I'm wondering if anyone in this discussion is actually opposing the idea of making it a new boot option.. or perhaps even something as simple as a checkbox \*make DB's be for all unsubmitted players*

Because Auto Boot achieves that fairness.

^ @ Diabolicus

Again, you are avoiding a straight answer :-)

Diabolicus, I know you're not complaining about getting booted yourself, but you are complaining about what you see as abuses of a particular setting. Not only are there people who don't agree that these actually are abuses, but you can easily avoid these abuses using existing settings.

You say auto-boot is fair and direct boot is flexible, but you ignore vote-to-boot. That's both fair and flexible, and easily solves the abuses you're worried about. And as emoose says, with vacation mode, auto-boot becomes both fair and flexible as well.

I would also point out that you haven't yet given "a single valid explanation" as to why a brand new setting is needed when the goals you want to accomplish can be easily accomplished with existing settings. Emoose's answer was as straight as it could be.

@ Diabolicus:

(reddleman's post answers quite well, but I'll post this anyways)

Not really; you are demanding a compromise between two booting options at the cost of one of those booting options.

You are unwilling to accept that:

- Each player has an equal opportunity to only create or join games where they approve of the boot settings.

- Each player has an equal opportunity to take their turn before they reach the boot timer, thereby avoiding the possibility of booting in the first place.

- Each player or team has equal opportunity to boot players who go over the boot timer. Although it can be argued that it's not always possible to be online to take this opportunity, every player in every game is faced with that same issue; not being online to boot someone or choosing not to boot all players that are over the boot time when that time comes does not make your case special.

You also seem to be unwilling to accept that most of the people arguing against you seem to be at the very least *not against* adding it as an additional boot option, which is basically saying that you're only here to rage about Direct Boot, rather than actually contribute to the foundation of the idea presented by the OP.

No, I cannot make a valid argument as to why this idea is not improving the collective gaming experience here, because there is no true definition for the collective gaming experience. In any game, each person plays his or her own way, enjoys the things that they as a specific person enjoy, and dislike the things that they as a specific person dislike. You also can provide no legitimate argument that this is would improve the collective gaming experience, because you are a single player, and no one has elected you to represent the majority of the player base.

If any single person had the ability to legitimately decide what is best for the game in terms of the enjoyment of each individual player as well as the overall growth of the player base, to the extent that at all times the minimum majority of players continues to enjoy playing the game, there would be no real need for anything which gives players the opportunity for feedback, including most aspects of this forum. The reason that any feedback methods exist is so that the entire player base has the opportunity to contribute their opinion regarding what the "collective gaming experience" should be.

And before you say that my answer is not definitive: that's kind of the point.

I have to admit I am confused by the stance that booting rules are part of the game rules and the same as something as necessary and basic as offensive kill rates and territory bonuses.

Clearly they are rules put into the game, but they are there to prevent problems that arise from multiple people joining the same game with different schedules. Ideally, and I hope you can agree with this, no one would ever get booted.

The game is all about placing and moving armies. Booting is what happens when the game cannot function without it. Booting has absolutely nothing to do with how the game is designed to run. Booting exists for when the game cannot be played otherwise.

If it's not part of the strategy game then any argument for booting selective players seems to fall flat. I'd love to hear an argument for why it should be, rather than just stating it is.

Can anyone give me an argument for why booting should be considered the same as bonuses for territories? If that's the case, then a valid strategy should be to stall the game until someone goes over the time limit at night, and then boot them. No one should ever vote to end after a first turn boot/surrender, and so on.

Noone is raging about anything, emoose, I think we are having a civilized discussion here, so let's keep it that way.

To sum it up: an improvement to the way direct boot currently works was proposed. Some agreed, others disagreed. So far so good. But those of you who rejected the idea have - in my eyes - not given a plausible explanation why exactly the current system is superior to the new proposal. What exactly - in your opinion - would be the downside of - in case of multiple players being bootable - booting them all at once, as soon as someone pulled the trigger? Or to ask the other way round: What advantage do you gain from booting only some out of many, instead of booting them all? The game would still be stuck?

Actually I don't really care if this was implemented as a completely new boot option or as an alteration of the existing direct boot, I just cannot see the disadvantage that would result from it?
Cases where only one player is over the boot limit would even remain completely untouched by the change, you still can boot as much as you like as soon as you can. Only cases where more than one player is bootable were different - in those cases people would think twice before they hit the boot button, if it would mean to boot players from their own team as well? And forcing people to think twice before they spoil everyones fun with an inconsiderate boot sure cannot be a bad thing?

