any mechanic designed to compensate after a game starts is a bad idea.

Glad to see we're keeping an open mind about it.

 rubber-banding mechanics make games closer but less competitive. it irons out the wrinkles in the game. but its the wrinkles that are the source of the fun. this ain't chess. inequality is the desired state of the game by design. 

A closer game is one that is more competitive. A soccer match that features the best team versus a group of amateurs is definitely not an interesting, fun, or competitive game. I mean, competition is "A test of skill or ability; a contest:" There is no test in a game that is not close.

Demigod is based fundamentally on INEQUALITY of competitors. why else would it feature a levelling system or a gold system? 

Disparity between players is incredibly important. I definitely agree better skilled players should win against worse opponents. A level difference or a gold difference wins games. However, the argument in the OP is that there is an additional difference between players that is unnecessary and unduly frustrating for the losing side.

to extend the metaphor: what if it was chess? should a player start getting his pieces back if his opponent takes too many of them? free Pawn back every time you lose a Bishop? opponent has to give up a Rook if he takes your Queen but still has his own? 

I would argue that chess is too simple a game as far as the amount of variables that you couldn't easily introduce subtle changes without breaking the simplicity of the game. It's also way too old a game to change its rules; you're pretty much stuck with how it is, even though that has arguably caused issues like the formulaic nature of openings. You just can't change chess.

Demigod on the other hand, is not cut in stone. It also is much more complex a game as far as what occurs, what can change. It's also a computer game so a neutral third-party can decide that the losing side should be rewarded. Again, an ideal balancing system would not affect the outcome of the game, only try to keep the game interesting for as long as possible. While a system wouldn't be perfect, I do think it would do better most of the time than not.

rage quiting isnt in itself a problem if all the players in the room were rage quiters like a smoking room with only smokers in it. But so far ive not seen a single only rage quiters room. the obvious logical conculusion of this is that rage quiters dont like to play with rage quiters and normal players dont like to play with rage quiters either.

"Most rege quit issues come down to differences in skill level. If you want that problem solved then promote a proper ranking system that is reflected in game." hateforest

i have gotten the impression that "good" players who make a big mistake at start (death) are more likely to leave the game, a noob who just got owned at start is going to keep dying becuase he does not realize whats happening and how his death affects the team balance. its my guess two same lvl of skilled oponents playing just one game is going to have a very uneven game becuse of the first 1-2 deaths and result in if one of the player often rage quits he probaly will in this game if he is doing worse then he normaly does.

"rage quiting" is the term i use but when i use it i dont mean the player is necessarily angry he can be bored or watching TV at the same time simply means he leaves whenever he feels like it. i think of it as a habit not wrong or right simply that most prefer not to play against people with the habit.

Eh? Every player can get the same favour items, every player can play any demigod, every player can buy the same gear, every player can buy the same citi upgrades.

A player with more skill in DG will have a HoL, Ash, etc. A player with little skill with not have these items. You make it sound like someone who is better than you magically summoned better gear as if they didn't earn it. You died, you fed, you have less gold they have more. This is a skill difference, it's not random, it's not luck, it's not unbalanced, it's not OP anything and it's not unfair. You lose if you are not as good.

Here we differ again. YOU don't want to play DG competitively so you want to turn the game so it favours your play style. That is a very narrow and selfish point of view. Did you actually read what i said about a ranking system? Here's an example:

You only play casually with non-premades for fun. (This is fine and great I have no problem with it.) So because of this you have a low rank because you can't beat more skilled players. This means that when you play a game based on rank you are automatically placed in games with people of a similar rank to you. i.e. other pugs. You have your fun casual game and enjoy yourself.

Get it? This isn't about pugs vs premades, it's about recognizing the difference in skill levels and catering to it.

now THIS is a flawed metaphor. A skilled and high ranked soccer team EARNS their ladder rank. They don't just play any old team from the streets and stop at 3-0 to 'balance' the game. If you can't beat players better than you, it's not the fault of the game. You shoudl just stick to playign against people your own skill level. The issue is GPG didn't cater to this so you can go into a custom and get pug stomped.

a close game is not a more competitive one. thats the essentially flawed premise in the whole argument. a close game is just one in which the eventual winner was restrained from leveraging an advantage. if its the skilled play of the opponents that causes the restraint than the game was a competitive one. if its a built in mechanic of the game that causes the restraint it was not a more competitive game, it just took longer. 

