I was wondering if anyone could clear this subject area up. We all hate them. There will always be someone who quits when they know they dont have a chance of winning.

What I want to know is if there are any point deduction system in ranked games for quitters and do you still get the points for winning even though your opponent quit?

I was wondering if anyone could clear this subject area up. We all hate them. There will always be someone who quits when they know they dont have a chance of winning.

What I want to know is if there are any point deduction system in ranked games for quitters and do you still get the points for winning even though your opponent quit?

Live has its own user-reliability system. If someone quits, use/report them. Most people on live wish to retain a good reputation. This is something we'll monitor and work with microsoft on, if required. Obviously this affects all games on the system, but generally behaviour is good as it's linked to the gamertag.

Bah that review system does jack

This is a very good topic, I have loved the online play of the 360, but the biggest complaint has been how quitters have been handled. In some games, there have been ways to drop from an online ranked match and not only not receive a loss, but claim a win.

It sure seems that MS has pushed for their rating system to be the answer, but in practice it just doesn't work. I've played games and won without cheating or exploiting and received a bad review because the other people were poor losers. The rating system unfortunately means little to nothing in reality. I've played with plenty of people that had two or fewer stars that were great to game with, and I've played with many more people with full star ratings that were consistantly horrible.

I don't know how much leeway MS gives the developers in this area, but if you have any freedom to implement a penalty for quitting and/or dropping, I'd encourage you to do so.

Well the last time I played worms online it was on the dreamcast.I ran into many people who would quit in the middle of a match.Mostly because I whiped there but all over the place.
I hope the quiters will be pentalized when it comes to the leader boards.Maybee have them get 2 losses for quiting,or something of that nature.they will definitly get a bad rating from me too.

I don't know how much leeway MS gives the developers in this area, but if you have any freedom to implement a penalty for quitting and/or dropping, I'd encourage you to do so.

I suspect it's too late now anyway. Changing something like that now would mean pulling out of the certification loop and starting it over later. Then you'd get your game in August.

Online play will always involve playing against idiots. That's life. I don't think there's anything much that can be done about it.

Online play will always involve playing against idiots. That's life. I don't think there's anything much that can be done about it.

I disagree. Street Fighter 2 on XBLA copes with this well (post patch admittedly) by giving the disconnector a loss and the other person a win. Before the patch disconnecting was really widespread and people used it to avoid losses and get to the top of the rankings. If SF2 can do it why not worms?

Because a game of Street Fighter takes 90 seconds and a game of Worms can take anywhere from five minutes to an hour. People sometimes have to quit partway through.

It'd still probably be a better solution than nothing at all, but it's not as simple as just "it fixes one game so it'll fix any game".

Also, not all disconnects are due to people being bad losers.

Power cuts, bad wireless connection, internet connection loss can all happen. The village where I am from is on the very end of the broadband range and as a result connection drops all the time.

Is it right to penalise these people because they're unfortunate to live in certain areas? Or because a lightning strike knocked their power out?

Then, as AndrewTaylor says, some people have other things to do. You may start playing and then your pet dog makes a mess that needs clearing up. It'd be unreasonable to expect the person you're playing against to wait 5-10 minutes whilst you clean up, so you might as well quit.

There is no easy way to deal with quitters. Rating systems are flawed because people lie, or don't know that someone has had a powercut and automatic penalisation is flawed because they can't determine every situation.

However, a statistics guide may be helpful. For example. Every time you play online and complete a game, it add one to a "completed games" tally. Then, if you quit, it determines if you were winning, losing or drawing (a threshold of around 5% in the teams energy for a game of worms would count in drawing), and tallies that accordingly.

Then, when finding people, you can see how many games they've completed and quit, and if they have a lot of games where they quit when they have been losing, you have a good idea whether or not they are bad-loser quitters.

Again, it isn't a perfect system, but it is an idea.

Again, it isn't a perfect system, but it is an idea.

Actually, I think that idea was the closest so far!

T17, hear him! (or MS) :p

Also, not all disconnects are due to people being bad losers.

