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Noobs quitting - and why wouldn't they?

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Noobs quitting - and why wouldn't they?

from Sins Forums
There are severe problems with playing games on ICO atm.

literally, 100% of the random games i have played in the last week (around 15 games) have all ended in one of 2 ways:

1. A noob quits as soon as something looks bad for him, and the teamer is left unbalanced for the rest of his team
2. A noob quits as soon as something looks bad for him, but i finish off the team of AIs for the win anyway.

and then it struck me why this happens so often

why wouldn't they quit?

they don't get a loss
there is no ranking system, so every game means nothing
they have nothing to lose from quitting and starting again


it is so annoying that this has happened to me in around 20 consecutive games (looking at stats in the lobby shows out of the games played on people's profile, around 30% are converted into wins/losses, the rest are left unfinshed), something i hope willl be altered in patch 1.03, or i will simply stop playing online, and i assume i will not be the only one
266,232 views 175 replies
Reply #101 from Sins Forums Top
But they don't have to see it through! All they have to do is hit 'surrender' rather than 'quit' and it removes the requirement for everyone else to kill their AI zombie force afterwards. If they hit 'surrender', though, they get a loss recorded. If they hit 'quit', they don't - it is just added to their games played.

IMO there needs to be a state added to the player file that records 'user initiated quit' as distinct from 'server disconnections / booted from server' and 'saved game for later resumption', all of which currently show up under the same category. I don't think just adding a 'real' AI to take over from players will fix this satisfactorily - if I wanted to play against an AI then I would go and do that, rather than playing on ironclad online. Giving the quitting user the option to have their force taken over by a good AI would give them even greater capability to stink up a game for everyone else - at the moment it is just a dumb AI that is a pushover for everyone left, it takes time if that's the last thing you're fighting but no real skill. If I had to play a game against a working AI when someone cheated me out of a proper game then I doubt I would have any patience for this thing at all.
Reply #102 from Sins Forums Top
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.
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Quoted for truth. Cultural victories? Control 66% of the map with your culture?
Or economic victories? Establish trade routes on all your planets while you have a certain % of the map controlled.
Or diplomatic victories? Simply allow for allied players to be able to win when the last enemy is destroyed, rather than forcing them to go to war.
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #103 from Sins Forums Top
I would like to point out (again) at this point, for the people that don't want to read the entire thread two things

1) In a 1v1 or FFA a player doesn't have to play on until the very end, they can hit "Surrender" instead of "Quit" though as a common courtesy of acknowledging defeat, and sparing the other player(s) the trouble of mopping up the AI.

2) In a team game it is damn rude to your teammates to quit prematurely and ruin the game for everyone. If you can't take playing a losing fight then you shouldn't join teamers.

I don't think the "Quit" button should exist in it's current state. The majority of players should have to agree before a player is allowed to leave, unless the player uses "Surrender" instead.

A ranking system would help to solve the teamers problem by making it easy to find players with commitment.
Reply #104 from Sins Forums Top
You're INSANE. People leaving when the game is basically a fait accompli isn't related to people only wanting to win: it's often because the game will STILL take ages to play out, and there's no percieved way to turn it around. Some people just want a casual game, and they have no interest in spending 4 hours getting ruled. If you're a new player and you start losing, they aren't 'having fun playing the game' for however long it takes them to get defeated (in some cases this could be hours).The idea floated above of kicking out to the lobby to find a substitute for quitters sounds like ASKING for trouble from griefers. Remember, there shouldn't be a quit button because with the no stats tracking people should 'surrender' instead because nobody will ever simply ALT-TAB or pull out the cable to circumvent this EVER. We should all 'surrender' to allow the no stats tracking to not track our surrender as a quit and thus pad our ranking that doesn't exist! It amuses me that this is apparently a 'big deal' because of 'how fast the thread is growing' when it's largely the same couple of people. What a grass-roots movement! Let's make Sins srs bizness! This will somehow make a hugely long RTS less appealing to quit when losing!Frankly, people quit WiC games when they're losing. They're 20m games, absolute tops, and it's ranked out the ass and they're counted as losses. People do it anyway, because once the outcome is obvious, many people can't be bothered sticking around. Amusingly, people who cry about 'quitters' usually aren't the people who complain about team-stacking (ie, team of clanners vs pub group of noobs). I wonder why?
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"isn't related to people only wanting to win"

Yes it is. If you leave the game as soon as you start to lose you'll never learn why you were losing, what they were going to do, how they were going to attack you. Without that information you can never deduce how to win against a similar strat/situation in the future and thus never improve. If it looks like you are on a losing slope then you should start experimenting at the very least. Try new tactics against certain ships. Try to outmanuever the enemy and murder their home planet. Try to lure their capital ships away from your true offensive. Try new researches.

The point is, losing isn't bad, it is a springboard towards future success. Only when you fail to learn anything from a loss do you truly lose.

