Draw-votes and Surrender-votes
Laosh'Ra
Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
<div class="IPBDescription">For stalemates and unbalanced/unpleasant matches</div>i know the introduction of the onos will probably fix stalemates, but there might be other matches which are doomed for various reasons.
what people usually do then, is either ragequit or joining the ready-room.
as a result, the rest of the team is fighting outnumbered but the match might still drag on for a certain period of time. sometimes, even new players join the server and assist the outnumbered team, prolonging it even further.
this can be frustrating for the people who play outnumbered, for the people who wait in the ready room and for the opponents which play on for the win, knowing that the match has become rather pointless.
so here's my suggestion, a voting-systel with 2 basic functions (aside from commander-eject):
1. a team can vote for surrender. if a majority agrees (100%?) before the vote expires, the team loses the match.
2. all participating players can vote for a draw. if a majority agrees (80%?) before the vote expires, a draw-message will be displayed and the match will be over.
edit: sorry i guess i posted in the wrong part of the forum. please move to ideas & suggestions.
what people usually do then, is either ragequit or joining the ready-room.
as a result, the rest of the team is fighting outnumbered but the match might still drag on for a certain period of time. sometimes, even new players join the server and assist the outnumbered team, prolonging it even further.
this can be frustrating for the people who play outnumbered, for the people who wait in the ready room and for the opponents which play on for the win, knowing that the match has become rather pointless.
so here's my suggestion, a voting-systel with 2 basic functions (aside from commander-eject):
1. a team can vote for surrender. if a majority agrees (100%?) before the vote expires, the team loses the match.
2. all participating players can vote for a draw. if a majority agrees (80%?) before the vote expires, a draw-message will be displayed and the match will be over.
edit: sorry i guess i posted in the wrong part of the forum. please move to ideas & suggestions.
Comments
It's already very easy to finish a match as either team; I believe stalemates are a commander problem, not a gameplay one.
The absolute easiest way to end the stalemates are for aliens to gorge/fade and rush, while the fades distract marines and gorges all bile bomb the comm chair. It would end the game in a matter of seconds. If needed, cyst marine base to halt turrents then rush. But aliens never communicate enough to get it done.
It's already very easy to finish a match as either team; I believe stalemates are a commander problem, not a gameplay one.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I dislike this method because its too close to griefing imo. What happens when a majority of the team wants to keep playing even though the comm has basically given up? A surrender vote is a much better implementation.
It's not going to stop a Com surrender, though. If enough people want to end the match, they can eject the Com and sell up. If the Com wants to end the match, he can sell up. We already have both of those systems in place.
<!--quoteo(post=1889511:date=Dec 9 2011, 04:12 PM:name={GGs} Chicken)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ({GGs} Chicken @ Dec 9 2011, 04:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1889511"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stalemates aren't a commander problem they are a team problem. Regular players just don't communicate or work together enough to get the job done. I've never tried your whip rush idea, but for long stalemate games, servers are usually running pretty poor already, a huge whip rush sounds like it would rape the server. Your dozen ARC idea would never ever work. Getting 240 res off of one RT takes forever, and even then trying to push them out while having them constantly defended wouldn't happen.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you have an entire map under your control, getting 240 res or 600 hive energy is incredibly easy. Just spend some of that accumulating resource on a massive overwhelming strike to obliterate the besieged team's final base. I find it interesting to hear you say that ARC rushes "never work", since I hear (and see) games ended with them all the time.
And I completely agree with Scardy, it seems a little silly that the ability to "concede" in the method we know should be up to the commander - even if the commander is supposed to be the "leader" of the team. You also have the social aspect of it, people don't like to voice their opinion most of the time that they want the commander to sell up, because others will get frustrated at a weak link in the chain, that is, someone who doesn't want to try anymore. At least with a concede button that people know is there (for instance, in the menu when you press escape, or a button you can bind in the menu with something on the HUD to alert the player), you can start the concede more confidently, without having to rely on complaining at the commander, without fear of backlash from your teammates, and people can see that they want the game to end and will probably start falling in line realizing the game simply cannot be won by that point. (Going Ready Room as well is not a good way of doing it, going from past experience - people don't seem to realize or players will start joining the other team)
Of course, I believe this method should only be had until the game is confidently balanced and doesn't end up going into stalemate (basically when all abilities and upgrades are implemented).
