Multiplayer Quitting in VI

[HoTT-NiXX]

I don't play multiplayer for this very reason. I did it a few times and then said not for me. I'm happy to take a butt whooping until the very end but I understand not all are like this. One idea would be to keep track of people quitting prior to being defeated and then have an in game setting of "only people with an "x percentage of quitting" can join. It probably wouldn't work on this style of game due to time sink so you are probably better getting in with a group of players that don't quit but it simple thing to add in. I'd check out whatever groups this thread brings up and join them since that is probably your best bet.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I really don't see a difference. In multiplayer, every player must always have some sort of chance. Some sort of catchup mechanic, or lesser snowball. In singleplayer, the player must always have some sort of chance, or they'll just quit their own game. So all positions need to have a chance, or you'd never lose a game (because you'd always quit). That's a whole bunch of interactions and scenarios you miss out on!

The difference is not in feature on/off, it's in the scale. Yes, both SP and MP require some catchup mechanics, but different ones.

Did you play the latest XCOM? It's ultimately snowball game. On highest difficulty level losing a soldier at wrong moment could mean losing a game. But if you doing good, the game becomes easier with every in-game month. Yet, it extremely fun, because your every step matters. Fortunately for the game, there's a difference between tactical and strategic layer, so devs didn't implement strategic multiplayer at all, focusing on tactical only.

For civilization this approach would be too much, but still I have a feeling what optimal amount of snowballing for SP and MP differ. Of course, this could be balanced only through active playtesting.

And I'm pretty sure, the game is playtested for SP only. If it would play ok in MP, that's good, but I expect the snowballing effect to be a bit too much for MP - just for that reason.

 

[Suho1004]

Simple. NQ doesn't work. I've played maybe over a hundred multiplayer matches, most with NQ people. They quit, they quit often, and they quit in game breaking fashion.

Hmm. Well, if that is true, that is a problem.

I still don't think the solution is to try to build an incentive against quitting into the game, though.

 

[Atlas627]

The difference is not in feature on/off, it's in the scale. Yes, both SP and MP require some catchup mechanics, but different ones.

Did you play the latest XCOM? It's ultimately snowball game. On highest difficulty level losing a soldier at wrong moment could mean losing a game. But if you doing good, the game becomes easier with every in-game month. Yet, it extremely fun, because your every step matters.

XCOM is different, because once your snowball isn't enough to stay alive (win), you *instantly lose* (die). You know your every step matters, because there is only *not losing*, and you are always barely outracing that.

Civ is not like that. There isn't just win/lose. There's winning, losing (death), and continuing to play. You can continue to play without winning or losing, until the game ends. And thus, as long as you haven't died yet, you need to have some way to win. Otherwise, you ARE as good as dead. This is why people quit, in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

 

[stealth_nsk]

XCOM is different, because once your snowball isn't enough to stay alive (win), you *instantly lose* (die). You know your every step matters, because there is only *not losing*, and you are always barely outracing that.

Civ is not like that. There isn't just win/lose. There's winning, losing (death), and continuing to play. You can continue to play without winning or losing, until the game ends. And thus, as long as you haven't died yet, you need to have some way to win. Otherwise, you ARE as good as dead. This is why people quit, in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about too - XCOM snowballing is too extreme for game like civ.

What I don't understand is - where the idea of exactly the same grade of optimal snowballing for MP and SP comes from? Human players are different from AI and they don't have AI bonuses, so catching up is different.

Overall, snowball effect is good for making actions have consequences, but bad for causing "quit" effect. SP has much higher quit threshold as catching up with AI is easier (on high difficulty levels you even start with handicap), so, iMHO, optimal grade of snowballing is higher than in MP.

 

[Atlas627]

Yes, that's what I'm talking about too - XCOM snowballing is too extreme for game like civ.

What I don't understand is - where the idea of exactly the same grade of optimal snowballing for MP and SP comes from? Human players are different from AI and they don't have AI bonuses, so catching up is different.

Overall, snowball effect is good for making actions have consequences, but bad for causing "quit" effect. SP has much higher quit threshold as catching up with AI is easier (on high difficulty levels you even start with handicap), so, iMHO, optimal grade of snowballing is higher than in MP.

