Unpopular opinion

[ReillyLv50PEACE Keepers]

please explain, merci beaucoup

 

[Red Queen]

Those filthy "leachers" must be punished!

 

[MMDR]

To address the "mod abuse" claims: if you think a staff member should be spoken to, send a Personal Message to JFR, TLOPO's Lead Moderator.

Now, getting back on track:

I'd like it if a sort of "vote kick" system was implemented, sort of like in CS:GO. It'd be a lot more fair and harder to abuse than a basic "kick" button, like the one present for SvS currently.

Another idea is a timer that teleports players who haven't been active in X amount of minutes off the ship. If the captain doesn't care if people on their ship are getting a share of the loot without contributing, they can just leave the option disabled.

As for the argument that a player might go AFK because of a real-life situation: Perhaps we could allow them to hop back on if they get teleported off. But honestly, you will only be missing out on 1-2,000 gold if you get teleported off and the ship ports, it is not a huge deal. It is not like this is going to happen frequently either.

Through this system, both sides win. Got no problem with leeches? Leave it disabled. Got a problem with Leeches? Enable it.

The only downside to this system is that the AFK player might become active before the X amount of minutes are met, go AFK again, and repeat to avoid getting teleported off. Hopefully, leeches become frustrated with having to keep track of time and just contribute. It is better to have some sort of system in place than nothing. It might catch some (hopefully the majority) of leeches.

I think it's fair for someone who spent their gold on a ship to be able to determine who gets to board it. By making your ship public, you are gifting the community the opportunity to board your ship and earn some rep and gold. You should be able to decide if people have to put in work or not, in order to stay on the ship. After all, you did spend thousands of gold in buying and upgrading your ship.

 

[CarribeanThunder]

Not to resurrect a dead thread (I don't think making a brand new thread for this was necessary - apologies if I should have!) but if I may chime in with a longish post...

My issue with the act of "leeching" personally is a combination of various aforementioned things:

• Primarily, one leech takes up a slot that one actual player could have taken instead. While it may not be such a big deal if a) it's just one person, and b) it's a ship with a crew capacity that can afford it, it can become particularly grating when half the crew of a full 12/12 ship isn't contributing for one reason or another. Consider a ship that may have taken heavy damage. At least four people - potentially more - sitting around, either not looking at the game at all or actively acknowledging the damage but still choosing not to assist. Another bunch on cannons, and one or two players, if any at all, deciding to repair. Were those few idle avatars actually active, that would be another potential few pirates willing to repair.
• Secondly, while not all leeches out there are out for malicious intent, there are those who can be particularly nasty or passive aggressive (possibly relating to the above in purposely not wanting to repair). In the case of War Galleons, we can't forget that there is still a method of getting outside of the ship's boundaries. I've noted some people will purposely idle themselves in front of either side of the ship, directly in front of deck cannon fire. While this is inherently more of an issue with the War Galleon itself rather than leeching, I feel it plays a role in why people - myself included - may disapprove of the act.
• The most obvious issue, as others have mentioned already, is that players are getting their share of plunder by doing essentially nothing at all. You simply need to board a ship and you've already won, provided the ship makes it back to land in tact. In my eyes, this is essentially exploiting a broken system (where in POTCO, players would not receive a share of anything if they were not active in any way - cannons, sailing or repairs - upon the loot being received) for their own gain, in perhaps a less offensive but still similar manner as the previous blunder with Cannon Defense. It's the same idea - do nothing for an easy gain.

While I am aware that not all leeches have harmful intentions, the ones that aren't so nice about it, in my opinion, outweigh the less rude ones. One bad apple spoils the bunch, so they say:

I agree with MMDR's solution to fix (or at least dwindle) the situation. If I had to give my own suggestion for a system that could be put in place, however, I would suggest some sort of blacklist. A ship's captain has the choice to add any player to his or her ship's blacklist, which will prevent said player from being able to board the ship again once the run is over. This could not only be used for players who might be considered leeching, but also for intentionally rude players or other people aboard the ship who the captain may deem unwanted for one reason or another. Blacklisting someone could be as simple as pressing a new button in the Take Action! tab on a pirate's player card, and pressing a button to confirm or deny adding a pirate to the captain's blacklist. This will not boot the player from the ship, however. They will still be able to remain on the ship as long as they want, but they will not be able to board again if they were no The captain may still have the choice to remove a player from the blacklist at any time should they feel the need to. In the case of blacklisted players attempting to board a ship they are not allowed on, they could simply just not be able to see the ship listed at a Dinghy. If they attempted to teleport to a friend, crewmate or guildmate on this ship, they will simply be given some sort of generic error ("Unable to board this ship" or "Unable to teleport" for example).

