45 replies to this topic

[So_Say_We_All]

I have played the game for several years and having players quitting matches prematurely because they are losing is the biggest glaring problem with Hawken. When players see their team is struggling, in virtually every game within the first 5 minutes one of the best players on the team hops off to find a better game. 

Players who then join the game then immediately quit (Usually the god ones) OR stay if they are terrible and don't know how to exploit the system. 

This makes a mediocre match up worse and it makes the ensuing game completely one sided after the first five minutes in more games than not. 

 TWO EASY SOLUTIONS to increase incentive to stay to the end of a match:
1) Players accumulate a "consecutive games" bonus for playing to the end of the match without quitting for consecutive games in a row. On the second game you play, this bonus begins with +10 HC. It goes up each game (0, 10, 20, 30) and caps at 30 bonus HC given for every match (without quitting) thereafter. If a player quits a game and says "Yes" to the screen that states the player intends to quit and lose HC, this bonus falls back to zero and must be built up again. An exception would need to be made for player-run continuous fight servers where there is no end-match conditions set. 

2) Match-making is best when done before the match and less-good when done as players join. Therefore, a whole game or matchmaking bonus incentivizes players to to stick around DURING matchmaking for the next round. If a player plays an entire game from matchmaking to end, they should get a small additional bonus (Like 10 HC). 

Ultimately, winning itself should not be rewarded as much as play that helps to balance gameplay. 
Thanks for listening. 
 

Edited by So_Say_We_All, 05 June 2015 - 04:44 PM.

[bacon_avenger]

Players who then join the game then immediately quit (Usually the god ones) OR stay if they are terrible and don't know how to exploit the system.

Side note:
Don't know who or where you have been playing, but from my experience, the ones that stay are the ones that care more about team playing than their stats, and none of them try to 'exploit' the system and those who leave are often more concerned about their own stats.
 
I don't do any of these bad things, and yes, I 'put my money where my mouth is'


As for the post, we do have something to discourage quitters, the stat I pointed out above (for those who really care about it) and a loss of any and all XP/HC gained during the match.

That being said, the rewards are apparently too small (IMO) for most people to care about. I like the idea of a consecutive match bonus, but I worry that people will start sitting off somewhere in the corner just to increase that multiplier, or whatever it is, and not contribute for the match.

Heck, remember when we received HC just for participating in a match, even if we didn't do a single thing? We had people camping in their base on siege matches, and plenty of anti-idle bots appearing in matches (HC farmers).

Edited by bacon_avenger, 03 June 2015 - 10:22 PM.

[reVelske]

Consecutive bonus is fine, it was suggested back on old forum several times and I don't recall there being any opposing opinions.

 

So... yeah, that's really all there is to be said about it. Consecutive match HC bonus, make it happen.

[Rainbow_Sheep]

The consecutive bonus would be a good way to reduce the grind further and of course discourage quitting.

Another way to discourage quitting is to have a hc/xp gain debuff if you quit a match for the next 5-10 minutes. This would allow for IRL disconnecting, but still discourage game jumpers.

I've always disliked the idea of having a flat HC penalty for leaving a match.

[So_Say_We_All]

That being said, the rewards are apparently too small (IMO) for most people to care about. I like the idea of a consecutive match bonus, but I worry that people will start sitting off somewhere in the corner just to increase that multiplier, or whatever it is, and not contribute for the match.

Heck, remember when we received HC just for participating in a match, even if we didn't do a single thing? We had people camping in their base on siege matches, and plenty of anti-idle bots appearing in matches (HC farmers).

There's nothing really preventing people from doing that right now (HC is given if people don't do a single thing) and for the most part I don't see idling at all. The reward is supposed to be only an incentive to help balanced play.

The actual risk is that if this bonus is too large that people wouldn't quit the game but go idle when they have given up. That is a worse outcome. Therefore, the incentive must be small enough so that if someone really is done with a game they won't feel obligated to stay, but it would be to their very minor detriment not only in what they've invested in this game so far but also to their consecutive game bonus. 

 

Right now at least two games or so games in any given evening I see the "revolving door" of talent (as I described it above) happening where someone will join a side and quit within seconds because they joined the losing team and have no real HC/XP invested in the game to lose by quitting. This sends the losing team into a perpetual spiral of doom where they are constantly down a player and having frustrated good players quit. By contrast, the other side doesn't have its best players quit because they're wrecking everything and going to win. If the good players simply stuck it out for the entire duration of the game it would give the losing team at least some chance at eventually coming back with improved teamwork. That's impossible if all the frustrated talented players quit. 

