Resolving DOTA's Leaver Problem

I hate leavers, so obnoxious.  TDA rules work great.  As long as their is an organization or group of somekind that can maintain order outside the public sphere, I'll be happy.  Otherwise, I wouldn't mind having a DC count registered to people's accounts.

Just let an AI take over until a player joins. Left 4 Dead has already shown the way.

I hate leavers sooo much, but banlists are massively flawed, im currently banned on a banlist because they had their banlist on auto, so when i left when the crystal was on like 1/4 health, the game had about 5 secs left, i got banned. I left because its way quicker, otherwise you have to wait for the scores and then it takes longer to quit after that.

I've also got a friend who was banned because his dad DCed the internet, he went back on and appologised to the host and the host still banned him. It's not even like he was feeding he had a 6/2 score.

Enough ranting, Impulse isn't the client, i cant remember what they called it but they have a deferent system that the just made. I hope they use your first option, that solves many problems.

One big diff in this and DOTA is that in DOTA to get to the next game, you leave your current game! Meanwhile next round starts right afterwards where you can fight alongside people who kicked your ass last game. Savage 2 had this same solution, teams must be balanced on public servers so you join the team that has less people, so no group is going to join one side so easily. Groups are broken up, if not in one game, then in the next. It eventually balances out.

In WC3 you can't join mid-game, here you can. Remember in DOTA once a game starts there is no more joining. That is a major flaw of strategy games being re-formatted to be used as RPG-style games.

You crappy team mate leaves? Fine maybe a pro will take his place!

Hopefully all of this will be on Impulse.  If it isn't then GPG needs a very simple (read idiot-proof), very polished multiplayer hub which includes optional router-tunneling and transparent stat tracking, per above.  No need to reinvent the wheel - it has to work really well from day one. 

Having AI replace quitting players is certainly better than a sharp stick in the eye, but allowing options before the game starts is always preferable. 

automated matchmaking together with a ranking list should pretty much solve it, people won't leave until the game is over if they lose points in doing so. Of course that only helps for ranked matches but even if you play casually ranked games aren't that bad because it matches you up with even opponents and you get to know other players their which you can make friends and play customs with them later on.

(And I hope we get a surrender button, its annoying in dota to have to wait for being destroyed many minutes after the game was over already)

   Well, I never liked the idea of people punishing leaving to be honest. Some people feel that they've already lost, and do not desire to waste their time finishing out a match to its fullest duration. Instead of punishing people who leave, like most games do, I feel a game should instead take into account that people just desire to Give Up a match. I haven't played an online RTS that just allows the other team to Surrender completed. And Surrender is a part of war, not everyone fights to the bitter end.

   If someone wants to leave, by all means let people leave. If in a team game, allow people to Vote for Surrender, and if not allow AI to take over (and good AI too). There are times when even I desire to leave a match, but there is no real way to do it without gaving a stupid RTS game add a drop out percentage to my record. Inform players on what the penalties are, and no matter what the circumstance (disconnect or un-plug) - allow players of the team who lost the player to vote for surrender. And any form of leaving in a 1on1 match is just automatic Surrender, period.

I agree with Orlean Knight here.  I think teams should be able to vote to surrender, individuals should be able to surrender, and people should be able to drop, but with consequences.  We could have points that contribute to rank, for example:

Epic Win aganst a better opponent: +5

Win aganst a better opponent: +4

Epic Win aganst an equal opponent: +4

Win aganst an equal opponent: +3

Epic Win aganst a weaker opponent: +3

Win aganst a weaker opponent: +2

Loss against a better opponent: -2

Epic Loss against a better opponent: -3

Loss against an equal opponent: -3

Team Surrender: -4

Epic Loss against an equal opponent: -4

Loss against a weaker opponent: -4

Epic Loss against a weaker opponent: -5

Drop (1-3/month): -6

Single Player Surrender: -6

Drop (4-6/month): -8

Drop (6-10/month): -10

Drop (>10/month): -15

This setup gives a team surrender a loss in points equal to a loss against a weaker opponent.  It is a minor point loss.  drops and single player surrenders are more harshly punished.  Dropping more often gives an even arsger punishment.  What are your thoughts?

