Lobby Decisions - How to start a game?

I was getting called out for my ping being higher than 200. I dont believe the ping to be a good indicator of a strong connection as some connections can have low ping to a server but drop alot of packets and slow the game down that way. I agree that anything over 1000 is pretty unplayable for an RTS but with some elitist attitudes and alot of misinformation it can make things difficult for people like myself living in more remote parts of the world.

I play LOL and can have lag at 30 ping, so yea, ping only goes so far.

Anyway, in my personal experience, there's always that moment where everyone has to be reminded to ready-up. Having a forced start (with players being able to interrupt) is fine.

My main concern is, irrespective of these changes, that we get pre loading back again. I guess to do that the map has to be fixed at some point. Other changes to the lobby don't effect it so I don't think it will be a huge problem?

Exactly what I was going to propose, sounds wonderful thanks for sharing the brainstorming with us!

Well, I think that kick option must come back.

As someone else stated, we must have some kind of protection against trolls, mean players or people who join not theirs game (f.e. some kind of clan/private PvP with obs).

Another scenario: I hosted a big game for me and my friends against "rest of the world", make it friends only, friends join, make it public, rest people join. Ok, at this point everything is fine, but when someone from my team drop out during the lobby phase and other player take his position, there is no way to make this player go away. We also can't swap players around at this moment, so the only way to make it right again is to host again and drop all the people in the lobby...

IMO the kick button is very essential here.

I also am against autostart, the "Another scenario" is almost a good example. Your friend timed out, someone else joins, games launches and we have to quit after long "Generating planet". It is a huge waste of time for everyone and it will make people whine and do rageposts.

Those other options (countdowns, ready buttons [+kick stays], force start) depends on you, whatever happens on this front I think it will be acceptable for everyone.

Force start sounds like a bad idea, kick should suffice. I don't want to find myself going in to 3v4 just because host was restless.

Maybe add some sort of setup phase so the host can fiddle about before the game goes public? Since a lot of the suggestions here are to deal with miscommunication between players and host, giving the host plenty of time to set up and figure out what she/he wants to play before people join might help.

I also like the dictator / democracy suggestion. Don't know if people would use anything besides the dictator one but would be fun to have something where you can **** around if you don't know what to play and just go with what people come up with. Or maybe just some mapvote / modevote function that the host can use if there's too much disagreement in the lobby about what to play.

Anyhow, communication is key. Make sure host can show what kind of game he / she wants and make sure players can find it easily. I think parts of the confusion at the moment might come from the fact lobby was recently changed and the sale brought a lot of new players leaving plenty of room for misunderstandings.

I'm gonna go ahead and go in depth into why I think my idea of having the host start a countdown and then everyone click ready.

Force start
This is the worst possible option. ANY KIND OF FORCE START IS BAD. You introduce a huge possibility that people aren't going to be ready when the host starts, and an equivalent possibility that there will be someone afk. I go into every game currently expecting that someone will be gone. Please, anything but this.

All ready
Meh, it get's the job done. I think it was much more effective than the forced start, but still has a possibility to leave someone out. I know atleast I personally am guilty of entering a lobby and sometimes just click ready and then alt-tab and then come back only to realize the game started a minute ago. This works if all people are attentive and willing to sit in the lobby for 5 minutes waiting to press ready, and honestly I don't mind it.

Start -> Ready
This is basically a vote to start option. The host "starts" the game countdown, which locks the game and lobby options, an audio cue (?) plays for everyone to alert them, and each player must ready "ready." This completely eliminates the chance of anyone being afk or offline. Any player who doesn't hit ready will be announced to the lobby, and the host has the option to kick them. This solves literally all the problems. Please, please, please, take a look at this as I think it's the only way to ensure that games aren't unfair from the beginning.

Hi, as a temp fix you can remove the slot on your team and then add the slot again and it will be empty for your teammate to quickly jump in.

The main problem before was that if someone didn't click ready, games couldn't start.

The main problem now is that the host can start the game before everyone is ready.

I think each player should have a minimum amount of time to get ready for the game(30 seconds for example). Once the host clicks the start button the game should disappear from the games list so people can't join anymore. If everyone has already been in the lobby for 30 seconds the game starts immediately. If not, it starts when everyone reaches the limit.

There's still the problem of an afk host. Maybe the starting state could also be triggered by a vote.

Only think I would add to that is if a team mate leaves you should also automatically unready

It's a good proposition. I would only add that game options should be locked during the countdown and if any player leave, the countdown should stop.
It could be good to uncheck the ready button when people leave/options changes.

I dont understand the "pre-load" arguement? Even large systems load in 15 secs or less for me. Not a big deal.

• Kick button - yes
• invite button -yes
• Host should be in 100% control of HIS game, so kicking the host -no
• ready button - well i suppose, but kick button pretty much takes care of this
• manual or automatic team balance - yes
• vote button for planet type -yes

In game it would be nice to have a kick button by vote if someone is trolling.

Other than that, it would be nice to be able to talk to the rest of the players outside of your lobby "two chat windows in lobby.

This vote button you speak of for the planet type... should it be able to be over ruled by the host?

Well think about this, if you make a game and someone doesnt like your chocies, is it fair to be booted out of your own game? No, they can leave and find a different game.

As for your guestion, yes he should have the ultimate say since he created the game. If 4 people vote for single system lava, i would hope the host would be good enough to change the planet to please the rest of the players.

Forrest also has some really good articles on this.

Synchronous RTS Engines and a Tale of Desyncs

Synchronous RTS Engines 2: Sync Harder

The Tech of Planetary Annihilation: ChronoCam

The game just skips around for them. They aren't behind or anything. It shouldn't effect you.

• I would like the READY button back, game starts when all hit READY
• Host could force a start with a 30 sec countdown sounds nice
• I want the pregenerating planets back to the lobby and the Yellow/Green indicator
• I would like to have a button for that pregenerating, in case I just wanna check who is in the lobby before deciding to stay
• I want the host to be able to name the game to appear in the all games lobby
• I want the KICK button back
• I want the password back!

Password is top right no? Does it not work?

What basically everyone else said, and I +1 for kick button and ban button.

All RTS I have played it was never a problem in the lobby when the host changed settings, 99% of the hosts interact with the people that do join.

More of a problem are people that join just to be annoying, hence I would like the ban button/kick button.
Although, luckily this was not a problem in PA at all so far...

I like this if in when all players hit the ready button the game starts then and does not have to wait the full minute.