A Path Beyond Can we discourage people from RQ?

[des1206]

Look, no one likes to be on a losing team I get it, especially a bad team that you know will not win the game, yet not so bad as to lose within the next 5-10 minutes. However, I noticed some players consistently dropping out at the first few signs of a losing match (I'm looking at you UncleGrandma). Sometimes, it is just good sportsmanship to stick it out and fight the good fight. I mean, if you fought hard on the winning side (or if you are not a quitter on the losing side), do you want to see players on the other side quickly drop off?

I hope you guys agree with me here. That being said, is there anyway we can discourage RQ? Reporting and penalty for people who do it often? reccomendations for people who stick it out? Any ideas guys? 

 

 

[ChopBam]

13 minutes ago, des1206 said:

Look, no one likes to be on a losing team I get it, especially a bad team that you know will not win the game, yet not so bad as to lose within the next 5-10 minutes. However, I noticed some players consistently dropping out at the first few signs of a losing match (I'm looking at you UncleGrandma). Sometimes, it is just good sportsmanship to stick it out and fight the good fight. I mean, if you fought hard on the winning side (or if you are not a quitter on the losing side), do you want to see players on the other side quickly drop off?

I hope you guys agree with me here. That being said, is there anyway we can discourage RQ? Reporting and penalty for people who do it often? reccomendations for people who stick it out? Any ideas guys? 

 

 

When I'm on the obvious losing side, I try not to RQ. I've done it before, but only in cases where I felt I couldn't have any fun at all by staying. That's an important point: staying ingame needs to be able to be fun. If my base is clearly dying and my team is clearly struggling or just plain bad, and using my player slot for defense isn't helping at all, I'll go on a personal romp to the enemy base to see if I can do any damage. After all, if most of the enemy team is in or on the way to my base, I could be helping out my team by actually attacking. This could distract some of their players or actually even do major damage to their war efforts. It's worth a shot and many times beats just sitting in the base getting killwhored. Love shotties for this reason. They're the perfect cheap assault infantry and don't even require a Barracks to purchase.

[forg0ten1]

rage is the essence of apb

[MPRA2]

Sorry M8.... I'm a wild soul that Ragequits from everything and anything at any given moment.... other than temp banning for ragequitting, there really isnt much you can do to stop or punish ragequitters... the game isnt that advanced.....

[GaryOak]

Having recently discovered the rank listings, I suppose that they play a major factor in people RQing -- those people want to preserve their place in the rankings. The motivation of 'being one of the best there is at your hobby' is probably pretty strong, especially when it's apb, which to be fair doesnt have as much players as starcraft, for example.  

So yeah, should we maybe think of ways to penalise that? I remember COD having a system that sort of penalises your overall EXP if you quit a game early. Should something like that be done? 

It wouldn't make much of a difference for the casual APB players like me, as we don't care too much about the rankings anyway; we'll never be on top. The top players, however, play much more than casual players - asking them to finish all their games in order to yield proper rank points shouldnt be too much of an issue, IMO. How do you think about it?

[MPRA2]

1 minute ago, GaryOak said:

Having recently discovered the rank listings, I suppose that they play a major factor in people RQing -- those people want to preserve their place in the rankings. The motivation of 'being one of the best there is at your hobby' is probably pretty strong, especially when it's apb, which to be fair doesnt have as much players as starcraft, for example.  

So yeah, should we maybe think of ways to penalise that? I remember COD having a system that sort of penalises your overall EXP if you quit a game early. Should something like that be done? 

It wouldn't make much of a difference for the casual APB players like me, as we don't care too much about the rankings anyway; we'll never be on top. The top players, however, play much more than casual players - asking them to finish all their games in order to yield proper rank points shouldnt be too much of an issue, IMO. How do you think about it?

I mean, Since players don't USUALLY care about their rank.... But.. I was gonna say that if the server recognizes that you ragequit too much, it'll down-rank you by half a rank each RQ... (I dont exactly know how many ranks there are, but assuming there aren't many, there would have to be smaller penalties)

I'd also think that if you RQ too much that next time you join the game it zeros you out in credits, while everyone else starts with like 250 or 300 (not entirely sure how much you get at the beginning of a match). Or you could make the starting score a negative value, and keep increasing it with each ragequit... I'd love to start with a -69000 score.

