Guild Wars 2

Today I had 3 games in a row with leavers. And because 1 player left anotherone left when we could maybe won the 4v5.

What do you guys think about a good punishment for leavers?

“Leaving rated arena games will punish players with a Dishonorable debuff. Each stack of dishonor lasts for 72 hours. If a player has the maximum amount of dishonor (5 stacks), they will be prevented from joining rated games.” [source]

Tl;dr doesn’t deter players, most don’t even know about it.

they could implement a handicap system , where the team with less players would get more points and such , so it could kick in after 30 seconds(just in case some 1 leaves in teh last 20 seconds for a fast point score)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dishonor-BROKE-the-GAME-constructive-fix/page/2#post3007979

Don’t worry bro i gotcha

Allie Murdock.8152:

Was it that players were leaving, or just not showing up?

I see people leaving more often than never showing up. Even more often than that you have people who will stand afk at spawn if the beginning of the match goes poorly.

Kentrey.3251:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dishonor-BROKE-the-GAME-constructive-fix/page/2#post3007979

Don’t worry bro i gotcha

“User was infracted for this post”
I thought it was a good topic……

Allie Murdock.8152:

Was it that players were leaving, or just not showing up?

@Allie Murdock

“Its prolly about 50-26-24.
50% leavers Quit or never joined
26% afk or DC for 3-4mins at the start just to come back to avoid the dishonor buff! LOL
24% who afk at spawn the whole game.”

I posted this 2 months ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Anet-help-us-Fix-Dishonor-pls-50-26-24/first#post2625158

Out of the last 7 games I played, 4 on my side were 4v5. Either people didn’t show up at all, or left early on, or stayed afk at base.

It is way beyond tolerable by now.

First, a big thank-you to the OP – I’ve made a good half-dozen posts on this topic, as have many others, and this is the first dev response I’ve seen…so bravo.

Second, another thank-you to you Allie for this small but necessary and important step in addressing this real and painful issue. I also want to thank-you because now I can finally buy some more bank space…after the endless silence and lack of response or action on the 4v5 problem I swore I would not buy any more gems nor play non-tPvP sPvP until something was done…this is a start, hopefully in good faith, so the former at least I can now do.

As for the problem, it seems to me there are 4 types of uneven strength matches:

1) Matches which are uneven strength from match entry to match start
2) Matches which start at even strength but where players leave
3) Matches which start at even strength but some players are AFK
4) Matches which start at even strength, where players leave and return

I think it is important to recognize the different types, and also recognize which can be coded against and which can’t. I also think it is VERY important for ANet to not fail to do something on the issue in general, simply because some of specific causes have no (easy) solutions. Half a loaf is definitely better than none in this case.

So, by type:

1) Matches which are uneven strength from match entry to match start
This, in my view, is where ANet has the easiest job, and the best change of helping their customers with a few very simple modifications. In my opinion, no match should ever start if the teams are not at even strength…this seems obvious, as why would you want to deliver with absolute certainty an unpleasant and frustrating experience to your customers…but clearly this is not the case.

To address this specific type/issue, I recommend:

-Adding an audible alert to the ‘Match Entry’ window, that tells people the queue is up and where upon clicking the appropriate option you will enter the match. Considering queue times, there is no doubt many of the matches which start at uneven strength are due to the player simply being away from their keyboard, tabbed out to another window and so on. There are audible alerts for countless other in game events and dialogues which are of far less importance, it seems absurd that there is none here. Adding am audible alert could be done immediately and would without question eliminate at least SOME of the uneven strength match starts.

-Move the ‘Ready Check’ to prior to match entry, OR add a 2nd ready check
This again seems obvious…having a ready check before match entry would eliminate a portion of these matches.

-Add logic for match start that verifies player status
It is not clear exactly why matches start at uneven strength, and not clear from the questions Allie has asked if ANet even knows why. That is to say, when we as players sees only 4 names in the team list, it is possible that the game sees a team has all 5 players…but one may be in a different state in the process of connecting to the match/map and so on.