Power cuts, bad wireless connection, internet connection loss can all happen. The village where I am from is on the very end of the broadband range and as a result connection drops all the time.

Is it right to penalise these people because they're unfortunate to live in certain areas? Or because a lightning strike knocked their power out?

Then, as AndrewTaylor says, some people have other things to do. You may start playing and then your pet dog makes a mess that needs clearing up. It'd be unreasonable to expect the person you're playing against to wait 5-10 minutes whilst you clean up, so you might as well quit.

There is no easy way to deal with quitters. Rating systems are flawed because people lie, or don't know that someone has had a powercut and automatic penalisation is flawed because they can't determine every situation.

However, a statistics guide may be helpful. For example. Every time you play online and complete a game, it add one to a "completed games" tally. Then, if you quit, it determines if you were winning, losing or drawing (a threshold of around 5% in the teams energy for a game of worms would count in drawing), and tallies that accordingly.

Then, when finding people, you can see how many games they've completed and quit, and if they have a lot of games where they quit when they have been losing, you have a good idea whether or not they are bad-loser quitters.

Again, it isn't a perfect system, but it is an idea.

Thats how the WA rankings worked, prior to it being shredded by hackers. It had a tolerance for a percentage of uncompleted games. The score mechanism on 360 XBLA will take completed games into account as experience points, so there's definately a benefit to playing.

However it's right to say that it's difficult assume that someone quitting is due to foul play, it's quite a tough problem to solve - or at least ensure there's a fair system.

We've had a stab at it, time will tell if it's right or wrong and we'll work with MS on that.

Really? Thats good. Lets me know that my thoughts aren't those of a rambling mad-man.

Live has its own user-reliability system. If someone quits, use/report them. Most people on live wish to retain a good reputation. This is something we'll monitor and work with microsoft on, if required. Obviously this affects all games on the system, but generally behaviour is good as it's linked to the gamertag.

So does that mean there is no system put in place to punish quitters?

So does that mean there is no system put in place to punish quitters?

Ouch, if thats true i think worms online will just be full of people quiting. Using the old 'i'm losing, i know if i quit i don't lose anything, but the person i'm playing will lose the win'

And i know this happens, quick example, i was playing Doom online, ranked. I was close to the 50 kills and was beating this guy so bad, i was sure i was afew kills away from the achivement. Suddenly he sent me a message. It said 'Your too good, let me kill you afew times or i'll quit. Then none of you kills will count. LOL'

I ignored him, and then true to his word he quit, waste of 15 minutes of my life. This sort of stuff will happen on Worms, if there is noway to punish quiters

It's something we'll monitor post release and adjust the scoring mechanism if necessary. Past games in the series have a great bonus for completing games rather than quitting, i.e. paying a "deposit" of points to play which you don't get back if you don't complete.

It's something we'll monitor post release and adjust the scoring mechanism if necessary. Past games in the series have a great bonus for completing games rather than quitting, i.e. paying a "deposit" of points to play which you don't get back if you don't complete.

So if there is a serious problem with quitters than you guys at team17 will step in and do something about it? Im not all clear on the other situation though, unless you cant say but do you still get a win if the other guy quits?

I understand punishing a quitter but what about the person who was legitimately staying to finish the round hoping to get the points. If someone quits midway and was getting beat, it seems harsh to penalize the quitter and the one who was winning. I know its a hard answer but isnt there something that can be done? Say you are beating someone and they quit halfway through the game. Their worms health could all go to zero as if they committed suicide proclaiming the remaining player the winner. I guess the game would have to have the ability to switch to another host if the quitter was hosting the match. This would ensure the results got back through LIVE.

If you can say at this point, what is the current system that we will see? What will happen if a person quits or is disconnected - does the dropped player take a loss, or is the game called a draw or no contest?

I've been on both sides of the situation and I completely believe that giving a loss to a quitter is the right way to go. Punishment beyond that is too harsh in my opinion, other than the XBL rating system. I've had my internet connection drop me when I was winning a game, and although it was painful to take a loss, it's acceptable to me as an alternative to seeing a considerable percentage of players that quit when losing to avoid taking a loss.

