Game Abandonment

patriota75 wrote:

Lukenick wrote:

5 game limit on actively running games for a player still alive (cannot join another game if 2 are in the first week)

I play 6-10 maps on a same time.

Added later: Anyways, back to the limit. If there was a limit created on the number of games you play at one time, players would be forced to focus on the games they already have even more. I see no need to have any more than 5 games, unless a few are just super old. Maybe change it to you can only join 5 games a month? After all, if you die in war, you do not come back. If we allow players to play 10 games or whatever they want, they won't feel the need to fight with all their will to survive on the one map they're struggling with.

Lukenick wrote:

How can you focus on all those games at once?

My routine is good till mid of game, than can be problems, I changed it now so I hope I will do better, first signs are good. . Also my poor diplomacy, do not have time and energy for that.

i rarely read spies reports, but I love to see the enemies army. It helps a lot.

Actually game is too easy to play when you learn what to do. It is repeating same things over and over again. If I meet a strong opponent I concentrate on every aspect of that game. Sometimes it is too late, but you win some you loose some...

I usually end up in top 3, rarely get beaten to death.

I know I would do much better if I concentrate on just one or two games, but I fell game is to slow and than I become bored so I forget to enter a map at all. When I play more games I always have something to do...

I play this game for 3 reasons, love strategy, test my patience and practice my English.

Does anyone feel like that a particular game is too boring a they gave up on that game?

I dont think you can fix this issue by putting limits on players on what they can do, how many simultaneous games they can be in etc... This type of solution will never work people will simply create a new account and start new games that way.

What you need to do is give incentives for people to stick it out when they start games encourage them, give them an objective for them to finish. One way could be to reward players for non AI kills. So if you are in a war and even if you are losing you can still strive to kill as many human enemy units as possible to gain gold rewards or blueprints. Say every x amount of non AI units killed gets you 1 GM or 1 blueprint.

I bet you people would stick around for that.

What do the quitters want? Many quit even before they attack someone or make the first IF. Not sure what enticements would make them stay any longer.

Do they want to get to a higher level?

Do they want something to do after supper?

Who quits? Mostly the younger players?

What if within the first 10 days only, when someone goes bot all their land is divided among all actives who surround their land? They are gone, land is divided, and play on.

This would allow for the people who don't play to still don't play.

If someone later in the game had to miss a couple of days, it wouldn't affect their game as this land division only would happen in the first 10 days.

Who knows why they quit? I can think a number of reasons, from very legitimate ones (like some emergency that prevents them from playing) to pure curiosity (since there is no other way to preview a map, let's have a look to get an idea which countries to select and really play).

I could also give a number of other reasons, but the point is that it is too unpredictable.

patriota75 wrote:

Lukenick wrote:

How can you focus on all those games at once?

I can`t. When I get up in morning I open one by one, and latter that day I reopen games I am in some kind of trouble or war with someone. I have my routine and I do the same no matter what my opponent do. At the end of they I again set up all maps before going to sleep.My routine is good till mid of game, than can be problems, I changed it now so I hope I will do better, first signs are good. . Also my poor diplomacy, do not have time and energy for that.

i rarely read spies reports, but I love to see the enemies army. It helps a lot.

Actually game is too easy to play when you learn what to do. It is repeating same things over and over again. If I meet a strong opponent I concentrate on every aspect of that game. Sometimes it is too late, but you win some you loose some...

I usually end up in top 3, rarely get beaten to death.

I know I would do much better if I concentrate on just one or two games, but I fell game is to slow and than I become bored so I forget to enter a map at all. When I play more games I always have something to do...

I play this game for 3 reasons, love strategy, test my patience and practice my English.

Kanaris wrote:

I dont think you can fix this issue by putting limits on players on what they can do, how many simultaneous games they can be in etc... This type of solution will never work people will simply create a new account and start new games that way.