I feel this system would work better for captains who know what kind of crews they want on their ship. While a vote system would give everyone a fair say, it could just as likely be that a leech and their buddies (that may or may not also be leeching) may purposely vote against booting a player, outweighing the votes for booting them. This would also mean that the same would occur with these other buddies, in which case the captain would have no option but to deal with it (bitterly or otherwise) or port prematurely at the dismay of others aboard the ship that are contributing. A blacklist system would thus favor a captain: as mentioned, they know what they want for their crew. If they don't mind leeches in the slightest, they will have no reason to blacklist them. If they aren't bothered by players that could be potentially rude, no need to blacklist them. In whatever case, they can blacklist whoever they feel they need to or not at all, ensuring that one run will reveal a person or two they may not want on their ship in the future, and thus preventing them from being able to board their ship again.

This is simply my own thoughts and suggestions on the matter. That said, however, I do understand that giving total control to the captain for something like this would be an issue in itself, so further discussion would likely be needed. But no system is foolproof, and there will always be someone out there (maybe several) who use a system maliciously for their own laughs.
However, I do feel an option of sorts to prevent someone from being able to board your ship again, if they've proven themselves to be someone you don't want on your ship, would be a nice option to have.

tl;dr I'm against leeching overall, I'm aware not every leech has malicious intent, I suggest a blacklist system.

 

[NoldorNumbwit]

Waiting for staff to explain what they've done is what's gotten old. No one suggested staff intervene on afk crew. However, what has been suggested is giving the ship's captain the ability to kick players off his own ship.

I agree that the Captain should have the power to kick anyone on the boat...and only the Captain.

Abuse of power always invades every game I've ever tested...even the ones of "Hello Kitty", "My Little Pony", "Lego(anything)", "Free Realms", etc. It is just human nature and should be monitored.

TQQdles™

 

[Hernandez]

To address the "mod abuse" claims: if you think a staff member should be spoken to, send a Personal Message to JFR, TLOPO's Lead Moderator.

Now, getting back on track:

Another idea is a timer that teleports players who haven't been active in X amount of minutes off the ship. If the captain doesn't care if people on their ship are getting a share of the loot without contributing, they can just leave the option disabled.

As for the argument that a player might go AFK because of a real-life situation: Perhaps we could allow them to hop back on if they get teleported off. But honestly, you will only be missing out on 1-2,000 gold if you get teleported off and the ship ports, it is not a huge deal. It is not like this is going to happen frequently either.

Through this system, both sides win. Got no problem with leeches? Leave it disabled. Got a problem with Leeches? Enable it.

The only downside to this system is that the AFK player might become active before the X amount of minutes are met, go AFK again, and repeat to avoid getting teleported off. Hopefully, leeches become frustrated with having to keep track of time and just contribute. It is better to have some sort of system in place than nothing. It might catch some (hopefully the majority) of leeches.

I think it's fair for someone who spent their gold on a ship to be able to determine who gets to board it. By making your ship public, you are gifting the community the opportunity to board your ship and earn some rep and gold. You should be able to decide if people have to put in work or not, in order to stay on the ship. After all, you did spend thousands of gold in buying and upgrading your ship.

I think that a time window of five minutes would be good enough to deter leeching.

 

[Jack Cannonskull]

I'm going to be honest here, I have gone afk on ships before. I wanted the mats and I didn't do anything. The thing is I really just don't mind people doing this, if someone is on my ship afk its ok with me, I just want a few good crewmembers and if a few others are afk its ok with me.
If this is such a big problem then I guess @John Foulroberts idea of a vote kick system or something might be a good idea. Its just while others see this as a HUGE problem I see it as a minor (if even) problem. Or @MMDR's idea would be a very good idea.

I'll try to be more useful on ships in the future and to clarify 99% of time I am active but a few times I have not done anything and like once I went afk.

Is this against the ToS in any way? If it is then I sincerely apologize. I didn't think it was against any rules though?

 

[Hernandez]

I'm going to be honest here, I have gone afk on ships before. I wanted the mats and I didn't do anything. The thing is I really just don't mind people doing this, if someone is on my ship afk its ok with me, I just want a few good crewmembers and if a few others are afk its ok with me.
If this is such a big problem then I guess @John Foulroberts idea of a vote kick system or something might be a good idea. Its just while others see this as a HUGE problem I see it as a minor (if even) problem. Or @MMDR's idea would be a very good idea.

I'll try to be more useful on ships in the future and to clarify 99% of time I am active but a few times I have not done anything and like once I went afk.

Is this against the ToS in any way? If it is then I sincerely apologize. I didn't think it was against any rules though?

When more people see other people afk. They might get the idea that this is okay and could take over this behaviour. Promoting inactivity to be rewarded instead of punished. I once had a instance where eight out of nine crew members sat around doing nothing and all afk.

It should not become a trend and should be dealt with. Since it will only invite toxicity and saltiness that will ruin the community.