Other than that, as a player who knows next to nothing about the game and it's engine, and penalties that you can administer....... We'd need to let the devs figure that one out.

[Pushwall]

15 minutes ago, GaryOak said:

Having recently discovered the rank listings, I suppose that they play a major factor in people RQing -- those people want to preserve their place in the rankings.

...how does that work though? Sticking around for a lost game doesn't hurt your ranking any more than ragequitting does. Surely sticking around is actually better as you can get more points and kills and stand a better chance at getting your team's recommendations. If you quit while a game's in progress it still counts as a game played on your record, which I'm sure then either counts as a win/loss based on whether your team actually won or not, or is just an automatic loss. The only thing ragequitting protects is your kd which has precisely 0 effect on your ranking.

[GaryOak]

3 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

...how does that work though? Sticking around for a lost game doesn't hurt your ranking any more than ragequitting does. Surely sticking around is actually better as you can get more points and kills. If you quit while a game's in progress it still counts as a game played on your record, which I'm sure then either counts as a win/loss based on whether your team actually won or not, or is just an automatic loss.

Hmm yeah, but I mean individual stats monitored per game like overall k/d ratio, kills scored per class etc. 

 

or do you reckon that absolutely no one cares about that? You guys probably have a better view on this than I do, lol. Just trying to think with the OP

EDIT: I have a pretty reasonable idea:

Just let the server track how many games a player actually completes. That way, we can see that a player is ranked one, but also that he completes only 50% of the games he plays -- whereas the player ranked 2 completes 70% of the games he plays, but scores lower in points and kills per game. 

Edited May 24, 2017 by GaryOak

[Pushwall]

17 minutes ago, GaryOak said:

Hmm yeah, but I mean individual stats monitored per game like overall k/d ratio, kills scored per class etc. 

 

or do you reckon that absolutely no one cares about that? You guys probably have a better view on this than I do, lol. Just trying to think with the OP

Considering that those dissolve into your total rank/stats after the end of a game and thus can't be tracked individually, yeah.

Back at BHP, oxi removed the KD and deaths columns from the rank stats amidst concerns of toxic players hiding from big matches so that they can instead camp newbies to death in small games to selfishly preserve and build their own KD at the expense of a bunch of newer players deciding to never play the game again because of what they saw in their first experience with the game. Maybe it's time for that to return so the KD whores have less excuse to ragequit or force newbies to ragequit? @triattack @moonsense715

[GaryOak]

Just now, Pushwall said:

Considering that those dissolve into your total rank/stats after the end of a game and thus can't be tracked individually, yeah.

Back at BHP, oxi removed the KD and deaths columns from the rank stats amidst concerns of toxic players hiding from big matches so that they can instead camp newbies to death in small games to selfishly preserve and build their own KD at the expense of a bunch of newer players deciding to never play the game again because of what they saw in their first experience with the game. Maybe it's time for that to return? @triattack @moonsense715

Aah okay! Well considering what you have said, I would think that the things that I've pointed out are only a small part of the RQ problem. It does then not seem to have to do much with rankings, at least. 

So I guess the next question would be as to what RQ is really about. Boredom? Not personally wanting to lose?

 

[Einstein]

I have on occasion quit a match (though I really do try to stick it out) as a sort of "anti-Ransik" maneuver. What I mean, is that if I detect that sticking around will mean that it is impossible to escape splash damage from mammy tusks, phases, arty, v2 spam no matter where I spawn next, I might leave just to help the match end because I feel like the other team may not be wanting the match to end, for the purpose of boosting their own KD. Otherwise, I think I play the underdog position quite well and take difficult situations as a new challenge

[Pyryle]

On 5/22/2017 at 6:14 PM, des1206 said:

(I'm looking at you UncleGrandma).

I once played a game of APB a while ago where it was just me vs him, and he/she/it said "Sorry, I don't play with losers" and left the game, just because I'm the only other player in the server. I'm pretty sure it's because of the fit he/she/it had when I was wrecking him in rebarn a few years earlier, and ended up getting kicked by someone else as a result of his/her/their excess salt.

It's ironic, because a move/gesture like that coming from somebody calling someone else a loser is just poor show.

[SarahNautili]

You know singular "their" works just as well as "his/her/their". Also referring to someone as "it" is pretty dehumanizing. Even if they are an asshole? I wouldn't know haven't seen them enough to have an opinion on them. 