What you need to do is give incentives for people to stick it out when they start games encourage them, give them an objective for them to finish. One way could be to reward players for non AI kills. So if you are in a war and even if you are losing you can still strive to kill as many human enemy units as possible to gain gold rewards or blueprints. Say every x amount of non AI units killed gets you 1 GM or 1 blueprint.

I bet you people would stick around for that.

Who knows, maybe we could multiply the experience rewards for certain things by day.

d stands for the day on the newspaper; R(x) stands for experience rewards

When d<29: R(x) = 1.025^d

When 45>d>28: R(x) = 2

When d>44: R(x) =1

This means the experience rewards would increase exponentially daily until day 29, flat line at a 2x multiplier from days 29 to 44, and return to a 1x multiplier on day 45.

Another idea is start handing out blueprint scraps, every game where you play 20 days, you get 1 scrap. You would need 10 pieces to get one blueprint piece.

ike53 wrote:

What do the quitters want? Many quit even before they attack someone or make the first IF. Not sure what enticements would make them stay any longer.

Do they want to get to a higher level?

Do they want something to do after supper?

Who quits? Mostly the younger players?

What if within the first 10 days only, when someone goes bot all their land is divided among all actives who surround their land? They are gone, land is divided, and play on.

This would allow for the people who don't play to still don't play.

If someone later in the game had to miss a couple of days, it wouldn't affect their game as this land division only would happen in the first 10 days.

We don't want to solve the land distribution, that will sort itself out. We need to keep the players in the game. Sometimes they are in the game because of some stupid pop-up like I mentioned earlier. Other times it's just a lack of interest. My solution to the former is to stop providing these pop-ups that take you directly to a 100p game. An idea to solve the ladder issue is give them an option to select an option "Undo & Quit Permanently". This option would be available only during the first 3 days of a match, and the results of selecting it would be that the nation is reset to what it was before the player was assigned/selected it and reopened to the public as an empty slot. Any possible damages during to another country within that time frame before they choose to quit permanently will be repaid to the attacked country, whoever that may be.

Lukenick wrote:

But why do they deserve that land? If I'm surrounded by players who go inactive in the first 10 days, I would get land from all of them; then we have other people who are surrounded by active players and get no such reward. Our current way of dealing with these players is more effective than this.

What if I knew that if I stayed a little bit longer than my neighbor I might get his land? I was thinking it would not only speed up play but be an incentive to stay and get 'free' land.

In the randomness of people quitting you painted a worst case scenario which is plausible but if you also factor in that everyone has the opportunity to get the free land based on quitters it is truly random.

And it was just an idea I threw out there...

ike53 wrote:

What do the quitters want? Many quit even before they attack someone or make the first IF. Not sure what enticements would make them stay any longer.

Do they want to get to a higher level?

Do they want something to do after supper?

Who quits? Mostly the younger players?

What if within the first 10 days only, when someone goes bot all their land is divided among all actives who surround their land? They are gone, land is divided, and play on.

This would allow for the people who don't play to still don't play.

If someone later in the game had to miss a couple of days, it wouldn't affect their game as this land division only would happen in the first 10 days.

• I think that the quitters are inpatient and they do not want to actually wait that long to transport troops and the next day, they forgot about this game...
• Mostly the really new players or when they are about to loose, they do not want to see themselves loose.
• The third point is too complicated, you cannot divide them equally and sometimes you cannot divide Germany to Canada because it is too far and the country can be surrounded by land which means you need to cross a border to get there. Which is the first target the enemies chooses and has a 99% successful rate. Leaving it AI would be OK because AI are USUALLY weaker than normal players unless the are elite AI.

hakijaa wrote:

Maybe a ultra Radical idea, but if you join 3 games in a week and you leave all them you get a 5 day ban? Or something on that note?

This will never happen.

BMfox wrote:

bigboss_ironfist wrote:

patriota75 wrote:

I think the most players who abandon game do not come back at all, so no rule can not fix that problem. Maybe only to put higher levels to enter map.I would like to play 100 players map with level 70+, that would be challenge.

