Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In

Categories

I totally SUPPORT the developers AFK penalty for ToT Deceit !!

poppspopps Posts: 4,029
in General Discussions
I just wanted to express my support to the Developers about the no damage penalty for being AFK in ToT Deceit.

Finally something done to address BOTs left bashing MoBs AFK in ToT Dungeons to farm for drops.

Thank you !!
«1

Comments

  • PaladinBobPaladinBob Posts: 54
    Wait till you get hit with it when you are just playing normally.  Had a crap day and are hoping to get some drops during your hour of playtime so you try a potion. Using a samp and enhanced. 
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    edited October 2022
    I agree with PaladinBob - yet again I've been hit with an AFK penalty... for *NORMAL* play...

    for those not aware, it seems *Luna Bank* is counted as part of the dungeon event, I spent just *10 mins* AFK at the bank, then visited my home on Ice island (5 mins non-AFK), then again to my other home near Minoc (3 mins non-AFK), finally went to the dungeon, recall straight to 3rd level of deceit and *BAM*, can't damage anything, skills no longer work etc... so now 24 hrs wasted... all this for playing *NORMALLY*, ie *NOT* AFK in the dungeon, but at the bank so I could go do some stuff IRL... yeah, really... this AFK penalty penalises *NORMAL* non-AFK players actually, because I still see bots going about their business!

  • PawainPawain Posts: 10,081
    I sit outside the dungeon many hours, go in and kill a paragon at the entry once in a while. There is no afk timer. Yall are getting paged on.
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • YoshiYoshi Posts: 3,322
    “I know people who run bots (the ones that move around)
    I haven’t heard any reports of it affecting them. 
    so I’m not sure how it works.”
    Posts on this account have been pre filtered from personal comment or opinion in an effort to suppress conservative views in order to protect the reader.
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    edited October 2022
    Pawain said:
    I sit outside the dungeon many hours, go in and kill a paragon at the entry once in a while. There is no afk timer. Yall are getting paged on.
    Wouldn't that suggest GMs (and by extension, Broadsword) condones & actively supports the harassment & punishing of players based unsubstantiated rumors & lack of evidence?

    i mean, as i said before, i was afk for just 10 mins *at Luna Bank, Malas facet* and then the moment i visited deceit for this event, i get hit with a ban (and the story likely to be told to me by the GM is "you were afk *INSIDE* the dungeon)

    furthermore, doesn't this sort of story suggest that GMs will actively ignore existing evidence (ie they make no actual attempt to verify locations of being AFK, duration of said AFK period etc), and in some cases outright lie over the actual reason for the penalty(?) when it's actually beneficial to them, like say... helping a friend out...

    this actually reminds me of the time i was in Cove, opened a door and got hit by someone's consecrate weapon spam (to the level of DoSing the server), that i was unable to move properly until the door closed by itself automatically (like 5 mins later i might add)... when reported to the GMs, they said there was no evidence of players in the area at the time (hinting they actually checked the server logs for the time period mentioned) of when i was literally spammed to lagland...
  • PawainPawain Posts: 10,081
    Other people that claim this happened to them are also moving around. So it would seem there is a flag and no one actually checks. I guess they feel 30 mins is not significant enough to warrant GM involvement.

    Then you have the bots who a poster has claimed to own that are attended and have not got this time out.

    Its like RL 500 people are speeding and 1 gets pulled over.
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • MerlinMerlin Posts: 233
    I got hit with the AFK flag once too for seemingly no reason, but I still support the efforts to address some of the botting.   This has been long overdue and the last event was particularly bad with the AFK/follower bots farming and screwing up spawn.