[NodGuy]

I tend to only "rage quit" when I just feel that I'm doing very badly and I know I won't be coming back to the game for a while. I won't leave a round just to return for the next one, because what's the point? I'd rather earn more points, hopefully get some kills, and reduce my next-rank round requirement by one.

4 hours ago, Pushwall said:

toxic players hiding from big matches so that they can instead camp newbies to death in small games to selfishly preserve and build their own KD at the expense of a bunch of newer players deciding to never play the game again because of what they saw in their first experience with the game. Maybe it's time for that to return so the KD whores have less excuse to ragequit or force newbies to ragequit?

While I'm sure that happens so people can easily boost their KDR stat, I bet they and others would just as well do it to increase their points to gain rank faster. I don't see how removing the KDR stat will fix this issue.

I think most of those who rage quit do it because they don't want to deal with their team getting absolutely crushed. They don't feel like spawning where the enemies might be and instantly dying. They don't feel like trying to defend against an enemy attack when they have a less experienced team. Etc. etc. Thus they leave and return for the next round. Not only that, but how do we know someone has rage quit unless they state they'e doing so? If they die and leave they could just feel that they're not doing so good and will have a go later on.

I think trying to punish them is wrong because it's their mind set to leave when losing that badly and implementing punishments will not change that, in fact it would most likely just push them away from the game. I mean, if them rage quitting is a habit then why would they want to return for the next round with no starting credits or negative score (yes, I know this wasn't your suggestion)? The only thing I would support is if that you're not in the game when the round ends then any points you accumulated do not count. However I'm not sure if this is possible for this game and yes, it would suck for those who crash and cannot rejoin in time but I would assume it's rare to crash right before the round ends.

Edited May 24, 2017 by NodGuy

[SarahNautili]

losing all your points for stat purposes would suck for people who crash, for people who get called away right before the match ends... hell I know it'd personally suck for me because I've got a medical condition that means I have to bathroom break *often* and sometimes I figure I'll be away long enough that it's better to leave and let someone else join on my team who will be active.

 

 

Honestly the best way to keep people from ragequitting is keep the game from being extremely unfun. Which Delta has gone a long way towards doing with the faster economy, faster infantry movement, more survivable infantry, etc etc. not much more to do.

[Testament]

Rage quitting at least in any case where I have participated in it stems from people who are on a stacked team, who proceed to clear out our buildings and do nothing but use anti-infantry units to kill whore and pad their KD ratio with.

For sure take away the K/D ranking and the deaths ranking but preserve the kill number. I personally don't see K/D as having any value as some really great players do oodles of damage and die twice as much or more than they kill. I also like Gary's idea regarding a stat but can see some conflicts with the actual implementation of it.

Similarly, In my personal experience have found it frustrating that when people leave it can skew the teams rosters a ridiculous amount or lead to the other person on the enemy team leaving. It'd be nice to see some way in order to change over to losing teams or low player teams when the player count is low. Either by just allowing it, or having a vote not unlike the system Jerad has implemented in his project.

58 minutes ago, SarahNautili said:

You know singular "their" works just as well as "his/her/their". Also referring to someone as "it" is pretty dehumanizing. Even if they are an asshole? I wouldn't know haven't seen them enough to have an opinion on them. 

With a name like "UncleGrandma", (which doesn't exactly make much sense in the whole noun/pronoun game) one can assume Pyryle was poking fun at the name, as I and many others have done before.

[devilslayersbane]

When I ragequit, it's mostly because of 2-3 reasons that make the game not fun for me anymore:

1) I feel as though a player has specifically targeted me to killwhore over and over and said player typically has a high-tier character (tanya or volkov, with the latter being the more infuriating)

2) My team lost 1-2 major structures in the first 5 minutes of the game and now the other team seems to be dragging out the rest of the match for a killwhore session to boost their rank (because kills gets ranks)

3) My team decided to quit leaving me and 2-3 other people trying desperately to defend against 6 or more with none of the admins deciding to balance the teams to any degree. I know that can't always be done, but hell, having more people on a team makes numbers 1 and 2 way less likely to happen.