That said, it IS clear that the game is able to detect the states and status of players, for things such as when to display their name in the team list, AFK detection (which is very sensitive for some game areas, triggering even after a short duration of no player input) the physical location of players and so on. The game could detect and decide that a match is not even strength, regardless of the fuzzy status of the missing player, and do various things accordingly…extend the countdown timer, kick the player, refill the slot, kick a 5th player from the other team and start the match as 4v4 and so on…

I think most people would choose to be kicked back to the lobby and have to queue again, than have the unsatisfying and unpleasant experience of an uneven strength match. It is not fun for the losers to be sure. and even the winning team has had their game experience affected…potentially 9 people have had 10-15 minutes of their time wasted for the sake of 1 person, and in a painful fashion. Better to be kicked to lobby.

(continued)

2) Matches which start at even strength but where players leave
For this one, there are 2 different scenarios – one in which a player leaves the match, before it has started, during planning time, and the other where they leave after match start. In the former case, this is sometimes due to their wanting to change classes, having seen the make-up of the two teams – this is a desirable thing. and should not be coded against. For both cases, it can be a disconnection issue.

This complicates any code-based approach to this problem. There are things which could be done, such as a button like the Ready Check which can be clicked to indicate you are changing classes, which could even retain your team slot indicator with an icon indicating same. It could perhaps add or freeze the game countdown timer…this is something that would need a soft but dynamic solution

The other scenario, where they leave after match start, is a very common one and is often as a reaction to the early happenings in game, team performance and so on. There are three elements to this case of people leaving a match:

-What should happen to the ‘leaver’
-What should happen to the remaining players
-What should happen to the game

There are a range of options here, which could be used alone or in combination. For example, the current system which is designed to punish the person leaving the match…this could be modified or replace to make doing so more painful to that player. Instead of (just) denying access to sPvP, or say tPvP, there could be a penalty in the form of Rank loss, Glory loss or even restriction from some of the PvP game types—-Solo or Team queue for example, keeping Hotjoin accessible.

For the non-leavers, you have those on the under-manned team and those on the opposing team. Here we have options like the match not counting as a win or loss for the undermanned team, the match not counting as a win for the full-strength team, or some other mechanism to normalize the consequences according to the circumstances.

For the game match itself, again it could become unrated, not impacting the rankings in any way, it could seek to fill the empty spot or perhaps even some form of auto-balancing if appropriate – players moved to spectate or the other team, so as to equalize numbers.

3) Matches which start at even strength but some players are AFK
AFK detection as mentioned already exists as part of the game mechanics. A game could thus be flagged as uneven strength even if there are 5 players in the match and this be treated according to the above-mentioned suggestions. This would include penalties, however they should be less strict in triggering and nature as going AFK is sometimes necessary…the frequency and length of these periods should determine the consequences.

4) Matches which start at even strength, where players leave and return
There are three reasons for this as far as I can see – people changing classes, people losing connection and people trying to AFK and avoid the penalties. The need here would be to determine which of the 3 the AFK was, and this would depend on what the game can detect in terms of the circumstances…a disconnection for example should appear different from a logout and so on. If some code could be devised which could intelligently determine what the situation is, it could then apply the various actions as were warranted.

I think it is very important to recognize both how negatively impacting uneven strength is to a match, and how commonly it occurs…and that even the smallest things that can be done right away, should be done, even if other more difficult things are to be done down the line…the audible alert, the pre-match entry ready check…these things can and should be done right away, as they will help to a degree on their own.

Thanks for the effort in collecting information on this issue and thank-you for taking the time to read this. I hope we see some action on this in the very near future – it is rare that one has the opportunity to be 100% sure of making people happier, and ANet definitely has that opportunity here.

I think there should be a punishment but I had players today who Disconnected and reappear and apoligized, I have no problem with that, it happens, I had one today after 100+ solo queues for the first time that I disconnected, I had such rage over it, those are the players that needs punishment also. That guy was being a kittenbag in my opinion

I understand you want to win but come on, raging.

Anyway not sure but this is also a point thats needs a lot of attention. one point for leavers and another for disconnect, as I heard devs were already working on it but its been also months that they came up with a solution. REset button, requeue the 4 players and add another in queue with the 4 that are left, anything would be very much appreciated

Gz

Thanks for responding Allie. You folks have been very active on the forums lately!

In my experience the majority of 4v5s are instances of people never showing up or staying afk at the base.

I do get other kinds (people quitting partway through the game etc), but they’re in the minority. It was particularly bad during the free trial, I’m guessing cause newbies didn’t understand how the queue system works.