    It's not a perfect solution, but it's a step in the right direction after hearing feedback for years that this needed to be addressed.  
  • keven2002keven2002 Posts: 2,277
    I could be wrong but if you page a GM when it happens, do they remove it?? Or are you stuck like that for the entire duration (30min?)
  • PawainPawain Posts: 10,081
    keven2002 said:
    I could be wrong but if you page a GM when it happens, do they remove it?? Or are you stuck like that for the entire duration (30min?)
    GMs just say you were afk flagged and it will go away after an unknown time. That's what posters are saying. No talking your way out.
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • MerusMerus Posts: 656
    Personally I think this follows the very typical (unfortunately) pattern with this Dev team… decent idea… utter horrible execution.  

    What we need is a way to enforce the ToS to remove cheats…

    What we got was a system with no explanation of how it works, which seems to ignore the vast majority of cheats, while impacting players who aren’t cheating, which block virtually all access to current event content, and no recourse for legal players.

    Imagine a police force who decides to randomly spike strip cars, without warning, who are driving down the road because people speed there sometimes… then telling the law abiding citizens tough #^%* if you don’t like your flat tires.
  • RinerRiner Posts: 379
    I realize that this is unfortunately hitting some who are not AFK and perhaps even some sitting outside the dungeon but have to say it's far past the time that they started attempting something like this to curb AFK and Botters. I do hope they continue to refine it and even expand their efforts to clean up game play. In the meantime, 30 minutes isn't the end of the world yes it truly does suck if it happens with a potion running but regardless it's a start.
  • VagabondVagabond Posts: 95
    Merus said:
    Personally I think this follows the very typical (unfortunately) pattern with this Dev team… decent idea… utter horrible execution.  

    What we need is a way to enforce the ToS to remove cheats…

    What we got was a system with no explanation of how it works, which seems to ignore the vast majority of cheats, while impacting players who aren’t cheating, which block virtually all access to current event content, and no recourse for legal players.

    Imagine a police force who decides to randomly spike strip cars, without warning, who are driving down the road because people speed there sometimes… then telling the law abiding citizens tough #^%* if you don’t like your flat tires.
    Obviously you forgot the most important thing: Broadsword is a private company, not an official and public police station. Nobody in a private company needs to tell you exactly how they do their stuff and let competition (or cheaters/hackers/3rd party tool frauds?) know exactly what they're doing. Would you?

    It is clearly defined that during gameplay you may be found doing something is deemed to be illegal/legal "as determined by Support Staff" you can be actioned for it... so... I don't care - but can I have your stuff?

    I really don't understand how normal players always complain about cheaters, and now again whine it "gets the wrong ones".

    Sorry, but I think now it finally hits the hypocrites also...
    You need help with simple stuff? https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/ -- Otherwise - can I has your stuff?
  • PawainPawain Posts: 10,081
    edited October 2022
    Decided to test this:

    Not going into the details but being still for long periods in the dungeon does not flag you.

    Yall are getting paged on.
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • MerusMerus Posts: 656
    Vagabond said:
    Merus said:
    Personally I think this follows the very typical (unfortunately) pattern with this Dev team… decent idea… utter horrible execution.  

    What we need is a way to enforce the ToS to remove cheats…

    What we got was a system with no explanation of how it works, which seems to ignore the vast majority of cheats, while impacting players who aren’t cheating, which block virtually all access to current event content, and no recourse for legal players.

    Imagine a police force who decides to randomly spike strip cars, without warning, who are driving down the road because people speed there sometimes… then telling the law abiding citizens tough #^%* if you don’t like your flat tires.
    Obviously you forgot the most important thing: Broadsword is a private company, not an official and public police station. Nobody in a private company needs to tell you exactly how they do their stuff and let competition (or cheaters/hackers/3rd party tool frauds?) know exactly what they're doing. Would you?

    It is clearly defined that during gameplay you may be found doing something is deemed to be illegal/legal "as determined by Support Staff" you can be actioned for it... so... I don't care - but can I have your stuff?

    I really don't understand how normal players always complain about cheaters, and now again whine it "gets the wrong ones".

