Dealing With Quitters

(3Suns) #1

This may be a problem of greater significance in the console market than in the PC market. I am unfamiliar with the PC situation.

In a relatively small team game (8v8 and less), having a player join and then quit halfway through a match can ruin the balance of the game, and thus the enjoyment as well. Unfortunately, I have had this happen to me often (depending on the game) and often several times in a row - to the point where I would just take the game out of the tray and play something else.

In an effort to encourage players to finish the game they started, Bungie in Halo 3, for example, started using experience points to reward or punish gamers according to their behavior. In practice, it proved completely ineffectual in dealing with quitters.

I do have a solution that I think is reasonble and effective: put the gamer in the “penalty box”. (Again, I am suggesting this solution for the XBL gamer - I don’t know if quitting is even a problem for the PC community). If someone quits in the middle of the match, don’t let him rejoin a new match for at least 5 minutes. If the gamer quit for legitimate reasons (e.g., their cat just crapped on their lap, their mother isn’t bringing them their chocolate milk in a timely fashion, or their child is on fire) then it is reasonable to expect that they will be indisposed for at least five minutes. They won’t even notice the “penalty” time because they were busy with other things anyway. If on the other hand, they quit just because they weren’t winning or someone else was wearing the same outfit, then, they need to be given a cool-down period, so that they can’t just join and quit, and ruin three more games in the meantime. I think there are risks to this approach (it is relatively severe), but I think that in the end, it would make everyone take the game more seriously, and the more serious gamers would be delighted by the fact that once the game starts, chances are everyone will “stay until the job’s done” and if they lose, at least it won’t be because half their team quit out in the first 2 minutes of the match.

What are your experiences with quitters and dealing with them? I would love to hear directly from Splash Damage and anyone who has an opinion on this issue.

:stroggtapir:

(Senethro) #2

Gaming should be voluntary, any reason to quit is a good reason. Penalising them is like politicians trying to legislate morality.

(Nail) #3

never found 1 person made that much difference in PC gaming in 8 v 8, 2 or 3 on the other hand can be a concern. When I still played a lot of W:ET people would usully switch sides to balance if one of the refs didin’t. Mind you, I played on well admined servers, other people’s mileage may vary

(SockDog) #4

I like the idea, it makes logical sense but I doubt it would ever get implemented as people would flip out at being dictated to in their own game.

XP I agree is a carrot only some people would follow regardless of frustration and morality.

Giving people less reason to rage would be my meta answer. If you’re having fun you won’t quit unless you really need too. Implement stuff that encourages balanced teams (I’ve suggested limiting upgrades, xp for over powered teams). Place less emphasis on WIN and more on FUN. Give noobs a means to learn and be taught without getting thrown to the wolves.

It’s not easy but I think these things would help more than an actually reward or punishment for the consequence of what ultimately is multiple root causes.

(Nail) #5

win is fun

(Jamieson) #6

what if your in a vital part of the game helping keep your teammates alive through med packs and revives and all of a sudden your internet connection dies, You disconnect and the game thinks you have quit on purpose and locks you out for five minutes.

You finally reconnect five minutes later to learn your team has lost the match because you could not keep your allies alive on the last objective.

Just one way in which the system wont help people.

(INF3RN0) #7

I switch teams if no one else will. I also play for fun, which might be why I am usually the only one who swaps. Most balances are forced by server admins, but an auto-balance setting option server side might be useful. That is about as far as I would go.

(Shiv) #8

Wow, the number of quick disconnects i have been through… this would cause total uproar.

Want to play the game you bought to enjoy?.. lol… please wait 5 minz

How will it solve quitters?.. if they are done for the night they will still disconnect in the middle of one of your precious games, you cant do anything about it and shouldnt be able to, get into comp, you win if the other team quits and there is a reason for staying which everyone has agreed too prior to the match starting.

(3Suns) #9

@ Nail, thanks for the info. Definitely, the smaller the teams the greater the impact when someone quits. In the larger team games, however, what often happens on XBL is that someone quits and it starts an avalanche of quitting.

I think that some (most?) of the comments are coming from PC gamers, where 1) everything is far more democratic to begin with, 2) because of 1, people take greater responsibility for their actions. THISis what I am talking about and the console networks are loaded with it (and I think it is the reason Rahdo is talking about when he mentions voice default off - please keep that argument in its thread). Jamieson and Shiv’s comments about getting disconnected is also PC centric, imo. Even from my limited TF2 PC experience, I can say that getting disconnected in the middle of a match happens much less often in xbl games than on PC games.

@ Senethro

I think it is amazing (no sarcasm intended) that you were able to turn this into a philosophical debate. :smiley: What you are talking about is freedom and rights.

I agree that gamers should be free to do whatever they want in their own rooms/servers etc. In the public, however, there are certain things that if done, impinge on other people’s rights and freedoms.