making it take longer for pros to stomp noobs doesn't solve the problem at all. it doesn't address the root cause, which is skill disparity. 

my perspective on competition and competitiveness is that it is specifically the games with the LOWER margin of error that become the most competitive and highly-skilled communities. 

chess is a game of pure skill and it has an exceptionally low margin for error. your pieces available are strictly limited and you can lose incredibly swiftly if you present an opening. chess has perhaps the highest skill-level community of any competitive game that i know of. its built into the DNA of Chess by virtue of the low margin for error and lack of "come from behind" options. 

and finally, what makes you think auto-balancing mechanics like the on proposed even do what they're intended to? in Basketball the losing team gets control of the ball after each basket. does this have any effect other than to make Basketball more interesting for the crowd to watch? seems to me like teams that are clearly better still dominate. Jordan and the Bulls had no trouble demolishing lesser teams. Demigod shouldn't have rules for the benefit of the spectators because there aren't any. loser's out (as the rule is called in basketball) wouldn't help anything anyway. 

Here here! A close game consists of 2 teams who don't get a kill before warscore 8+. If you die early adn give them an advantage, you screwed up. Why should you be rewarded for not paying attention and getting ganked?

You may start with the same opportunity, but you quickly diverge. In FPSs, whether I have 1 kill or 100, I have the same gear. That's the difference I was talking about.

In Demigod, kills give the killers gold and XP. It's easier to get kills once you kill. This snowballs. This makes the opening part of the game disproportionately affect the mid- and endgame.

A match where the losing side is given a temporary advantage presents a challenge to the winning side along with presenting an advantage to the losing side. This seems to provide new level of competition between otherwise players rather than stifling competition.

I don't see what this has to do with pugs or premades: Both types ragequit, both can span the gamut from shitty to awesome.

I also don't see what a skill level has to do with it either. It means that games are closer by default. But if that's your goal, then why is a balancing system so unfair? A better team would win in a balanced or unbalanced game. If the losing side is able to use their advantage to turn the tide, then isn't that a show of skill on their part?

sigh... my point is the game is already balanced. It becomes unbalanced when new or bad players die.

Chess is not a valid metaphor for this game. In chess, when you take a piece, your pieces are not buffed. In chess, a pawn can take a queen. In Demigod, "pawns" cannot take "queens".

It is competitive. If, in Demigod, the outcome is decided very early on, it seems like only 25%-50% of the game is competitve. The rest is just clean-up.

Some games do stay close the entire time. These games are fine.

However, some games have a streak of kills early on. These early kills allow more kills to be gained. That disparity disproportionately affects the game. It stifles competition because the losing side ceases to be competitive.

I mean, look at it this way: Team A is better than Team B 50% of the time. This should result in a very close game. In fact, if Team A is better in the latter 50% rather than the beginning 50%, it will not be close. This is uncompetitive.

Again, basketball/sports analogies are not valid: Demigod rewards scoring teams by making it easier for them to score.

At any rate, a more interesting game for the spectators is also a more interesting game for the players.

Good players never die. I understand now.

I mean, this is not a noobs vs. good players argument. This is a "Should Demigod be a fun game to play?" argument. Competition is fun part of the game. After all, you're certainly not getting paid to play it.

If noobs are able to use an earned advantage in the endgame to turn it around, shouldn't they have won? They've managed to beat a better team. Is that not an accomplishment?

Would games last longer? I'd say so. Would they be more interesting? They would have to be, considering there's more interesting stuff taking place.

I mean, the idea in the OP is to reduce the unbalanced part by reducing gold. I'm saying do that and go even further by making the game more interesting in the latter portions. Give the losing side more opportunities to show their skill. If they can't capitalize on the advantage, then they lose. But it wasn't as hopeless as the current, unforgiving system is. As a result, less people leave.

you've got it backwards regarding early deaths. a single early game death doesn't matter much. its exceptionally easy to recover from 1 or 2 deaths before level 5. its back-breaking and game deciding to die twice at level 10. 

if a player rage-quits because they died once or twice near the beginning of the game then the problem is a lack of maturity and an over-estimation of how far they've fallen behind. in other words, bad players rage quit more frequently than good players. its one of the things that makes a player bad. 

and yeah, good players die less. thats a truism. matches between 2 highly skilled teams are very low scoring. i've played games where first blood doesn't happen until 10 minutes in. 