    Sorry, but I think now it finally hits the hypocrites also...
    Good execution of a plan, or the complete lack thereof, isn’t limited to government, public companies (EA), or private companies.  Part of operating this game is, presumably, enforcing the ToS.  IMO, the idea to identify and block afk farms is a good idea for enforcing the ToS… how this team has gone about it is, again IMO, about as pathetic an attempt as I could have imagined.  A system that bans gameplay regardless of if a player is actually afk… and has no checks/balances/recourse for people who are in fact playing by the rules helps no one but the cheaters who have nothing to lose.  Unfortunately, I feel like this is a long running pattern with this particular dev team… good ideas, failed execution.  I could give you at least a dozen examples, but I really don’t care to rehash them all.
  • CovenantXCovenantX Posts: 992
    Well, this whole "anti-damage" thing wouldn't work against bots because a bot would be performing actions... even while "afk" that's what a script does...

    if you go afk without a third-party program, you are performing no actions and if it's true it would leave you open to become flagged-afk then clearly this system doesn't do what it's intended to do...  (if this thing even exists)

    The EJ account/character bound items was a good and needed change...(I would have just not allowed EJ to participate), but what they did was certainly better than doing nothing,


    I think it's funny people in here claim they've been hit by this anti-afk thing, and still say oh but it's here to stop cheaters, it's ok if there is collateral damage.  some UO players never cease to amaze.
    Remove or change casting focus & poison immunity it reduces the need for "Player Skill" it's garbage. rant2 Bring timing back and eliminate chance in pvp!
    ICQ# 478 633 659
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    edited October 2022
    Pawain said:
    Decided to test this:

    Not going into the details but being still for long periods in the dungeon does not flag you.

    Yall are getting paged on.

    Does that mean you've also paged and successfully flagged someone as AFK in the event?  were you asked to provide evidence, did they respond saying "they'll look into it, thanks for the page", or was it "ah, we'll take care of it right away" type of thing?  BTW, thanks for confirming a suspicion that someone had personally flagged me out of personal grudge etc...

    for others; the *last* time i got hit with the AFK penalty, it was *NOT* 30 mins... it was a full 24 hrs! and the GM i spoke to at the time, confirmed (indirectly) that someone had flagged me, and also the duration of the penalty, though this part he didn't fudge his answer....

    as for the 'horrible execution' comment, i absolutely agree with that... this idea of flagging players so GMs can impose AFK penalties just leads to massive amounts of potential abuse, especially by players with either personal grudges or vendettas against other players...

    i am very aware of one player on my shard repeatedly harassing me in various ways most of which would be classified as ToS violations, but in every case, the GMs either stepped in and told me point blank 'nothing happened', or they right away acted on that player's request to penalize me... it has now escalated to having me penalized repeatedly, it's the *THIRD* event where he has harassed me in various ways (ie almost a full year of harassment since it started...)
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    Merus said:
    Personally I think this follows the very typical (unfortunately) pattern with this Dev team… decent idea… utter horrible execution.  

    What we need is a way to enforce the ToS to remove cheats…

    What we got was a system with no explanation of how it works, which seems to ignore the vast majority of cheats, while impacting players who aren’t cheating, which block virtually all access to current event content, and no recourse for legal players.

    Imagine a police force who decides to randomly spike strip cars, without warning, who are driving down the road because people speed there sometimes… then telling the law abiding citizens tough #^%* if you don’t like your flat tires.

    While there are many other MMORPGs out there, my experience with one in particular was actually rather useful (though that said, there was an issue of security later on, but ignore that for the moment), anyways, the anti-cheat system they were using with the MMORPG forcefully *terminated* the client program if the anti-cheat detected injected code/commands coming from a 3rd party program... since almost all cheats are 3rd party external programs, this type of anti-cheat would simply shut down the UO client as soon as it detected commands coming from the cheat program...
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    edited October 2022
    Alright, just logged roughly 23 hrs after someone flagged me as AFK and got me penalized... as of this post, i am still unable to damage anything, meaning it's not a 30 min penalty as some people suggested, but a full 24 hrs or more...

