug 09, 2007, 01:26 PM // 13:26

there will always be bots

but at least leechers will have to make more effort than standing still

leechers would also have to "be aware" of any debuff applied to them

Defy · Aug 09, 2007, 05:26 PM // 17:26

I think this is a great idea but I agree that it shouldn't be only the person that kills the other person that gets points to his participation. If that's the case it might make it harder for some people to get all the participation even if they fight the whole battle long. I think that it should have something to do with attacking using skills in addition to killing. But other that that this is a good idea to help stop the leecher epidemic. And that right-click report thing that WoW is trying might also be a good idea.