Maybe I can make my line of thinking a bit clearer:

Thesis 1:
A game where players get booted usually gets imbalanced and tends to end sooner. Often this is frustrating for all players and teams, no matter if they are losing or winning, because either you are now one player down and lose because you are outnumbered, or you win too easily and your victory is worth less because you had an advantage. The fewer players get booted, the better for the overall gaming experience.

Thesis 2:
Booting should serve only one purpose: Let an otherwise stuck game continue. Booting just to get rid off inconvenient adversaries and to gain an advantage in game is not the intended use of the booting system.

Thesis 3:
Booting should rather be an "ultima ratio" rather than a first reflex. Booting should only be possible if the turn actually advances after booting the player in question.

Thesis 4:
In cases where multiple players are bootable, booting only one player will not advance the game. It is unnecessary because the game won't advance, unless ALL overdue players get booted.
Same for vacations: If a player is on vacation, booting is unnecessary, the game won't advance.

@ Ben, although it's in response to another post, we're kind of getting further from the point again.

For "Booting exists for when the game cannot be played otherwise," I disagree. Why? Define "cannot be played otherwise". Any game can be played. A game that has been inactive for 2 years can suddenly have inactive participants return to the game and finish it, which still technically qualifies as playing the game. Vote-to-boot and Direct Boot exist so that players who take their turn in a timely manner (defined as being within the boot timer, regardless of the specifics) can decide whether or not to boot players who aren't taking their turns, as well as which players to boot. Auto Boot exists so that any player who exceeds the set boot time is booted without bias.

I can't give you an argument for why booting is the same as bonuses for territories, because I don't really agree with it myself. Game mechanics and Boot mechanics are two different things. The only relation I can find between the two is that they're both factors in the outcome of a game.

I don't fully understand what you're trying to say with the 4th paragraph, but I think it ties into the last one, so hopefully this answers it as well:

Technically, stalling a game to put someone over the boot time *is* a valid strategy. As mentioned in previous posts, when you join a game you agree to the boot settings. If you are unable to keep your turns within the boot limit, getting booted is more your own fault than the fault of the person booting you. Yes, this can be considered abuse, but if you feel that someone is abusing the system in such a way, you have the ability to blacklist them to avoid having them do the same thing to you in the future.

Since I've answered your post to the best of my ability, I really don't see how any of that is relevant to the "issue" of selective booting.

---

@ Diabolicus

Actually I don't think I've said that there is a "downside" to the proposed change to Direct boot. My point once again is that each player has equal opportunity to take advantage of the way it works, as well as having equal opportunity to *avoid* letting it be taken advantage of. You snooze you lose, and I think that's an important part of the game in many ways.

Once again, Auto Boot exists so that there is a booting option where bias is completely removed from the equation. Let's take Auto Boot and put it into your theses:

Thesis 1 - Any player who goes over the boot time gets instantly booted. Although this is unfortunate in some cases where a person is known to be away over the boot timer, it does give you the knowledge that no one is being booted solely for someone's personal gain, which means you can enjoy the game with the remaining players more thoroughly. In the case of multi-day games, you can also choose to allow vacations to be honored, which gives all players some leniency if there will be a known absence.

Thesis 2 - *Any* player who goes over the boot limit is instantly booted. If every player is playing with boot limits that are within their playability, this can under no circumstances be abused for the benefit of a single player. If the boot limit is not within one person's playability, the blame rests with them for joining in the first place. Once again, in the case of multi-day games, you can choose to honor vacations, which gives players more leniency if they know they won't make the boot timer.

Thesis 3/4 (these are the same concept, not sure why you doubled it) - This goes back to what I said in earlier posts. Looking at a single turn, it is absolutely unhelpful for one player to get booted while another has yet to reach their boot timer. However, whether it's because of banked boot time or vacation mode, all players have equal opportunity to avoid getting booted. It would be extremely unfair if people who don't make effective use of the methods for avoiding getting booted are allowed to benefit from a single player who using those methods as intended. Again, this also means the control of booting the less reliable players is in the hands of a single player, which means Auto Boot is no longer Auto Boot, but a crude form of Direct Boot that can be easily abused for personal gain.

---

The reason multiple booting options exist is specifically *because* no single method is perfect, and players can decide which method is *most* suited to the way they want the game to be played. You are taking the booting method which you obviously dislike the most and are saying it should be changed.