And I completely agree with Scardy, it seems a little silly that the ability to "concede" in the method we know should be up to the commander - even if the commander is supposed to be the "leader" of the team. You also have the social aspect of it, people don't like to voice their opinion most of the time that they want the commander to sell up, because others will get frustrated at a weak link in the chain, that is, someone who doesn't want to try anymore. At least with a concede button that people know is there (for instance, in the menu when you press escape, or a button you can bind in the menu with something on the HUD to alert the player), you can start the concede more confidently, without having to rely on complaining at the commander, without fear of backlash from your teammates, and people can see that they want the game to end and will probably start falling in line realizing the game simply cannot be won by that point. (Going Ready Room as well is not a good way of doing it, going from past experience - people don't seem to realize or players will start joining the other team)
Of course, I believe this method should only be had until the game is confidently balanced and doesn't end up going into stalemate (basically when all abilities and upgrades are implemented).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If the game gets balanced out and our tenure as playtesters draws to a close, I'll be right behind you asking for a vote to end the round. Until then, though, I feel these dragging matches provide important data on team strength and resource sinks.
Regardless, that always seemed to be the least griefish way to do it. A vote could work the same way. Just so long as it isn't "more than half" that makes it approved, since a 1 person difference is never a good way to handle things. 70%+ in my opinion, but I guess it depends on the number of players.
It SHOULD NOT be up to a comm though. Too much power for one person.
That is completely the opposite of what needs to happen. If the game gets balanced out, you shouldn't need a concede button.
And more to the point, the flaw in your logic is that when the game is balanced out, stalemates won't happen, so these long drawn out games that happen actually provide no valuable info past the point that the stalemate occurs, so why should players play it out? Isn't it more valuable to concede the round when the players hit the stalemate point to just start another round, playing the part of the game that will end up in the final product, instead of everyone quitting the server and retrieving pointless data?
Seriously though, we need a temporary surrender button to be able to end these boring ass stalemates.
or, instead, after 30 or 40 minutes, a vote could appear saying if people don't vote, the game will end. So automatic game end, unless people actually WANT to continue the stalemate.
And more to the point, the flaw in your logic is that when the game is balanced out, stalemates won't happen, so these long drawn out games that happen actually provide no valuable info past the point that the stalemate occurs, so why should players play it out? Isn't it more valuable to concede the round when the players hit the stalemate point to just start another round, playing the part of the game that will end up in the final product, instead of everyone quitting the server and retrieving pointless data?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I meant that I'd be behind you in asking for one if we needed it. I have full confidence that UWE's end-game tech will resolve stalemates, but if for some reason the problem persists until launch, I'll get behind patch/fix measures to treat symptoms. Until then, though, we need to look at the cause or gameplay issues, not the issues themselves.
That's a pretty vague response. Realistically, it wouldn't take that long to make a concede button - as you say, you'll get behind the fix measures to treat the symptoms up until the launch, which is almost exactly what is being asked for - and in turn, people will get to play more of what actually matters. What needs to be looked at is the cause of the gameplay issues, but the gameplay issue simply doesn't change after the point of Stalemate comes around, there are no variables that occur after* the stalemate situation occurs. What needs to be looked at is what happens when the point of Stalemate <b>actually occurs</b> and a few minutes after that just to show consistency of the cause, by which point people will start to use the concede button.
I will say again, there has been no valid argument against implementing one. Although it is not my decision to make, naturally, I would be very happy to see one in. Not only will the devs gather more information on what is important, it would make the beta state a much more enjoyable one, meaning that you will see servers full for a greater period of time after each patch is released. Making public games fun will in turn gather more information.
Surely people can't argue against that?
*edit - changed when to after
**Just wanted to add this last bit in too: The Onos, Jetpack etc etc are being implemented regardless of the situation of the Stalemate. What the real information will be is when a stalemate occurs when both sides reach the highest tech possible with everything researched, which is impossible to achieve in this build.
You can technically RR quit in NS2 right now, but I dislike that a bit because 1) it basically feels like ragequitting to me, 2) matches can still last for quite a while even after several people RR, and 3) people start to complain about unbalanced teams at that point. A surrender vote is nice because it democratic and leads instantly to a new match.
<!--quoteo(post=1889523:date=Dec 9 2011, 03:48 PM:name=Smaug)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Smaug @ Dec 9 2011, 03:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1889523"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That is completely the opposite of what needs to happen. If the game gets balanced out, you shouldn't need a concede button.
And more to the point, the flaw in your logic is that when the game is balanced out, stalemates won't happen, so these long drawn out games that happen actually provide no valuable info past the point that the stalemate occurs, so why should players play it out? Isn't it more valuable to concede the round when the players hit the stalemate point to just start another round, playing the part of the game that will end up in the final product, instead of everyone quitting the server and retrieving pointless data?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Seconded, but I will point out that even in a balanced game, stalemates will still occur (if you have two evenly skilled teams) but at a much less frequency then they currently happen. I also don't mind stalemates that occur due to evenly skilled teams, because they tend to be quite fun.
