I think the current plans to address rage-quits will only lead to new problems. If the planned v1.1 changes go ahead, we will see concede button spamming, deliberate feeding, and AFKs sitting by their own citadel. If someone wants to quit a match, they are going to do it. And here's the thing: THEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE. The fixes are addressing the wrong things.
For my purposes, I'm defining rage-quitting as someone leaving before the winner of the game could reasonably be decided (generally in the first 1/3 of a game).
Why do we hate rage-quitting?
-It is "unsportsmanlike." Or, "if you never finish losing games you don't learn / get better."
There isn't much to say about this. They are very subjective points, and not something that can or should be enforced. If someone didn't learn good sportsmanship on the playground/field as a kid, believe me, they aren't going to learn it playing Demigod. Nor should we be trying to force people to improve their play via experience. This is a game, it is at their own discretion.
-It badly stacks the odds against the rage-quitter's teammates.
Leaving will always ruin the game for your teammates (assuming they wanted to stay). However, providing incentives for someone to sit around afk or feed their oponents, thereby deliberately griefing their own team is strictly WORSE.
-It makes the game boring (unchallenging) for the opponents of the rage-quitter.
Especially true when someone leaves very early (first 5 minutes). If you want to get your deserved favor and a win on your record you have to stick around and finish a (possibly 20+ minute) comp-stomp. This frustration multiplies when one rage-quitter creates (an understandable) chain reaction of leavers on one team.
These are the most basic issues as I see it. Only the 2nd and 3rd points are within the power of devs to improve. Punishing rage quitters is not going to solve your problems for reasons already touched on here and discussed at length elsewhere. Nor is a concede button the answer if there can be no agreement on a team as to when is the right time to concede.
What should be done, is attempt to MINIMIZE the impact of 2nd and 3rd points. The best thing you can do for the remaining allies on the rage-quitter's team is to give them control over the demigod that left the game. (Exactly the way WC3 handles it when a player leaves.) If this is impossible, the next best thing you can do is minimize the stigma / responsibility the remaining player(s) feels to actually remain in that game if they (understandably) do not want to play with a bot. Don't tag them with a scarlet letter for leaving the game at this point.
To minimize the impact to the opponents of the rage-quitter I see two good options. First, granting control of the leaver's toon to his remaining teammates makes the game better for their opponents too. Again, if this is not a viable solution, then as soon as the last player leaves on one team, the game should immediately end, with all players on the other team earning the win in the pantheon and the corresponding favor.
Lastly, fix the matchmaking to record all games and improve its ability to match players based on skill. Fix the networking code (obv.) so that the time required to get into your next game is not so daunting. If people thought they could jump right into another game, they wouldn't care so much that their current game just turned into a bust.
I'm sure someone else will have more (better) ideas, but I really think the plans for v1.1 address the problem all wrong.
what i meant by Lobbies for Pantheon needs clarification i suppose.
i don't mean that you should be able to shop between and freely enter and leave lobbies like you can with custom games.
the Pantheon match-maker should deposit you and the matched players into a pre-game lobby. it would show what map and mode has been randomly selected and it will show the other players and their rankings and disconnect rate. you'll have no other options. you can't change your DG, change the map, or do anything like that. the one option you do have is to EXIT. i would certainly choose to leave a lobby that had players with very bad disconnect rates or players who were ranked MUCH higher than me.
Excellent idea.
maybe i have a darker view of the demigod player base but i relly dont see this turning out well for anyone. nobody likes to lose and lots of game types/maps are very unpopular. a random generator with unlimted turns is eventually not a random result if you turn it many enough times, and i see people trying over and over until they get exactly/almost what they want and then someone else in that room is not happy and leaves ->huge time sink.
the random factor in pantheon is reason i play it but play custom games more often, dont want patheon becoming the same as custom that would limit my choices of play not broaden. to unpopular game types would always have people leaving them and i would lose the option of playing these.
when starting a patheon game that turns out have a player with 1,5k ping i may not be happy. would not mind having sim/ping/disconnects shown of players before start. as it is dont think we have a ranking system (not got one that shows skill lvl of players) so this would logical to discuss only after we know what type of system it is.
