discouraging quitters

[Swardar]

i've recieved numerous replies about quitters such as "if you don't want the frustration of quitters, join the ladder"

many people in the lobby complain about wasting hours of time with quitters, and the grief it is causing them, and possibly causing them to stop playing wesnoth altogether. i'm not entirely sure how this 'ladder' thing works, but i think it requires registration at different web sites? and having to return to them after each game? this doesn't seem right. especially when you can't even alt+tab out of the game (at least i can't, and i use full screen mode)

i believe there should be something from discouraging players from quitting games so often, a rating system might help, but i don't think you guys are going to do that, there are other options. one way i found that seemed to work quite well (at another website: http://www.casualcollective.com) uses a reliability rating. i believe this is how it works: it keeps track of the last 20 games played, and gives a rating of Poor, Ok, Good, or Great, depending on how many of those 20 games that player quit. if your rating is Ok than only players of greater than or equal to Ok will be able to see your game in the lobby, meaning the Poor players will not be able to join your game(players with Poor rating will probably have quit 75% of their last 20 games played). the problem is many times games end here without finishing all the way, maybe you could add an option that ends the game early with all players in agreement, or a resign button if the whole team agrees, to end the game early, so as not to count as a 'quit'.

this is only 1 suggestion, which may or may not work for wesnoth, but i do believe something should be done to discourage quitters, and keep players from quitting, and wasting time/ getting upset

this is only 1 suggestion, please try to do something about this obvious problem (just spend 30min, if that, in a lobby)

edit: *typos* i believe the current "join the ladder" suggestion is lame, and a game should not require players to go out of their way to make the game more tolerable, i believe this is a problem with the game, and not the players, which should be looked at.
if the ladder is so important i believe it should just be implemented into the game itself.

[Molean]

From what I read in another post somewhere on something slightly similar, that would require players register, which is undesirable I guess, though I suppose it could be optional. The other is that it would require too much of a change on how the servers work.

[PsychoticKittens]

it would also have to define "quitting" not everytime you leave a game before its over is a "quit" or atleast the host should be able to make it so that the leave doesn't count against them if you put in something like this.

[thespaceinvader]

Indeed. Whilst I agree that unexpected quits are annoying you'd have to cope with a number of issues: quitting by agreement, for instance. When I play 1v1 games and a mirror comes up, I tend to agree to quit out with my opponent and start again, because mirrors are dull. You'd also have to deal with disconnections, where the person who d/cs then returns as soon as they can. And you'd have to cope with the fact that even after the death of all their units, a player is still nominally in the game, despite there not being much point in staying...

[Swardar]

on the undesirable to register comment, i fall into that group, my reasons being as i see no reason to, it doesn't help gameplay any, and it's only a name, and partly because i am lazy and there's not even mention of being able to register until you get into multiplayer and read the lobby chat (adding a simple link one could click would make it seem less tedious and probably get more people to register).

i'm not sure how servers are work, and i know the rule 'keep it simple' is tossed around alot, but as i see it now it's not simple, it is 'nothing'. surely there has to be a simple way to discourage players from quitting, or to realize who's more likely to quit than others to make the choice of who to play with easier to make.

i believe i already mentioned what psychotic was commenting on in the original post.

disconnections happen in games, though i agree it's alot easier in turn based games for a player to come back right away and continue(though in my past experience sometimes they come back and join a different game, while the others are still waiting in the game he left...). Being able to know who is more likely to disconnect between players wouldn't be a bad thing, i'd much rather play with an unknown with a stable connection than an unknown who disconnects alot, that is, playing with more reliable players.

and your last point i believe i discussed in the original post as well, having a feature to "resign" or "forfeit" or "surrender" early, before all units are lost, i believe would be the easiest way to fix this. I understand some players like to play to the end, even though they know they've won already, but forcing someone to play a lost game isn't right. this would not help if anyone can just hit 'surrender' on the 1st or 2nd turn though, both would have to agree, or maybe you can only surrender if you are down by X income or X villages.

I understand some things may be complicated, but right now i see there being nothing at all, and i'm asking for a simple something, I hope the developers can find a something for this, surely the simplest something can't be that complicated.

edit: i would gladly register if there were a better reason to, such as a rating, or able to find more reliable games easier

[melinath]

edit: i would gladly register if there were a better reason to, such as a rating, or able to find more reliable games easier

I know nothing of this 'ladder' system you referred to a lot in your first post; however, I can tell you that when you register for the forums, the name you register with is automatically registered with the multiplayer server as well.

In principle, I like the idea of knowing that my opponent is a reliable person; in practice, I fear this idea may fall by the wayside, since it's neither trivial nor necessary (to my limited judgement.)

[Swardar]

i've been playing wesnoth for a long time now, didn't register for over a year after playing, this is an old name, but i just tried it and yes, i guess it is registered, and i'll be playing under this name now, i know i said i was asking in my earlier posts, bad word choice, i'm not asking for anything, just hoping i like wesnoth, hope it does well in the future, and if this issue isn't worth fixing, or the devs don't think it's as big as i do, then thats the end of it. i hope wesnoth continues to improve and does well

[lotsofphil]

especially when you can't even alt+tab out of the game (at least i can't, and i use full screen mode)

Offtopic, but if you are using Windows, try hitting the start button on the keyboard. It should bring you to your desktop.

[Caphriel]

Or stop playing in full-screen mode.

Never mind the difficulties already brought up in implementing your system, but it's easily circumvented by changing ones nickname.

I frankly don't think the game should implement something like this. The problem is not with the game; the problem is with the community. Therefore, solutions should be community based, on an opt-in basis (such as the ladder, or playing with your registered forum name.)

i would gladly register if there were a better reason to, such as a rating, or able to find more reliable games easier

The ladder includes both of these. But it's only for default 1v1 games.

I've noticed that certain non-standard game types, such as survival and RPGs, tend to suffer worse from people leaving. This is probably because these games take much longer, and because if your singe unit falls behind the other players, you stop having fun.

[Noy]

i've recieved numerous replies about quitters such as "if you don't want the frustration of quitters, join the ladder"

many people in the lobby complain about wasting hours of time with quitters, and the grief it is causing them, and possibly causing them to stop playing wesnoth altogether. i'm not entirely sure how this 'ladder' thing works, but i think it requires registration at different web sites? and having to return to them after each game? this doesn't seem right. especially when you can't even alt+tab out of the game (at least i can't, and i use full screen mode)

i believe there should be something from discouraging players from quitting games so often, a rating system might help, but i don't think you guys are going to do that, there are other options. one way i found that seemed to work quite well (at another website: http://www.casualcollective.com) uses a reliability rating. i believe this is how it works: it keeps track of the last 20 games played, and gives a rating of Poor, Ok, Good, or Great, depending on how many of those 20 games that player quit. if your rating is Ok than only players of greater than or equal to Ok will be able to see your game in the lobby, meaning the Poor players will not be able to join your game(players with Poor rating will probably have quit 75% of their last 20 games played). the problem is many times games end here without finishing all the way, maybe you could add an option that ends the game early with all players in agreement, or a resign button if the whole team agrees, to end the game early, so as not to count as a 'quit'.

A rating system would do nothing of the sort. It would encourage far more anti-social behavior as people would only care about winning and stats, nothing of the actual social effects. Want to have less quitters? Find people who you play with regularly and can trust to play with respect and at a sufficient skill level. Thats the whole purpose of the friends list. The people who complain about quitters the most are often the ones who encourage bad behavior in the first place.

And since this is a Frequently Proposed Idea, its getting Locked.