If it is possible, at any point, for snowball to enable a player to be out of the game entirely, that is too much snowball. Unfortunately, for such a long game like Civ, that much snowball is required...IF you only check who is winning at the end of the game. You can't even adjust how much snowball there is to an acceptable level, since the game is just too damn long. You'd have to make so many choices not matter at all...

Where the threshold for insurmountable snowball lies *doesn't matter* as long as it occurs before you are out of the game. You're still missing my point entirely (or perhaps I am somehow wildly misunderstanding you).

You have to change the game mechanics to be able to change the snowball level to a point where you are *never* out of the game until you're dead.

 

[stealth_nsk]

You have to change the game mechanics to be able to change the snowball level to a point where you are *never* out of the game until you're dead.

It's a problem with turn-based games. In real-time game you could be far behind, but use incredible skill and turn the table. In turn-based games only limited amount of actions could be done each turn, so if early game actions have some effect on the game, as a result there could be situation where late-game actions will not.

You know those TV shows where 2 teams go through some challenges and earn points? The games are usually designed in a way for late challenges to give more points, but still there's quite common situation where the winner is decided before the last challenge. Turn-based games are like this.

It's all the matter of balance.

 

[Atlas627]

It's a problem with turn-based games. In real-time game you could be far behind, but use incredible skill and turn the table. In turn-based games only limited amount of actions could be done each turn, so if early game actions have some effect on the game, as a result there could be situation where late-game actions will not.

You know those TV shows where 2 teams go through some challenges and earn points? The games are usually designed in a way for late challenges to give more points, but still there's quite common situation where the winner is decided before the last challenge. Turn-based games are like this.

It's all the matter of balance.

It is true that the limited number of actions can ensure that you can be in a position of never catching up. Even if you change the scoring system to check all game long, you still could reach a point where someone has accumulated enough points that it is "literally impossible" to catch up. However, you can also change the scoring system to scale in ways that make catchup possible much more if not always possible.

If winning at the end of the game is the only thing that matters, then the only purpose of winning early is to win late (aka snowball-y game). If you require someone to be winning the game *more often* than everyone else, then everyone still needs to try their best all the time, but you can create catchup mechanics for some ebb and flow. The game will be more interesting. The game will feel doomed far less often.

It doesn't matter that snowballing in Singleplayer and Multiplayer don't need to be the same. You want people to feel the need to quit a game VERY rarely in either case.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

It is true that the limited number of actions can ensure that you can be in a position of never catching up. Even if you change the scoring system to check all game long, you still could reach a point where someone has accumulated enough points that it is "literally impossible" to catch up. However, you can also change the scoring system to scale in ways that make catchup possible much more if not always possible.

If winning at the end of the game is the only thing that matters, then the only purpose of winning early is to win late (aka snowball-y game). If you require someone to be winning the game *more often* than everyone else, then everyone still needs to try their best all the time, but you can create catchup mechanics for some ebb and flow. The game will be more interesting. The game will feel doomed far less often.

It doesn't matter that snowballing in Singleplayer and Multiplayer don't need to be the same. You want people to feel the need to quit a game VERY rarely in either case.

You've given me some food for thought. The new form of multiplayer (that I devised in the thread that I linked to above) could use 'staged scoring' (based on turn numbers, not actual eras). At certain turns, you'd check e.g. who's built the most wonders, and award points based on that, as well as number of cities, researched techs, etc. Over time, with a few dozen test games, a balanced scoring system could be achieved that awards players for progress in earlier eras as well as later ones. In an extreme situation, a player who did the best until the half-way point of the game could still win even if everyone else teamed up and took them down during the remaining turns. Now ideally this wouldn't happen ofc; but it being a real danger would mean that the game would flow in different directions than if normal scoring were to be used. You could spam wonders with little defense and have an actual shot of winning in multi-player!

I will have to think long and hard about this. I only wish we knew more about the multiplayer, to determine how feasible, or indeed necessary, such a system is, with regards to the actual game mechanics.

 

[Altisma]

It's amazing to me people can be satisfied with the AI. I got bored the AI after like 10 hours in CIV 5. And we all know they can't make a AI be the perfect player, they are going to do stupid things, and they are going to cheat to balance the superior mind of player fighting against them.

