Pending Disable AFK point gain

Bad Cat

Bad Cat

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I know there are a few threads on this, but I wanted a specific workaround.
Disable passive point gain if it's not possible to disable afk specifically. Increase active point gain to compensate.

It has negative impact on the server when randoms come around thinking there are people and they find 12 people AFKing for points. The server often caps out and nobody notices there are still 5 people AFK. It causes WAY more inflation and WAY more imbalance than any increase to actual gameplay would. You need hundreds of thousands of points to get everything, and that's before we get a full store full of things. Who cares if several dedicated players have everything within the year? They'll earn it actually playing the game instead of damaging the server's reputation and their computer hardware, and it would mean people who casually play TTT get some fun stuff to mess around with alongside those of us that play it religiously.

Edit: It just defeats the entire purpose of having a point shop. If there is such a fundamental problem with the game system that it requires people not play the game to solve it, that demands an alternative workaround. AFKing players should not be a requirement for people to feel satisfied with their gameplay. It devalues the server, it devalues the point system, and it's clearly creating resentment in the community as a whole- Both for the people who have to do it to feel like they are progressing, and the people who feel like their rewards are devalued because they don't AFK. There are zero positives, except to fix a perceived issue that exists elsewhere.
 
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+1 or at least some massive buff to playing point gen and a nerf to afk gen. the fact that i have nearly 5 days of game time with all of that being non afk, and the main people that have points are either lotto winners ( which tends to include a afk point farmer in their personal pool) and AFK people, i think its a massive issue that needs to be dealt with. I am also of the opinon low pop/latenight doesnt exist due to AFK. if a random player comes and sees 12 people on the server, but 6 of them are afk, im just getting off and hopping on a different server. AFK needs to be cooled down a lot. put a time limit on it or something, if youre spectating for 5 hours you get the boot for hitting the afk limit
 
Bad Cat said:
AFKing to buy at the point shop just defeats the purpose of the point shop.

If people are that desperate for point-shop items, then we just need to revamp the point-shop instead of promoting not playing the game.
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You assume I do it for the point shop.
 
Siddo said:
Speaking to this specifically, the general staff expectation is to kick staff first. I wasn't there for the situation mentioned in Shoutbox, so I can't speak to the details at the time. But the norm is to treat staff equally or give favouritism to regular players over staff when kicking AFKs.
All staff put the AFK tag to clearly signal 1) they're not playing, and; 2) to let other staff know it's fine to kick them if needed.

Just wanted to quickly address this point before it takes on a life of its own.
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Not speaking to that specific situation either but can a mod or admin even kick a lead admin?
 
I believe the purpose of the pointshop is to reward you with upgrades based upon the time you have actually spent playing the game. I support the idea of disabling AFK point gain. I agree with other posts that standard point gain should be increased if this is implemented. While some players might not have the luxury of playing 6 hours a day like others can I still stand by the idea that upgrades should be available based upon the time you've spent actively playing the game, not AFKing in the server.
 
I've pondered this a bit, been back reading through the various point- and lottery-related suggestions we've had. Checked the reasons for changes to lottery, general murmuring about the AFKing, and the points raised here.

TL;DR: I disagree with removing periodic point gain, incl. removing it for specifically for afk/spec. But I also have to acknowledge the frustration that AFKing is causing.
+0.5 on the core suggestion of fully disabling specifically AFK point gain as posed here.
If it's what the broader community would prefer, I think it's a change worth trying, even if I don't see it as necessary myself.

Because, I think the points made are valid and have a lot of merit. About the AFK situation and how it can be jarring when joining the server or outright disappointing and make people want to dip in favour of other servers. This is a very fair and valid point.
And I think reducing the AFK incentive while boosting the active play incentive is warranted and healthy. I would be more inclined to fully support that change, we have the more points suggestion I linked earlier where that is the current idea, so check that out if you want to opine on it.
Making changes to active points earned and point shop pricing to account for it and make upgrades feel more attainable without AFKing for points, huge. I do think the progression and "oooh new shiny toy" vibe they give have some retention value, so I wouldn't want to torpedo players through them. But increasing the reward for player time, as suggested in the more points thread, would be good.

