Inactive Player Disconnect

[SectorNine50]

Hey, so every once in a while when I'm playing, I'll go and look to see who's flying and who's connected, and I see that there are like 100 people online on my team, but only 60 are ever active.  An excuse I've heard is that people just want the perk points for winning the war, so they stay online.  The biggest problem with this is it jacks up the ENY of that team, and that puts us at a big disadvantage.  I propose an inactive player disconnect (or kick) system so that this doesn't happen.  So lets say after 5 or 10 minutes of inactivity, you are kicked disconnected from the server.  This way, we'll actually have a server full of people playing, not just sitting there logged in taking up valuable server space.

[EskimoJoe]

Hey, so every once in a while when I'm playing, I'll go and look to see who's flying and who's connected, and I see that there are like 100 people online on my team, but only 60 are ever active.  An excuse I've heard is that people just want the perk points for winning the war, so they stay online.  The biggest problem with this is it jacks up the ENY of that team, and that puts us at a big disadvantage.  I propose an inactive player disconnect (or kick) system so that this doesn't happen.  So lets say after 5 or 10 minutes of inactivity, you are kicked disconnected from the server.  This way, we'll actually have a server full of people playing, not just sitting there logged in taking up valuable server space.

What if I have to leave real quick to take a dump?

[Ghastly]

As has been mentioned before, search is your friend. 

This has been hashed out inumerable times, and the problem is that no matter what steps you take to prevent it, all you'll do is drive it further underground.  If they can't sit in the tower, they'll spawn a panzer and drive to the edge of the map, etc.

<S>

[EskimoJoe]

Hey, so every once in a while when I'm playing, I'll go and look to see who's flying and who's connected, and I see that there are like 100 people online on my team, but only 60 are ever active.  An excuse I've heard is that people just want the perk points for winning the war, so they stay online.  The biggest problem with this is it jacks up the ENY of that team, and that puts us at a big disadvantage.  I propose an inactive player disconnect (or kick) system so that this doesn't happen.  So lets say after 5 or 10 minutes of inactivity, you are kicked disconnected from the server.  This way, we'll actually have a server full of people playing, not just sitting there logged in taking up valuable server space.

What if I'm in auto-climb for 20minutes?

[Lusche]

Hey, so every once in a while when I'm playing, I'll go and look to see who's flying and who's connected, and I see that there are like 100 people online on my team, but only 60 are ever active. 

That doesn't mean all the rest is "inactive" some just returned from a sortie, some are planning missions, some examining the map to see where they are needed next. And old men like me can't fly sortie for sortie without a short break. Don't expect everyone in air all the time

An excuse I've heard is that people just want the perk points for winning the war, so they stay online. 

No need to


The biggest problem with this is it jacks up the ENY of that team, and that puts us at a big disadvantage.

Next time you should take a closer look at the numbers. The proportion of inflight players to total players of all the countries is usually pretty much the same. 120 rooks being "inflight" out of a total of 200 rooks is the same percentage as 30 "inflight" Bish out of 50 Bish total. The imbalance that leads to ENY restrictions has other reasons. Boot all inactive players from all sides and you will still have ENY trouble

[EskimoJoe]

Hey, so every once in a while when I'm playing, I'll go and look to see who's flying and who's connected, and I see that there are like 100 people online on my team, but only 60 are ever active.  An excuse I've heard is that people just want the perk points for winning the war, so they stay online.  The biggest problem with this is it jacks up the ENY of that team, and that puts us at a big disadvantage.  I propose an inactive player disconnect (or kick) system so that this doesn't happen.  So lets say after 5 or 10 minutes of inactivity, you are kicked disconnected from the server.  This way, we'll actually have a server full of people playing, not just sitting there logged in taking up valuable server space.

What if I have to take the dogs out?

[SectorNine50]

Eskimo Joe, inactive means sitting in the tower for long periods of time, so autoclimbing for 20 minutes isn't a problem.  If your going to be walking the dog for long periods of time, you should prolly log anyway, because, like said, your ENY goes up.  We had less people flying on bish than the other teams, but have much more logged in, and because of that, we have an ENY of 15.

It's not because everyone just got done with a sortie, the number stays the same for long periods of time indicating that a bunch of people are doing nothing!  55 flying, 100 logged in.  30 minutes later 60 flying 105 logged in.

All teams have around 60 players flying, but one team has 100 logged in, and because of that, that one team is punished with ENY.  That's exactly what happened today.  I looked at the numbers, they are no where near the same %'s, at least not today.  Bish had 105 logged in, 60 flying, Rooks had 66 flying 79 logged in, and Knits had 59 flying and 65 logged in.  While the Rooks had more active players in the air, Bishop still had an ENY!  Doesn't make sense if you ask me.

Maybe a better way of calculating ENY is by the number of people in-air.

[E25280]

Eskimo Joe, inactive means sitting in the tower for long periods of time, so autoclimbing for 20 minutes isn't a problem.  If your going to be walking the dog for long periods of time, you should prolly log anyway, because, like said, your ENY goes up.  We had less people flying on bish than the other teams, but have much more logged in, and because of that, we have an ENY of 15.