 

[Acken]

If the multiplayer was stellar Id play it. Its terrible though.

 

[Atlas627]

You've given me some food for thought. The new form of multiplayer (that I devised in the thread that I linked to above) could use 'staged scoring' (based on turn numbers, not actual eras). At certain turns, you'd check e.g. who's built the most wonders, and award points based on that, as well as number of cities, researched techs, etc. Over time, with a few dozen test games, a balanced scoring system could be achieved that awards players for progress in earlier eras as well as later ones. In an extreme situation, a player who did the best until the half-way point of the game could still win even if everyone else teamed up and took them down during the remaining turns. Now ideally this wouldn't happen ofc; but it being a real danger would mean that the game would flow in different directions than if normal scoring were to be used. You could spam wonders with little defense and have an actual shot of winning in multi-player!

I will have to think long and hard about this. I only wish we knew more about the multiplayer, to determine how feasible, or indeed necessary, such a system is, with regards to the actual game mechanics.

That is another way to do it, yes. I chose to score different things at different times, so that a player who was "behind" before is now the scariest player because they are about to score a bunch in the next era. Furthermore, it inherently changes the "best" strategy of snowballing whatever yield turns out to be the best into a situational strategy, since you might want to deviate from that strategy to grab era-specific points. I also chose to do it by gameplay triggers (to define "eras") so that the players could affect each other's strategies by changing the timing of scoring.

If all you did was add the scoring system, you'd still have the snowball. THEN you'd need to edit the snowball mechanics, which is another whole challenge. But it could work, too.

 

[x2Madda]

One of the biggest problems with multiplayer in V (apart from connectivity issues, crashes, exploits, UI) has been how difficult it is to keep people in the game. Usually someone quits because of a bad start. Then someone quits after missing The Great Library. Then someone quits after the first war. By turn 40, it's just you and the host.

Do you think (or hope) that VI does something to curtail this behavior? It might take a more holistic multiplayer experience, complete with rankings and rewards that may be forfeit for leavers. It might even take preventing leavers from rejoining a game for a couple hours after quitting. These incentives work in MOBAs, so they should work to some extent here.

Given that we haven't heard much about the multiplayer, they might be going this route -- or they might not. What do you think?

Having won well over 200 MP games I have to say, people need the ability to quit unpunished. I say this as someone who finds it infuriating! I want players to stay till the very end however I accept that in a game of civ, only 1 person can win. No if's, no buts, just 1 person in a game of 6 or 8 or however many are playing.

If you are not winning in science, you need to start building military, there is no other option and I feel like THAT is the failure of Civ5. Science victory only exists if your military is strong enough to wipe out all the other human players before they gang up and try to do the same to you.

Offline/ad-hoc alliances are also something that Firaxis can never hope to fix and none are as sore a loser as the human player that loses to you a few times. When 2 or more players work together to take you down, you are dead! Unless you pre-emptively handicap your land by building fortresses on every tile and swarming your city with an army in advance, there is nothing you can do.

But wait? doesn't that sound like there is something you can do? Well kind of but the hammers you dedicate to army building will cripple your science and an enemy alliance doesn't have that issue, being able to do both simultaniously.

Humans make great opponents in Civ games, without a doubt, but a new faster, more mini-game style is needed. I thought firaxis would throw MP under a bus so when they announced a new style of MP I was pleasently surprised. I eagerly await news on this new mode/s because as a single player experience, I have little fond memories of 5. Not that its bad, just that its not very engaging after awhile due to the boring mid-game issue. The only reason I have well over 3000hrs in civ 5 is MP and civfanatics GOTM

 

[Kolza]

in my opinion an MP game is must more attractive and interesting, but just when you are playing with players who take the game seriously enough to go till the end of it.
if there were any competitive tournament or league, with points for win and penalties for loses and quitting
this happen in several MP games and works just fine
this game need some more "professional" MP structure for players who realy want play hard against other players

 

[Civilization6]

agreed, i try to get 16 player games together, add me on steam if you have a solid connection, your pc is not made out of wood, and you are not a quitter but are looking for the long haul...

my steamID is skyG0D with a zero, thanks everybody.