Ultimately my suggestion is to see if there isn't a way to get the bot to balance the teams without making those players start all over from scratch or interrupting a current attack. E.g. you won't be swapped until you die. Then if players return you get swapped back the next time you die (obviously, the latter would make !killme be a bit more abused, but for the most part that's a moot point). It'd also be nice to have some sort of limit on the number of spies. Too many times have I seen a losing soviet team that looks balanced only because of spies. It's very rage inducing.

[Raptor29aa]

There is no way to punish a ragequit.

What you can do is make incentives to stay... aka provide hope.

Secondly you can add deterrents to killwhoring.

For starters basic infantry are more able to kill tanks in this version compared to others (I think). And I am mostly sure shotguns still do armor damage.

Mammoth splash through walls is not as bad as previously. Soviet Starsha's still have a powerful secondary purposefully designed to kill indoor tanyas. Captains can still destroy Flame towers/ Pill boxes. Phase tanks have a radar signature so they can no longer troll run over soviets. Even Building Roofs are accessible for defensive purposes! Some maps even have bunkers or tunnels to hide in. In KOTG I've used the tunnels as to not be killwhored.

So yes each map has some sort of hope system put into it.

But now the larger question what is to deter the provocateurs? I'll admit crushing your opponent, and getting the highest K/D is awesome... Although, A Path Beyond was built on the objective of killing the base not players. So I assume that I should keep my attention on the objective.

[Voe]

You people are control freaks and are willing to fix something which isn't broken. You can't design a rigid system which would account for all the nuances of every single player playing the game. Drop the topic before something breaks for real.

[Raap]

You can remove K/D or Death scores but you'd only really try to cure a symptom rather than the root of the problem.

What makes people ragequit most often? Not just quit because of a map coming up they do not like, but true rage quitting? That's purely dissatisfaction to the extreme due to the current match situation.

The root problem is actually two problems, from where I'm standing. The first problem is the most obvious; Games need to end faster when key production buildings are lost. I've beaten this horse to death but people still resist the idea, despite "farming" a team that cannot fight back properly being a recurring problem.

The second issue is going to be harder to solve, but is quite fundamental to the ragequit factor... Team distribution balancing. Right now the server just randomly throws people into a team from one match to another, with no reasoning in it. The result is a very random match outcome where playerskill often floats to one side meaning the other team is not going to have as much of a fun time as they could be having if teams were more balanced around a measurable concept of individual player skill. This is why research should be done towards creating a system that evenly distributes players between teams based on their ranking, to prevent a situation where AwesomePlayerA ends up in the same team as AwesomePlayerB and deciding the outcome of a match before it started.

So, more balanced teams, along with matches ending faster when critical production buildings are lost, should result in a faster map turnover rate, less stale farming matches, and in general higher retention as a result.

Naturally you can do more to improve on the ragequit issues, there is always general QoL changes you can make to the game, improve server and client performance, etc.

 

Edit: As for punishing a rage quit, what, are you serious? A ragequit is never truly voluntary, it is a breaking point in frustration, why punish a frustrated player... Do you want him or her to quit the game permanently? Madness.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Raap

[des1206]

1 hour ago, Raap said:

The root problem is actually two problems, from where I'm standing. The first problem is the most obvious; Games need to end faster when key production buildings are lost. I've beaten this horse to death but people still resist the idea, despite "farming" a team that cannot fight back properly being a recurring problem.

I actually support that. What if a 5 minute timer gets activated after all the main production buildings get destroyed that will end the game automatically? However, the losing team should have a way to veto this if they want.

1 hour ago, Raap said:

Edit: As for punishing a rage quit, what, are you serious? A ragequit is never truly voluntary, it is a breaking point in frustration, why punish a frustrated player... Do you want him or her to quit the game permanently? Madness.

I think there are two types of RQers. There is the UncleGrandma type of players who ALWAYS RQ as soon as it becomes apparent their side is likely going to lose, but when they are on the winning side, they take their time to enjoy beating you down as they win the match. 

The other type is the occasional RQ players who just don't want to waste the next 15 minutes being kill-whored by the winning team. I get that.

[NoSpoons]

10 hours ago, Testament said:

With a name like "UncleGrandma", (which doesn't exactly make much sense in the whole noun/pronoun game) one can assume Pyryle was poking fun at the name, as I and many others have done before.

