Should the Costs of Getting Booted Go Up in Games when there are more than 2 players,
or in Games when there are more than 2 players left?


I have been booted out of my share of games,
and I've also gotten more than my share of trouble
because of other people getting booted out of games that I am playing in...
(both FFA and team games.)


First, I think it's time to consider increasing the education of how getting booted affects other players, the community, and the game:

1) Everyone should be know their way around the entire menu in the lower left hand corner before they pass the final tutorial, especially the options for leaving the game.


Second, Perhaps the Rewards of having a Low Boot Rate Should be Increased?
( I like to use both a carrot and a stick approach. )
More on this after the introduction of the third option:


Third, I think it's time to consider increasing the costs of getting booted from games to include points that the player has already earned... and / or restrictions on joining games.

Since the stick option takes the most space, it will go last.


2) Carrot Option: Should the Rewards of having a Low Boot Rate be Increased?

Suggested Achievements:

Boot Rate Below 20% for X time or over the course of X number of games...

Boot Rate Below 15% / Boot Rate Below 10% / Boot Rate Below 5% / Boot Rate Below 2.5% ...


Finishes 5 Straight Games without a Boot...

Finishes 10 Straight Games / Finishes 15 Straight / Finishes 20 Straight ...

Goes 2 Weeks without a Boot... Goes 3 Weeks without a Boot...


3) Stick Option: I think it's time to consider increasing the costs of getting booted from games to include points that the player has already earned... and / or restrictions on joining games.

Something small enough to be manageable,
but noticeable enough that people reconsider joining a game when they know that life is probably going to get them booted?

>> Just one example, should a clan-mate who is (apparently) a busy college student in a difficult major, be joining a double-elimination tournament at the end of the Spring Semester?

( That's not really for me to judge, I don't know nearly all of what happened, but he wasn't completely inactive in this case, though he did not reply to my messages, which I kept as polite as I could.) <<



* Should said person, who gets booted partway through the first game, and booted from the second game, be restricted from joining tournaments for a couple of weeks on his return?

* Should said person lose some points, perhaps a few thousand?

* What if it causes said player to drop a level?


3.5) Should a player with a very high boot rate get to wear a Golden Boot next to their name everywhere they go until their boot rate goes below said very high boot rate?


Thanks for listening. :)

-- Dublin Warrior

Edited 8/13/2015 02:05:28

when i get booted out of games, I'm usually right there in time 1 minute after I'm booted. In my opinion, we need to have a more mature audience of players, not make booting worse than it already is.

How do we best encourage that?

I offered several options that do not punish...

Are they good ideas, or do we need better ideas?

Do you usually get booted out of Real-Time, or Multi-Day Games?

And what would help or persuade you to login soon enough that you don't get booted?

( I presume that we can get booted if we are at the computer trying to complete our turns...)

Edited 8/13/2015 02:19:30

I would not say people with high boot rates are punished at all, save perhaps they are excluded from seeing available games because someone sets a minimum to % of boot rate. This community is largely self regulating in that regard.

I see booting someone as a perfectly legal tactic, and would not hesitate to use it in the majority of games that I play. In turn I don't mind being booted by others, because that is easily avoided by policing your games carefully.

I think booting requires no adjustment.

i like the idea of low boot rate achievements. people should be rewarded for it.

@Genghis Or you could take your turns on time. It's inconsiderate to go over the timer and assume people are going to not boot you.

That being said, I rarely boot anyone: in my own games I set autoboot to the same as direct boot to avoid the issue of people getting accused of tac-booting, and people consistently going over the timer while others have to wait.

Of course real life gets in the way; don't join a real time game if you're busy at the moment.

if life happens and i go over time, i actually feel bad if i DONT get booted.

Short answer: no.

Long answer: settings settings settings.
If you create or join a game that can be easily ruïned by people getting booted,
make sure it has maxboot% as joining-prerequisite.

On the other hand, some games are made to boot;
both high and low boot-times can mess with a player's ability to commit orders,
certain games allow a player to come back after turning into AI 10 times
(thus enabling players to get a 1100% bootrate)

And as far as community norms go, those are best enforced by the community (players and clans) and not by Fizz himself. If you find someone playing unethically or being a horrible teammate, inform them so they know, blacklist them if they make no effort to improve, warn your ckanmates so they can avoid them too, and if they're in a clan, inform the leadership what they're associating themselves with so they can either fix their clan or choose to become the brand that others avoid (clans are a great player-sorting method- for example, if you could pick a 2v2 ladder teammate from apex vs. Mongols, the clan brand could easily tell you what each one might be like).

In real-times, I've gotten booted about 50 times because people haven't accepted my surrender, hence why my own boot rate is 12.1%, much higher than I wanted. I have no idea how to force people to accept my surrender because I've usually left the game.

It's inconsiderate to go over the timer and assume people are going to not boot you.