On a private server (private room in XBL), have the exploit gameplay, house rules, outright hacks, language and behavior (iincluding freedom to quit for whatever reason) that you like. In public matchmaking, however, one person’s actions affect another person’s experience.

Thanks for the legitimate points made, everyone. I would change my proposed solution then: How about offering specific “playlists” in which the penalty was implemented. Then, those who don’t anticipate needing to quit in the middle of a match, and who want a solid game from start to finish, can join the PB (penalty box) list. Those who want the freedom to quit anytime for any reason, can join all the other lists.

The greater the emphasis on teamwork in a game, the more important this becomes. Not everyone has the resources (namely time) join competitive clans.

(-SSF-Sage) #10

Oh my god. No offence but this is one really horrible idea. Getting any penalty for crashing/disconnecting etc… OMG! In my opinion this whole thread should be buried in outer (web)space.

(3Suns) #11

LOL So you are the guys that always jump into and back out of games. :wink: Also, you need to feed your hamsters more if you are getting disconnected that often. You gotta keep those little guys happy so they keep running on your connection wheel. And you need to play less PC if you are always crashing. Wow, y’all must really have it rough.

In hundreds (dare I say thousands) of hours of gaming (Halo 2, CoD4, Gears of War 1 and 2), I could probably count on two hands, the number of times I have either crashed out or gotten disconnected - and that is on objectively, the sh!ttiest hardware ever made.

(Nail) #12

what he’s saying is that getting a penalty for any disconnect is bad, sometimes the dog pulls the cat5 cable out of the router, or you drop your beer on it. Sometimes you don’t know how long you’ll be AFK, I’m on call, sometimes fixes are as easy as “push the reset button” to having to go out of town, don’t penalize people for any disconnect. Rage quitting is childish, but you can always temp ban them via rcon if it gothers you that much

it’s just a game, no need to get petty

(DoubleDigit) #13

Join the PC crowd then, get yourself a server and make ban lists of people who leave before the game ends. It’s that simple.

Although I’m totally against kicking and banning everyone who quits.

(signofzeta) #14

the idea of temp banning people who quit the game mid match is like saying you are banning people who keep their priorities straight, or ban people with loose Ethernet wires or something like that.

Gaming is supposed to be about fun, and being a sore loser is no way to play any game. When it is about winning, then competition is where people should be.

The sore loser isn’t only the person who left the match, but also the person complaining about it. The person who left the match isn’t always the sore loser, but the person who complains to the person who left is always the sore loser.

(darthmob) #15

I would put it in a different way. There are so many idiots playing on consoles that quitting mustn’t be penalised! Got a screaming child on the server or a couple of guys using glitches or half the team is idle or the host lags like hell? Write a hearty “Well **** you guys, I’m off!” and disconnect to join another server.

The lack of choice is one thing I really dislike about console multiplayer. Dirt2 on the PC has matchmaking as well. It’s SO AGGRAVATING to disconnect from a game because it’s rubbish just to be connected to the same one again.

I like the approach Heroes of Newerth takes. There are regular servers and no-quit servers. You can only join the latter if you have quit less than x percent of your games.

(Voxie) #16

The most efficient way is probably to encourage players to stay, not to threaten them not to leave (“Are you sure you wish to exit? You won’t receive any end-of-round XP and you’ll be letting your team down!” versus “WARNING: THIS WILL COUNT AS A LOSS IN YOUR EXTREMELY IMPORTANT STATS!!”). Plus, since Brink has bots, filling the emptied slot till another player joins sort of fixes the problem of unbalanced teams.

(AnthonyDa) #17

This is that when you disconnect on consoles, nobody will replace you because to join a party you have to start or join a lobby room but you cannot join a game what have already started, this is why OP is complaining about.
On PC peps disconnecting are just stats whore without good purpose on their life, it’s totally different because it will be replaced after few mins, you never figured out that the match time on consoles game is really short ? (about 10min).

3Suns is there some consoles game where you can join mid game party ? (like L4D maybe). Does if fix your problem of quitter or not if you have this option in the game ?
Ho and thanks you didn’t talked about peps tweaking internet cable as host (because there is no dedicated server) which makes everyone freezing but not him so he gets all the frags while you are doomed to die. I don’t think it’s a good idea to punish quitter, it’s just a lack of maturity of gamer in most of the case. (works for PC & console)

(tokamak) #18

I already suggested to adopt Shattered Horizon’s endurance system which gives an accumulating xp bonus the longer you stay on a server (In SH your gun and suit also start to wear down and get dirty graphically, no gameplay effect). It’s all carrot, and no stick.

(namlot) #19

I don’t think anybody has mentioned that bots take a player’s place once they quit, that should prevent the match from becoming too unbalanced…

(brbrbr) #20

depend frequency of such activity.
if they do it on constant basis and thus constantly ruin gameplay - nobody want to play with them. this mean “on this server” so decision becomes SIMPLE - ban or lose interest of more serious players[4 server].
and obviously, most server admins, pick 1st option.