To address points 1-3. Devs - 'How much money will we MAKE from introducing a deserter debuff?' ZERO. - 'How much money could we LOSE?' How long is a piece of string ... ? Do they care about your W/L? No. Your gaming ego doesn't matter, the casuals' money does. End of.

Watch everyone have a boring 2 hour wait as people quit from this draconian measure. 'I think' - that's the problem. The devs don't CARE what you think. They care what will make them money. Punishing people for leaving is going to end up punishing people unintentionally for the game's glitches. If this happens, RIP SWTOR.

A game is meant to be FUN. I like this game (for the most part) but if your idea of fun is playing the same 3 broken WZs over and over w/ very limited end-game PvP options then I'm glad we don't share the same definition. Your exact mentality is what game developers deliberately steered away from because it doesn't make money, it doesn't sell. The 'golden days' of gaming are over. Game devs will ALWAYS cater to the casual crowd now. COD has set the shining example of how to make money and whatever genre you're in, this is what devs will be basing their ethos on. To them, making money > than you're personal W/L record. Punish the casuals and the game will die, especially considering the competition they have coming up from GW2, real or imagined they aren't going to start punishing people either way. Anyone would realise that it'd be suicide for a game that is already suffering a lot and gaining a reputation for being a bit of a joke.

Mate, CHILL OUT ... Firstly - how many patches have they 'fixed' the Wins not counting issue in now ... ? Minor issue? Ha! Not for BW. Disconnects won't get exceptions? And what if it's BW's fault? Despite having a strong connection I'm constantly kicked from my server. I'll tell you how many times I'll have a deserter debuff. Once. Because the first time I'm punished for BW's inability to fix issues will be the last time I play WZs. I like this game but it leaves a LOT to be desired and even for me I'm finding it hard to justify paying for what is effectively a game still in its Beta stage. I'm sorry but the 3rd Reich is OVER, and you slapping on the jack-boots is NOT going to help the overall game. I really don't CARE about if you win another match due to people quitting all the time, but if you start punishing people the PvP part will die. It may not in other games but this is a StarWars title, a lot of non-MMOers will have picked it up just because they enjoy the SWs genre. You start pounding at them and introducing draconian measures their fun will die ---> they unsub and stop paying ---> the game suffers massively. And all when you can simply avoid BOTH afkers AND quitters by rewarding people for playing and NOT for being around for a win (where you can contribute nothing to).

- The side-speeder spawn is ridiculous now. ANY team who is merely determined ... not good, not geared, not co-ordinated but just detemined to keep the side turrets will defend them. It takes less time to land and interrupt someone trying to cap a side node than it does to even land on the middle spawn. If anything, none should be nearly impossible to take back, but if you're going to have easy and hard to defend it should be one hard and two easy. Currently, it's 2 hard/ impossible not to defend against one easy. The current situation is that the losing team normally ends up w/ the middle turret. - VS definitely needs tweaking or it should take less time to plant and/or more damage to interrupt. In the L50 bracket you rarely see the rest of the WZ, only the first 2 doors. If you DO it's because you're against a team of 6 or they've been bored into submission and their concentration to take a second to check one door lapses. It takes no skill or tactics or teamwork, just blind luck. - My ideas may require some polish and brain-storming but punishing people (which will end up punishing people who are innocent, too) will just fail. Some people have been talking of a 30minute debuff! What am I meant to do for 30 mins because the game hasn't allowed me out of my spawn when I die? I get all kinds of freezing issues/ glitches that leave me being kicked from WZs. I like the game overall but if it pulls that kind of stunt then it's buh bye SWTOR, hullo GW2. The PvP is already very limited and what they do have, Ilum, for example is broken/ glitchy/ one-dimensional valor grinding trade-killing mess. We've got at least a month for one more WZ which will have issues and exploits that'll probably take another few weeks to iron out ... a Ranked WZ thing that, again, will have issues and weeks to sort out ... people are really looking towards BW to pump some life into the PvP element of this game but if they start punishing people it's just going to kill that aspect of the game entirely and I personally don't want to pay a monthly subscription to get debuffs which are their fault and not mine.