Edited by So_Say_We_All, 04 June 2015 - 03:59 PM.

[Hijinks_The_Turtle]

I agree, however I wonder how high should the bonus be?  Another thing to talk about is the daily win, as I'm sure it creates an incentive to quit to try to get a match where one would win.

[bacon_avenger]

There's nothing really preventing people from doing that right now (HC is given if people don't do a single thing) and for the most part I don't see idling at all. The reward is supposed to be only an incentive to help balanced play.

The actual risk is that if this bonus is too large that people wouldn't quit the game but go idle when they have given up. That is a worse outcome. Therefore, the incentive must be small enough so that if someone really is done with a game they won't feel obligated to stay, but it would be to their very minor detriment not only in what they've invested in this game so far but also to their consecutive game bonus. 

Hmm, that's a good point, one I forgot about

 

Now if HC was based more on what one does in the match, a multiplier might work.  But as it's currently based on length of the match, a flat bonus might be more appropriate.

[crockrocket]

Here's my take on a bonus system to incentive staying in a lobby: https://community.pl...vidual-lobbies/

[MomOw]

there should be some ways to allow quiting for fairplay, but "punish" ragequiters :

- No penalty if you quit a server outside MMR range (>+300, <-300)

- No penalty if you quit a team with more players than the other team

- No penalty for 1 quit per 2 hours in any other case (to deal with connection issues or whatsoever)

- If you quit more than once every two hours you have a 5min waiting time to log in a game of the same mode

[BIsmuthZornisse]

the bonuses sound nice, but i think there should be a penalty for frequent leavers, too, so to quote one of my threads:

 

Frequent leavers should have to wait longer to play again. After abandoning their team more than once, they should have to wait longer, starting at maybe 10min. and add 10 for each additional abandonment before the this timer is reset to 0 passed. to reset this counter to zero, have them complete maybe 5 team matches? Afterwards they can again abandon once without penalty (after all, this is just a game, if "real life" calls, then that probably should take priority)

This is meant to combat "ragequitters", who frequently leave a match they (think they) will not win and clearly dont care that, by abandoning their losing team, are putting the team at even more of a disadvantage. I initially wanted an outright temporary ban, but at some point i realised that the playerbase isn't remotely large enough to make that viable.

What do you think?

[Waelcyrge]

if my team is getting badly molested, or i join in-progress to one that is, my first concern (upon discerning the cause is hopeless) is to maintain either a zero kdr, or keep at or above 1.00, and hang out to snag the XP/HC post-game.

if this is not feasible, or becomes less than one due to "stuff" happening, i will maintain my 0 abandoned teams rating, and preserve my win/loss and k/d Career data regardless.

i'm in here for me. not some altruistic or imagined ethical leftist feel-goods hero crap. i'm here to kill and take home my raping and pillaging spoils. i'm here with homicidal intent, not to be your or anyone else's "Friend". That good teammate you played alongside this match could be the target of your next mech-dismemberment efforts in a following match. Or you, his. i'll stay as long as possible, right down to the last few seconds, but if i'm not leaving with my "money", i'm leaving then

 

btw: F5 + 'disconnect' or 'exit' will do it, and bypass the Syncing that otherwise might bork your MMR, KDR, PSR etc and register an abandoned team (which also knocks down your Win/Loss average).

PFM!

 

Edited by Waelcyrge, 06 June 2015 - 11:42 AM.

[Sylhiri]

1) Players accumulate a "consecutive games" bonus for playing to the end of the match without quitting for consecutive games in a row. On the second game you play, this bonus begins with +10 HC. It goes up each game (0, 10, 20, 30) and caps at 30 bonus HC given for every match (without quitting) thereafter.
 

 

That's really really small incentive. Rather have it be a percentage so it goes with the game mode, 5% per round maxing at 30% but won't work in parties or private servers.

[Pumapaw]

As the Hawken lead team quitter I could care less. I have 1/2 a million HC. I think removing smurf accounts from the game and working on balance of the teams is far more important.

 

For the simple reason a close game is entertaining to me. A game of 20 point slaughter is boring  even when I'm on the winning team.

 

Fix the real issues of team balance then quitting will become less of a problem.

Edited by Pumapaw, 06 June 2015 - 01:04 PM.

[So_Say_We_All]

That's really really small incentive. Rather have it be a percentage so it goes with the game mode, 5% per round maxing at 30% but won't work in parties or private servers.

I believe the incentive should be small. The point is not to severely disadvantage someone who quits, just to lessen the benefit of server hopping. I do like the idea of a percentage bonus per round, though. Maybe max at similar HC bonuses to before, but based on percent. 

