Two things I think would help ladder.

[VipMattMan]

First of all the number of 5v5/stopped games is ridiculous. It's not uncommon for there to be 2-3 stopped games in a row. Half the time it's someone who wasn't paying attention or had something else going on and knew they shouldn't be playing in the first place. There needs to be some new standards and automatic consequences that people actually are held to, to keep people from being so lackadaisical about this stuff.

I understand that automatic bans aren't always ideal due to situational circumstances and our lack of players, but the application of a new philosophy could actually go a long way towards keeping people more conscious about variables that may affect other people, even when someone isn't banned.

I think it's time to get rid of the chivalry and start playing games 5v6 when people leave or lag out. People who are having connection issues can be forced to play, unless they're simply being a detriment to their team, but the other team should not sit for them.

At first, many people are going to be frustrated because it was unfair for them to get an "automatic loss" due to a teammate, but between the shame of costing other people and yourself a game, and the potential of other punishment, I think the number of quality 6v6 games will most likely go up significantly fairly quickly.

Let's face it. Those games were not designed for 5v5, and the changing dynamic of a randomly rated player leaving creates a hell of a dice roll. That's supposedly mitigated and justified by the other team sitting their "worst" player, but it really isn't. Playing 5v5 just creates a random crappy game that serves no purpose other than to make people feel better about having played a random crappy game. It's a facade.

Under any circumstance that the game isn't stopped, ALL remaining players should continue to play. If the game is stopped then there should be responsive punishments, like a 12 hour ban, to the person or people that caused it to be stopped. At least make people rationalize to an admin why they should be unbanned if they think they should be able to immediately play again.

Honestly I expect people would revolt against that idea simply because they would get so irritated with it in the beginning, but I really do think it would improve things in the long run.

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My other suggestion should be less controversial.

I think it should be pretty much set in stone that we move servers from EU to US at 6 pm EST everyday, regardless of what players currently patron ladder.

EU is where ladder starts each day, and it becomes a pain to get it moved when it should be. Some people don't play simply because it's not on their region, thereby skewing the current players towards EU. 6 pm is semi-close to the middle point of the time ladder is played (it's actually probably on the late side), so it will sort of help with equalizing the current setup as well.

[tomato man]

Playing 5 vs 6 would just make more people from the handicap team ragequit...
I think the solution this is a game stop as fast as possible and if the vote is not working we just need an admin to stop it fast...
Its gettig popular to play 5vs5 game till the end... and that is 1 of the reason of so many bad quality games.

I want to make another reflection i already pointed out to most admins, but seems they wont do anything; The real reason of the general low quality of games standa in the fact that many good players started playing planes they suck at... i dont have problems with bad players but i hate to play with 3 randas, 3 bips or 3 bombers..it just make no sense. There are many way to force players to change plane if all the teamates are asking to and i want to know why cant we make a rule for this.

[LewisH]

http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9233

• Playing when you know your connection is too bad to not get continuously disconnected in the middle of a game, causing repeated disruption.
• Speccing because you didn’t know you were supposed to be in the game
• Speccing as a player for any other reason, either repeatedly or without giving warning.

5v6: I'd be fine with this, but I think that's far from the opinion of the majority - see the endless complaining and general negativity (talking about at EU times here, I have no idea if it's better later on) in ladder since the beginning of this season, which seems to come down to a lack of game balance.

EU -> US: I usually leave before 5 EST, so this doesn't effect me.

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by VipMattMan

First of all the number of 5v5/stopped games is ridiculous.

It has always been ridiculous although in the last year or so we probably have a few more active players with ping issues.

We aren't going to play 6v5 as that is pointless and no more fun than 5v5... might as well just give the win to the team with 6 rather than waste time playing it out if the person gone has a rating more than a few hundred points.

Banning gets complicated when it comes to disconnects. There are a few players who routinely, but not every game, have ping issues. Sometimes we ban them, especially if they try to play when it is clear they are spiking, but for the most part these players don't have the ability to improve their connection. So when they return from a ban nothing will have changed.

A lot of the time though 5v5 is rare internet issues or other reason a player has to leave and I don't like punishing for having to leave once. Usually first time will be a warning, but a second time soon after would be a ban.

The actual solutions I have wanted for this problem for a long time are:

• Warning system: Every player issue that is not really significant enough for a ban would result in a warning, so disconnects, playing with bad connection, spec chat (if not yet enforced by code), insulting players, and similar. I haven't thought about it enough yet, but I am thinking each warning would be somewhere between 25-50 points and 100 points = ban with length probably 1 to 3 days depending on ban history.
• Subs: You may not have been around here when there was a lot of discussion on my plan to implement subs. It is still my intention to do this, but it has been low priority because it might not end up being all that useful. I really don't want subs to have a significant impact on game balance so rating of sub would need to be very close. So even if sub feature is added, often there may be no sub both with a close rating and willing to play.

I will have the warning system added very soon, and hopefully I will get a chance to add subs during this season.

