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Ok this non crontubuting debuff needs to be fixed asap


Ravenschild

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I've had 8 kills 12 assists 42k damage and gotten hit with a 72% debuff on reqs as well as 5 kills 12 assists (we had multiple gunships on our side) and got hit with a 92% debuff just now. This is beyond ridiculous. This happens with both Gunships and Bombers. Drones are contributing (heals and damage),mines (our secondary weapon) is contributing. I posted on this on 2/11 in the suggestion area (as was suggested to me when I mailed in) with no response. Now I am posting it here. If this debuff somehow happened with flashpoints and operations an emergency patch would have been rolled out as fast as possible.
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yeah, annoying as hell. Today my minelayer got 21 assists and 3 kills in a match, held sat A for at least silver and got an achievement (I can't recall which) all this got me 300(ish) ship req and a handful of fleet. All I saw was the "you are not contributing" bull****. CS has given me silence as usual. No dev seems to want to answer either Edited by Kane_Ren
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Half of me is happy to see that there is something makng bomber pilots' lifes less enjoyable.

 

The second half though knows that it is indeed unfair and should be fixed, because an afk protection that punishes active players isn't really a well working afk protection.

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There is frustration for all ship types in game, so it shouldn't just be about bombers. Playing a great match where you do a great job, is spoilt by the text buffer giving you, what I'm going to call a punch in the face. Followed by the scorecard with you near the top and the pitiful req score being the kick in the teeth to make you feel like you've wasted your time. Being called a liar by BW doesn't make for a good long term experience.

For the last time - We ARE contributing.

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If you're in a bomber and you're guarding a sat and you get this message it means you're too far away. Simple as that. Get closer to the sat and you won't have this issue. I make sure I don't leave the sphere even when I'm killing sat attackers. Best way to figure it out is the light streams, once they start to fade you've gone too far up or down. You have to use your head to figure out the other axis.
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If you're in a bomber and you're guarding a sat and you get this message it means you're too far away. Simple as that. Get closer to the sat and you won't have this issue. I make sure I don't leave the sphere even when I'm killing sat attackers. Best way to figure it out is the light streams, once they start to fade you've gone too far up or down. You have to use your head to figure out the other axis.

 

Sorry, that's incorrect. I'm practically touching the surface, laying mines behind vanes, LoS underneath the B sat in mesa. I still get the message in the text buffer. I make random orbits or slow circles to LoS gunships, always right next to the surface.

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I can get this message within 60 seconds of match starting. My only counters are a lucky laser shot against a scout that beats me to a sat, or the scout is stupid enough to hang around and get a seeker mine in the face. It isn't in my nature to kill myself against an obstacle to get rid of the message, especially since I always use beacons and of course all my mines will go too.
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Sorry, that's incorrect. I'm practically touching the surface, laying mines behind vanes, LoS underneath the B sat in mesa. I still get the message in the text buffer. I make random orbits or slow circles to LoS gunships, always right next to the surface.

 

maybe it has something to do with lag then, maybe the server and your client are not agreeing where you're at.

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I've gotten the "you are no longer AFK" text after I made a kill, and I was just shooting the guy for the past few seconds... the whole thing is just fubared.

 

I got the "you are now AFK" message less than 3 seconds after scoring a kill, and then "you are no longer AFK" when I died a few seconds later. Like you said, it's fubared.

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I pretty much have to F3 and afterburn to a sat, if I simply point my minelayer at a sat with F2 and wander over, i'll not be contributing by the time I get there for sure. Engine upgrades help, but I'm at the point where it is actually better to afk when your team is getting facerolled, the req gain is the almost the same - compared to actually trying.
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There are 2 different things going on: the non-contributor message and the afk message. The afk message does not seem to have any impact on your reqs. The game seems to think that your toon is afk on fleet (or wherever you were when you got the queue pop) while you are in a GSF game, and it gives you the afk message. This does not have any effect on your reqs. On the other hand, if you get the message that you are not contributing, you WILL lose reqs. By the time you see the message it is already too late to prevent this (it seems like the base amount you lose just for getting the message is about 20-25%), but the longer you stay "inactive", the more reqs you lose.