Getting rid of the quit button is actually a good idea. There is already a surrender. Hell, don't even get rid of Quit...just give it the same effect as surrender. If you're going to leave early because you're losing why would you care that you get a recorded loss?
Reply #105 from Sins Forums Top
Well, being that crashes/mini-dumps are becoming more and more common, playing MP games are just difficult to complete period...I haven't been able to finish a single MP game yet becuase either myself or one of the other players will mini-dump and thus we have to start all over again. So if you have a system where any disconnect counts as a loss, then you are going to have alot of losses due to mini-dumps.
Reply #106 from Sins Forums Top
I'd suggest sticking to Player Team vs. CPU teams, just for casual amusement. You'll only rarely get a Player VS Player match that results in a fun, competitive game without a well-designed ladder matching system.

Alas, too many otherwise brilliant 'competitive' games are quickly passed over by the user base at large, because the designers don't build all the complex matching systems needed to validate them and create any sense of true competition. Even WoW took 2 years after launch to get their systems any-where near where they need to be, and they had the prior experience of running BattleNet to call on...
Reply #107 from Sins Forums Top
Another note on the front of competitive games - unless you are restricting your audience to highly organized 'guild' teams of relatively small size, you really need to restrict your game format to something that can be completed in under 1 hour.

Anything longer runs a rapidly increasing likelihood of being disrupted by events in Real Life - especially if it can't be paused. Expecting 8 players to dig in for a four hour game is kind of ridiculous. Sure, some people can do it, but it becomes a vanishingly small fraction of the potential group who would otherwise enjoy playing your game.
Reply #108 from Sins Forums Top
I personally love the idea of multiple victory conditions, not all need be enabled, but could make for some awesome game modes.

Diplomacy wins,
Research wins,
King-of-the-hill style wins,
Capture the enemy home planet wins,
etc.

Also, it'd be nice to have more artifact-style bonuses that can be gained later on in the game. That way, you may lose the first few fights due to focussing on tech/econ, but that research can give you more solid gains then it does right now. As it is, research (esp. military) doesn't seem to do much at all until late in the game, as having a 5% damage bonus pales to random factors such as having to wait for your ships to turn (one of the few things I hatein SoaSE).
Reply #109 from Sins Forums Top
Solution, plain and simple:
Ranking system +
Score penalty for quitting (which can only be negated if the same game is played again with the same people to a proper ending - to support save/load games)

As for quitting when you are losing. I realize some people thing their time is spent better playing a new game while their opponents are mopping up. Hell.. in that case, surrender and leave.. i hate mopping up and would gladly skip it, if the opponent would decide to surrender.

The problem is, some morons simply quit.. leaving you behind to clean up the mess they left. While it is hardly a problem, it can still be annoying and time consuming.

There are a few tho who stay until the end of a game, even if they are losing (or lost already), and i admire those.. hats off.. they represent the group of people i love to play against, as i generally tend to do the same myself.
Reply #110 from Sins Forums Top
But they don't have to see it through! All they have to do is hit 'surrender' rather than 'quit' and it removes the requirement for everyone else to kill their AI zombie force afterwards. If they hit 'surrender', though, they get a loss recorded. If they hit 'quit', they don't - it is just added to their games played. IMO there needs to be a state added to the player file that records 'user initiated quit' as distinct from 'server disconnections / booted from server' and 'saved game for later resumption', all of which currently show up under the same category. I don't think just adding a 'real' AI to take over from players will fix this satisfactorily - if I wanted to play against an AI then I would go and do that, rather than playing on ironclad online. Giving the quitting user the option to have their force taken over by a good AI would give them even greater capability to stink up a game for everyone else - at the moment it is just a dumb AI that is a pushover for everyone left, it takes time if that's the last thing you're fighting but no real skill. If I had to play a game against a working AI when someone cheated me out of a proper game then I doubt I would have any patience for this thing at all.
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good point
Reply #111 from Sins Forums Top
...or they could just do what the Madden games do. If you quit the game then you will be awarded a loss on your record and a win to the person who stayed in.

You could have a "SAVE AND CONTINUE LATER" request button where all players can accept and no wins or losses will be given.
Reply #112 from Sins Forums Top
I've found recently that although I haven't personally wanted to quit whilst playing(regardless of winning or losing) I'm suffering from increased D/Cs wilst playing from my home here in the UK.

Admittedly whilst quitting while losing is lame, that fault also lies with having no multiple victory conditions, or alternatively if the player feels its a 3v1 in an FFA then what incentive is there for he/she to stay?
Reply #113 from Sins Forums Top
I think there has obviously been a communications failure of epic proportions if you have joined a free team FFA game and quit when more than one person attacks you at once.

The entire point of this game type is that there are more variables (diplomatic trustworthiness, economy strength in different resources making you more valuable to certain players than others, deterrent value of keeping a strong military, joining in a fight when someone is attacked or using the opportunity to go deep into the base of someone who moved all their stuff up to fight, using wars to build capital ship levels vs people who stay out of the fight, etc) that will almost certainly come into play in the course of the game and a lot of them will result in people piling on to each other. If you got tag teamed you didn't make yourself look strong enough, offer enough, talk enough to other people. You lost. Hit surrender. Dick.
Reply #114 from Sins Forums Top
You should be HONORED if someone quits the game on you. Especially if you beat the snot out of them.