    up for further discussions, does this mean if someone is able to repeatedly flag someone else and get them penalized a certain number of times, does that mean the flagged person will be given more permanent penalties like perma ban when the GMs examine the number of penalties over the history of the account?  because somehow I can see how this feature could abused by those with personal grudges to harass other players into being forced to quit...

    say, if a person gets their account terminated through either fair (or unfair harassment) options, does that mean Broadsword would not be required to terminate charges to the credit card upon temination of the account's access to the servers?
  • PawainPawain Posts: 10,081
    edited October 2022
    Pawain said:
    Decided to test this:

    Not going into the details but being still for long periods in the dungeon does not flag you.

    Yall are getting paged on.

    Does that mean you've also paged and successfully flagged someone as AFK in the event?  were you asked to provide evidence, did they respond saying "they'll look into it, thanks for the page", or was it "ah, we'll take care of it right away" type of thing?  BTW, thanks for confirming a suspicion that someone had personally flagged me out of personal grudge etc...

    for others; the *last* time i got hit with the AFK penalty, it was *NOT* 30 mins... it was a full 24 hrs! and the GM i spoke to at the time, confirmed (indirectly) that someone had flagged me, and also the duration of the penalty, though this part he didn't fudge his answer....

    as for the 'horrible execution' comment, i absolutely agree with that... this idea of flagging players so GMs can impose AFK penalties just leads to massive amounts of potential abuse, especially by players with either personal grudges or vendettas against other players...

    i am very aware of one player on my shard repeatedly harassing me in various ways most of which would be classified as ToS violations, but in every case, the GMs either stepped in and told me point blank 'nothing happened', or they right away acted on that player's request to penalize me... it has now escalated to having me penalized repeatedly, it's the *THIRD* event where he has harassed me in various ways (ie almost a full year of harassment since it started...)
    Nope, I don't page on players. I have seen no Bots in the dungeon.

    Just wanted to verify that standing still, on different skill set toons does not get you a Time out.

    So, something else is going on.  Such as your situation.(which sux, Sorry)  The only thing you can do is try to get the person to brag about what they did to you and page on them. The GM can see their chat log.

    Thanks for verifying that a page will lead to the time out.  The GMs should investigate not just have auto time out.
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • YoshiYoshi Posts: 3,322
    Pawain said: I have seen no Bots in the dungeon.
    “You may not realise,
    I was shown a demonstration of them. They roam a set large area fairly randomly, they perform double strike on a single target, momentum on 2 targets and whirlwind on 3 or more. They like to gather targets together and will lure multiple things. 
    They auto re-arm when disarmed, 
    I was actually surprised when what I thought were real players turned out to be bots. 
    People are running the script on their main accounts even, on their main chars that they normally play manually because there is currently no penalty for it”
    Posts on this account have been pre filtered from personal comment or opinion in an effort to suppress conservative views in order to protect the reader.
  • PawainPawain Posts: 10,081
    Yoshi said:
    Pawain said: I have seen no Bots in the dungeon.
    “You may not realise,
    I was shown a demonstration of them. They roam a set large area fairly randomly, they perform double strike on a single target, momentum on 2 targets and whirlwind on 3 or more. They like to gather targets together and will lure multiple things. 
    They auto re-arm when disarmed, 
    I was actually surprised when what I thought were real players turned out to be bots. 
    People are running the script on their main accounts even, on their main chars that they normally play manually because there is currently no penalty for it”
    Well ya you see them. Birds of a feather flock together.  I see players that I talk to and trade for pieces I am missing.  Maybe Cossack has seen a Bot on LS.  He plays more than me. Only a dummy would run the same route.  Just get ahead of them and there is nothing for them to kill.
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    And so the evidence goes on... just for context;

