I honestly don't know if they can change this. Or even should. After all, how can you save and leave a game if you can't leave without it affecting the all-important score ratio?

and why are u killing of the ai if every game means nothing?

@ Sorceresss
by noobs, i mean people who leave games as soon as things look bad for them, i do not refer to their skill level at the game.

@ Xerxes
i kill the ai bcos it's more fun than starting up a new game and quitting again after 20 minutes and the first pirate raid forces a quitter to leave.

@ Marikir
there should at least be an option to play some challenge games, that end up in affecting a complete ranking, like most MP RTS' do.

@ Agent
we have played a clan vs clan match, however i have only been in contact with one other clan, and have not been contacted by any other clan. i shouldnt have to run around looking for games that last more than 20 minutes

There is a difference between Newb and Noob. Also tell LoS RaY has been lookign for a group to 4v4 against

That's the problem with these games.

Its all too apparent (at any non specific juncture in the game) that you have no chance of winning (usually because you didn't expand quick enough initially - another tedious aspect of these games) and who the heck wants to spend an hour loosing by degrees, until the inevitable outcome?

Sorry but the game design doesn't allow for non linear progression. You win or you loose slowly. That is a flaw in the game; it doesn't offer enough variety or surpises along the way.

Great. Now imagine you're playing with your friends, it's late, so you decide to save and continue the next day. Oops, now you've all taken huge hits to your ranking

If you voluntarily exit a game (by quitting rather than surrendering) you should get a loss on your record. That is really the only way the devs can encourage people to try to salvage a losing situation. I suppose people could disconnect by rebooting instead, but that at least costs them some time rebooting (they are not in another game 10 seconds later like now).

My problem is that the muliplayer games have been dumping (maybe its the host dumping, not sure when it says everyone is disconnected and I am migrating if it is just me dumping, the host dumping, or the game itself dumping) after 30-120 minutes, so it has been hard to finish a game without it going to AI's (which is very boring compared to playing 8 humans on a huge map). This is a bigger problem for me than people quitting early, since it always seems to happen right during climactic battles.

Annatar11 makes a good point. How do you distinguish between saving and quitting (with the intention of finishing the match later) and just plain quitting?

Having only limited multiplayer experience with SINS, how possible IS it come back from early setbacks? To me it looks like the game mechanics are more of a 'landslide' where one significant loss means that losing the game is just a matter of time. And honestly, expecting people to sit and play a losing position for an hour or more is just not realistic.

Of course this refers to 1v1s. In a team game, I think its bad form to leave unless your entire team is ready to concede. But when the team knows the game is done, why would they want to sit for hours and get pounded when they could go and start a new game?

I had this simular problem with Supreme Commander; you've got a really deep game, with many people who've been playing it since it conception (beta). Then come all the new player base, and when they collide, it's usually not pretty.

My first MP game of Sin, I hosted and wrote "noob only please". When the guy came in, I ask if he was a noob, he said yes, then "go go go". I had too many of that type with SC, and was ready from so much skirmish. Had a cap ship with 6 frigs when he rushed my homeworld with his cap, and the moument he saw I had a cap+, he quit the game. So sad.

I was hoping this game might spawn different types of players, but my second MP, the guy assured me he was a noob, but THEN, he kept calling my tactics/stratagies/build orders "Gay" when he saw them with his scouts (this is another topic entirely, but I SWEAR, if I hear ONE more person call another person "gay" cause they are learning to play a new game, I'm going to loose it. That term is so prepubesant as it is, let alone the racism/bigotry it implies). Anyway, how would he know if my tactics were "gay" if he was a noob too???

What I try to do when I start getting knowlegable about a game, is invite new players to play with me on their team with a 2v2 vs 2 humans or even 2 AI, then tell him to watch the replay. Even if he/we lose, they don't feel so crushed or hopeless, and they learn a lot usually too, especially when they compair what they did, to what you/I did.

My suggestion to those that are those types that play only to win, using mathmatical forumulas even Vulcans would find perplexing, and who verbally trounce any who do not conform to their "ulimate logic of play" is this: If your such an incredible player, then play a 2v2 with a noob on your team, and try to win. If you still win, then maybe you are actually a great player (and helped bring another person into the player base). If you do nothing but complain to your teammate the entire time, then maybe you can only win when the game is stacked exactly as preconceived as possible; something that never happens in actual war/battle, and the truly great "generals" overcome. . .

The problem of people simply quitting is a problem that's been around forever.

I don't know an easy way around it.  1.03 will at least have AI players take over but that doesn't solve the root problem of playing with strangers.

If you are a newbie and are getting trounced, so what? Have fun doing it. The only way to get better is to beat other peoples strategies, and the only way to learn that is to keep trying until you do.

You also have the type of player that is very familiar with RTS games. Even if the game says noobs only, he may think 'well I only have been playing this game for 2 days so I qualify' and join up. I also think the person on the receiving end of such a beating shouldnt take it so hard. Its a game. It shouldnt have any reflection on your ego.

The best way to learn how to play at the higher levels, is to play those that are already in the higher levels. The thing to understand is that you should record games and watch them to see for yourself what your opponent was doing, then borrow his strategy and practice with it.

Easy fix, and something that makes this game an RTS with 4X elements rather than the other way around.

Multiple victory conditions. Give the player who doesn't win the first cap skirmish or loses the colony war another way to win.