 

The inactivity system is currently broken, as it marks players as inactive even when they are not. You will be marked as inactive if you fail to HIT someone (not just shoot, but actually hit) for more than 1 minute, or interact with a satellite in the same period of time (but it only works if it's a friendly sat, or a neutral/enemy sat with nobody in range to prevent you from capping it).

 

This issue happens to most types of ships, not just bombers. Gunships are probably the least likely to get it because of their longer range, which makes it easier for them to find something to hit. I have been marked as inactive and lost 25-30% of my reqs in the following situations, while flying either a scout or strike fighter:

 

1) In a deathmatch, I was in the middle of a dogfight against a player who was extremely difficult to hit. He was flying evasively, zooming around asteroids, using his distorsion field active ability every time it was off CD, etc... I just couldn't hit him. I was marked as inactive while I was shooting my blasters at him!

 

2) In a deathmatch, flying a scout or strike fighter, with several skilled players on my team flying gunships. They kept killing my target with their rail guns before I could get in range to hit it with blasters, or complete a missile lock on it. Eventually, I was marked as inactive, as every target I went after died before I could actually hit it.

 

3) In a deathmatch, when the entire enemy team is sitting at their capital ships on gunships. This usually happens when they get pushed back by a superior team, but sometimes it is deliberately planned from the start. In one particular game, 7/8 of the enemy team were flying gunships and never left their capital ship, even at the start of the game. They just waited there for my team to come to them. As a scout/strike fighter pilot, my only option is to suicide once a minute to reset the timer, because I have no way to get in range to hit any of the enemy ships without getting killed by the capital ship turrets. This is extremely poor design.

 

4) In a game where my team was getting farmed, I wanted to type some advice in chat after I got killed, before hitting the "ready button", but I got marked as inactive just for wanting to communicate with my team. Another time, I got marked as inactive after getting killed because I spent a few seconds looking at the map and enemy ship list to decide whether I should use another spawn point or another type of ship. There really should be a 15-20 seconds grace period after dying, before you have to hit the ready button.

 

Other situations that can cause you to be marked as inactive (this hasn't actually happened to me but happened to other players):

 

5) In domination, when preventing multiple enemies from capturing a neutral satellite. This requires flying defensively, just trying not to get hit, rather than trying to get into a good position to hit someone. It is absurd that tying up 4-5 enemies and preventing a cap is considered non-contributing, while going afk at a friendly sat for most of the game is considered contributing (I did this once, in a horribly lop-sided match: I parked my ship under a sat when the score was 400-1, with the enemy being spawn-camped, and I went to get a drink. When I got back to my computer a couple of minutes later, the score was 800-1 and I was still considered "contributing").

 

6) In any game mode, while being chased by multiple players and trying not to die.

 

The saddest thing about this, is that players who afk at the cap ship because they just want to complete the daily can still do it and complete their daily. The players who are the most affected by the penalty are players who are already done with their daily/weekly and see their reward greatly reduced while they are in fact trying to contribute to the game. I think that, instead of taking reqs away, the penalty for going inactive should be to not get credit for completion of the daily and weekly. That way, players who play a lot and get accidentally caught by the system would not really get penalized, while players who afk to do the daily would not be able to do so anymore.

 

Also, players who are sitting within their capital ship's turret range to prevent enemy players from getting at them in deathmatch should be automatically marked as inactive after 20 seconds or so. Another solution would be to remove capital ship turrets in deathmatch.

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This issue happens to most types of ships, not just bombers. Gunships are probably the least likely to get it because of their longer range, which makes it easier for them to find something to hit. I have been marked as inactive and lost 25-30% of my reqs in the following situations, while flying either a scout or strike fighter:

 

1) In a deathmatch, I was in the middle of a dogfight against a player who was extremely difficult to hit. He was flying evasively, zooming around asteroids, using his distorsion field active ability every time it was off CD, etc... I just couldn't hit him. I was marked as inactive while I was shooting my blasters at him!

 

 

I had a match where I scored 75k damage, 15+ kills and 10+ assists... and got docked 22% req for inactivity...flying a tier 1 scout.

 

I believe it was for exactly what you point out in point 1)

 

I can barely think of any time during that match I was not hitting something aside from chasing one slippery scout.