Depends on the situation. If someone has a valid reason to go afk for a short time and posts so in chat than booting them anyways is a serious jerk move.

Now, if someone is going over the timer every single turn than it's a different story.

^ A problem solved by banked boot times.

More boot education is needed. We are aware of that problem. This is slated for development over the next few months. I have played with several players that are not aware they can surrender. They just close the tab when they are losing and walk away. Awareness to surrender is a big quality of game issue.

I like this thread, more ideas around carrots and sticks. Keep them up.

Honestly, I've been booted when I -HAVE- hit surrender. People wont accept it. Its happened about good 50 times to me throughout my time playing diplos. Automatically accepting surrender is a good thing but, sometimes when you hit it and then you finally see something you could've changed is the worst D:

So maybe something inbetween autoaccept and forcing everyone to accept would be good.

@Eklipse True, I would never boot someone if they said in chat "I have to go do something real quick, please don't boot".

@Des Personally I'd be in favor of getting rid of surrender accepting during any game that isn't a team game. I'd like to know I can opt out of a game without getting booted and simply accepting a loss. It's annoying as hell when people tactically don't accept someone else's surrender in a damn Free For All. Someone did that to me and I retracted my surrender and made a B-line for their territories with several large stacks, letting the other players take the stuff I used to own.

Edited 8/14/2015 06:07:34

^^^^^ +1 to Ebin398's last post.

+1 Des...

actually, I think that most or even all of the issues that I see in this thread has happened to me at least once already... except that I never play Real-Time games...
too much risk of booting, especially in my situation of not actually owning a device that I can play WarLight on.

Events History : including going over my boot time and being shocked to find that I am still in the game; having a boot rate over 10% (not atm, thankfully); surrendering with my team mate in the second-round tournament game cited above only to find that because my team mate surrendered first, I got booted for not checking back, because I was a noob; etc. I don't think I've ever been voted out... but I'd have to check.

( I get around. :O )

However, I have not yet made my own multi-player game yet...
in part because I am a little bitty Level 17, and I lack money...
plus the procedure for starting my very own multi-player game is honestly a bit daunting...
So I don't much know what I'm doing there,
except to "steal" a template/map combo that I think I would like and host it...

Maybe for my next game. :)

---

AlternateHistoryGuy / Des :

If I were to surrender because I know that I will get booted otherwise, and I post in the game chat announcing my decision and reasons,
I'd be most inclined to block people who forced me to get booted...
I'd even be inclined to block someone if I trusted the story of someone who was in that situation...
and to some extent with cases of "I'll be right back, please don't boot", although it could be abused.

My clan has a voluntary clan-wide blocklist, started by knyte, which I love.
It is also piece-meal, in that you can block the people in cases 1, 2, and 5, and disregard cases 3 and 4, or however one likes.

Good reasons had to be given for nominations with tons of supporting evidence,
including detailed claims, game links, profile links and mitigating circumstances,
and are verified by knyte, before they appeared on the official list,
and not every claim made the list, which is again voluntary and piece-meal.
Further, those details are noted in the official list.
I also checked out the details of many of the claims on my own.

It's not the sort of thing I would suggest for the open game forums,
due to the obvious political/drama reasons,
but if other clans have block lists with the same protections,

I'd be very interested in swapping my personal copy of the list with clans that also have well-documented lists.

Edited 8/14/2015 06:31:18

Honestly, I've been booted when I -HAVE- hit surrender. People wont accept it. Its happened about good 50 times to me throughout my time playing diplos. Automatically accepting surrender is a good thing but, sometimes when you hit it and then you finally see something you could've changed is the worst D:

So maybe something inbetween autoaccept and forcing everyone to accept would be good.

Could it not be setup that if a player exceeds the boot time and has surrendered:

Their surrender is automatically accepted

OR

The boot does not count against them since they made a reasonable effort to not be booted?

Edited 8/14/2015 05:38:27

Master Ree - there is a reason for "accept surrender" option. I agree, that in FFA's and 1v1's it is not necessary. But in team games it is annoying as hell, when your teammate surrenders, just because he's losing, but not the whole team. I'd have no regrets upon booting such a player.

From the other hand, I don't understand people, who "tactical" boots right after the clock runs out. Yes, you have right to do it, but what's the point of playing if you won all your games by booting opponent? I always thought, that point of this game is to have fun by playing with others. Not having highest lvl, or best stats. But well, I guess some enjoy stats more, than pleasure of playing..

Well sometimes I like to play a game, but I have to do something. Usually I try to do things while I'm still in the lobby, but things happen and I come back and I'm booted by 1 minute. It's damn disgusting.

I think there should be an option regarding surrenders that instead of either being automatically accepted vs requiring EVERYONE to accept, that you only require half + 1 or half rounded up of the other players to accept. That stops that one stubborn person from refusing to accept your surrender.