Sorry, you are correct, evenly skilled teams with stalemates are a different thing, I should clarify that the Stalemates I was talking about is when one side is blatantly winning but cannot finish. Stalemates where both teams are doing very well tend to be incredibly fun :P
In reply to Techercizer, surely the problem is that not everything is implemented in the game, as I said before. People are still experiencing stalemates even with the whip buff implemented, and instead of running aliens in to die, they're running whips in to die. You also have to take in the mental fatigue of the Commander, and how the resources were distributed, and the most likely situation with the whips would be that the aliens turtled in for ages and ages to build up the res from 1 RT before sending them out. In a real game, that is, when the final product is running, that situation would never occur because marines would be able to get further in their tech and just roll the alien base. So why is the information you give in your argument useful, unless the Alien comm decided not to get any tech at the start and his game-plan was to aim for 10 whips at the very start (that strategy has been thought up by several teams already, dubbed "The Whip-Rush"), where instead the game could be restarted to gather useful information during the portion of the game that will be in the final product?
I'm not saying that whip rushes will be common once other chambers and lifeforms get implemented into NS2, but there will always be that early/mid round state where it's possible, and potentially viable, even. I think increased variety in com strategy is a great way to increase the variety of match flow and general gameplay.
Not only are the games not 'over' when most people seem to assume, this is especially true on publics. If any team is outright good enough, the games end rather quickly. If not so much can happen during the next 30+ mins that any team can win.
I see two major benefits to stalemates:
1) They motivate players to end them, it gives people more reason to learn how to end games and practice it. Its quite frequently the quitters that are the ones incapable of ending games.
2) The stats gathered during stalemates must be useful. Arc/Whip use, dmg/behavior with all upgrades, etc.
It doesn't matter how many hydras are outside my spawn, or how many fades are in base; I will continue to burn them all.
When I run out of res to buy flamers, I will shoot them. When I run out of bullets, I will axe them. When I find something out of axe range, I will throw myself into it once someone with a gun shows up in order to buy them time. The game is never over while I'm still breathing.
But again, from a macroscopic view, games do wind up ending for one team long before they eventually fall, and that sort of prolonged death does need to be addressed.
Not only are the games not 'over' when most people seem to assume, this is especially true on publics. If any team is outright good enough, the games end rather quickly. If not so much can happen during the next 30+ mins that any team can win.
I see two major benefits to stalemates:
1) They motivate players to end them, it gives people more reason to learn how to end games and practice it. Its quite frequently the quitters that are the ones incapable of ending games.
2) The stats gathered during stalemates must be useful. Arc/Whip use, dmg/behavior with all upgrades, etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, to start with, the flaw in your argument is that you're expressing frustration over a different situation. If the comm sells up cause the opposing team gained a major advantage, so what? You start a new game immediately, a new cycle of information starts, even good information on how bad commanders react to situations, and there's only a small amount of frustration that the comm gave up so quickly, and there chance of people leaving a server is a lot more minimal than people leaving a server because they're sick of playing the game.
Yes, during the next 30 mins any team can win, assuming that teams are balanced. What is actually being discussed here is when the game hits stalemate point, not "the fun, actually-going-to-be-in-the-game" portion.
Your two major benefits are also a little off the mark. Benefit one won't happen because most people don't like learning curves, and they especially don't like learning curves when the game is incredibly boring. They don't learn how to end games, they don't go off and say "Hey, I hope a stalemate occurs today so I can try and get out of it" - I mean, why would they, that point will never exist when further things are implemented into the game - even the competitive players won't go that far, they may be in it to win it, but they also want to enjoy what they're doing. I have never seen that happen. Also to boot, surely it's logical that if a team manages to take the entire map, they should be able to take the final base with relative ease, which simply doesn't happen.
Your second point is moot, seeing as the stats gathered during the portion of the game before the stalemate will also be gathered there. The tedious kind of work like this should be tested by playtesters, really, not by the beta testers (who are there to find the more general bugs, stress testing servers etc.).
Again in reply to Techercizer, Tier 2 vs Tier 2 also occurs when there is no boring stalemate occurs (that is, when one team has the whole map and the other team has just the main base). Fades can take out turrets before a stalemate occurs and is a much more accurate representation of how they behave, instead of a fade warping around just trying to find anything to kill.