 

Regardless the timer needs to be adjusted for sure. If a tier 1 scout can get penalized that easily while actively dogfighting, its no wonder bombers and slower craft are getting docked 50% plus some games.

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Why wouldn't you F3 + space bar?!?

because sometimes, despite stating your intentions, you have to work out what people are doing. When flying a minelayer I have to see if someone is going to come with me. Afterburning until it runs out and finding I'm on my own causes problems. Mesa map can be particularly troublesome, though if I get to sat C from the west spawn on my own, I can drop my beacon and we get it. My point is - I'm not happy to have my req nerfbatted because I'm looking at the map to find where I'm best used.

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because sometimes, despite stating your intentions, you have to work out what people are doing. When flying a minelayer I have to see if someone is going to come with me. Afterburning until it runs out and finding I'm on my own causes problems. Mesa map can be particularly troublesome, though if I get to sat C from the west spawn on my own, I can drop my beacon and we get it. My point is - I'm not happy to have my req nerfbatted because I'm looking at the map to find where I'm best used.

 

This actually applies to everyone after the initial spawn as well. Currently, you are punished for *not* immediately respawning and zerging the nearest node. Many times, that is a terrible idea, and you are better off waiting for a few more people to respawn so you can hit an enemy node as a group, rather than flying in one at a time and getting slaughtered.

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I routinely get the "you are not contributing" message on my GS as well. As soon as there are some decent pilots on the other time, I will spend a good chunk of time trying to evade destruction without getting of a shot. It really feels like a kick in the face if after such a game not only my score card is poor, but I also loose more than 50% requisition because I had to fly for my life.

It's completely ok to be denied kills/assists/whatever by a good opposition but to be marked as "non contributing" because being pressed into defense doesn't let you hit someone feels broken .. :(

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I routinely get the "you are not contributing" message on my GS as well. As soon as there are some decent pilots on the other time, I will spend a good chunk of time trying to evade destruction without getting of a shot. It really feels like a kick in the face if after such a game not only my score card is poor, but I also loose more than 50% requisition because I had to fly for my life.

It's completely ok to be denied kills/assists/whatever by a good opposition but to be marked as "non contributing" because being pressed into defense doesn't let you hit someone feels broken .. :(

 

The worst part is, you are still contributing to your team because you are often taking multiple enemies out of the fight as they chase you all over the damned map.

 

Hell, I had a match of TDM the other night in my Pike, where I started out on a roll. I was responsible for like 12 of my team's first 25 kills. But then the enemy realized what was happening, and I had 4 scouts on my tail the rest of the match, and only managed 3 more kills. At one point, I died, respawned, killed an enemy, and immediately had 1/3 of the enemy team chasing me again. At the end of the match, despite having 15 kills and a bunch of assists (even though I was on track for a lot more before getting focused), I ended up getting crap for Req because I ended up "not contributing" while running for my life.

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Flew a Minelayer into a TDM yesterday, placing HSBs at strategic points on the map as circumstances dictated. Dropped mines around the HSB to defend it. Circled the area(s) to defend them. Continually got the "You are not contributing" message. Wound up with 1 kill, 1 assist and ZERO Reqs. The match was a complete waste of my time.

 

Devs, please tell me, did I not contribute to our victory? Is it my fault the opposition made few attempts to take out my mines and HSB? I was flying a Bomber, for God's sake. Am I really expected to chase down Scouts and Strikes with a flying brick and engage in a dogfight? If this is the case, just take Bombers out of the game.

 

I even went so far as to fly into a massive dogfight and drop my mines in the middle of it. A lot of good that did. I was dead before I could escape the area. Chalk a point up for the other team, and no credit for me.

 

The screen says "Do damage or interact". Since mines are stationary, I cannot control whom they attack, or whether the opposition will come close enough for them to do damage. If I chase powerups, am I interacting? How is my team benefiting from my chasing Pups just so I can receive Reqs?

 

Bear in mind, this is all TDM-related in terms of how a Minelayer is supposed to contribute and receive credit for just doing its job. Somebody from the Dev staff should address this issue publicly, so we know BW's stance on this.

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Well prior to this implementation of the GSF non-contributer system it was broken in that people could AFK for the dailies with impunity.