Once again, I ask you this:

If you are proposing "Boot All" in place of Direct Boot, why not instead or also advocate for Auto Boot having a way to provide more leniency, since that would achieve an equal end result with a less dramatic change to any existing boot method?

Arrow's Impossibility Theorem FTW!

Duke, after some thought, I would be willing to accept that boot times and methods are distinct from the most fundamental rules of the game to the extent that they are settings that can be changed by the game's host. There are fundamental rules even members cannot change: you must deploy all your armies to territories, armies can only move between connected territories, etc. On the other hand, kill rates, territory bonuses, boot times and boot methods are less fundamental since they can all be changed in settings.

My belief that these settings are functionally equivalent is based on Fizzer's oft-quoted statement that it is impossible to cheat in multiplayer. *Any* option presented in the game interface is a legitimate option to take, otherwise it wouldn't be in the game interface. IIRC, this is also stated in the wiki. I may not *like* when you boot me any more than I like when you invade my bonus, but why is one more legitimate than the other? Especially when I can easily prevent myself from being booted just by taking my turns on time, whereas preventing you from breaking my bonus will be more difficult.

You have chosen a playing style that does not use all of the options in the game interface, and that's fine. So have I, as have all non-members by default, as have all players who usually play either RT or MD and not the other, as have all players who avoid certain maps, or who avoid team games, etc. There's nothing wrong with any of that, but the fact is other people have chosen other playing styles. Their styles and preferred settings are just as valid as yours. One of the great things about Warlight is that there's such a vast range of customizability! Everyone is free to play with their own style.

On a sidenote, I would point out that I'm not arguing *for* the booting of selective players, and I'm not saying I'd do that myself. I've only been in such a situation once, in a 3v3. Before either player was booted, we agreed in chat that if one came back and the other didn't, we'd all vote to end. In a similar situation, I'd do the same thing again. What I am arguing is that selective booting isn't necessarily an "abuse" just because some think it is; and even if it is, existing settings can prevent such abuse.

@emoose:
I honestly believe you haven't even read what I wrote?
Let me quote that for you:
*Actually I don't really care if this was implemented as a completely new boot option or as an alteration of the existing direct boot, I just cannot see the disadvantage that would result from it?*

Here's another summary for you:
Booting damages a game.
Being able to selectively boot only encourages people to pull the trigger earlier. If instead all bootable players were booted simultaneously when a boot command was issued, people would think twice before booting their teammates along with the other team's player(s). Booting would be discouraged.
-> Less damage to the game.
Why is that a bad thing?
Why do you so desperately *need* to boot selectively?

I was hoping someone else would reply if I delayed long enough, and you did! Hooray!

Diabolicus, I'm not opposed to the new setting because I think the current system is *superior*. I'm opposed because I think the two systems are functionally equivalent and there are better things to take up Fizzer's time with. The problems you and others have identified with direct booting can be solved by simply not using direct booting. I don't think the new setting would add any significant value.

That is to say, based purely on the functionality, I'm indifferent between the two systems. Throw in aspects like Fizzer's time, or the added complexity on the Settings screen, and it's just barely enough to tip me from indifference to opposition. If you can convince me that the new setting *would* add significant value by accomplishing a goal that current settings cannot, then I would change my mind.

I'm certainly not opposed to it because I don't want to play games like that. After all, if that was my position, I'd just take my own advice and not use the new setting!

Now to reply to your theses...

Thesis 1: Every imbalanced team game I have been in, I have voted to end. I haven't always successfully convinced others to vote to end, but I'm not going to hold grudges against them because of it.

Thesis 2: Your intuition about the "intended" use of the booting system seems to contradict Fizzer's stated policy. (See my response to Duke above.)

Theses 3&4: You say booting should only be possible if the turn actually advances after the boot. Consider this scenario: Players A and B don't submit orders by the boot time. A gets on chat and has a valid excuse, say a family emergency that will consume their time for a week. B never says a word, and their profile says they've gone inactive for several days. Should player C be able to boot B before A's return so that when A does return the game can advance? I don't see anything wrong with that, but obviously we disagree.

Emoose, if I can try to sway you, your response to Diabolicus' 3rd & 4th theses is, I think, a good argument for why "game mechanics" and "boot mechanics" are on the same level. You say, "It would be extremely unfair if people who don't make effective use of the methods for avoiding getting booted are allowed to benefit from a single player who using those methods as intended." You imply that players who more effectively use available boot mechanics are better players than those who don't. Doesn't that make boot mechanics part of the game?

@ reddleman

To quote my original comment on the matter: "Game mechanics and Boot mechanics are two different things. The only relation I can find between the two is that they're both factors in the outcome of a game."