Quiting and surrendering are the same. It does not bother me if someone quits as long as I get a WIN on my record.

The question is, is the game designed to award a WIN to the person that stays in the game?

[MAGOG]Kruelgor
Reply #115 from Sins Forums Top
Stats should be abolished.They just encourage griefing, smurfing and other annoying stuff.The only thing needed is a system which allows to roughly classify a player as nub, intermediate or pro.
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Quoted for truth. This is a really good idea. I have already played with a few people who consider themselves overwhelmingly superior to others based on their win/lose in sins. Its quite pathetic.

Additionally, keep the surrender button and the quit button. Just make the quit button prompt for a mutual agreement among players to end the game.
Reply #116 from Sins Forums Top
You should be HONORED if someone quits the game on you. Especially if you beat the snot out of them.Quiting and surrendering are the same. It does not bother me if someone quits as long as I get a WIN on my record.The question is, is the game designed to award a WIN to the person that stays in the game?[MAGOG]Kruelgor
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What a horrible day! I must agree with Kruelgor! This truly is the end of it all!

Reply #117 from Sins Forums Top
You're playing a RTS, when did you not expect people to pull the plug. Seriously, after how many RTS titles did you never encounter this rare creature.

The Internets IS Serious Business!
Reply #118 from Sins Forums Top
Sounds like the opposite of what I do. I'm a sore loser, so as soon as things are going really bad for me (It's obvious im going to lose) I start fortifying my systems and pulling my fleet back. You have to earn my territory >:D
Reply #119 from Sins Forums Top
The best thing would be if this guys learnt how to play.
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No, the best thing would be putting down the video games for a bit and tackling that remedial grammar course.

Reply #120 from Sins Forums Top
You're playing a RTS, when did you not expect people to pull the plug. Seriously, after how many RTS titles did you never encounter this rare creature.The Internets IS Serious Business!
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The first time this happened to me it was a dialup 14.4k game to my neighbour who always used to quit if your NOD scout bike found his construction yard in C&C before he could build a bunch of turtle turrets.

There are a lot of workarounds that have been developed since then that at least acknowledge that there are socially maladjusted people on the internet.

Sins just ignores the problem, has no capability to deal with any bad behaviour and hopes it will just go away.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but right now we don't even seem to have a facility for ignoring someone who spams the chat interface. What year is this?
Reply #121 from Sins Forums Top
You're playing a RTS, when did you not expect people to pull the plug. Seriously, after how many RTS titles did you never encounter this rare creature.The Internets IS Serious Business!The first time this happened to me it was a dialup 14.4k game to my neighbour who always used to quit if your NOD scout bike found his construction yard in C&C before he could build a bunch of turtle turrets. There are a lot of workarounds that have been developed since then that at least acknowledge that there are socially maladjusted people on the internet.Sins just ignores the problem, has no capability to deal with any bad behaviour and hopes it will just go away.I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but right now we don't even seem to have a facility for ignoring someone who spams the chat interface. What year is this?
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I understand what you're saying here, but IC and SD can't be asked to do everything at once. They focused on the GAME, which is what is most important, then worked with the ICO. Look at games like Stacraft (<3333). It didn't come out perfect (ok, yes it did, but still ^_^), it took many, many, many patches to get it where it is today. Don't expect perfection from the get-go. Ever. Especially on a game as great as this.
Reply #122 from Stardock Forums Top
What is it that those that are bothered by this subject wanting to happen? Are people wanting to get a win and that's why they are upset? Are people upset because the opponent is not "punished" for wanting to leave? Heck, there's been more than a couple mentions about trapping a person in a game they don't like.

I don't know, and it's probably just me, but...I would think that playing online is primarily for fun, not stats. Is getting that point in the win column or making sure your opponent gets a ding in his/her loss column really that important?

I guess I don't understand why there is such vitrol over this practice...as well as the apparent reluctance concerning the planned update that would have the computer AI taking over the game.


(Heck, I've played many a game of RISK where someone had to leave, leaving the rest of us to clean up his suddenly neutral troops.)
Reply #123 from Sins Forums Top
I agree that there should be different types of win conditions.

I dont think a ranking system and ladder will fix anything. Most of the people that harp on ladders/ranks are stat whores that will do anything possible (use exploits etc) to win just to get high ladder rankings. Its a known fact that in most games with ladders lots of the people with very high rankings cheat.

Also, on the other side of the equation, ranking systems and ladders bring out smurfs. People that are really high ranked players that play on low level accounts just to bash newbies.

What would be nice would be to maybe have different lobbies titled with different skill levels that you join on your own. It wont stop the smurfing but it is at least a way for veteran players to make sure they get games with other veteran players.
Reply #124 from Sins Forums Top
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.
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Weird how it is never a problem with a little better design. Ranked games existed for a very long time. Take Starcraft or more recent example SupCom. Quitting there is never a problem ( you quit - you lose, simple as that). Maybe outrageously slow pace of the game has also something to do with it :)