And how long before the AFK vote kick is exploited? I ran was thrown in with a pre-made but who couldn't be bothered to play recently. I kept telling them to play for the objective but they just sat at the node we had and couldn't be bothered and were only interested in arguing with me. Supposing we introduce an AFK vote kick, whose to say I couldn't have been kicked seeing as they would have already had 4 votes, and only need one more! AFK vote kick could be abused and is a terrible, terrible idea. It could lead to people being kicked for not being geared etc. Bad idea.

But there are better solutions. Why should I be punished because the game won't let me out the spawn and I get booted? Or if I get disconnected. Also, it's not necessarily a staggering majority who do this. Suppose you start with a full team of 8, and they score in Huttball ... suppose 2 leave ... then it's not uncommon to find others join, see the score (which may now be 2 - 0) and also quit. The ONLY reward for Dailies/ Weeklies is the WIN not HOW you play or even if you bothered to play. Even if they introduce an AFK thing, someone could easily get around that by playing lazily and half-assed for 15 mins. How are BW going to solve THAT issue? 'Yeah ... I'm just a bad player ...' Do they THEN need to start implementing debuffs based on a player skill to make sure they catch out those crafty would-be AFKers? Your solution just adds problem after problem that an infant can get around. A better solution is reward a player for playing objectively, which this game currently doesn't. Reward LESS for a win compared to a loss and ffs don't base the Dailies/ Weeklies on it else people will only be concerned w/ finding a lobby they can get carried by w/ little effort.

/Shameless bump because of whiney thread spam

I've got a better solution, check out my thread on it. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=299102&page=2

This. There are FAR better ways of avoiding quitting and AFKing entirely. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=299102&page=2

Yeah ... I don't mind struggling to kill a healer ... I DO though when I struggle to kill them because of their heals, but they don't struggle to kill me because they do the same/similar damage to my DPS spec'd char which happens a fair amount, even throwing CCs at them/ interrupts and I'm pretty much ALL Champ gear now They just do a bit of damage, heal, heal, do some more, heal, heal ... It's not unusual to see 'healers' put up 300+K healing AND 300+K damage in a WZ. I wouldn't mind being able to switch between tree specs but I think being great at one, mediocre to poor at the other should be the way forwards.

You could easily address these, though. My suggestions were not an exhaustive list. - People ALREADY race to the side-caps on Alderaan because it has a broken spawn system. It needs a timer, IMO, because they are far too easy to defend. You would STILL be rewarded for defending but ALSO for attacking an objective. So many matches are lost on Alderaan purely because the other team takes 2 turrets and 3-4 people from the losing team just go and sit on the node they do have captured for the points. - VS, again, the spawn timer needs adjusting for the first base. L50s rarely see any doors behind this point because by then EVERYONE has all their CCs and AoEs and you can take ANY damage and be interrupted. IMO, this should be buffed to 1,000 or something like that, maybe more. - Again, you could perhaps be rewarded for passing the ball also? Like I said, these suggestions were off the top of my head. Maybe you could get an 'Assist' bonus for scoring a goal or something. - Currently people mostly DO play solo and anti-socially because it rewards them for doing so. You can easily get 9-10 Medals and never go near/ have the intention of playing for the objective.

It shouldn't be that problematic to do. The problem with ANY kind of deserter debuff is that many people are reaching the end of their patience with the PvP in this game already. W/L don't count, you hit L50 and it's just a Valor grind, AFKers, going against pre-mades, carrying a team yet getting the same rewards as those who cba. Your solution of 'add a debuff' doesn't address ANY of the other issues apart from one, and can just add to another of AFKing as I've discussed in my other thread. Mine addresses these issues and is a win for everyone (except botters and AFKers). IMO, if I get PUNISHED by a debuff because the spawn won't let me out or kicks me randomly then I'm getting close to hitting the uninstall button and I LIKE this game for the most part. Suggesting a punitive measure is also going to spite players like me who want to see the game grow. You may say that measures could be implemented so it may not affect me, but these seem far more or at least equally complex and prone to error as MY suggestions do. If mine glitch out, though, my punishment is maybe not having my damage on the ball-carrier counted one match ... compared to me not being able to PLAY! And most of my suggestions are in the game already, all they have to do is change it so it rewards those instead of what it is currently rewarding.

