Hi all, We are looking at potential changes in early 2025. Would love some comm...

[orchid pumice]

Can share thoughts on this poll here!

[celest sky]

Does this also count for people who just “time out”?

[noble elbow]

I wouldn't say a number of minutes, I dislike that idea; I think it should be a number of turns that the bots gets before it gets removed, each round giving a counter telling how long it has left

[celest sky]

That's not really what this is going for. The "bot" will never get removed. This is just saying how long before the human can reconnect and take back over for the bot. The bot being active or neutral is up to the host of the game.

And I disagree with it being based on rounds. Round time can wildly differ based on what's happening in the game and how many players there are. You could have a round that's 5 minutes or a round that's 45 seconds. That would lead to a wildly inconsistent amount of time you would have to reconnect. The amount of time you should have should be standard so everyone's expectations are always the same.

I do like the idea of the timer being displayed under that players avatar though

I voted for 2 minutes (and it looks like the run away favorite). I think its about the perfect amount of time. I've never been disconnected for longer than that and been successful in rejoining.

10 minutes is way too long. That can be like 1/3 of the game. Way too much will have changed for it to be fair for the player to come back at that point. 5 minutes is also just a little too long. Its reasonable though. And anything shorter than 2 minutes leaves you no time to try and fix whatever issue you were having.

[light crane]

Okay i had my own idea but yours was better 😂, would potentially limit people who abuse disconnecting without really hurting players with weaker connections

[orchid pumice]

As a mobile player I'm much more inclined towards 30 seconds (it means risking fake afking is also risking high probability of not getting back in time too) - and it's short enough it's not even going to last their whole turn 😄

Since can switch between WiFi -> data and vice versa if either drops, easy enough fallback that takes a few seconds tops - but if you're pc / WiFi only or passing through an underground tunnel or whatever, would need a bit longer understandably

That said I'm not voting here, wanted to share my thoughts 🙏

[tacit oracle]

I honestly think 3 minutes would be the sweet spot, as sometimes disconnects cant be fixed by one launch and can be buggy. when playing with poor connection, it sometimes took me 2 minutes or so and likely sometimes a bit over.

[heavy void]

I'd say the disconnect timing should be round based and not time based. If it's time based then it encourages stalling until the time limit is up to ensure disconnected player gets lowest score.

To address Aces point about it being longer and quicker in different instances, I think is a benefit and not a con. When it's a full lobby and more time passes, then the player should have more time to rejoin. Once it's in the 3p endgame, the rounds are much quicker and a fake bot out or bot out in general should not be rewarded, so less time on the clock to rejoin.

[dense flame]

I was about to say exactly the same thing

[heavy void]

❤️

[stuck ocean]

If people stall to "hurt you" that just gives you more time to get back into the game before its your turn and the bot ruins everything for you (as long as you lost connection).

I think a reasonable time to actually be able to reboot your router / PC should matter more than number of turns, and also easier to relate to as a user. I have no idea how many turns you have played while my wifi was down, but I am able to calculcate how many seconds I have left to re-join.

[elfin valve]

Exactly my thought process! 💯

[elfin valve]

We're not encouraging stalling anyways. Stallers get punished (at least that's what we're hoping)

What this idea is trying to figure out is what an appropriate time would be for someone who disconnected to get back in. It doesn't take me "2 turns" to get back in no, it takes me about 30 seconds. Some people are not as fast, so maybe make it 60 seconds.

[celest sky]

Exactly this. The time should be calculable for the player who has no idea what's going on in the game. I've had to fully restart my computer before

[stuck ocean]

I am more eager to remove the "fake neutral bot" stalling adding troops after 10~seconds EACH TURN for like 1000 minutes

[celest sky]

I personally think the ideal system would be this: If you disconnect or time out, the game pauses for everyone for a couple minutes. That way players aren't forced to hit each other in the endgame. The timer for that player to get back in is readily visible. If they don't get back in within the window the bot just takes over as normal, but the player obviously can't get back in. If the player does rejoin then the game continues. They can only disconnect for a total amount of time in a game (maybe 3 minutes. Max of 2 minutes each time.) before they are completely removed.

I think of it like the board game. If a player were to get up to go to the bathroom or take a phone call the other players wouldn't just keep playing while they were gone. You would wait for them to get back.

[noble elbow]

No

That is a way for players to stall without needing to be there, it’s a good way for them to be able to look away, and after a minute look back, and pause the game repeatedly.

Stalling like this could be prevented, but considering that stalling the game ordinarily has not been automated to be prevented, I doubt this would be automated to prevent stalling

It’s a good idea, but it would likely make the game worse overall rather than better due to people being… well, you know.

[uncut kernel]

I would say that 30 seconds is just too short for internet connection to come back, and 2 minutes or more can already have significant effects on the game state (e.g. the next player ignoring the bot to focus on a human opponent).

60 Seconds would barely give the next player in turn order time to mistakenly react to a disconnect. You'll know if someone becomes a bot, they'll actually stay one.

Note
I could imagine a longer return time for Casual lobbies, because the stakes are lower.

[uncut kernel]

As Ace said, it would be a limited total extra time. So you can't use it to stall effectively, since it's only 1 or 2 turns

[orchid pumice]

Hmm yeah I wonder if casual private should stick with longer or not too - as less concerned about stalling there