 

As the Hawken lead team quitter I could care less. I have 1/2 a million HC. I think removing smurf accounts from the game and working on balance of the teams is far more important.

 

For the simple reason a close game is entertaining to me. A game of 20 point slaughter is boring  even when I'm on the winning team.

 

Fix the real issues of team balance then quitting will become less of a problem.

The argument doesn't really stand that everyone must stop suggesting things because you think there's a more important issue to address. The point of the forum is to make the suggestions and the game owners decide what's important. 

Nonetheless:
That's where point #2 comes in- Matchmaking is useless if people are not there when the matchmaking happens. Mid-game joining matchmaking is always going to be inferior at balancing teams than pre-match matchmaking. That's why incentivizing staying from matchmaking to end is important. 

 

 Quitting often is the cause of a lack of balance. Addressing quitting (in part) addresses balance. 

I have been in so many games that were relatively balanced and easily winnable when my team had a finnicky "talented" player quit prematurely early in the game. The game DID have some sense of balance before they dropped out, but quitting makes balance system utterly meaningless. 

 

 

Another thought:

Another problem with the pre-match disbalance is that sometimes high MMR players go AFK after a game and intended to not to play an additional game but were not there to leave before matchmaking occurred without them. When this happens, they quit at the beginning of the next game, disrupting balance without even intending to have done so. I think it would therefore also be appropriate to consider only moving those who are ready  into the next round and dumping those who aren't into the garage. 

Edited by So_Say_We_All, 06 June 2015 - 05:21 PM.

[kasei]

[...] working on balance of the teams is far more important.  [...] Fix the real issues of team balance then quitting will become less of a problem.

 

[...] Quitting often is the cause of a lack of balance. Addressing quitting (in part) addresses balance.

Imbalanced teams cause players to leave which create imbalanced teams.

Which came first the chicken or the egg?

[So_Say_We_All]

A better succinct summary:
Mediocre-but-playable balancing combined with no repercussions for bailing on a team causes players to leave to find games which are in their favor, ruining the game they leave. 

 

 

Even with the proposed changes, it won't be perfect. But I think it'll go a long way to encouraging the players to play in a way that allows the matchmaking system to work. I really think the players have more to do than they think with the "matchmaking" balance issues. 

Edited by So_Say_We_All, 06 June 2015 - 09:43 PM.

[crockrocket]

 might bork your  PSR 

Paying attention to the real skill indicators here

[Panzermanathod]

The point is not to severely disadvantage someone who quits, just to lessen the benefit of server hopping.

What benefit?

 

[talons1337]

-snip-

 

I "abandon" all the time. There's this great thing called lagg... I don't know how you've managed to achieve 0 games abandoned, you must have damn good internet and a flawless track record for encountering bugs (like the particularly annoying bug where suddenly everyone starts walking forward and your guns don't fire, etc.). That bug requires you to abandon and it's extremely annoying.

[So_Say_We_All]

What benefit?

 

Not all benefits are in the form of HC:

-The benefit of being in a comfortable place of control and not struggling or dominated. 

-Some are concerned-enough with their stats to want to protect them from losing team situations.

 

If there were no benefit, quitting would not be so rampant. But I think for most folks HC is at the very least a small incentive to encourage participation when it's hard. 

Edited by So_Say_We_All, 07 June 2015 - 03:25 PM.

[bacon_avenger]

 

I "abandon" all the time. There's this great thing called lagg... I don't know how you've managed to achieve 0 games abandoned, you must have damn good internet and a flawless track record for encountering bugs (like the particularly annoying bug where suddenly everyone starts walking forward and your guns don't fire, etc.). That bug requires you to abandon and it's extremely annoying.

That sounds more like a disconnection from the server than a bug.

 

How I managed it?  Well, I don't have Aus internet (I have a friend in the Mt. Helena area and he seems to almost always have some kind of problem with the connection).

 

Otherwise, I've never willingly quit from a match, nor have I ever deliberately shut down the client, lagged myself out, or so on.  The only time I've ever left a match midstream was due to a client crash, and I did my best to get back into the match as soon as I could.

Edited by bacon_avenger, 07 June 2015 - 04:13 PM.

[Panzermanathod]

 

-The benefit of being in a comfortable place of control and not struggling or dominated. 

-Some are concerned-enough with their stats to want to protect them from losing team situations.

 

So, no additional losses or negative stat increases.

 

Basically, the video I posted.

 

Besides, if you're the type of player who will do that sort of thing then why should I give you consideration?