If you search for the thread 'Reward to PLAY, not to STAY' I've detailed some suggestions in there of how this problem AND the issue of AFKers can be completely negated. Thanks,

Thanks

That was the point of my suggesting not making the Dailies/ Weeklies based on Wins but on playing the objective. To get your 3 Daily wins may take HOURS, especially if they don't count most the time. And it's in discrete block units. You either win or you lose. Spend 15 minutes in Huttball in a 0-0 draw just to LOSE because the enemy team has held the ball seems a waste and anything you've contributed is negated because all that currently matters is the W v L. If you reward people for their objective contribution every second and every minute then they'll have no reason to quit. Apply this to their Dailies/ Weeklies and why quit at all? If anything, people will be more driven than every to push hard at objectives because it rewards them too, even if the cause appears lost.

Definitely. IMO, there shouldn't be THAT much higher a reward for winning rather than losing. If you encourage people to play objectively then everyone gets the most out of the game and a game is essentially about fun-factor. If both teams play hard then the Winning Bonus should be just that, a Bonus, and not the SOLE purpose of sticking around.

Thank you

Guys! Suggestions have just been posted in a new thread called 'Reward to PLAY, not to STAY'.

I've posted a recent thread Punish PPL leaving WZ - FAIL idea which discussed why implementing things such as a WZ debuff timer would be a BAD idea and be detrimental to the overall game - punishing people for game glitches and encouraging more AFKers, effectively solving one problem by making one much worse. The most feedback I got though was that I wasn't suggesting improvements, and debuffs were better than doing NOTHING about the growing problem. Agreed, but luckily I've thought up something that will bring MORE to the game overall, doesn't need to punish but doesn't need to reward either. The mantra behind this is a very effective strategy that Activision and the COD series use very effectively and I call it 'Rewarding PLAY, not to STAY'. Currently, - If you are the best/ worst, most active/ laziest player on the team you get the same rewards as EVERYONE else on your team, bar a bit of Valor from Medals but this mainly rewards DPS specs and a particular member of my guild consistently goes 500+K Healing and ends the match with 4 medals despite being the most useful member of the team every game ... - If your team is losing on Alderaan you DON'T get rewarded for fighting to take a turret but you DO for sitting 'defending' a turret the enemy doesn't want because they are winning, via 'Defender' Medals. I don't frequently get the 300K Damage Medal on Alderaan but me, 6 others including 2 healers tried to take a side-turret back from a very determined insta-spawn team (good old broken Alderaan side spawn) and I got 300K in my first life throwing everything I had at this team. At the end of the WZ me and everyone who had attacked that turret for the majority of the match gained between 200-400 'Objective Points', whereas the player who went to 'defend' our only turret for a staggering 4000 for doing NOTHING all match. - You don't get rewarded for PLAYING the objective, just for farming Medals and being around at the end of the game. If I do 300-400K damage in a WZ, what point is it if little to none of it was on their ball-carrier in Huttball or their players attacking MY ball-carrier? - There are a lot of pre-mades and if you prefer to play solo you're at a staggering disadvantage. Personally, I just run pre-mades now because it's easier and less hassle but mainly because I know if I don't I may go hours before getting my 3 Daily Wins w/ most of them not counting. It limits the fun-factor for casuals who don't want to have to find a pre-made just to get their Dailies done and log-off. - If you WIN you get significantly more Valor/ WZ Commendations than if you LOSE, even in the closest of battles. VS for instance, if both teams are held at the first door I believe the victor is based on who defended last or something, and you lose around 30% of your match rewards. - If you don't have much time to play, quitting the game to search for that 'WIN' for your Daily > seeing out matches where you're losing, for most people. There's many things wrong, so far. So what DO I suggest doing? REWARD FOR PLAYING Playing HOW? Playing the OBJECTIVE. My suggestions; - Reward people for individual objective contributions for instance; Amount of damage whilst ATTACKING/ DEFENDING an objective, planting bombs, scoring goals, damage to enemy ball carrier (or in close vicinity of them)/ Healing your OWN ball carrier (or players in close vicinity. - Base Daily/ Weeklies on these - perhaps you can 'Accept' to do a specific Daily which is more for DPS/ Healing/ Tanking if that is how you're spec'd. This would also stop rewarding DPS w/ tanking medals AND healing medals. This would be more do-able for players with LESS time than most because it doesn't depend on the outcome but how YOU performed and this can be on a minute by minute basis rather than a 15 minute period. - Reward players who specialise in stealth/ sneaky attacks for KILLING BLOWS which will encourage most to play their class properly and pick off those w/ health deficits near the objective and not fully-healthed, geared tanks and then QQing on the forums that their class needs a buff - Vastly reduce the Valor/Exp/WZ comms for just completing the match. Why? So AFKers get hardly ANY rewards, perhaps 100 Valor tops for being there. That will make AFKing a next to worthless activity (or inactivity ) because it will take SO long if you aren't actively playing FOR the objective. - It will reduce the amount of time that people will quit if their team looks like they're going to lose because they can still be rewarded for TRYING to pull it back and win. No longer would a team go 2 goals up in Huttball and then not have their ball-carriers/ healers harrassed because the other team has quit/ given up. Everyone will have REASON to give those bastards hell! - Give the OPs leader a target marker that they can easily activate, a new button like the 'Pass Ball' one in Huttball so they can high-light key enemy targets. It's a big frustration when you tell your team to target their healer only to get asked 'which one's the healer??' Tag them up! Who the OPs leader can be a little random but tends to fall on those w/ the most Valor so they MAY have more experience and saavy (hopefully ...). Also it EMPOWERS the leader and this generally makes people step up more! At the moment we get ... orange text? This would ALSO give non-pre-mades a boost in organisation as visual communication is easier than text-based, especially seeing as a lot of EU servers have many different tongues spoken. "We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on ..." Hmmmm, I'll take a marker and chigaaar - This would also benefit servers with smaller populations! Responses to pre-emptive criticisms; - Why reward people for playing the objective? Winning should be rewarding enough! When the L50 Dailies/ Weeklies are based purely on winning it negates 'objective' play and just trying to find the first 3 matches where you can WIN. Winning doesn't necessarily mean that everyone played for the objective. It will reward people to 'get involved' and not be happy just being carried if they cba. It will reward objective players EVEN MORE. - Won't this disadvantage lesser geared players because they will do less damage/ healing than geared ones and it'll take them much longer to get their Dailies, etc? Gear is VERY easy to get in this game already but perhaps certain quests can be unlocked dependent on your Valor ranking, e.g. Daily for R30V - 500K total damage, Daily for R60V - 1mil total damage (these are just numbers off the top of my head, not actual suggested numbers!) - Hm, I dunno ... I'd still like to punish quitters! This ain't Auschwitz, Baybeee ... if people want to leave let them! RL commitments, bad connections, glitches ... punish the quitters and you'll end up punishing those who never quit intentionally and do you want BW to try and work out the intricities of deciding between them? How many patches haven't fixed the Wins Counting issue yet? Sorry, BW Also, if they gain nothing from quitting but ALL from staying W/L and playing the objective then why would someone quit in the first place?? These are my suggestions off the top of my head. I may make EDITS if someone points something out I forgot or think is a genuinely good alternative. Thoughts?