I believe he was referring to an inhumane player who used to go by the name of Ransik, he is basically the godfather of killwhoring and was cancer to this community, he was the reason why many stopped playing APB a while back, myself included. anyway

 

It is a general rule in game design not to literally punish your player base unless they are hackers, the most successful recorded way these sorts of issues are dealt with is with positive reinforcement, such as giving the losing team reasons to keep playing as stated above but its not so simple, the more you fiddle with balancing and matchmaking in order to shift the power between players the more artificial the matches become, it can be fun to be on the underdog team and win because of a clever attack but opportunities for this differentiation in game play would be lost with a match making balance, not to mention the fact that the community is not big enough for a match making algorithm to function correctly.

for example lets use AwesomePlayerA and AwesomePlayerB as examples, they are both at the top of the rankings board vying for the highest rank however because of the new match making algorithm AwesomePlayerA and AwesomePlayerB never get to play on the same team ever again, can you see how this will trickle down?

I stand by my opinion that the current system is at it's best and should not be tampered with unless someone has a truly novel idea, no more punishing, no more removing nice features and pls no match making.

 

 

[NodGuy]

8 hours ago, devilslayersbane said:

Ultimately my suggestion is to see if there isn't a way to get the bot to balance the teams without making those players start all over from scratch or interrupting a current attack. E.g. you won't be swapped until you die. Then if players return you get swapped back the next time you die (obviously, the latter would make !killme be a bit more abused, but for the most part that's a moot point). It'd also be nice to have some sort of limit on the number of spies. Too many times have I seen a losing soviet team that looks balanced only because of spies. It's very rage inducing.

If I participated in a successful rush only to be swapped to the other team when I died, I would just leave for that round anyway.

[Raap]

1 hour ago, NoSpoons said:

for example lets use AwesomePlayerA and AwesomePlayerB as examples, they are both at the top of the rankings board vying for the highest rank however because of the new match making algorithm AwesomePlayerA and AwesomePlayerB never get to play on the same team ever again, can you see how this will trickle down?

It'd become a rivalry, which is a good thing. 

The hope here is that, with time, AwesomePlayerA and B will be joined with AwesomePlayerC, D, E, F, and more. It is natural because the function of a ranking system is to be a ladder, someone HAS to take up those AwesomePlayerSpots and be assigned to different teams. Besides, you're quite possibly looking at a scenario where a matchmaker can also line up AwesomePlayerA and B to fight  AwesomePlayerC, D, E, and F, if the ranking scores balance out.

[FRAYDO]

I am very much against punishments for people who RQ. It's a natural thing to do, and I get that. You have to understand that people leave because by that point the game is not fun for them. Punishing them for leaving will only worsen it and ultimately drive them away from the game and our community. So please, no punishments or anything of the sort. Drop that notion now. Thank you.

On 5/22/2017 at 8:14 PM, des1206 said:

However, I noticed some players consistently dropping out at the first few signs of a losing match (I'm looking at you UncleGrandma)

Just a short story: Earlier tonight Einstein and I were playing on River Raid and we were down a War Factory and Ore Silo and surrounded by APCs and UncleGrandma happened to join our team. Was it a losing situation? Yes. Did his K/D get hurt getting mowed down by APCs and Artillery? Yes. BUT! He stuck around and enjoyed the match, and you know what? We actually won that one by points! lol @Einstein

Anyway, just wanted to throw some positivity his way.

[devilslayersbane]

I want to clarify my point here, as I feel as though some sort of mid-game matchmaking still stands. I have been a part of many games where after the loss of a ref and bar the ENTIRE other team left and DID NOT return after that game. Albeit, that was more common in Gamma, but still, it was really disheartening to see, especially considering I joined the BHP community during Gamma. I see things like the end-game, radar-dome-attached, time-limited vehicle reinforcements. I see that and the drastic increase in infantry-to-vehicle/building damage all as good things. However, those two things will not mitigate the 3-1 player ratio I encountered the other day when I was losing as the soviets. And all it seemed like the allies wanted to do was pick up a spy and killwhore with the vehicles that we bought (I'm looking at you @forg0ten1) which honestly is complete bullshit.

