Appropriate time to kick? How to determine inactivity?
If someone doesnt tell the group they are going afk and they are still for over two to five mins i will say something in team chat and wait for a response for another min or so and then say it again with a private message to them and ask if anybody on that team is friends with them to see if they know what happened. If nothing after a couple mins of the private tell i will kick cause they meant to go unnoticed or they are dced. If they say they are going afk i will assume its for a couple mins if its like six mins or more i will do same process unless they give me a time frame for how long they will be gone.
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I will admit that it depends on the server. I am much more forgiving on a low-traffic server where the soon-to-be-kicked-team-member is hard to replace and I will kick faster on Freedom
Just as an aside, the only time I've ever been kicked from a team was when I had the audacity to suggest Batman was a better hero than Superman.
Yeah...
Ive been on many...many...many PuGs and stuff happens all the time.
Ive never kicked someone when theyve taken two seconds to explain the situation. Even something like "brb gotta mow the lawn" or "afk for a sex" (turned out that one was a typo)....but...
If someone establishes a pattern of inactivity then they get a polite tell asking if everything is okay....no response gets them kicked with a polite tell again "let me know when youre back at the keyboard and Ill reinvite. Ill save a spot for you.". But 30 seconds is not a pattern....heck I dont even call that being inactive.
A few minutes after leaving a mission Ill kick someone if they havent exited (greater good and all that) but again...polite tell.
The key I guess is communication. Its a two way street. If I expect you to let me know about extended afk, then I should be responsible enough to let you know whats going on on my end.
Not this years Baby New Year mission but last years I joined a team of seven heroes with my namesake (Frogfather: Level 50 Brute, green skinned frog wearing a suit and fedora). I made a joke "Just so we're clear, are we eating the baby or saving it this time?"....then we run the mission and the baby gets lost (before the handy little arrow on the map). We search but are having problems re-finding him. I comment that Im "So full"....."so what are you guys searching for?" After a few minutes I get kicked....I had to send a tell to the leader to get reinvited explaining that you cant actually eat Baby New Year. Good times.
Ive been on many...many...many PuGs and stuff happens all the time.
Ive never kicked someone when theyve taken two seconds to explain the situation. Even something like "brb gotta mow the lawn" or "afk for a sex" (turned out that one was a typo)....but... If someone establishes a pattern of inactivity then they get a polite tell asking if everything is okay....no response gets them kicked with a polite tell again "let me know when youre back at the keyboard and Ill reinvite. Ill save a spot for you.". But 30 seconds is not a pattern....heck I dont even call that being inactive. A few minutes after leaving a mission Ill kick someone if they havent exited (greater good and all that) but again...polite tell. The key I guess is communication. Its a two way street. If I expect you to let me know about extended afk, then I should be responsible enough to let you know whats going on on my end. Not this years Baby New Year mission but last years I joined a team of seven heroes with my namesake (Frogfather: Level 50 Brute, green skinned frog wearing a suit and fedora). I made a joke "Just so we're clear, are we eating the baby or saving it this time?"....then we run the mission and the baby gets lost (before the handy little arrow on the map). We search but are having problems re-finding him. I comment that Im "So full"....."so what are you guys searching for?" After a few minutes I get kicked....I had to send a tell to the leader to get reinvited explaining that you cant actually eat Baby New Year. Good times. |
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You never know what might be going on with that player. Always is best to give them the benifit of the doubt. If they are still for a minute or two, I send a tell asking if they're okay, or what's goin' on. Sometimes that actually makes them move, and it makes me watch them a little bit closer than I was before.
I was on a TF not long ago, and someone, likely a young teen, was constantly leaving the TF, coming back, going AFk through all the missions...etc. At one point, they stopped responding and we waited 10 minutes on them to exit a mission. I personally would have kicked them earlier on.
Another example, someone was AFK on a TF I was leading. When asked what was going on...just wow. They were AFK doing homework. I told them to please keep with the group. They did so for half the mission and left again. Their buddy was doing the same. Kicked em both a mission and a half later. It was just leeching, thinking they could get away with standing there and doing nothing for most of the TF while they did their homework. The TF went much smoother once we got rid of them and the mob od baddies decreased.
Anyways, always give the benifit of the doubt at first. But I wouldn't give them more than a mission to get their act together. If something is pulling them away THAT much, they should focus on it while they *solo*.