There's a much easier solution. I'm writing the thread about it now, it'll be called 'Reward PLAY not to STAY' if you're interested when it's finished.

You REALLY want to trust that kind of thing to BW? They can't even fix WZ wins not counting ... And like someone else said, it's easy to 'trick' the system into thinking you got booted. Alt + F4 = ALL powerful.

This is deliciously ironic. I'm R60Valor w/ full Champion gear All I have to do is get some people together to farm for some Rakata gear to augment my already caricatured damage scores. OM NOM NOM ... If anything, it was to help out lower-rank players and it would be disadvantageous to myself But I'm fine dropping a couple of hundred expertise (I've got it to spare!) to go slap about some kids and look 'L337' on the charts. How the f- is someone with that level expertise averaging 500+K damage?? WHO KNEW??

LOL, thanks for the support but I really don't mind I'm R60V and have pretty much full Champ gear now because of the joke of the last patch. Been checking out the stats on the Rakata gear, though, and I can happily lose a couple of hundred expertise 1-2% worth ... for a staggeringly bigger HP and pack a much larger punch to those who don't realise. If anything I'm trying to save the newbies something else to cry about because most don't appreciate a mix of gear is ALL powerful ... but oh well, more fun for me Thanks for the comment, anyways.

But suppose I role with a premade and we all vote to kick someone for fun. Other people can just jump on the bang-wagon and vote too, assuming the player opted for a kick is AFKing, or they can ask in the chat 'why is he being voted for'? 'He's AFKing' ... 'Oh, OK! I'll vote too then!' Most wouldn't bother checking.