I do like the idea of a surrender option, but it definitely needs to require a majority of the team voting to do so, rather than just giving individuals another way to leave.  The problem with quitters is far less often an issue of the other team dragging out a victory (though that does occur) and far more often a matter of one individual bailing out because he or she dies a couple of times early in the game.  That puts their team down a player, which is a serious handicap, and makes the next quitter more likely. 

I understand the concerns around punishing people, which is why I'm in favor of Option 1. It's not punishing to show the percentage of times they've quit games - it just prevents them from punishing other players.  If you leave 5% of the time because the other team drags it out, and 5% of the time because the phone rings, etc. etc., you're still going to have a decent completion percentage.  Over time, rarer instances like leaving because the other team dragged out a victory get overwhelmed by the number of completed games, and players will tend to settle on reasonable completion averages (90%, etc., etc.).  Odds are pretty good that similar circumstances will prevail for most players - if someone leaves 4x as often as the norm, that's a problem with the player, not the other team. 

I do like the basic idea of a scoring system (and numbers put forward by Trig seem reasonable), but it does need to be simple and transparent. I also wonder if players will feel more "punished" by score penalties vs. just displaying the percentage of completed games.  Also, using a raw number of occurences is problematic because it doesn't account for the frequency of play.  Someone could complete 90% of their games, but if they play 10 times as often as someone who leaves every single game, the two would have the same basic number of departures. 

I agree, i've played WC3 TFT more than DotA, and always played DotA just for th fun and so it didn't matter how hard i could be losing it always was fun to try diferent tactics and lose any way. But in WC3 after the 3000th game at some point in a match you could easly see if you already lost or have a chance, of course disregarding probabilities like the other guys having an AVC or smth, and so it was very comon to leave as a sign of surrender.

This is why, in my opinion, in a 2v2 or 3v3 or more i agree that any player should be able to call a vote for his team mates decide wether to surrender or not, and in case of a leaver replace it for AI until he rejoins or other player takes its place. In case of 1v1 matches a player leaving should only be considered as surrender and losing the match.

I dont thing any extra penalty should be given to a surrendering team, either 1v1 2v2 or more. But a way of being aware of the leavers from 2v2+ teams should be created, because, imo, these are the ones that really matter and can upset players.

Beyond a point in a game its almost 100% who is going to win or lose, and there is no point in keeping that game going, mostly waste of time. A player isn't penalized in any way when he surrenders his king in chess, keep that in mind.

What about rewarding team surrenders?  It's still a loss of points, but it's fractionally less damaging to your ranking than a full loss or drop.  This has two functions -

1.  It rewards good sportsmanship, since a player who would in other games just drop or take the loss would in this case stick it out and vote for surrender

2.  It makes games faster on a voluntary basis, which competitive communities can always use. 

This is what I attempted to do.

lol, right, I saw that and then apparently forgot it. 

I'm half-idiot on my 2nd mother's side, so please forgive....

If there are votes to surrender, it would be nice to have clear notification of how many people are voting to surrender on the main screen. Not in your face of course, just in the corner so you can see how the vote is rolling. Naturally, you will just see a number of 'votes' for a Surrender, and not see who put down the vote. So if you're losing bad, there is no way to win, and your team just wants to quickly end the game without too much penalty they will have that option.

It'd also be nice if the more people who vote, the bolder and brighter the vote icon becomes. Not to mention starts to ring and bounce around to inform the player that they may want to cast their vote - or even recast their vote. Sometimes you just change your mind if you want to Surrender or not! So obviously, you can have the option to rectract your votes too if you feel the tide suddenly turning.

I think this is a good idea.

One of the nice things about the Tournament mode of the game is that the game code is all server based so we can keep updating it without having to update the actual game EXE.  I agree with you and we will do what we can to have the multiplayer matchmaking evolve with as many criteria as possible.

In TDA, a team can surrender after a certain amount of time has passed as long as everyone on the losing team votes for a remake.