However, beyond point gain changes and point shop prices changing, the overarching issue of disappointment lingers. The suggestion of disabling AFK points I see as an attempt at dealing with that disappointment. I don't feel the same way about the AFKing, so to a degree I feel like people are blowing it out of proportion - to me, it's not a big deal. Hasn't been when I joined other servers and isn't here. That's how it is for me, I genuinely do not mind one way or the other if half the players are afk when I join. From my point of view, it feels like people are hyperfixating on AFKing and making it a bigger problem than it realistically is. Getting themselves more frustrated, griping about it with others, and only getting more frustrated.
Nevertheless as mentioned above, I do think the point that it can be jarring and make players just leave if they went in expecting one thing and got another, is very important to consider. Even if I don't have the same experience or fully get it, I'd have to be really obtuse to not acknowledge how annoying it is for some people.

And I don't think the player experience when joining a 6-7 player server only to be the only one actually playing, is justified by the server ranking benefit/contribution the AFKs give it. The same principle when joining 15 pop only to discover it's more like 8-9 pop.
There is a degree of false advertisement in that which is understandably gonna leave a player feeling meh when they join. Even though I don't relate, I think I do get it. And as such, doing what we can to curb that frustration has merit. So if this suggested change is possible and what people generally want, then it's worth trying it out. See what happens. If it makes no positive improvement, we can cross that bridge or return if it comes to that. If other changes can be made to where AFKing for points doesn't feel necessary in the first place, the servers will be all the better for it.
 
Siddo said:
I do think the progression and "oooh new shiny toy" vibe they give have some retention value, so I wouldn't want to torpedo players through them.
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I Just wanna say that most of the upgrades have been around since at least 2020 SGM, with many being earlier than that. Only the newton jumper, playergeist, and glasses were added in AHG iirc.
So there’s not many “new toys”.

Slight derail but I find it silly to make players who were part of the last 2 communities buy the same upgrades for a 3rd time.
 
Virunas said:
I Just wanna say that most of the upgrades have been around since at least 2020 SGM, with many being earlier than that. Only the newton jumper, playergeist, and glasses were added in AHG iirc.
So there’s not many “new toys”.

Slight derail but I find it silly to make players who were part of the last 2 communities buy the same upgrades for a 3rd time.
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This right here, I put over 3000 hours into SGM to max out absolutely everything, I did that 99% active play. I don't have the time in life to do it again purely off of active play. While Im currently one of the biggest afker's my view will be seen as biased. I don't see it being the issue most people are trying to make it out to be. I can understand the frustration of joining a server and not seeing the population active that is shown in the player count, but, this is very much only the case late at night, and early in the morning when most people are at work, or sleeping for work.

Punishing the players who can't get as much actual playtime isn't the way to go in this aspect. Where as boosting the benefit from active play absolutely is, but trying to say inflation of points or that afkers will end up with point shop items quicker in the long run doesn't mean anything. As points currently stand you would need to AFK for nearly 2000 hours before reaching a maxed out pointshop. While there is a rework in production, it should be understandable that most of us are adults now, we don't have 2000 hours to put into a game anymore.

This is something that truly harms no one, as I said, the worst I've ever seen is 8-10 spec, and thats only been 1 or 2 times, Usually its only 3-6, and punishing the many, for the actions of the few has been seen as a bad way to go about things since the beginning of time.
 
Etch-A-Sketch said:
This right here, I put over 3000 hours into SGM to max out absolutely everything, I did that 99% active play. I don't have the time in life to do it again purely off of active play. While Im currently one of the biggest afker's my view will be seen as biased. I don't see it being the issue most people are trying to make it out to be. I can understand the frustration of joining a server and not seeing the population active that is shown in the player count, but, this is very much only the case late at night, and early in the morning when most people are at work, or sleeping for work.

Punishing the players who can't get as much actual playtime isn't the way to go in this aspect. Where as boosting the benefit from active play absolutely is, but trying to say inflation of points or that afkers will end up with point shop items quicker in the long run doesn't mean anything. As points currently stand you would need to AFK for nearly 2000 hours before reaching a maxed out pointshop. While there is a rework in production, it should be understandable that most of us are adults now, we don't have 2000 hours to put into a game anymore.

This is something that truly harms no one, as I said, the worst I've ever seen is 8-10 spec, and thats only been 1 or 2 times, Usually its only 3-6, and punishing the many, for the actions of the few has been seen as a bad way to go about things since the beginning of time.
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I've got 42 hours since the servers been released, and made about 42k points total (likely less since I added the cost of the next upgrade tier instead of the ones I bought, since I can't see the price of the upgrades I bought).