To be honest, I'm really not expecting the kind of full-scale rebalancing that making the game fun at all levels, regardless of who's ahead, would probably entail to ever happen but still, this quick-fix is a lot better than nothing.
As always, I'd love to be proven wrong, though.
trans, I think you should be allowed to change your DG in the lobby to prevent stacking.
Also a reroll button where if everyone agrees to reroll the map/win conditions a new random scenario is given. Eg. 2v2 on the brothers slaughter mode isn't cool.
yeah. slaughter mode in general isn't cool. i'd love to see competitive format of Pantheon much more standardized so you know what to expect and don't get stuck in really fuckin miserable maps sometimes. Dominate on Crucible? Slaughter on Exile? yeah, bad stuff.
i mean, we oughta just play the modes that people actually like.
Fortress on Zikurat is a good one.
Conquest on Cataract, Prison, or Leviathan is good.
Dominate on Exile is a good one.
Crucible should be removed from the game and everyone should be prevented by law from ever speaking of it again.
Perhaps I missed this, but I think one of the big problems many of us have with the concede button is that it does not necessarily work like this. It will only end the game if that team can agree to end it.
Here are some fun scenarios:
1) 1 player gets pissed. He is ready to quit. He suggests conceding to him team via the concede button. A window pops up, and his team all click "no don't concede yet." Since that 1 player is in a "rage" now, and is already done with the match in his head, he continues spamming the "concede" button to his own team, griefing them. He does not simply leave, because that shows up in his permanent record as a rage-quit/disconnect.
2) Same as above, except rather than griefing his own team with concede button spam, he just goes afk by his citadel. Again, he doesn't simply leave altogether because that shows up in his permanent record as a rage-quit/disconnect.
3) Same as above, except to punish his teammates for failure to agree with his suggestion that they "concede" he repeatedly suicides on the enemy to speed up the end of the game, without him being marked with a rage-quit/disconnect.
4) 1 player gets pissed. He hits the concede button. His team disagrees. He leaves anyway (taking the mark on his record). This is exactly what we have already.
5) 1 player gets pissed, he hits concede. His team disagrees. He stays to finish the game or until one of his teammates agrees with his original suggestion and offers the concede button themselves.
Of all of these, only #5 is an improvement created by the concede button, and frankly, if we are talking about someone who under the current system would have been at the point of a "rage-quit", then I have a tough time seeing that #5 is going to be more common than any of the others. The logic flies in the face of the internet bringing out the latent ass-clown in so many people.
The other problem is that the button will only keep people from sitting through a comp-stomp if a team actually uses it. If, in a 2v2 one team is getting stomped, and 1 player rage-quits, it is not uncommon for the remaining player to do the same shortly afterwards. This situation is only improved if the remaining player hits "concede." However, that 1 player has the power to force you into 10-20 minutes of comp-stomp that is completely at the discretion of a rage-quitter who is already pissed about losing. Does this seem right?
As was suggested in my OP - there should be an option for all remaining players to quit the game (with the win) or to (optionally) continue playing (still with the win already granted) that becomes available as soon as the last player from one team leaves. Because really, once all the players on one team leaves, they have already conceded!
This has been suggested elsewhere, but I'll reiterate it here since this is a legitimate gripe.
The system would be well served by (again) borrowing from WC3 and allowing players a certain number of "vetos" before they hit the "fight!" button whereby they can turn off a particular map or game mode. No slaughter mode or crucible map for you? No problem!
Ah... for some reason, I was under the impression that each individual player was going to have the option to concede.
If it's 'only' going to be a whole-team-agrees sort of feature, then yeah. That's useless. John Q. Ragequitter isn't likely to be deterred by everyone else saying "NO!"
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