    I was flagged during the destard event of around mage-june/july... early morning hours, i was hunting dragons with my trusty pet when i spotted a particular player (I know this player through 3 different characters of his on 3 different accounts, and i could tell them easily at the time because his recall macro was "s*** cops!" for all 3 characters), anyways, the guy lured paragons onto me, tried to disrupt my fights with paragons by getting said paragons to chase him in hopes that by luring the paragon and thus my pet at the time away, he could force the paragon to turn around and target me directly who *should* be running after their pet... after running away offscreen for a moment, i figured that was the point where he got me flagged, because after i left for a couple of minutes, i recalled back into the dungeon and noticed at that point that i could no longer attack or defend myself with either skills, magic or pet... and i might add, i had been in the dungeon for less than 5 seconds when i realised this happened...

    paging the GM after the server had done its maintence, i was told that I was penalized for being AFK in the dungeon... now to my defence, i was AFK... *at LUNA BANK for 8 hrs prior*, not in the dungeon - at no point in this discussion, did the GM even bother to listen to my argument and defence, holding the attitude 'just give up, I didn't see it, but someone else said so' - all he said to me was that I was under 24 hrs penalty, while hinting that i completely deserved said treatment, again, he did *NOT* allow any defense nor would accept any arguments as if it were a done deal!

    fast forward to the present, again I was Luna bank, having logged in for less than 30 mins, taking a quick break for some offline business, i was AFK *at LUNA BANK* for 10 mins, but yet again, the moment I recall into dungeon deceit, I again noticed that i could not attack anything, or at least my pet was doing no damage... now 25 hrs has past, and upon testing whether i could do damage or not, i once again find i'm penalised... but this time it seems my penalty has been extended... i'm asking the GMs atm to see how long it'll be, but i wouldn't be surprised if it's over a month now...

    so as far as i'm concerned, this policy isn't there to help stop botters or cheaters, it's there specifically to allow toxic players to "borrow the power of a tiger" to harass players they *PERSONALLY* hate for whatever reason they feel like, and the GMs in most of these cases actually do so willingly and pro-actively, because when a player that their friend hates, tries to get help, they totally and utterly brush it aside using the age-old company line 'i can not discuss that' or something similar...
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    edited October 2022
    so in conclusion, my advice to other players who've been unfairly penalized with an AFK ban for however long, think carefully about anyone who has a personal grudge with you, they're most likely the ones pagng/flagging you *intentionally* - oh, and don't worry, you should completely assume the person with the personal grudge has the full cooperation of the GMs (and by extension, the devs & Broadsword)
  • MariahMariah Posts: 3,251Moderator
    edited October 2022
    If you feel the GMs are being manipulated in some way you should send an email as detailed in this page:

    GM Reviews

    Please let us know of any concerns, complaints, or compliments you may have with specific Game Support staff by sending an e-mail to gmreviews@ultimaonline.com and filling out the Contact Form.

  • keven2002keven2002 Posts: 2,277
    One question I'd have for everyone that is getting hit for AFK is where are you primarily playing in Deceit?

    If it's near the entrance on level 1 just stay away from there. I don't even bother with level 1 because that is where most of the scripters seem to be (I'm guessing because it's close enough to the healer if they end up dying vs level 4). Talking strictly ATL, if you check out that first area near the entrance or the jail cells area you will still find people auto following with 2-3 archers/throwers and auto attacking whatever spawns. They move back froth across the hallway. Jail cells they don't seem to be AFK but they use 1 or 2 extra accounts to attack everything and the scripts are obvious because they literally open every single door they run pass without stopping and without even facing them. 

    I typically play level 2-4 where there are fewer places where a scripter can camp. It does make it a little harder to get drops depending on how many people are on but I have also been on a couple times where everyone seems to be on level 1 and I do pretty good. I have yet to be hit with the no damage thing but I think it's pretty obvious I'm not a bot/afk when I'm running around in wraith mode spamming area spells and actually stopping to fight paragons and curing/healing others that help (not much of a rush this event since I'm not using potions).
  • CookieCookie Posts: 1,569
    edited October 2022
    Interesting reading.
    Couple of comments.

