Then players will 'surrender' by walking their ACU into the middle of the enemy base. You can't make players who don't want to play play. Unless you penalise losing in the first 5 minutes, which basically means you want to penalise bad players so they lose more.
While we're on the subject, can we get some sort of feedback as to who is actually still in the game of? Cross their name out if they have definitely left the game or something.
At the moment their name goes grey when they are not connected, but I'm not sure how responsive it is, and it's not too obvious.
leaving early penalty should effect the players multiplier statistics. info in the game browser would denote quitters
I thought self-destructing WAS the surrender option, why is a dedicated button required? What is needed is handling of disconnects, either through passing control to the AI or destroying the commander after thirty seconds.
Yes that is how you currently surrender, but as I said in the OP, a lot of people don't seem to know about it and I see know harm in having a dedicated button in the menu screen, especially seeing as there are no tutorials telling people about these things. As for disconnects, I think you have to be a bit careful with how they are handled at this stage as a lot of crashes/discos are due to being in beta.
I read the whole thread. Penalizing for surrendering in the first minutes of the games is still penalizing for surrendering, and that's still overcompensating for something that already reflects badly on you : you get a loss, you've been punished, no need to go any further
I think a better solution would to be just make the leave game self destruct your commander. Leaving the game because of server problems/internet problems could still be rejoined, but any willful leaving the game should result in an automatic loss.
you could always add an inactivity timer to the commander: after 5min of inactivity he self-destructs out pure boredom but make sure to keep the game alive a few seconds after that to hear the other player curse when he forgot to move his commander.
but it's boring for the player if he is already disconnected. Where is the fun of your commander exploding when you can't see it. alternatively, you could ask the player at random intervals to complete a touring test, to see if he is still there and fulfills the minimum requirements to pass as a human player.
You can see the explosion. I dont get the point of this threat. Of course you should be able to kill yourself if you want. Whatever the reason is - if you want to, do it! But then penalize a player? No! There is absolutly no need to. If you kill yourself because you are tired of the game (even in the first minutes) - ok, your opponent won! If you you kill yourself because you see that you cant win this game anymore - ok, dont waste anybodys time, thats nice. The only thing i found interessting here is the suggestion to see if someone leaves the game because he clicked on "go the main menu" or "close pa" OR if someone lost connection. That could be helpful.
Well the thread was originally about having a button added to the menu to surrender as a lot of people I have been facing don't seem to know about "deleting" their commander and just leave the game. But it got a bit derailed, talking about penalising people when they lose (which I think is ridiculous).
not if you are already out of the game, because you lost connection or quit. Otherwise I agree with you no penalties, perhaps a recognizable surrender option for those who don't know they can delete their commander. I just let my mind wander and had a humorous OT excursion on how to enrich the gameplay and frustrate the player with ingame attention checking minigames. Memo to self: use more emoticons if you don't won't to be taken too seriously.