Originally Posted by VipMattMan

I think it should be pretty much set in stone that we move servers from EU to US at 6 pm EST everyday

I would prefer that moves be done based on pings than any specific time. 6pm EST is usually still primarily EU anyway so it would likely need to be at least 7pm for any automatic move based on time. There can always be automatic moves based on the players in the server if we wanted to do that instead of voting and admin moves.

Vote move can sometimes be difficult, but usually there is an admin on who can move.

When people see a few more bad pings than good they automatically think that a server move is needed. However, often multiple players with bad pings are not actually closer to the other server and moving would only make things worse.

[VipMattMan]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

We aren't going to play 6v5 as that is pointless and no more fun than 5v5... might as well just give the win to the team with 6 rather than waste time playing it out if the person gone has a rating more than a few hundred points.

Banning gets complicated when it comes to disconnects. There are a few players who routinely, but not every game, have ping issues. Sometimes we ban them, especially if they try to play when it is clear they are spiking, but for the most part these players don't have the ability to improve their connection. So when they return from a ban nothing will have changed.

A lot of the time though 5v5 is rare internet issues or other reason a player has to leave and I don't like punishing for having to leave once.

That's the point. No it's not any more "fun" than a 5v5, but sometimes it takes hard measures to fix something. Do you think as many people would forget they were playing, or play when they know something's likely to take them out of the game, if so many people are going to hold them directly accountable for losing?

The very fact that we're making room for 5v5 games and trying to make them more fun, is the very reason that people are becoming less and less opposed to playing them out. It's the same reason you're going to continue seeing more and more of them until the situation is more aggressively addressed.

Why create a dice roll in which the person who left may be rewarded and people focus on "another 5v5 game" instead of the specific person who caused them to lose? Lack of accountability and compromising to make the game playable anyway. The results of that culture are as expected.

Sure, random things happen to everyone and it makes it difficult on the face to justify punishing them for something that "happens to everyone". But the things that happen to everyone are happening to different users nearly every single game. Maybe if people DID start getting punished for things that were just "a one time thing", more people would take more conscious preventative measures. 12 hour bans should send a message while letting the people come back to play the next day.

Your warning system will influence conscious intentional behaviors, but it's unlikely it will do much to make people take preventative measures/think twice about their "one time things".

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

I would prefer that moves be done based on pings than any specific time. 6pm EST is usually still primarily EU anyway so it would likely need to be at least 7pm for any automatic move based on time.

Waiting for pings to change just means that fewer people who would play on the other server are on to weight the server that direction. Give people a scheduled time for each server and you may actually see more people show up to play.

Besides that, if we leave things as they are, then ratings are going to continue to be weighted hardcore towards EU players.

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by VipMattMan

Do you think as many people would forget they were playing, or play when they know something's likely to take them out of the game, if so many people are going to hold them directly accountable for losing

I really can't see it making a difference honestly if we did 6v5. I think people would leave just as often as most of the time as the majority of the time it is outside of their control. All it will do is hurt the team playing with 5.

They do need to be held more accountable with bans and the warning system will take care of this. I don't think it will reduce 5v5 games as much as we'd like, but it will at least make sure they are held accountable. I feel 12 hour bans for the random internet outage or similar is excessive.

Rocket League is only 15m for leaving although obviously that is almost pointless. I can say from experience that playing with uneven teams in RL is a stupid waste of time and certainly not something that I want in Altitude. There could be some argument made for allowing the team down a player to quit if the player who left does not return soon. I believe in RL the teammates of a a leaver do not take a loss or lose points, but I could be wrong. They can still earn points if they win though, although in RL it is much easier since if they are ahead they only need to hold the lead. If we switched to timed ball we might be able to do it like Rocket League does.

Those who do leave more or play with bad connections certainly need harsher bans than they get now and again the warning system will fix this.

[VipMattMan]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

I really can't see it making a difference honestly if we did 6v5. I think people would leave just as often as most of the time as the majority of the time it is outside of their control. All it will do is hurt the team playing with 5.

I can say from experience that playing with uneven teams in RL is a stupid waste of time and certainly not something that I want in Altitude.

5v5 is just as much a stupid, arbitrary, waste of time. It's just obfuscated by illogical rationale and basic human psychology. Ideally the game would be stopped, period.

If anything 6v5 would force people to stop the games that shouldn't be played, more frequently, as it should be, because they more readily recognize the irrationality of playing the game. As it stands right now I've been playing multiple 5v5 games that people refuse to stop because someone scored a point, the past few days.

I certainly don't expect my idea to be applied, because it's not the most comfortable concept for people up-front, in a small community, but ultimately there's going to have to be some push back very soon to stop this stuff if all else fails.

[Prezzy]

Instead of banning or maybe paired with it, there could be a "point reduction" as punishment for the player in fault. Just an idea.

[Aki1024]

I get to be an asshole and have easier opponents?

[Oyster]

What if you set up a server command to automatically stop the game if 11 or less players are in the game for more than two minutes.
Maybe have server send a message with a warning, "Rejoin within 120 seconds or the game will be stopped."
IDK how hard it is to code something like that, but it uses basic logic and data so I assume its possible.