Some truth here.

I don't agree very much with the OP's suggestion, because it's something artificial, that's helping the losing team automaticaly, not giving them some other options to recover. One option would be to let them farm for gold, by trying to kill creeps and denying them to the enemy. Of course creeps gold awards should be increased, as now they are very small. At the same time, eliminate the demigod assist killing gold reward and reduce the primary demigod killing award.

My other suggestion was to combine the ranking with the disconnect % rate in one single skill lvl. For example the final skill lvl of a player should be something like 60% ranking and 40% diconnect%. Or 50-50. Or 40% for ranking and 60% for disconnect%. I don't know exactly the proportions. The idea is that when every player in the game would have this kind of skill rating, they would be matched accordanly, hopefully rage quitters will end up in a game with other rage quitters with the same rank lvl. In custom games, everyone should see other's skill lvl, before entering the lobby (in a pop-up window or something).

No, it's the opposite.  Early deaths are the worst because the enemies haven't filled their inventories yet.  Now they get the cheap and extremely effective items like Nimoth and Hauberk and Vlemish and Boots of Speed and Priest minions and the middle left boots that boost HP.  Now their heroes are *significantly* more powerful than yours.

You guys are bashing the OP's idea a lot, but few have disputed mine.

Dead Ghost: The only problem with a disconnect % rate is that it tries to solve the problem of rage quitting by punishing rage quitters. On face value, this seems like a winning proposition since rage quitters are evil and should be eliminated.

But my whole thought on it is that rage quitters are not some weird, angry minority. They're just regular people who think they're going to lose, are frustrated about it, so they leave. My solution is to attack both of these prerequisites while keeping the game competitve and fun.

It just seems like punishing them will just either a.) make them not play, or b.) make them evade the system by AFKing. It feels like the problem can be approached more constructively through prevention, rather than punishment.

In the system i proposed they are not eliminated, they will just play with some people that practice this thing more often than usual, that's all. The ranking lvl it's still in it's place, it's just combined with the # of disconnects. If they are noobs, they will still play with noobs, and if they are pro, they will play with other pro players. Add to this the concede option, for a quick fix of the late game "rage" quitting and you pretty much fixed the problem. I think...

Then let me give a it a shot . I love the dota death system, it does make you cautious it does reward and penalise only those who  get the kill and die(no assist money just brownie points). Looking just at those factor it is a great idea however there is more it than that and that is the way the money is used.

In dota money is only spent on yourself(unless you buy items for others(oh no item pooling)) also the item system is very different, the recipes and combining cheap items to make better ones means that you can get mid teir items even if you die a few times. In demigod losing the money means your team has less to spend on citadel upgrades and you will be stuck with low teir items.

This all depends on how it would implemented and it could work but I don't think it will.

Now dafrita I may be misreading what you said but my interpretation is this.

You state that your option will give the the losing team a chance to come back, but you also state the better team will win. The better team should already be winning and this option tries to stop them. I also think your option is already in the game with the ability to lock your flags and the amount of exp you get from defending near your citadel, you level so fast in that situation, plus all the creep gold you get. Being in close proximity to your crystal means you can keep hitting enemy demigods till they have to retreat even if they have better items then you.

That said maybe it would be better the scale the gold from kills more so you get very little from killing lower level demigods but the gold difference between levels increases e.g

lvl 1 300 gold

lvl 2 325 gold

lvl 3 400 gold

....

lvl 15 1500 gold

lvl 16 1700 gold

(not the best example the values are shit but it hopefully helps illistrate what I mean).

I've said this a few times in various contexts. Here it is again.

If you make the game last longer you are giving an advantage to the late game heroes.

Your " balancing" system actually means that by playing a late game powerhouse like UB or Reg you have an advantage over someone playing a strong early game character like Sedna or Rook, because they are going to be unable to close the game out due to artificial benefits you're giving their opponents.

I do like the idea of reducing enemy gold rather than giving gold, it would make the AI somewhat plausible if someone does leave, but in the end I don't see it as being much better than the current system, which allows the winning team to win, and win quickly.

As I said in my post this will need balancing to make the game not last longer, say by increasing gold generation rate.

The best way to test the ideas is via a mod. But it doesn't seem mod support is great at this point.