It's not because everyone just got done with a sortie, the number stays the same for long periods of time indicating that a bunch of people are doing nothing!  55 flying, 100 logged in.  30 minutes later 60 flying 105 logged in.

All teams have around 60 players flying, but one team has 100 logged in, and because of that, that one team is punished with ENY.  That's exactly what happened today.  I looked at the numbers, they are no where near the same %'s, at least not today.  Bish had 105 logged in, 60 flying, Rooks had 66 flying 79 logged in, and Knits had 59 flying and 65 logged in.  While the Rooks had more active players in the air, Bishop still had an ENY!  Doesn't make sense if you ask me.

Maybe a better way of calculating ENY is by the number of people in-air.

Not really.  If 30 of those bish were not flying because they were all waiting for a mission to start in three minutes?  That mission could launch with all 262s and tempests, even though the Bish already have a clear advantage.  How is that fair?

[EskimoJoe]

If your going to be walking the dog for long periods of time, you should prolly log anyway, because, like said, your ENY goes up.

I meant, letting them take a piss. Not "walking them for long periods of time". Why would I log if I know I'm going to be coming right back?

We had less people flying on bish than the other teams, but have much more logged in, and because of that, we have an ENY of 15.

Switch teams, stop whining and complaining about ENY. Fly a different plane. You're making yourself sound like a baby.

[SectorNine50]

True E25280, that's a hard distinction to make.  Perhaps when in signed into a mission, you get counted as "in-flight?"

EskimoJoe, no reason to be a dick to me, I haven't done one thing to you.  My argument is not frivolous or invalid.  I dealt with it just fine, I decided to post this because I thought it was unfair that this could happen and thought I had a good resolution.  Not once did I whine about the ENY system, I think it's a rather brilliant idea.  I'm not going to switch teams because of ENY because I have squad mates and friends on Bishop, and I've flown with them since day one.  Now if you have a contribution to this conversation, I'm listening, but I don't need you turning this thread into a flame war.

[EskimoJoe]

True E25280, that's a hard distinction to make.  Perhaps when in signed into a mission, you get counted as "in-flight?"

EskimoJoe, no reason to be a dick to me, I haven't done one thing to you.  My argument is not frivolous or invalid.  I dealt with it just fine, I decided to post this because I thought it was unfair that this could happen and thought I had a good resolution.  Not once did I whine about the ENY system, I think it's a rather brilliant idea.  I'm not going to switch teams because of ENY because I have squad mates and friends on Bishop, and I've flown with them since day one.  Now if you have a contribution to this conversation, I'm listening, but I don't need you turning this thread into a flame war.

I always get a good kick out of people like you!

But, to stay within the general topic, why bother disconnecting people if they aren't "in flight?" Sure, the ENY value will rise when they take a break, so fly a different plane! You're complaining about the people that are inactive, probably different people. Example :

55 flying, 100 logged in.  30 minutes later 60 flying 105 logged in.

Those 55 people flying out of the 100 people on that country, might rotate. 30 minutes later, the other 50 people that were NOT flying, are now flying, and the people that were flying? Taking a break.

[SectorNine50]

  Yeah I'm pretty funny, what can I say!

Its hard to tell because there isn't an indication of how long each person has been inactive.  Maybe that's a solution, instead of kicking automatically, maybe it should just turn on a type of "AFK" automatically when sitting in the tower for a long period of time.  That way no one has to leave the server, but when AFK it doesn't hurt the the team via ENY.  There could be a couple parameters as well, like when registered in a mission waiting to launch, actively giving the game commands like VOX or Chatting, messing with things in the hanger, etc. then you don't go "AFK."  However it doesn't help when there are idle people in a full server taking up slots...

[Ghastly]

... We had less people flying on bish than the other teams, but have much more logged in, and because of that, we have an ENY of 15. ...

And that ENY of 15 is exactly why you had less flying. Everyone sitting in the tower waiting for ENY to drop so they can get back into the plane they want, rather than taking up a "lesser" ride, or changing sides to even the playing field.  In short, ENY was working as intended.

<S>

[SectorNine50]

Ah, good point!  However, IIRC, we had roughly 20-30 people idle the whole time I was playing today even when our ENY was 0. (I kept checking how far behind we were falling, we were getting our arses kicked all day in that arena. lol)

But anyway, I now understand some the obstacles, and that is definitely one of them even if some of these didn't occur in today's instance.  The ENY system is cool and a really good way of making it even so you can have some comradery (sp?) with your team while still keeping the game balanced.  This is really the only situation I can see this system failing in...  Anywho, I'm gonna go fly.

[Kev367th]

Asked for this eons ago, with an added bit -

Move the AFK checkbox to the actual tower screen, ( NOT part of the vox window ), and make it a button.

While the button is "active" all others are greyed out and you cannot spawn a tank, join a mission, up a plane etc.

During this time you are not counted in the ENY calculation.

As soon as you de-select the AFK button, you are counted as part of ENY and you have all the other options back.

Auto disconnect after 30 mins inactivity.

Simple.