As a bit of a pre-statement, I am not in anyway condoning AFKers and saying CCP should take the blame for their behavior, but at the same time they are enabling it and their plan of action to remove it is off track.

Part 1: The problem
Let's have a look at the current formula for how active skill points are rewarded,

(seconds in battle) x 5 + (war points earned) = Active Skill Points

Ok, fair enough. Now lets see just how much points you get from each part of that formula. For my example, let's take a typical Skirmish match that lasts roughly 15 minutes.

15 minutes x 60 seconds/minute x 5 skill points/second = 4,500 skill points

This means that if you wanted half your skill points to come from active participation, you'd have to score 4,500 war points. I don't know about you, but I have never done that. I'm usually scoring around 1,000 to 1,500 war points meaning I am getting 300% to 450% more war points simply from being there.

What kind of crazy system makes the consolation prize greater than the actual reward for doing something? Even with this supposed 2x week, the formula for active skill points has simply changed to,

(seconds in battle) x 5 + (war points earned) x 2 = Active Skill Points

This means that just to be on par with the points for simply being there, you have to score 2,250 war points (assuming a 15 minute match). Now that is more reasonable but is still ridiculous that after a great match like that your actions were only just as valuable as everyone else who was simply there. It is no wonder people AFK so much!


Part 2: How to fix it
How does CCP plan to solve this problem? From what I've gathered in the IRC, apparently they plan to add some system where if you stay within your red zone for a certain amount of time, you will get kicked from the match. Now that is great, but its still not solving the core of the problem. People will still be motivated to find ways to AFK since the reward is so much higher. They will go to some remote area of the map and hide. Plus what about if our team gets red lined from a good pub stomping and can't leave the red zone not by choice but by force? And even then, it doesn't solve the other problem of people outside of the red zone but not trying to do anything useful because it'll cost them deaths/ISK and they won't be rewarded much from it, so for all practical purposes they might as well be AFK.

So my solution? Change the formula for active skill points so you get much more points for actually doing stuff than simply being there. Heck, I think it would be as simple as a complete reversal,

(war points earned) x 5 + (seconds in battle) = Active Skill Points

This change would actually go mostly unnoticed to the people who actively participate in the match. Using the example again of a 15 minute skirmish, there are 900 seconds in that match. That means if you score 900 war points in the match your rewarded skill points would actually be the same as they would be now, except for those people who simply hide and AFK instead of making 4,500 skill points they'd make 900 skill points, which isn't worth the effort meaning they would actually have to get up and do something.

Just my .02 ISK