A 100 player game with minimum level 70 sounds good to me..

With regards to drop out players, they should be forced to play the game or surrender their fast food privileges for one full month. They would only be able to play the cold war map and only be seeded with Chinese megalomaniacs, or Koreans.

Alternatively they would also be highlighted as drop out players on COW if they do this five times in a row. This will allow serious players to check out who is playing a map round and then be able to determine if they should enter the game.

Why level 70? I'm level 46 and have better stats and more game knowledge then the average level 70. Level isn't everything. If you would say from level 30 or 40 I'd understand.

The same question back on...WHY NOT level 70??...I speak not for only myself...but many other players who are not happy with drop out players who have made new profiles and their true statistics are unknown. Except for the reason being that Bytro Labs administration of rules is computerized and virtually defunct, there is no reason to start a new account. Only that your player type is suspected of multi user accounts, or is just plain wimp to change ones account, that it looks a downward of statistics. Here now these way of game, if player has reached level 70+, then they should have the privileges of entering new gaming arena...as for level 40 or even 50 lvl. you can wait it out, and especially if your using a new account to make foolery of your true statistics. This is a game of strategy, be that in mind folks.

I am afraid that giving a reward simply for being active will encourage these “abandoners” to join more games and sit there doing nothing to simply collect this reward.

One of the concerns with blocking or limiting the people who quit all the time is there are not enough players to fill the 100 games if this were to occur.

1) We won't know if this is true until we try to reduce the non-players/abandoners.

2) If that was the case make more bots and maybe randomize aggressive bots vs passive ones.

3) I have seen it in the 50 and 22 games as well...so it doesn't have to do with the number of players or size of map.

To be honest I'd rather have more bots than these non-players. At least the bot will upgrade his territory.

I know one of the negatives for monitoring players in this capacity, it would have to be coded...that costs time and money but in the long run wouldn't us players enjoy the game more?

If we're concerned about the potential consequences of limiting players who enter 100p maps, maybe we can create some precautions to combat that. At the same time, we also want to limit certain players who will likely decide to abandon the game.

In order to combat the potentially low turnout in the 100p maps, a required minimum could be set before the game begins. I suggest a 60% threshold to start the game. The results of this may include:

1. Less beneficial to join games early
2. Less harmful to be one of the last players to join

In order to limit certain players who may abandon the game, we need to make it harder for people to join these maps.

1. We need to remove these pop-ups that directly send players to the game. It can lead to players accidentally joining a match they wanted no part in.
2. Limit the number of games a player can be involved in to a maximum of 6 games at any given time (as long as the player has land and the map is not finished, it will be counted; this will encourage players to finish maps that they have started).
3. Increase the minimum player level, my recommendation is level 30.

My plan for enacting these ideas over time regarding large maps (40p+

1st Update

• Require that 50% of the players have joined before any orders can be given.
• Remove the direct pop-ups
• Increase minimum level to 15
• Limit the number of games a player can be involved in to a max of 10 (cannot join another until they get down to at least 9). It will give a list of all games you are active in if you try to join one exceeding the limit.
• Add a button enabling players to remove themselves from the map and be replaced by a normal AI (can only be used after day 100 and cannot be undone; only players with a ton of ancient maps will use this initially)

• Require 60% of the players to join before orders can be given
• Increase minimum level to 30
• Limit the number of games a player can be involved in to a max of 8
• Expand the ability to use the new button for maps over 60 days old

• Require 75% of the players to join before orders can be given
• Limit the number of games a player can be involved in to a max of 6
• Expand the use of the button to maps that have not officially started yet (the slot would then become available to somebody else).

These maps would need to be monitored in event of any tragic results, where certain rules/regulations may be adjusted to combat this. The updates should have at least a month between them, but no more than 4 months.