[quote]

You have completely misinterpreted the system and missed the point. This is not a rubberband system. If you are losing due to skill you are not going to magically bounced back by a mysterious force.

Skill is not how little you make mistake, it's how good you are in adapting to change base on situation. Even good players can make mistakes. Currently DG is a system Mathematicians will hate and call it a chaotic system, where small changes amplifies and leads to dramatic consquences. If a team is 60% better than the other team, but due to initial build order choice of equipment is unluckily bad versus the less skilled team, and initially lost few kills, the less skilled team is going to win, no question, simply because current game mechanics does not award clever rebound of strategy, since it amplifies on early differences in exponential way.

That's even not the point. The point was bring a system to give the losing team some hope. It is STILL competitive, as there's No buff to the losing side, there's NO nerf to the winning side either. The only change is when you score a kill, it may be a clever strategy change from the losing team, this system will properly awards it. As with before, it wasn't even fair.

Now you tell me, a level 10 DG killing a level 8 DG, how's that competitive? You would argue why the lv8 DG wasn't "skillful" enough to gain equal exp/gold before. But base on the current mechanics, you can't guarantee that, since even "luck", small differences, could have diverged and have exponential differences. You can say after first two kills, it's mostly decided which team is going to win. How's that competitive and fun?

If you are saddistic yes fun is when you are level 20 bashing a level 10 team. To a Pro, fun is about challenge and about how your change of strategy swinged the tide of battle. Believe me, no major change in strategy can turn a level 8 team to win against a level 10 team at the current affairs. (Believe me, I had that before, see footnotes) The system awards "skill" in the starting 3 minutes of the game, and the rest you don't need any. Most people would rage quit later when completely outclassed, no hope of a change of tide, a total despair, not many people are masochistic and hence they rage quit.

EDIT:

My system properly awards consistent skills, if you are skillful, you get less gold per consistent kill but there's no harm done to you. If you are consistently skillful and adapt to strategy, you will be fine and you will win. On the other hand, if you lost first 3 minutes for whatever reason, if you are skillful enough to adapt and coordinate with your team, you have a small chance of coming back, compared to absolutely none in current game mechanics. Tell me, how is this bad.

Foornote:

Example, I had a game where we lost few unlucky kills, due to DG choice and bad initial BO paths. The level gap grew and we could do nothing about it. We were not much less skilled than the enemy. Despite huge (3-4) level differences, we capped flag most of the time. Our citadel was at a higher war rank. We changed our strategy to focus on citadel upgrades. We sacrificed our expensive equipments and sold them. We got giants and had them for 2 minutes before enemy had any. We maxed citadel upgrades for armour and attack power. Despite this, we couldn't make a come back. The enemy UB was at level 20. We were level 13-15. The level difference gap as I mentioned only grew. There's nothing we could have done about that base on current game mechanics.

I've ended many, many games lower level than my opponent but with more kills and with us absolutely demolishing them. To say that a level 8 hero can't compete against a level 10 is wrong imo. I'm generally 1-2 levels behind the pack playing as Sedna because I don't have the creep killing capabilities to keep up, and flags are only significant at lower levels. I still get kills, I can still compete in combat quite happily. I don't really see why I should be awarded more gold just because I'm lower level, when the items I'm carrying are determining the outcome of combat for the most part.

Also if you're level 20 and they are level 10 and the game isn't moments from ending something is very, very wrong. That kind of skill inbalance isn't something that can really be accounted for. One team was significantly worse than the other and they lost, what's the problem.

That depends on your DG. I was merely making an example that applies to most DGs on competitive ground base on approximately equal skill. If you are more skillful than your higher opponent yes, you can kill them despite some level difference. However this does not contradict my points nor reasoning.

As for the example, see my example on the footnote of the above post. It may be subjective bias but we do not feel we are significantly less skillful than the other team. Yes we lost a few kills at the beginning, some honest mistakes. But I considered ourselves playing BETTER than the opposing team mid game to late game. That's majority of the time.

...These topics are always filled with such rubish and fail and whining about people who quit the game.

Get the fuck over it you pissy little girls.  

But getting a small gold advantage in the beginning of the game translates to a big gold advantage at the end of the game as you get better gear and therefore more kills/better farming/better map control.

If you think it's rubbish bring some good reasoning to back it up. Your post is as rubbish as what you meant. If you are not contributing get out of my thread and thanks for the nice language.