"Certain it is and sure: love burns, ale burns, fire burns, politics burns, but cold were life without them." - Romulan proverb
My Characters
My red flag is when they're afk but quick to hit the "exit" button when a mission ends. I was on a tf recently where the leader would do just that. He started doing it in the last third of a Shard tf, so I was too invested to quit. I've seen that behavior on teams I was leading as well and... yeah, I don't have much patience for it.
As for getting a quick boot - 1 star 'em and make a relevant note so you know to avoid them in the future.
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
I pretty much agree with Dispari.
I give them until the end of the mission.
This last weekend, I was teaming while playing at work (something I seldom do, but it was fairly dead at the time). I had someone ask me for a bit of assistance and asked for a minute.
Unfortunately, it turned into 30 with me unable to even get near my computer again to apologize and drop the team (I HATE XP leeches, and would rather be disemboweled with a knitting needle than be one myself). They completed and held me on the team until just before the next mission started (which is longer than I would have), then booted me.
I let them mooch xp all mish, then kick them because I can't start the next until they exit.
I'll send them a /t and also let the team know, usually by asking if they feel like trying to get the exact AT or just whatever. It's a bit of a rhetorical tactic, I tell them I will kick them, and what of these two choices would you like. Use it with kids all the time.
Mooching off the puny Radio missions, etc, that I tend to do isn't going to net them a huge amount of xp anyway. It's more fun to get xp by playing anyway. If they want to mooch they'll pay inf in PI or actual cash to a Chinese farm service.
I don't think that's quite true anymore. I think that if the mission is completed and the captain pulls the next mission, they get ejected.
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I had to boot someone last night cause they were AFK.
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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You can't set a new mission if someone's still in the old one.
I had to boot someone last night cause they were AFK. |
If you are in a Task Force and the mission you are in terminates with instructions to return to the contact, then you can call / visist the contact to kick the afk member from the team.
If you are in a Task Force and the mission you are in terminates with another mission immediately starting, then you cannot force an afk player to leave.
If you are running standard missions, pretty much anything but TF's, then I believe you are unable to kick by calling the contact. I have not actually tested this scenario.
I think because of my own playing habits I tend to be patient with afk's, as long as we're told, and it sounds reasonable. I started playing this game a week before my youngest was born so had many a late night with "Sorry, AFK, gotta throw a bottle at the baby." I tried my best to not make it too much of a problem.
One time, after my daughter turned two, during one pug, literally at the same time a team mate and I had announced that our two year olds had just fallen out of bed. Everyone was quite understanding, or too drunk to care as I primarily ran on Pinnacle
I will give a person 1 mission to leech before kicking them.
I find regardless of AT/power set combo, I can still sneak in a second or two to observe my teammates to watch for inactivity.
That's the first time I may catch a leech.
The dead giveaway is upon mission completion.
A slight delay raises a red flag for me.
Yes, yes people play on dial-up while I play on cable.
Irrelevent to me. I realize that makes me a basturd & I'm ok with that.
I run teams by those rules. I don't have a problem if someone turns the tables on me at some point.
If I get kicked from a team I don't send a tell to ask why.
I simply move on.
Having thin skin in an artificial social environment is something I am not able to compute.
It all depends on the circumstances.
1. Was on a MoITF and received the star after the team lead crashed. Upon the return of this person they asked for the star back, while in the middle of combat. Normally I don't chat in the middle of a fight with a mob of cimerorans, but of course this person gets their antenna bent and then rudely demands the star back. After the fight I tell them that I am not chatty in the middle of a fight, and that per TF/SF design the star cannot be passed. This person then began to get obnoxious about the matter and then started screwing around by nearly getting themselves killed thus denying the Mo badge to the team. I asked them to stop and received a response that was immature to say the least, so I tossed them.
2. Leading an LGTF, had an invul brute that seemed to enjoy hitting their unstoppable power and not getting out of the battle to safe spot when the crash came. This person refused to go to the hosp or use a wake and demanded the healers rez him or they would just lay there and leech. They got tossed.
I don't think I've ever really had to kick someone that I can remember. Usually AFKers either apologise and quit or turn up eventually.
I'll generally give people the benefit of the doubt. If the team is moving along without difficulty, I don't mind people being AFK for any reason or extended periods or time. If we're struggling or need that person in order to continue (for the AV, next mission, or what have you), then I'll give them about five minutes to get back.
I would like to thank the posters who put some time and thought into answering the questions. It's also rather nice to see some thought put into how handle difficult teaming situations..