You seem to be recreating events that suits your argument, but in the end, any information gathered during the real portion of the game will always be way more valuable, than dud information gathered during the point where no one cares about playing the game anymore, and end up just waiting for the next patch to come out.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Now I acknowledge that end-round stalemates exist in the current build as much as the next poster (whether a Com "can" spam units to break a siege, it often doesn't happen), but when I'm personally in the game, My view is a lot like Agrathor's. The game doesn't end until the last CC is destroyed or an entire team is waiting on a nonexistent IP.
It doesn't matter how many hydras are outside my spawn, or how many fades are in base; I will continue to burn them all.
When I run out of res to buy flamers, I will shoot them. When I run out of bullets, I will axe them. When I find something out of axe range, I will throw myself into it once someone with a gun shows up in order to buy them time. The game is never over while I'm still breathing.
But again, from a macroscopic view, games do wind up ending for one team long before they eventually fall, and that sort of prolonged death does need to be addressed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Aaargh, now you're arguing from the viewpoint of what <b>you</b> find fun, and not about what is valuable information and what <b>everyone else</b> finds fun. I'm willing to bet that when you play like that, other people are getting seriously bored and start quitting, whether it's your own team or the opposing team, and the win occurs by one side just leaving the server.
I also agree with Laosh, it should be a high percentage vote.
there are many possible scenarios (we might not be aware of all of them), but let me give you some examples:
my "favorite" is when the commander gives up, leaves the cc and does not want to recycle the IPs because that might ruin the game for the others. then, in many games, nobody else dares to be com or to be the one recycling the IPs. as for kharaa, they dont even have the possibility to recycle.
another situation is where very few people were playing on the server (1v1 or 2v2 etc.) and suddenly a lot more people join in. it is quite possible that the majority would prefer a restart with all people instead of a sentry/hydra filled match. this could be solved with a draw, making it mentally easier for the previously playing people to give up the current game. but again, i'd prefer a rather high percentage here as well.
Spending dev time on a bandaid fix would be... Imprudent...
Spending dev time on a bandaid fix would be... Imprudent...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, that is perfectly valid, but I don't think implementing something like that would take up much time, whoever does it.
If it is made a mod, I would hope servers would pick it up, is the only problem.
Edit: Also, the situations that Laosh describes are situations that occur quite often.
and i'm not only talking about stalemates, this is more focused on games with a clear result, which still drag on for a while, getting people frustrated who dont stand a chance at all.
edit: yes, high-level tier is supposed to solve this issue. but many people abuse this just to get a lot of kills/fun instead of ending the game. also, a very-turtled base with deployed arcs etc. can hold out quite some time.
and i'm not only talking about stalemates, this is more focused on games with a clear result, which still drag on for a while, getting people frustrated who dont stand a chance at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought that's what we were talking about this whole time, lol.
Aha, gotcha!
Marine = When aliens get a 2nd hive
Aliens = When marines lock down the majority of open tech nodes (i.e. marines have 3 out of 5 tech nodes on summit)
I'd rather just concede and start another match I'd have a chance to win, which is what a surrender vote would accomplish. The nice thing is that once the game became more balanced, the number of times the surrender vote is used should decrease (allowing another method for UWE to track balance improvements).
I think there is another issue relevant to this discussion which is...
I don't think it is, by default, a good thing to end those games. Progress often comes fastest when faced with adversity, science/technology improves fastest during war, etc.
If people who were losing, spent less time worry about losing and more time working out what they can do to improve their situation the general ability level would improve fast. The majority of players are still quite bad (aiming, tactics and strategy). If I am on a losing team, getting thrashed, at the very least playing improves my aim. I can also practice tricks like jumping/strafing to better avoid skulk/fade hits (the angle and timing are very important). These will not only improve my next game, but they keep me focused and enguaged so I often completely forget I am getting thrashed. If that isn't your thing, focusing on hunting a specific player that can be both entertaining and useful.
On top of this, offering people an 'easy escape' would encourage quitters. Something that has dangerous long-term gameplay implications for the NS2 community.
A vote forfeit command would be great in addition to the 'eject commander' one, however I think it should pop up for everybody on that team, similar to the left 4 dead style vote system.
as for the practise, i think the majority puts the focus on the actual fun of the game, not on their skill. plus i personally think you also learn a lot in a fresh-new game with still all possibilities.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->On top of this, offering people an 'easy escape' would encourage quitters.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
this is why it shouldnt be easy. but if the entire team agrees, i don't think there is a point in playing on. e.g. the reason i dont rr myself is, that it often does not end the game even if people are bored with it: as you pointed out, fighting an annoying game is still a bit entertaining, probably better than waiting in an empty room. and this also prolongs the game, as frustrated people often target the enemies who attack their base, since those are usually the easiest targets.