[wolfrock]

I wonder if spawning a bot in place of a quitter would help break the vicious quit / unbalance / lose cycle.

This would really only work in TDM given the current state of bots (i.e. the bot programming is already there). A new joiner would then replace the bot if he or she is in queue when the bot gets killed. Or could immediately take over the bot for the remainder of its life (by replying to a confirmation, so no afk) , then after death, spawn in normally from the garage.

If this scheme of mixing bots with humans leads to better balance, you'll get less quitting and less need for the opposing team to graciously sit a player out.

[BIsmuthZornisse]

@wolfrock
i had a similiar idea for siege and missile assault.
though the devs would have to program the bots to focus on capturing points first (not to mention the path finding), i think having equally sized teams is much more important to these modes than team deathmatch, because the bigger team can not only capture the anti-air/missile silo faster, it can even capture/mak progress whem the entire enemy team is on the same silo.

[talons1337]

-snip-

Nah, because I can still spawn into the game, and death notifications appear, but I simply can't, well, play. Nobody moves, I can't shoot, etc. Oh and the chat works... In the sense that the people on the other end can see what I say, but I can't see what I say.

[bacon_avenger]

Nah, because I can still spawn into the game, and death notifications appear, but I simply can't, well, play. Nobody moves, I can't shoot, etc. Oh and the chat works... In the sense that the people on the other end can see what I say, but I can't see what I say.

Wow.  Ok then, I've been really lucky then as I've never run into that particular one.

[So_Say_We_All]

Gotta bump this because I've been thinking more about the problem and it is definitely related. 

 

The full round bonus:
The matchmaker doesn't fail us, the problem is that it is easy to exploit the matchmaker by exiting and re-entering after the match has already been set up. If you just leave and then come back in the same game you'll automatically start off by adding your talent on top of the "balanced"ish match. 

EVERYONE exploits this. Maybe not intentionally (They might just want to see what other games are available and then come back to the one they were on), but it happens all the time, nonetheless.  It is pretty rare to see an entire room of people stay for the next game's matchmaker. 

 

That's why part 2 of my 2 part suggestion is a crucial one. You gotta reward people for staying the entire round including matchmaker at the end of a match. The fact that most teams are composed of "join luck" is the reason why a lot of games appear to have absolutely no balance at all. Because when everyone joins post-matchmake, it really is total luck how the teams fall. 
 

I would go so far as to say that Daily HC bonuses should only go to full-round folks, too. 

 

[Panzermanathod]

 

The matchmaker doesn't fail us, the problem is that it is easy to exploit the matchmaker by exiting and re-entering after the match has already been set up. If you just leave and then come back in the same game you'll automatically start off by adding your talent on top of the "balanced"ish match. 

EVERYONE exploits this. Maybe not intentionally (They might just want to see what other games are available and then come back to the one they were on), but it happens all the time, nonetheless.  It is pretty rare to see an entire room of people stay for the next game's matchmaker. 

 

 

When I leave ongoing matches, it's either because of inactivity kick, poor internet connection, or because I have to do something. And in any of those cases I've no intent to get back into the same game or able to get into the same game.

 

Also, exploitation implies it being intentional. You don't accidentally "exploit" something constantly.

Edited by Panzermanathod, 29 June 2015 - 11:22 AM.

[StubbornPuppet]

I still believe that the solution lies in generous rewards and fair punishments.

 

Reward:

Multiplier bonus for each consecutive match in the same lobby a person plays.  If each match becomes more valuable to you than the one before, you're more likely to look to stay in that lobby longer and longer.

Service awards for things like "Played 10 consecutive matches in the same server."

 

Punishment:

If a player quits a match at any time after they've been in for over 60 seconds, they cannot join any other servers/matches for a period of 4 minutes... and they lose any XP,HC, etc. they've accumulated.  They also take an automatic loss against their Win/Loss ratio (which is pointless, but some people seem to live and die by this stat).

 

I say that punishment is totally fair.  People will argue that "I should not be punished by not being allowed to join another match for 4 minutes.  What if I just had to go to the bathroom or my mom made me take out the trash?"  Well, it should realistically take you around that long, especially if you're not disgusting and you wash your hands before you put them back on your mouse and keyboard.  And, unless you have a medical condition, you can tell whether you have to pee in plenty of time to decide to do it between matches.  If you know you have commitments, take care of them, don't use them as an excuse to mess up others gaming experience in favor of your own.  And if you're saying, "If a match sucks and my team is crap, I shouldn't be punished for not wanting to suffer through it - I want to have fun and staying in a crap match isn't..." well, I think 4 minutes to take some deep breaths and get life into perspective may be exactly what you need.