Afking across 30 days, lets say 5 hours a day at the current passive point gain of 20 points every 2 minutes, would yield 90k, assuming they don't play outside of that. That is a pretty significant game-changing difference.

My example assumes 150 hours in a month, however people likely have a lot higher numbers. Another example, according to your stats, your hour count is 440, meaning you've made at around 264k points off playtime (I'm hearing passive point gain was bumped from 10 to 20 after the first week so these points numbers could be 20% too high). You have played 3 times the amount of rounds I have, so subtracting my active points *3 from your points, you made around 126k from AFKing alone. That is insane. You made three times the points I have ever had by doing nothing at all, on top of the other 138k you have already from actively playing. Complaining about being so busy you deserve free points, while having three times more rounds played than I do, and likely more than the majority of people in this thread have, is crazy to me. You have one of the highest active playtimes and that's not enough? At the amount of rounds you've played, you would be in the top 15 of points holders regardless if AFKing gave you points or not. I don't think continuing to be one of the richest players on the server is "punishment". I think AFKing is dumb but if I want to compete with points like that, I feel like I have to, and no one should feel like they have to not play a game, in order to play a game.

I think I would agree with you that it's not a big deal if the AFK point gain wasn't over double my points, in your case triple. That's a very significant advantage to buying items that can make the difference between losing or winning a round, such as radar/health station speed or death station healing. Being able to get these upgrades twice as fast definitely is a problem. That gap will only grow with more rounds won and lotteries won. Sure there's a shop rework in process that halves the playtime required to max out the points shop, but that might give AFKs even more of an advantage if they just wait until then to buy items. They will still have significantly more points to buy more upgrades. I think turning off AFK point gain until then could be a good way to prevent the gap from growing larger as it doesn't seem adjustments to point gains are coming soon. Additionally turning it off until a shop or points rework could also show if AFKing really helps or hurts the server.

Virunas said:
Slight derail but I find it silly to make players who were part of the last 2 communities buy the same upgrades for a 3rd time.
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Get hyped to do it all again on s&box!
 
Etch-A-Sketch said:
This right here, I put over 3000 hours into SGM to max out absolutely everything, I did that 99% active play. I don't have the time in life to do it again purely off of active play. While Im currently one of the biggest afker's my view will be seen as biased. I don't see it being the issue most people are trying to make it out to be. I can understand the frustration of joining a server and not seeing the population active that is shown in the player count, but, this is very much only the case late at night, and early in the morning when most people are at work, or sleeping for work.

Punishing the players who can't get as much actual playtime isn't the way to go in this aspect. Where as boosting the benefit from active play absolutely is, but trying to say inflation of points or that afkers will end up with point shop items quicker in the long run doesn't mean anything. As points currently stand you would need to AFK for nearly 2000 hours before reaching a maxed out pointshop. While there is a rework in production, it should be understandable that most of us are adults now, we don't have 2000 hours to put into a game anymore.

This is something that truly harms no one, as I said, the worst I've ever seen is 8-10 spec, and thats only been 1 or 2 times, Usually its only 3-6, and punishing the many, for the actions of the few has been seen as a bad way to go about things since the beginning of time.
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That's my slightly changed point.
The system shouldn't require AFking for people to feel satisfied with the game.

If even the admins aren't satisfied playing the game to unlock everything, why should we expect regular players to be? The system, at its core, needs to be something that doesn't have people AFKing to feel happy with progression.
 
I think that AFK point gain should be reduced compared to players actually playing the game. The whole point of the upgrades is to earn them over time. If you're not playing the game, you shouldn't be receiving the same kind of rewards as people that are

Possibly program it so that staff that are spectator can receive points if they're chatting and dealing with reports; that's way staff members that are active on the server and want to focus on reports still get rewarded.
 
DocFox said:
Possibly program it so that staff that are spectator can receive points if they're chatting and dealing with reports; that's way staff members that are active on the server and want to focus on reports still get rewarded.
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Speaking for myself, I don't really care - I think using our dev time on that special consideration would be a waste. Most time, there's more than one staff online. Consequently, for 99% of my observed in-game time, everyone has been actively playing if they weren't outright AFK.
 
No and yes, AFKing is harmless till the server is full at which point staff starting kicking, but if you aren't gonna take part spectators should have half points per hour +0.5
 
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