Existing Gameplay Changes by SlurpeeMcFlurpee

[tawny vector]

Welcome @twilit quartz! Any feedback from the community will show up here.
Please note that this thread discussion is not shared with SMG.
It is solely for the RISK Community to discuss ideas & provide constructive feedback!

[tender imp]

You want to punish players who admit defeat and surrender? And players who are affected by SMGs lack of reconnection ability?

[twilit quartz]

I would think connection issues are a small portion of disconnects. And that would be reflected in a small percentage. I do see the point about resigning though. For instance in a 1v1 resigning has no further affect on the game. Maybe flagging could be excluded from the percentage.

If disconnects don’t bother a player then they would still be able to play games with high disconnect percentage or create their own lobbies. But I wouldn’t consider it a punishment since a player who disconnects frequently shouldn’t see an issue playing with other players who disconnect similarly.

Bots and people botting affect the quality of the game for everyone remaining. It can also greatly affect the outcome of the game. Having the ability to not include players with 30% abandoned games would increase the quality in my opinion.

I would never play a board game in real life with someone who quits and knocks over a bunch of pieces on their way out. A bot out feels the same to me.

[long lantern]

I understand this, but I also have to say that there is a bigger issue going on in this game. We need to look at the reason of why people quit games.

I think a big issue is, especially in ranked, that you get into a game with people who are either very bad or very good. I would suppose improvements to the matchmaking system. In games you can't even see their rank until the game is done. And a game can start the moment I join, without even being ready. Then I HAVE to leave. I hope lobbying gets improved with the new networking system.

Suggestions:

1. Add ranks or levels to profiles in lobbies.
2. Accept/Ready while in lobby instead when the game has already instantiated.

With a better system like that, I also think the idea you are suggestion works better, because then the only reason people would leave is out of negligence which does deserve a penalty of some kind.

[tender imp]

Here’s how I view it…

There’s about 5 different kinds of disconnection. I’ll put them in the order they occur as far as the game goes.

1. Players who don’t ready up. I put this completely on SMG. They use a flawed ready up system. The game should not be able to fire with players that end up not joining.

2. Players who get a bad spawn and either quit early or suicide. These players will inevitably have a bad rank so you can filter using rank filters. So these players are already being punished by the game by losing rank points. Additionally beating them counts for rank points. So inevitably you just get some easy rank points when they do that. Not too bad.

3. Players who disconnect mid game. This is also on the game design. We keep getting promised a network overhaul. But it was supposed to be here in June and now it’s December. So who knows. It’s not fair to punish these players more than they already are (they lose rank points).

4. Players who bot out whenever a stalemate happens. This is stupid. The game should lock placement for that player when this happens. Bots being able to secure 2nd place is a flaw.

5. Players who surrender (hit the flag of surrender) at the end of the game when they realize they have lost. This should be encouraged not punished. Most board games end in someone resigning before the last piece is defeated. Again having placement lock would solve this. No need for a bot to keep battling on.

So most bot out issues can be solved by SMG. None of them should be solved by Hosts being able to cut out players from the game. And again the host can eliminate most of the players who bot out commonly by just raising the rank filter

[twilit quartz]

I agree that it is an issue that could be lessened by SMGs backend. However, it could be years of small changes and it still wouldn’t be perfect.

You can currently try to limit this with rank, neutral bots, timers, etc to try and get the best match of quality players, but this is working around the issue. And I think this is a big issue, I see it in my games and games I watch from streamers and it is a negative impact to the game in my opinion.

The most direct line would be tracking it and placing a filter. If they won’t fix the issues on the development side, which can never really be fixed, give me the option to fix it on my side. Which development wise is a much easier solution.

There is no advantage to filtering to more committed players. And there are plenty of novice+ that will always stay and fight to the end. Changing to a Master+ lobby changes the game in a big way. I think this keeps the game we all love the same, with just a more committed lobby.

What would be the downside though? Obviously this is an unpopular opinion, but why is it bad? Sure SMG could do more, but if we are talking about simple changes this is definitely one. I just can’t see the argument against it unless people are worried about their own bot out percent.

[tender imp]

To be clear I do not think you have to go all the way to Master rank to get to a point where you are limiting bot outs. Intermediate+ has always been enough for me. You’re removing Novice and Beginner and that’s where most of the routine bot out players will sit.

The downside is mostly what I was trying to say in my last response. You aren’t just punishing the players who quit all the time normally, you are punishing players who are surrendering normally, who get disconnected for no reason due to the bad multiplayer connection system, etc.

Additionally what would happen is people would just delete their account and make a new one as soon as they passed whatever threshold. It’s the same logic as to why we shouldn’t have a negative ELO system. If it’s easier to make a new account than it would be to get back in the green, people would just make a new account.

Lastly, the argument of “it could be years of small changes and it still wouldn’t be perfect” would also apply to this suggestion. It’s a small change that wouldn’t happen for a long time and it wouldn’t be perfect. Personally I’d rather have the Dev effort be put into fixing the ready up system, the connection/reconnection system, etc, than giving hosts even more power in curating exactly who enters their game

@twilit quartz