You misunderstand what I was saying slightly. Both mechanics are part of the game. The distinction I'm talking about is that army mechanics are mainly about skill, whereas boot mechanics are about understanding your own time limits and playing within them.

The only time booting is not an important mechanic in a game is when you remove that mechanic from a specific game.

I think Diabolicus has this right.

Let's be clear on what is at issue. First,

***Is selective booting cheating***?
I don't believe anyone would assert this. It's an available setting, everyone knows about it, everyone agrees to it when they sign up for a game, etc. It's clearly not cheating. The question that Diabolicus and others are asking is

***Should selective booting be allowed***?
This is not a question of legality under the current system, but a question of the quality of the game. I can invent a game of "Heads I Win Tails You Lose", with clearly stated and agreed-upon rules, but it would be utterly lame. Lame rules make for lame games. Just because a rule is part of a game doesn't mean that the game wouldn't benefit from changing it.

We'd have to hear from Fizzer as to precisely why the booting rules were created, but my intuition is that it has nothing to do with the strategy of balancing luck, cards, bonuses, and borders in order to conquer a map. I believe it's only there to move a game along. Once it's in there, it can obviously be used strategically, but I don't find selective booting to be a strategy that is in the spirit of the game. That is why I believe it should be changed (or provided with an alternative). So that brings us to:

***Is there an alternative right now***?
I don't think so, but correct me if I'm wrong. The qualities that Diabolicus seeks are 1) one person can decide that the wait is too long, 2) the game is guaranteed to advance and 3) the boot time is flexible.

Vote-to-boot satisfies (2) because no team will agree to boot only their own player. It would be either all or none. It doesn't satisfy (1), however, because everyone has to actively agree to boot (question: does VTB work when multiple players are not around to vote?). VTB also satisfies (3).

Auto-boot satisfies (1) and (2), but not (3).

The suggestion that auto-boot be given a way to provide leniency would satisfy (2) and (3), but it's not clear to me how it would satisfy (1). The leniency would, I assume, have to come from every player indicating that they would wait, which seems bizarrely onerous. I can't see that ever happening much. Then, presumably, one player could stop being lenient, and the auto-boot would occur. This seems like an unnecessarily complicated way of rephrasing Diabolicus's suggestion. Lastly,

***What should be done***?
I can't see any justification, ever, for selective booting. I think Warlight would be a better game if that were not possible. If it had never been possible, would anyone advocate for it? However, I recognize that some people are comfortable with the game as it is, so I fully support the creation of a new boot feature in which one person can decide to boot all overtime players at once, but not single players.

And this will be more controversial, but I would support making this arrangement the default for all games.

"The leniency would, I assume, have to come from every player indicating that they would wait, which seems bizarrely onerous."

How is this any different from the current Direct Boot or the proposed Boot All?

For one or more players to be given leniency with either system, *every* other player must make the decision to *not* boot the players over the boot timer. The only difference is Direct Boot or Boot All require *not* doing something for the leniency to be achieved, whereas what I mentioned about Auto Boot requires *doing* something. However, I am not advocating that Auto Boot be given that change, simply questioning why the focus is instead **solely** on Direct Boot.

As I said, I would support this as an addition to the current boot options, because the people who like Direct Boot as it is can continue to use it, and to achieve the suggested booting, people aren't forced to go *out of their way* to 'approve' leniency on an Auto Boot. I would also approve that Boot All, as an additional boot option, be made the default setting for all games.

A small note - I'm not sure I would specifically advocate it, but I would definitely support the idea of the current Direct Boot had it not already been implemented, even if the proposed Boot All was in place.

*Is there an alternative right now?
I don't think so, but correct me if I'm wrong. The qualities that Diabolicus seeks are 1) one person can decide that the wait is too long, 2) the game is guaranteed to advance and 3) the boot time is flexible.*

I think there is, that is what I've been trying to explain:
If you are uncomfortable with changing the current "Direct Boot" itself, then just make a copy of it, call it "Direct Boot All". This new boot mode works in every aspect like the current direct boot, except that in those cases where more than one player is bootable, you can only boot either all, or none. Just make it a tick box during game setup, if you wish, whether or not it should be default or not remains to be seen (I would vote yes on that, what a surprise :-) ).
It would meet all 3 criteria WinnieNicklaus listed:
1) Any one player could enforce it without consent from the others (unlike vote to boot)
2) The game would be guaranteed to advance (except in banking boot time games and when players are on vacation, see below)
3) The boot time is flexible (as long as all agree on it, a boot never happens)

