Sometimes I want to sleep and skip the night, but the other players on the server either don't care or are just not watching chat when I ask them to sleep or use /afk so they are considered sleeping. What I'm suggesting is to lower the threshold from 100% sleeping/afk so that one person won't prevent me (or others) from skipping the nighttime.
I'm not sure what a good percent would be because there are a few factor's. I know often when I am building, I tend to try and sleep the night away when not on Utopia. There could be activities that require night, who knows. Maybe between 50-75%. This would exclude those afk anyways.
It's tricky because some nights I battle the Phantoms so I don't want to skip it. Other times I'm surface mining and don't want to get stuck with arrows, and even then some player doesn't want to sleep so I have to put up with the attack. Might be best to leave it as is.
I want to agree to farmerguyson, that it's quite tricky, since personally I often farm enrageds and bosses, that require night time, so sure those people that need a night time, won't be happy for night to turn into day all of a sudden. So, how do we decide who to prioritize in this situation? (those afk people sure won't care in either case)
I welcome feedback on the topic. I am not inclined to immediately change it though... Yes, I get it when people just won't pay attention to sleep and coordinate the night cycle. But when making this change, we've gotta always consider those people that may NOT want it to cycle to daytime. The /afk option is already a deviation from vanilla in your benefit, and I would like to keep that. I guess what I am trying to say. Is that we need to consider the worst case scenario (which I understand might not be the norm). One person is intentionally not sleeping or /afk. That means it becomes an interpersonal issue and by not having 100% we must determine when does democracy take over to override how that one (or more) person(s) wants to play. Obviously 50% doesn't work because in a 1v1, the person wanting to skip night automatically wins. Okay, so what about 2v1. That's ~66.7% - well, that is meaningless because that second account could just be your alt. Or worse you intentionally pull someone to hop over /smpx to get that simple majority needed. Again, actually creating conflict... That line of reasoning causes basically all percentage arguments to fall apart though... Here's a meme for comedic relief. Concluding thoughts? I don't know. I thought of this meme because I have shared a number of times that I am weary of the motto "play your way". It just isn't a reasonable expectation in certain situations. This is a prime example of what I mean. In the mission to allow each person to play their way, can it deprive another person of how they want to play? It was a catchy phrase, but I refuse to let that phrase be the sole determiner of decision-making. Quick edit: I will note that I think that /afk actually excludes someone entirely from the percentage check. So the brigading argument does become more rare - compared to an actual number that are in beds sleeping. I would consider some number like 90% but do player counts even present that as a believable option (not really)
Is it possible to poll the active tool players in a world have in their main hand when switching to night? If they have a pickaxe, axe or shovel then assume they are mining and tag them as /afk. If they have a sword or bow then assume they are mob hunting and want the night. That will increase the chances of ending the night for a player trying to sleep. A player having a bad day could still switch tools before nightfall but I have a feeling there aren't many players of that type. Another condition to possibly check is if the player with a bow or sword has moved more than one block. If they haven't then tag them /afk since they are either at a farm or have fallen asleep at the keyboard.
Well, if we think about some non vanilla mechanics for skipping to day, then maybe we should implement also some non vanilla mechanics to skip to night from day too? Since you have to wait through the day for night to come, but you can skip the other way around, day is placed on advantage already. In my opinion, the system that is in place right now on EMC, is as good and fair as it can be. People can just type /afk to put them away for sleep mechanic to happen and if they don't, they either don't want to, are not at the screen or whatever else. That's the multiplayer.