 

Which they did mostly because with the staged gated combined with no useful matchmaking balance made for a fairly horrendous experience when new players encountered a steep learning curve and were required to climb it with crappy gear. That some of them decided to try to gear up before attempting to climb it was perfectly rational on their part, and as annoying as it is in some respects, isn't really any more unfair on their part than it is unfair of pilots of mastered ships with 3 extra months of experience to shred them in every single match.

 

Still, with a sea of complaints on the forum the developers took note and responded, . . . .

 

by breaking the non-contributer system in a new way where it just tags everyone as a non-contributer and punishes them harshly for not contributing.

 

In fairness to the devs, coming up with code to do a good job of telling if people are participating or not is not really that easy, especially if you have a lot of other tasks to work on and not all that much time.

 

After all, have any of us written a good pseudocode for this and sent it in to them? No, because it would be complicated, time consuming, and a lot of hard work. They don't have a magic code wand they can wave to solve complex AI problems with a couple of lines of simple code.

 

Of course, that's small consolation to players who based on play experience might be forgiven for coming to believe that Bioware has a job position titled "Project Mangager for Making Sure GSF Play Experience Isn't Too Much Fun".

 

If we drown them in complaints about slow release pace, we shouldn't be too surprised if in an effort to answer that demand we get content that hasn't had more than a cursory test/debug phase.

Edited by Ramalina
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...

In fairness to the devs, coming up with code to do a good job of telling if people are participating or not is not really that easy, especially if you have a lot of other tasks to work on and not all that much time.

 

After all, have any of us written a good pseudocode for this and sent it in to them? No, because it would be complicated, time consuming, and a lot of hard work. They don't have a magic code wand they can wave to solve complex AI problems with a couple of lines of simple code.

...

 

You are right it is not easy. I will give them that. However, are you honestly asking that their customers design solutions for them? Do you contend that they are not competent enough or do not have the resources to do it properly?

 

They are a supposedly a fully staffed and funded game development team with designers and developers that have years of experience. In this context it should be quite easy to design and implement a proper system.

 

It is deeply concerning that they continue to keep such half hearted designers and developers on the team. Especially when there are hundreds of developers out there that would kill to have an opportunity to work for Bioware.

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There is frustration for all ship types in game, so it shouldn't just be about bombers. Playing a great match where you do a great job, is spoilt by the text buffer giving you, what I'm going to call a punch in the face. Followed by the scorecard with you near the top and the pitiful req score being the kick in the teeth to make you feel like you've wasted your time. Being called a liar by BW doesn't make for a good long term experience.

For the last time - We ARE contributing.

 

Yeah this system is goofy. I was running from a swarm last night (I guess I killed the gunship they were trying to protect) and eventually they got me. While I was respawning I got the non-contributing tag and as soon as I was done and started moving it went away. What I hate about this is that I have heard the way it works if you get it for any length of time at all you are already taking a 20% hit to req.

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The other day I had an opening purple patch while levelling a character and a bomber. Team deathmatch.

Then the enemy camp at their capital ship. Five gunships sally forth and park. No way a bomber can plant mines while facing down capital ship's guns, 5 gunships and a 1/2 dozen other players. - Minelaying relegated to behind the asteroids..... then "Not contributing" flases up. The souped-up scouts on my team start hoovering up the power-ups.

 

- Final scorecard:

 

4th place with 20 kill assists. 6 kills. A Dozen medals.

 

Me: ****! 'Not contributing' my rear end! Stupid Stupid! stupid!

 

I love GSF. But I'm only average at best. - only usually in the top 10 - But trying to level a bomber with the enemy around their homeship..... I might as well throw pebbles at the moon! - AND less Req to spend at the end. - I'd be better off launching and AFK-ing FFS!

 

Same with domination. Cap node, plant mines. Enemy avoids, suddenly non-contribution.... Grr!

 

Really AFK : Sure: Award Zero req, no count to dailiy/weekly, I fully support that.

 

-but trying hard, with no luckand getting nerfed. ....That's a sure-fire way to kill GSF for the newbies!

 

SORT THIS OUT BW!

 

Storm Cutter - Pilots: Karn-t'woom / Indio / D'mara-Nye on Progenitor Server (rep)

Edited by Storm-Cutter
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