I think what caused a lot confusion in this thread was that I/we got carried away by special cases like vacation mode and banking boot time, sorry for that.
I could live with a setting like the one I just described, I think it would be a great improvement over / addition to the status quo.
It is however incosequential, at least when (2) "guarantee the game to advance" is a categorical requirement (as I strongly feel it should be). To guarantee that, you would have to (for BBT games) prohibit booting as long as not all players have exceeded their time or submitted their turn, and you would also prohibit booting during vacations). Personally I felt this was a logical conclusion, so I really didn't see this as a separate issue until now when I write this down, but I can understand now why you have objections against these last two steps. So please judge them separately.

a) Should selective booting be allowed? (concerns all games)
and
b) Should booting only be allowed if the game is guaranteed to advance? (only concerns BBT games and vactions)

Complicated :-)

a) Selective booting should be allowed as an *option* since any player joining the game consents to the game's settings. If you don't like the selective aspect of the booting, don't join the game.

"b" is a bit more complicated. BBT and Vacations should not be allowed in any game with Boot All or Auto Boot as the sole booting method(s). If the goal of Boot All and Auto Boot is to eliminate selective booting, BBT and Vacations with the rule that players can only be booted once all players have reached their boot limit can be used to throw off the intended balance of those booting systems. If players pass their boot timers at different times, they can be individually booted as they come off timers, with the exception that only the first remaining player to pass their boot timer can be booted individually. If all players gain the benefit of the longest boot timer, the person holding the longest boot timer gains the advantage of controlling the boot fate of those past their own boot timers.

In terms of VTB and Direct Boot, having the rule that you can only boot if it's guaranteed to advance the game completely negates the selective booting aspect of the boot options, which is a large part of the reason people choose those boot options.

Verdict: Booting only when doing so guarantees the advancement of the game largely reverses the original intent behind choosing a specific booting option, in which case one would simply choose another booting option. The rule would accomplish nothing.

I actually agree with emoose on that point. Vacation and BBT are special cases that already take away the ability to boot all, as we are discussing. Since they are designed to do that, I can see the point in having them.

I have been in games where two people are late, but only one is on vacation. It did suck when the non-vacation person got booted, but they never came back and were quite late, so it did speed the game up overall. I can at least see the logic and understand that people would want to seperate that.

I still think that Boot All should be an option for all games, and I even think it makes a good default mode. I understand why it would not be everyone's go to option, but I think that hinges on whether booting is considered an early option or a close-to-never option. That's a matter of opinion, so I don't think we are going to come to a conclusion on that one.

If you don't mind me joining the conversation/debate, I'd like to say this:
I see some pros to adding a "Direct Boot All" option to the game; I think it would speed up games. The only important thing, for me, is to make it clear whether a game is a DB all or plain DB. As long as it is visibly different in the settings, I don't have a problem with the option. (And it probably would make a good default setting.)
Cons:
-Another option that clutters the game settings screen.
-Something else to consider when joining/creating a game.
Neither of these are huge impediments though, so I wouldn't consider them decisive in deciding the effectiveness of the concept.

However, for those of you who think that booting *should* be a strategy, I have a suggestion for another fun option ;)

How about this: (my inspiration is Farragut's comment about Coup d'état on page 1 of this thread)
-When someone direct boots someone else, they gain a percentage of that person's territories randomly (like 20 or 30% default, could be a slider to change it). This would make for some very interesting strategies, huh?
-I'm not sure how that would work with VTB, maybe everyone gets an equal share of the gained territories.
-This would also help encourage speed because whoever kicks someone gets a share, and even if you boot a teammate you get some of his territories so you don't necessarily lose the game by default. You could even set it so that no matter who boots the player, his/her teammates would receive a fixed percentage, like 50%, of his territories, distributed randomly. This way even players on the same team would have a motivation to kick someone who is playing slowly, which can mean that they are playing poorly as well.
-As a counterpoint to that, though, there is the possibility that someone won't kick someone because they are on the opposing team and they are playing so poorly that even giving a portion of their territory to one of their allies would give a disadvantage. But I can't see that happening very often, unless the percentage awarded to the kicker is 90 or 100%.

What do you think of that idea?

@ Zibem

That kind of sounds fun, except if the person doing the booting gets the most territories, it just turns into who's online at the boot time and can click the button fastest. I do play games that have that kind of simple joy, but I don't think this is the right place for it. Other than that and the fact that it has nothing to do with the OP, good idea.