| 1 |
[q]"low amount of things that need attention" that's very subjective and I find it counterproductive. It's like saying "sometimes you win the game when resigning because team fights for you" - I prefer to play with people that actually play.[/q]
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1 |
[q]"low amount of things that need attention" that's very subjective and I find it counterproductive. It's like saying "sometimes you win the game when resigning because team fights for you" - I prefer to play with people that actually play.[/q]
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| 2 |
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2 |
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| 3 |
If
you
have
only
a
handful
of
units
and
none
of
them
require
attention,
you're
naturally
going
to
sit
back
and
not
move
the
mouse
->
"afk.
"
This
is
not
subjective,
this
is
an
[b]observable
behavior[/b].
It's
pretty
simple
to
understand:
you're
waiting
for
something
to
construct
and
you
don't
have
any
other
units:
during
that
wait
you're
likely
to
be
idle
because
there's
no
need
to
move
the
mouse
around.
I've
done
it
several
times
and
I
have
seen
it
several
times.
This
is
the
most
likely
explanation
for
the
"AFK
for
a
few
seconds
before
coming
back"
behavior.
If
you
want
people
to
actually
engage
with
the
game,
you
need
to
give
them
more
than
a
handful
of
units
or
give
them
units
that
actually
require
attention.
If
all
I
have
are
units
that
can
fight
move,
I'm
naturally
not
going
to
pay
much
attention.
|
3 |
If
you
have
only
a
handful
of
units
and
none
of
them
require
attention,
you're
naturally
going
to
sit
back
and
not
move
the
mouse
->
"afk.
"
This
is
not
subjective,
this
is
an
[b]observable
behavior[/b].
|
| 4 |
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|
4 |
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|
| 5 |
This is just getting angry at someone in a turn based game because they get up when its not their turn and turns take a long time. Instead of getting angry that someone is doing this, [b]the flaw is in the game design allowing turns to take forever.[/b] This is why you get turn timers as a solution to that. Let's apply this reasoning to the big team games. They're on low metal, you're at 12m/s for most of the game, and you want to use one of those super fun big units like Bertha. You begin building the bertha, have nothing else to do because you didn't make any cons, so you sit around waiting, not moving the mouse. Then suddenly your units are given away. You move your mouse and they're given back.
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| 6 |
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| 7 |
Sure, that's frustrating to someone who gets the units, but you're also dealing with 15 other people in these games on your team. Naturally the more people that are around, the odds of something happening will go up. You're naturally going to have someone who doesn't fully understand the game at your level who doesn't engage in the community / chat who decides to build something big and not know they have to keep moving the mouse around to not have their units given away. Or their arm gets tired and they're tired of moving it around so they stop, thinking they can judge time scales and it turns out they're 1s too slow. The solution to this isn't "punish them for our lack of engaging activities", that's hostility towards the users -- OUR lifeblood as gamedevs -- and if you do not make the game feel like it wants you here, your playerbase is going to erode rapidly.
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| 8 |
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|
5 |
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| 9 |
The solution to this behavior is to have a hud popup with a warning after X time saying "Warning: You're about to be marked as AFK. Move your mouse to keep your units" and extend the afk timer to account for this grace period. Add an audio alert to this, and you're good to go. This does not make all afk go away, but reduces the assumption of low engagement afk.
|
6 |
The solution to this behavior is to have a hud popup with a warning after X time saying "Warning: You're about to be marked as AFK. Move your mouse to keep your units" and extend the afk timer to account for this grace period. Add an audio alert to this, and you're good to go. This does not make all afk go away, but reduces the assumption of low engagement afk.
|
| 10 |
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|
7 |
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| 11 |
[q]Some minimum share time sounds ok as quickly being given units only to have them taken back is annoying, and this quick case is likely to occur for people who are idle rather than crashed. Perhaps something dynamic would be smart, like a timer that is reset per-unit when it is given an order, to deal with units being shared back when they are being actively used.[/q]
|
8 |
[q]Some minimum share time sounds ok as quickly being given units only to have them taken back is annoying, and this quick case is likely to occur for people who are idle rather than crashed. Perhaps something dynamic would be smart, like a timer that is reset per-unit when it is given an order, to deal with units being shared back when they are being actively used.[/q]
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| 12 |
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|
9 |
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| 13 |
I'd like to express concern about this: this sounds like a temptation to spam chat with "Pls give me my dante back" / label spam. This sounds like a frustration excuse for everyone involved: New guy gets his shiny unit stolen because of the above, "pro" loses "their" unit they were using when they stop ordering it around. Honestly, it is tempting to implement a solution, but consider the greater social impacts. This could lead to anti-social behavior, frustration, and lowered engagement. It can also lead to technical circumvention (IE: Anti-AFK widgets) and produce worse effects than what we have currently.
|
10 |
I'd like to express concern about this: this sounds like a temptation to spam chat with "Pls give me my dante back" / label spam. This sounds like a frustration excuse for everyone involved: New guy gets his shiny unit stolen because of the above, "pro" loses "their" unit they were using when they stop ordering it around. Honestly, it is tempting to implement a solution, but consider the greater social impacts. This could lead to anti-social behavior, frustration, and lowered engagement. It can also lead to technical circumvention (IE: Anti-AFK widgets) and produce worse effects than what we have currently.
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| 14 |
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11 |
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| 15 |
I'd recommend a better solution:
|
12 |
I'd recommend a better solution:
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| 16 |
- Give away only actionable units (IE: no mexes, eco, turrets). If you do not expect the user to interact with it, do not give it away.
|
13 |
- Give away only actionable units (IE: no mexes, eco, turrets). If you do not expect the user to interact with it, do not give it away.
|
| 17 |
- Track the amount of stuff given to one user, if it exceeds some threshold, give it to the next best player. Alternatively, perhaps add a command that takes units in a circle and don't give away automatically? Perhaps the player color could change during afk to some standard color like black / white and any player can use the take cmd to gain control of those units. It could be hotkeyable and added to the global command bar. This command would automatically select the unit for the user using the command.
|
14 |
- Track the amount of stuff given to one user, if it exceeds some threshold, give it to the next best player. Alternatively, perhaps add a command that takes units in a circle and don't give away automatically? Perhaps the player color could change during afk to some standard color like black / white and any player can use the take cmd to gain control of those units. It could be hotkeyable and added to the global command bar. This command would automatically select the unit for the user using the command.
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Suggestion: delay before units are returned to AFK players