If a mid-game autobalance can't be a thing, then why not a volunteer or pity balance then? Like if the player ratio gets past 1.5-1 then the !swap option comes available again. That being said, I still see the ramifications of this potentially being abused where players quit to get certain people on their teams. I feel like @Raap has the better idea with the algorithmic approach, but even that can be manipulated and would need to be made to where if Player A is rank 1 and has a 10000 score lead on ranks 2-10, he won't be placed on teams with ONLY ranks 50-100, thus putting a larger emphasis on score.

I also feel as though support roles should play more into score, where healing a building provides maybe 80% of the score of damaging a player/building and getting the "fully repaired" message gives you 60%-70% of the score of killing that building, and I know this would give a bit of an allied bias, but I feel like a bit of a buff to the scores of medics and mechs for healing other players would be good too. Especially for mechs when it comes to healing vehicles that aren't bound to them, which would hopefully encourage ranger-mechs where a mech can get into an area heal the friendly vic, and then get out. Encourage score-whoring, not killwhoring. And to help subdue the allied bias this would give, only raise the scores wrought by this kind of support by 50-60%.

Also, maybe some sort of score for selling unbound vehicles to make sure that the soviets get something other than engi/tech spam.

Also, I'm not against removing K/D, but I'm also not against just removing it from affecting rank.

 

I kinda went and rambled here, so I did my best to sort my ideas out.

[Chaos_Knight]

I have to agree with Voe. Control freak mentality has to stop. No, I don't enjoy sitting in the last remaining building for some long minutes getting f*ed 6 ways from Sunday by the splash damage while "outside might as well be lava". This gives me Camos Crossing flashbacks. No thank you. Sure enough, I don't RQ per see, I just hide in some corner and alt-tab for YouTube until it's over but I understand why people might choose to.
I can also understand why some others might like their little final stand. Each to their own I guess.

The only feature we need is for "!swap" to once again being useable to balance out uneven player numbers. Aka so when it's like 8v6, player on the team of 8 can just use !swap to make it 7v7.

4 hours ago, devilslayersbane said:

If a mid-game autobalance can't be a thing,

Because it's totally fun to wreck several enemy critical structure(s) and then get autobalanced to them. Bonus points if you wrecked this/these building(s) solo. BF3/4 servers do that sometimes, and it's about 0/10 as far as fun factor goes.

Also the only thing which seems to contribute to your actual ranking on the global scoreboard are points. Unless I am wrong of course. And as far as "leveling up" goes, it seems to fill up points and kills gauges way before "games played" one anyway. At least for me.

[Jeod]

The only viable deterrent to killwhoring I've seen is the !surrender option, and with that we come full circle. The self-swap feature could be nice for when you have reasonable players who will use it, but the truth is there will be just as many if not more players who ignore that route in favor of being on the "winning" team.

If stats are the primary reason for killwhoring, perhaps stats could be adjusted to lend more value to the "speed" at which a round ends, and less value on the kills earned. After all, in C&C Mode, individual and team score is what earns you MVP, not K/D ratio. Hell, if it's possible, bonus points could be awarded to players whose team win a round within X amount of time. Not within the engine of course, but post-round via the stats system and bot.

"The Soviet Team was awarded 1500 bonus points each on RA_AS_Seamist last round for a quick and decisive victory!"

[Pushwall]

People repairing when they've already lost is bad enough, that'll cause people to do it intentionally to deny the points bonus... which then leads to more killwhoring and even more if it causes them to trip the "quick victory" threshold.

[Einstein]

Yeah @FRAYDO that was a fun match! Early on, I had just decided to repair the whole match because my connection was being bad, so I was donating everything I had and running wild with a techie. Perfect scenario where the "underdog" came out on top

On the subject at hand, lets look at another possible idea that I've heard before that hasn't been mentioned yet. Bots! Now before anyone freaks out and pushwall has an aneurysm, I only mean defender bots that hang around each base and don't wander, nor do they count as a player kill (anti-KD whore). I think the AR project is planning on doing something like this? @moonsense715 Basically there would be bots ingame that join or leave to help balance teams. So for example, one bot per player that it would take to have a balanced number on both teams. Now if you really wanted to get fancy, you could increase or decrease the amount of bots that spawn in based on something similar to the scoring algorithm mentioned earlier. If you have two elite players vs 3-4 normal or newbie ones, they don't necessarily need help. But if you have the opposite situation then they get a couple of bots.

Hope that makes sense.