*FINAL EDIT* After responding and talking to a lot of you yesterday I think I have figured out a couple fair solutions that most (if not all) us can agree would make Vanguard playlists a lot more enjoyable. 1. Indicate what the next strike in the playlist will be during matchmaking, as well as create a 10-15 second period of time after matchmaking has formed a fireteam where players are able to vote on a different strike or opt out. Since repetition is one of the biggest issues players have had with these playlists since launch last year this would cut down a lot on strike abandonment. 2. Mid-Strike matchmaking for missing players needs to kick in sooner and have higher priority, right now it can take anywhere between 10-15 minutes before someone is placed into a fireteam when someone else leaves; this is the reason why strike abandonment hurts other players. It should be closer to 1-3 minutes before matchmaking kicks in and filling in incomplete fireteams should have higher priority than starting new strikes. If you are wondering why matchmaking shouldn't start immediately after someone drops, I personally feel that wouldn't be fair to players who have actively played through most of a strike and got disconnected and now can't rejoin because their spot was filled. 3. If players continue to quit from strikes even after being given an option to vote and opt out before they begin there will still be a penalty, this penalty would only affect habitual quitters. The first time in a 6 hour time period when you quit a strike there would be no penalty, each time after after the first there would be a Vanguard Shame penalty. This penalty could be a 5-15 minute cool down for entering matchmaking, the length would be dependant on how many matches you've quit during the last 6 hours; or it could be a 15 minute debuff that reduces drop rates and stacks in duration and effect (e.g. quit 2 strikes and drops are reduced by 25% for 15 minutes, quit 4 strikes and drops are reduced to 0% for a collective 45 minutes.) This shouldn't affect most players since you'll be able to vote against repetitive strikes, have an easier chance to opt out in between strikes, and will get one penalty free chance to quit a strike when life calls every 6 hours. Lastly I am still at a loss on what to do about AFK players, there needs to be a system in place that recognizes when players are AFK and boots/replaces them immediately. Many players thought that a vote to kick system would be abused, so I don't think that's the solution; but we do need something in place that gives us a chance to reduce the number of inactive players in matchmaking. The game doesn't always boot them when they are left in the starting area and reporting players seems to do absolutely nothing most of the time. I am open to anyone's suggestions on what you think would work. Also, if you are interested in reading the original post and my earlier edits they are below in the spoiler tag, be warned it is quite long though... [spoiler]So, as many guardians will agree we have a serious issue with some guardians joining heroic strikes and then abandoning them as soon as they spawn because they don't like the strike... That leaves those of us on a Vanguard Streak who are actually trying to keep their streak to be handicapped until matchmaking picks up another guardian or two. During my last strike on the Undying Mind I had three people drop as soon as they spawned in, two of which were in a party together and got match made with me again 3 times in the first five minutes of the strike and left every single time; leaving me to solo the first entire room... If you guardians are reading this I got 3 legendary engrams, a sublime engram, 6 rare engrams (one of which decoded up to legendary) and two exotic engrams from the boss thanks to 3 of Coins and my Vanguard Streak... Now, the issue is that while there is benefits to staying in a strike playlist there is no punishment for optionally leaving during one. I have a solution to that called Vanguard Shame, a debuff that will reduce all drops to nothing; no engrams, no items, no glimmer, no marks, no exp. The duration of the debuff could be a set amount of time (say 15-30 minutes,) and would stack if you abandoned multiple strikes. Disconnects caused by error codes would obviously have to be taken into consideration; but I am sure there is a way to make sure that players who are booted against their control aren't effected. Lastly, it's been a year Bungie... Add a boot fireteam member option for idle players; it would only appear when a player is inactive for a certain period of time (hasn't left starting area, isn't contributing to kills/objectives) and require both active players to vote to boot and would get rid of the people who are still sitting doing nothing for 5-10 minutes while everyone else does the work. Being booted for inactivity would also proc the Vanguard Shame debuff as well, making sure that there is an actual penalty other than being sent back to orbit. I really enjoy Heroic Strikes, I think it's great to have strikes that feel like they are worth running for exclusive gear drops and with 3 of Coins to give chances at exotics; it's just a shame that some lazy/selfish players try to ruin them for people who are actually willing to run them. *EDIT* In addition to this there should be voting during Vanguard Strike list lobbies to avoid repeating strikes several times. *EDIT 2* Since its been brought up, yes I am guilty of this; I recently skipped Cerberus Vae twice; the first time because I was in the menus between strikes and missed my cut off to leave, the second because I sat at the starting line and watched 5 other guardians leave as soon as they spawned in and decided it wasn't worth it waiting for someone who might stay. In both cases I gladly would have taken a penalty if it meant that it might reduce the number of people who abandon strikes regularly. *EDIT 3* Since this is trending now I just want to reiterate that I don't want players to be punished for game errors or network disconnects; these can be tracked by Bungie and they should be able to code the debuff so it's not activated by an error code. Also for the "What if something important happens and I have to leave in the middle of the strike to take care of something in the real world?" comments, if you are leaving to do something else a timed debuff wouldn't effect you it will be gone when you get back; this would only effect people who habitually abandon strikes because they want to play a different strike. *EDIT 4* No one is forcing you to play anything you don't want to, if you don't want to play the strikes in the strike playlist then don't join the playlist; if you do join the playlist it was your choice and you should be responsible for that choice whether it means running the strike or taking the debuff for abandoning. Also, this is a punishment for abandoning matchmaking; if you enter a strike as a three person fireteam you are not using matchmaking so there is nothing to punish you for if you leave, your leaving as a fireteam doesn't effect other players. This would only be in place for strikes you abandoned after being placed into them with matchmade random players. *EDIT 5* Some people seem to be bother by the time I mentioned earlier; if 15-30 minutes seems too harsh I understand, but if it was any shorter than that people would be able to continue quitting till they got the strike they wanted since the debuff would be gone by the time they hit the boss and nothing would be lost. The other option is to put a cool down on matchmaking as a whole for abandoning strikes; this would mean if you left a strike the game wouldn't let you rejoin matchmaking for a set amount of time, say 5 minutes or so. You could still join with a fireteam or solo, but it wouldn't matchmake you with other players.[/spoiler]