    Yes, regarding the best bots, you just cannot tell the difference between them and a normal player anymore. Except to say, they play better than a normal player. A lot of them, they are players you thought were real players, you just thought they were good...
    Kevin - Scripters don't camp anymore.

    Unknown_Ghost - unlucky, it sounds pretty bad - a little part of me wonders if there is something you are not saying, but you could also be right in what you say.

    I've not been hit by this AFK fix yet - maybe because I have not played AFK, I almost never do, I do sit AFK outside of Deceit, when I need to go AFK, I park my character outside Deceit until I get back to hunt again, I think it would be harsh to hit those players. So from my perspective it seems to be working.

    I do wonder a little about the integrity of some GM's - or their bias, and I don't want to disrespect the great ones out there, and I think it is very helpful of Mariah to address this concern head-on with advice, although, if this were happening, it is one of those very vague things you cannot prove anyway, a bit like botting etc, you can all tell it's happening by the micro differences in playstyle, but you cannot prove anything.

    In terms of supporting it, it does not bother me as a player. I guess the line for me, is when an innocent player is affected by anti-cheat mechanics, which can happen, then I wish there were a better fix, I have no issues with the Devs trying to maintain a certain amount of order. :)

  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    edited October 2022

    So I managed to send a page (for whichever GM is on duty at the time), and this is the response i got, my page simply asked how long i would be punished for... as you can see, no mention of how long (which at this point seems to be *at least* 48 hrs, though i have a suspicion it's event-duration long...)

    note that it says i was just 'flagged for being AFK', no mention of being in a dungeon... in fact whoever flagged me, did so while i was at the bank - which brings home the fact that players are now allowed to flag other peoples regardless of location, safe guard zones?  yep, GMs will happily accept flagging AFK players in safe zones far away (or even on non-event facets)

    funny to notice now, but the response is from "GM", in previous pages, it's always been "GM <something>", so you could say it's suspicious to hide the GM's name.... lol

    PS, while Mariah is offering good advice on what to do, honestly i've lost complete trust in both the GMs (who are really players on other shards) and the support system... to me, there is the impression that the investigation will be 'whitewashed'... or that the complaint will just be shown the 'delete' key without being looked at even at a subject level.
  • Unknown_GhostUnknown_Ghost Posts: 12
    keven2002 said:
    One question I'd have for everyone that is getting hit for AFK is where are you primarily playing in Deceit?

    Luna Bank, 10 mins banksitting during a 30 min log-in session
  • drcossackdrcossack Posts: 145
    Pawain said:
    Yoshi said:
    Pawain said: I have seen no Bots in the dungeon.
    “You may not realise,
    I was shown a demonstration of them. They roam a set large area fairly randomly, they perform double strike on a single target, momentum on 2 targets and whirlwind on 3 or more. They like to gather targets together and will lure multiple things. 
    They auto re-arm when disarmed, 
    I was actually surprised when what I thought were real players turned out to be bots. 
    People are running the script on their main accounts even, on their main chars that they normally play manually because there is currently no penalty for it”
    Well ya you see them. Birds of a feather flock together.  I see players that I talk to and trade for pieces I am missing.  Maybe Cossack has seen a Bot on LS.  He plays more than me. Only a dummy would run the same route.  Just get ahead of them and there is nothing for them to kill.
    I can recognize them, yes.  It isn't hard.  As far as seeing any on LS, couldn't really tell you.  I haven't done much in Deceit outside of the first few days.  Since this event runs until New Year's Eve, I've got plenty of time to get all the drops I want.
  • drcossackdrcossack Posts: 145
    As far as being flagged for afk: I haven't once had it happen to me.  I have, however, had monsters teleport on top of me when I am clearly in motion (and not scripting at all. I've been killing everything on a tamer)
Sign In or Register to comment.