Can we address the afk problem?

[baurogg]

So why not change the meta for Order in these times? Make tanks obsolete by buffing order's most played classes by ridiculous amounts to make a balance again. For example make Engineers tanky and onehit healer, then we are talking about balance again.

Yes, playing Engineer and i am sick that Order cannot build a front line because of lack of tanks and melees in general.

[Valarion]

Lets be realistic, notifying a gm everytime some asshat afks in a city/fort or even a sc is not a realistic solution here. The gms have better things to do even if this means they are taking a break to simply unwind and play the game.

I'd much rather the gms and devs spend their valuable time elsewhere like continuing to improve the reward system that is encouraging this behavior rather than policing this behavior. Are there any ways to fix the reward system while discouraging the afking? Yes, I'd like to believe so....

A slightly less random and slightly greater reward system for active play will remedy this problem for good. Dramatically lower rewards for simply showing up, but increase rewards for contributing something substantial, even if its simply spamming certain skills like instarez. More bags for active play, no meds, no bags and not even a roll on a bag for inactive play. Regardless of what is considered afk or near afk, there is a huge difference between a player that spams skills until their fingers bleed and a player that afk's in the spawn point and this can be detected and dealt with.

The devs just need to further tweak and perfect the system that is already in place.

[catholicism198]

Nath did a great job recreating it, but it being a bore is not all on him. Big brain time.
premades love avoiding other premades and pugs don’t stand a chance against premades.
It doesn’t help that a lot of us want to play what’s fun, which is far from meta, but cities aren’t about having fun.
So unless you play one of the few classes with city specs, you’re **** out of luck and will get branded a “thrower” or “afk-er.”

It's not even that order guild premades try to dodge destro premades, but in reality Destro players have to que instanty or they may miss City Siege. Meanwhile on Order, often until last 5-10 minutes we're still looking for tanks and/or healers, often even taking "unwanted" Ironbreakers and Archmages, just so we can have 2/2/2 setup. You can easily see that in /5 on Order side there are often ~5 WB leaders looking for Knight/SM and/or RP/WP taking in the end "any" tank or healer.

I’ve only seen thorbolt and rologrom. Sometimes others pop up usually followed by, “queueing late.”

[baurogg]

For me as a returner it looks like this:

Destro, when playing Destro atm can go to Altdorf whenever they want as attacker. When they play Order coming to IC, they immediately log to their Destro Char and loot as Defenders, knowing they will stomp the Order leftovers in subopitimal wbs with their melee trains.

[warlover]

How about kicking all afk off the server after 90sec away city or anywhere else, and if they cheat to get by afk should be at least 7 day suspension

[Geometric]

I don't know about you, but it takes me longer than 90 seconds to take a poop. Maybe rethink that one, buddy.

[Nosun]

As a pug player who has done lots of city my advice is to stop letting it bother you will lose 90% of your city's anyway. If you are going to pug the quicker you accept this better. On the plus city of pugging its very easy to win a lot of Gold and Purple bags if you just don't join the afks or semi afks and fight the whole time. Expecting to win with a random group of people and classes that are not in discord when you are fighting premades who are in discord that play with each other a lot is kind of nieve.

[wargrimnir]

I don't know about you, but it takes me longer than 90 seconds to take a poop. Maybe rethink that one, buddy.

That sounds like a You problem, and not the rest of your teams problem. If you join a city siege and decide this is a good time to handle your bodily needs, you're still AFK, and a GM might come visit you. When you show up for instanced group content, play the content. You'd be kicked from a dungeon group if you did the same thing after joining a boss instance, city is no different in concept and even more sensitive to other players who didn't ask for you.

[baurogg]

City siege again from destro atm. When both groups first encounter each other i decide if i go semi-afk or not. When they just overrun us with ease like in this sc i lean back, enjoy the show and hope for good rolls. Sorry, i havent made the system as it is but i have to make the best of it. Dont think i make something better when i go out and let them farm me.

Ps.: Never saw the king die so fast.