Edited by StubbornPuppet, 29 June 2015 - 01:08 PM.

[Panzermanathod]

Yes because nothing can ever suddenly happen while playing Hawken, nosiree. If something happens while you are playing it's completely your fault and you deserve to not play for 4 additional minutes. You should be punished because of unforeseen circumstances because you should have kept up with your precog training. Do you want Thought Crimes to continue? Well of course you do. That's why you are punished.

[StubbornPuppet]

^What examples of unforeseen circumstances are you thinking of which might require you to suddenly quit the match you are losing and take fewer than 4 minutes to resolve?  Just asking.

[CrimsonKaim]

I used to leave right at the beginning when I saw the the matchmaker doing this:

FakeName
NoName
NoName
NoName

Vs

Kopra
DerMax
Houruck
Erzunterweltler


No just no. I know that this will end liie 40/5 without me but not my business. Instead I manipulated the mm so I have atleast two of the good ppls in my team.

And you know what? The more people complain about vets ruining matches either by being good and stomping or by leaving and letting their team get stomped, Ima continue this as long as we have a decent MM.



But in all seriousness. Trolling with pubs in the Hawken TeamSpeak turned out to be super fun. We stomped others and in the end (for fuzzy bunnyng balancing reasons) I switched teams and stomped them while they were helpless fighting against me and asking me "please teach me QQ".
This is actually fun even though it was the most unbalanced and boring match by itself, the people in TeamSpeak were funny. :]

[Panzermanathod]

^What examples of unforeseen circumstances are you thinking of which might require you to suddenly quit the match you are losing and take fewer than 4 minutes to resolve?  Just asking.

And to that I ask what is the point of having that 4 minute downtime. Things like internet connections flubbing, unexpected interruptions from someone else in the house, perhaps needing to check on something. I speak with personal experience that interruptions like that can happen and that the 4 minute downtime would negatively harm myself and others. Or maybe the player sees someone they don't like (which I've seen people quit over) or maybe someone got a party invite and wants to head over to that game.

 

What the score is is irrelevant. Quit or drop, having some universal punishment when not all the dropped games are done for selfish means isn't right.

[Aregon]

But in all seriousness. Trolling with pubs in the Hawken TeamSpeak turned out to be super fun. 

And if we remember history correctly, we see how smart it was of you and your friends to do so...

[dorobo]

JUST DO MMR PENALTY FOR LEAVING LARGER THAN FOR LOOSING.

 

[CrimsonKaim]

And if we remember history correctly, we see how smart it was of you and your friends to do so...

 

To be honest. No regrets. 

And the people in the TeamSpeak had fun as well. Everyone had fun in TeamSpeak so there is no single damn problem with it.

 

JUST DO MMR PENALTY FOR LEAVING LARGER THAN FOR LOOSING.

 

 

You don't lose MMR if your team is losing. Only if one performs below the room average. Could be adjusted to team average tho, actually makes more sense.

[StubbornPuppet]

And taking away MMR for quitting a match would just encourage more people to join and quit and join and quit and join and quit... to lower their MMR so they could get into lower ranked matches.

 

To revisit what I was getting at:  I did say that the punishment would only happen after you'd been in a match for 60 seconds - which is more than enough time to cover many of the possible situations where you want to instantly "nope" out of a match.

 

Here, let me add an exception that covers the one fair reason for leaving mid-match: No penalty if you leave by accepting an invite.

 

Other than that, I haven't yet heard any good examples of what fair and just reason a person would have for quitting that would make a 4 minute stand-out unreasonable.

[Panzermanathod]

 

Other than that, I haven't yet heard any good examples of what fair and just reason a person would have for quitting that would make a 4 minute stand-out unreasonable.

 

Aside from personal experience telling me that this would be a bad idea?

 

But perhaps there might be some miscommunication. Would this "punishment" be applied for idle kicks and desyncs leading to lost connections?

[StubbornPuppet]

Aside from personal experience telling me that this would be a bad idea?

 

But perhaps there might be some miscommunication. Would this "punishment" be applied for idle kicks and desyncs leading to lost connections?

No, only for selecting "Leave Match" and then "Yes".

 

I would never want to punish anyone for getting kicked or dropping. (but I suppose there are those people who would actually use the command line or router reset to fake a dropped connection - oh well)

Edited by StubbornPuppet, 30 June 2015 - 11:05 AM.

[MomOw]

So now HC gain per minute has increase, have you seen less quiters ?