I know it's a risk when putting your ship open to the public but I am getting tired of people doing absolutely nothing and take benefit off the activity of others.

This needs to change in order to stop this trend.

 

[Jack Cannonskull]

When more people see other people afk. They might get the idea that this is okay and could take over this behaviour. Promoting inactivity to be rewarded instead of punished. I once had a instance where eight out of nine crew members sat around doing nothing and all afk.

It should not become a trend and should be dealt with. Since it will only invite toxicity and saltiness that will ruin the community.

I know it's a risk when putting your ship open to the public but I am getting tired of people doing absolutely nothing and take benefit off the activity of others.

This needs to change in order to stop this trend.

What if you ask the captain if you can go afk and he/she says yes?

 

[Jack Cannonskull]

When more people see other people afk. They might get the idea that this is okay and could take over this behaviour. Promoting inactivity to be rewarded instead of punished. I once had a instance where eight out of nine crew members sat around doing nothing and all afk.

It should not become a trend and should be dealt with. Since it will only invite toxicity and saltiness that will ruin the community.

I know it's a risk when putting your ship open to the public but I am getting tired of people doing absolutely nothing and take benefit off the activity of others.

This needs to change in order to stop this trend.

Also I see your point and agree with you.

 

[Hernandez]

What if you ask the captain if you can go afk and he/she says yes?

That's the captains call. I want to be in control of who goes on my ship, want to AFK? Not on my ship, go find some place else.

 

[Sky Kiwi]

When more people see other people afk. They might get the idea that this is okay and could take over this behaviour. Promoting inactivity to be rewarded instead of punished. I once had a instance where eight out of nine crew members sat around doing nothing and all afk.

It should not become a trend and should be dealt with. Since it will only invite toxicity and saltiness that will ruin the community.

I know it's a risk when putting your ship open to the public but I am getting tired of people doing absolutely nothing and take benefit off the activity of others.

This needs to change in order to stop this trend.

This is what I was getting at earlier.

Currently it's not especially bothersome because you still get a lot of crew members that actually do something. However, if everyone thinks it's okay to AFK on a ship, more people will do it. The more people they see AFK'ing on ships without penalty the more like they are to think they can do it too. Eventually Abassa will see more people AFK than actually doing anything. And as Abassa captains move to other servers to try to avoid this, it will become a plague as the AFK'ers move to every server as well.

Though right now it's not truly a major issue (other than how rude it is), we have to buckle up and say it's not okay. Otherwise it will become a major problem in the future.

 

[Robert Darkrage]

I don't think that vote kick would work because there are usually more than one player afk and/or know each other so:
a) if they afk they would not be able to vote
b) if they know each other they will vote no

Secondly a timer might not work because they could just move every so often and reset the timer while still not contributing. Also sometimes due to some unforeseen events you got to go and timer goes off and you get kicked while the captain and/or crew are aware and ok with it.

I think Blacklisting Option which was suggested above would be the best approach, the Captain to be able to blacklist the respective players and not allow them to be on their ship next time. The Captain should be able to revoke the blacklisting status.
This would prevent any abuse from kicking the players and not getting their loot, just prevent them from joining next runs until they see fit.
It also gives meaning to Captain of the ship allowing them to actively select their crew, if they don't mind they don't have to take any actions, if they mind somebody's actions they have the means to prevent them to board their ships after the current run for as long as they deem necessary.

 

[Hernandez]

I don't think that vote kick would work because there are usually more than one player afk and/or know each other so:
a) if they afk they would not be able to vote
b) if they know each other they will vote no

Secondly a timer might not work because they could just move every so often and reset the timer while still not contributing. Also sometimes due to some unforeseen events you got to go and timer goes off and you get kicked while the captain and/or crew are aware and ok with it.

I think Blacklisting Option which was suggested above would be the best approach, the Captain to be able to blacklist the respective players and not allow them to be on their ship next time. The Captain should be able to revoke the blacklisting status.
This would prevent any abuse from kicking the players and not getting their loot, just prevent them from joining next runs until they see fit.
It also gives meaning to Captain of the ship allowing them to actively select their crew, if they don't mind they don't have to take any actions, if they mind somebody's actions they have the means to prevent them to board their ships after the current run for as long as they deem necessary.

Maybe through the form of a working ignore list?
That would work, I think.

 

[Grievouss]

Well I am ok with the leechers at the moment rather they spend time more on other issues than this cause a open ship to public well u get what u get it goes hand in hand like lookout pvp its a box chocolate u never know what u going to get so I just roll with it and enjoy my time..

 

[Bort Greasegorb]

I love freeloaders; sailing is a royal pain to level and I'd do anything to make it faster with crew bonus. I sometimes just throw an alt aboard for bonus rep. He got some high-end stuff, too.

 

[Morzan]

I never understood why sailors in SvS had the option to kick, but not sailors in PvE.