(20 Jul 10, 12:54AM)JMM Wrote: I think even 45 seconds is too short for AFK kick.
It doesn't bother me if a guy leaves the computer for a minute or two, it doesn't even bother me if my team loses by a flag in a pub because we had (OMGAWSH!11!) *one less player*. What bugs me if AFKers that simply don't come back and the idle dude sticks around for entire games, that messes with the team balance.
Agree.
Sorry Brahma but I still think that 45 seconds is too short. I also play 100% on public servers, and you know how it is, sometimes it's already hard to find a spot on the server you want to play on. If you get disconnected while typing a sentence or because you had to go to the bathroom in the middle of a hot game (sorry to insist, but I'm pretty sure it takes more than 45 seconds to go there, do what you have to do, wash your hands and come back to the computer) and then have to stare blankly at the servers list for 5 minutes until you get a chance to come back on, it's no fun.
I don't think the "one less player on a team for 1 and a half minute" really does anything to the team balance. On pubs, you always have the occasional newbie walking around looking at the scenery, trying to climb walls, getting stuck in a corner, camping in some dark and improbable place where nobody passes by, or shooting at his teammates with enthusiasm, and this one is no more useful to his team than the guy who goes AFK for 2 minutes and then comes back playing. Not to mention team shuffles, autoteam, guys disconnecting and others connecting, sometimes you get strange configurations like 10 vs 6 for a few seconds... Plus, pubs are often 12/12 or even 14/14, one more or one less guy playing doesn't make much of a difference. I don't know if the situation where 3 people are AFK at the same time in the same team happens a lot, I'd say not. So, team balance is not that much affected by AFK players.
Like JMM says, the problem with AFK is guys who simply go do something else for a while and don't disconnect, remaining idle for entire games, holding a spot on a full server while others would like to get on. For those cases, a delay of even 2 minutes would be short enough.