Counter for Multiplayer Quiters...

[NoQ]

"Shaming" quitters isn't the right solution, since, as Per mentioned, many people don't think it's a bad thing.

Well, it is just obvious that once we do rank calculations it's necessary to discriminate between quitting and surrendering.

[Iluvalar]

but I don't think the game itself should have any bias about which is better.

My suggestion doesn't make that strong bias. But as NoQ said, many people leave 30 seconds before they lose to keep their ranking. Or they ragequit 20-25 minutes before the end of the game. Leaving their teamates in a difficult, unpleasant situation.

Stop coming out with SC2 please ! We have our own community. That's actually rude to come here and say : "hey ! those players in that other game know more how to manner". Here, we all hate early quitters. Probably because we mostly play in 8 players game where it can really brake the fun of the others.

Now, if you want to quit when you have nothing else remaining or when the game is obviously lost (I even encourage that at some pathetic point), it's ok. It's normal. And since I fixed that quitter star by looking at normal gamers, you should easily oscillate between silver and gold "quitter ranking" anyway. Look at my screen. everybody (or so) have a silver star. Mango had a new account that day...

[effigy]

I'll admit most of my anti-quit mentality is something left lingering from my early MP days. At this time ripple rockets were considered OP (and they were) to the point that literally once 1 team got them, no matter how close the other team was to being able to CB them, the team memebers still waiting for ripples would quit immediately 1-by-1. This amounted to most games being played until ripples, or rather, until they became challenging, and I feel better about winning a challenging game than winning a noob stomp.

Like Iluvalar said, it's mainly the team games were this is problem, because as I mentioned above, there are still quite a few players around that will quit once the match becomes a challenge for them, and that's actually more of a game decider than that player having lost 1/2 their base, or all their oil.

It's negligible in FFA, though it can give player nearby the quiter a big advantage.

I agree there should be a difference from surrendering and quitting. IIRC in SC there is a special screen to offer truce (lol, sorry ilu).

[Iluvalar]

When your odds are really that bad, commiting suicide, by destroying your own factory and sending your trucks in the enemy side is not really hard or long.

I think about something else : how about counting the power production proportion : your_team_wells*num_team/(all_built_wells*minutes) ?

This could help to debunk both A) players that retreat with no chance at all (like making the last vtol survive for ever) (having very low amount of oil per minute). B) players that tend to camp in front of their opponents instead of giving a last honorable blow (having an extreme high amount of oil for a long period).

[Per]

I don't understand. What would/should be the difference between quitting and surrendering?

Our current community is shaped by the fact that we do not have rankings. Once we get those, the community and community demands will be different, too. Entrenching rules now based on the current situation may be a bad idea.

Finally, and more personally, occasionally when I play, I encounter a turtler that I cannot breach, and who has managed to grab enough resources to tech up and defend, while I wasted my resources attacking. Eventually I know that he will win because of this advantage, but how long should I wait for him to come out of his shell and finish the game off? 10 minutes? 20? 30? He may just be sitting there building up an enormous force to humiliate me, knowing that I cannot win. Why should I not just quit? He has been playing like a coward and I see no reason to give him the satisfaction of running over my base. Getting a meta-game penalty for quitting in such circumstances would really turn me off the entire meta-game.

[Iluvalar]

I don't understand. What would/should be the difference between quitting and surrendering?

The lost count for the medal you have.

Per, I said that star was calibrated so you are not punished by eternal humiliation. I fixed that star using stats we already had before. You will not feel oppressed by the evil quitter ranking ^^.

[effigy]

....

Finally, and more personally, occasionally when I play, I encounter a turtler that I cannot breach, and who has managed to grab enough resources to tech up and defend, while I wasted my resources attacking. Eventually I know that he will win because of this advantage, but how long should I wait for him to come out of his shell and finish the game off? 10 minutes? 20? 30? He may just be sitting there building up an enormous force to humiliate me, knowing that I cannot win. Why should I not just quit? He has been playing like a coward and I see no reason to give him the satisfaction of running over my base. Getting a meta-game penalty for quitting in such circumstances would really turn me off the entire meta-game.

I assume in this situation you are in a game with 1 player per team. I'd say it's your own estimation based on what chances you think you have to break your opponents defense. There's a lot of variables in this equation. If we're talking deep into T3 I'd try for 10 minutes more; if we're talking late T1 or early T2 I'd try for another 1/2 hour.

If you're talking about a game with more than 1 player per team IMO it aught to be a team choice to quit (surrender).

I think surrendering is more an option we'd like to see for when a host quits. If a non host feels overwhelmed and quits he saves rank, and the host earns it. If a host quits early then he saves rank while the non hosts suffers.