I also am the guy that will continue playing a Gears of War ranked match when there are 4 rounds left and everyone else on my team has quit. Even though I can't possibly hope to win, I don't want to rob the others of their earned reward.

The game that really drove this home to me was Chromehounds, which I really enjoyed until disconnects became so common. If an entire team disconnected before the game was over, stats were not tallied for that game. No exaggeration here - for the last two weeks that I played the game, you could expect your opponents to drop from a losing situation 1 out of 3 times.

If you can say at this point, what is the current system that we will see? What will happen if a person quits or is disconnected - does the dropped player take a loss, or is the game called a draw or no contest?

I've been on both sides of the situation and I completely believe that giving a loss to a quitter is the right way to go. Punishment beyond that is too harsh in my opinion, other than the XBL rating system. I've had my internet connection drop me when I was winning a game, and although it was painful to take a loss, it's acceptable to me as an alternative to seeing a considerable percentage of players that quit when losing to avoid taking a loss.

I also am the guy that will continue playing a Gears of War ranked match when there are 4 rounds left and everyone else on my team has quit. Even though I can't possibly hope to win, I don't want to rob the others of their earned reward.

The game that really drove this home to me was Chromehounds, which I really enjoyed until disconnects became so common. If an entire team disconnected before the game was over, stats were not tallied for that game. No exaggeration here - for the last two weeks that I played the game, you could expect your opponents to drop from a losing situation 1 out of 3 times.

I totally agree with this.I am pretty sure most people have had a disconnect in the middle of a match.There should be something to discourage people from being a sore loser and quiting.
Maybe they can even watch for multiple disconects in a day and then penalize on that.Even if they dont want to penalize them for disconects the other person should get some kind of points or something.Just to be fair.

We (as other developers are) are quite limited in what we can do to prevent people quitting - we can only work to encourage people to last the game out. There has to be quit optons in the game and people can time out for a large variety of "fair" reasons (power outs, internet disconnects, controller batteries failing, you name it). This is someting we'll continue to track and discuss with MS - at the end of the day, this is a human problem, not a software one and it is consistent with practically every online title.

I think that giving a "fame" would be helpful. I mean, guys who quit, loose, say, 5 points, while a finished game, wins 1. So, if the guy quits... it'll be recorded, and before you play with him, you look at it, and decide to kick him, or not. also, the number of DC/quits could be with that "profile"...

Actually, some kind of profile could be nice there... like matches won, lost, etc...
But, looses and wins could also make people kick newbies...

When you hover over the leaderboard scores you get the Won/Lost/Played/Damage/Kills for each and every player :)

Actually, some kind of profile could be nice there... like matches won, lost, etc...
But, looses and wins could also make people kick newbies...

Thing is about that, if someone has loads more wins than losses then either they're far, far better than almost everyone else on Live, or else they only play people far worse than them and are therefore unlikely to give you a good game. (Or, they quit if they're losing.) People with far more losses than wins are either just awful at Worms or else they think they're great and only play good opponents -- and always lose. (Or, they quit when they're winning for some reason.) Everyone should tend to end up with about as many wins as losses if they're mostly playing opponents at their correct level.

Edit: Though yes, obviously that kind of stat is important because if nothing else, people do love stats. I know I do.

When you hover over the leaderboard scores you get the Won/Lost/Played/Damage/Kills for each and every player :)

disconections as a stat should solve all the doubts Andrew said here. Well, if played includes unfinished games, you can do the math...

Edit: Though yes, obviously that kind of stat is important because if nothing else, people do love stats. I know I do.

8/10 people like stats.

6/10 people will notice what you did there.

7/10 of those people will be humoured.

6/10 people will notice what you did there.

7/10 of those people will be humoured.

I don't get it D:

Never mind, eh?

I don't get it D:

yeah i dont get it either

6/10 people will notice what you did there.

7/10 of those people will be humoured.

Less than 1/10 of said humoured people will reply claiming they they were in fact humoured. I was.

Less than 1/10 of said humoured people will reply claiming they they were in fact humoured. I was.

3/4 "stats" jokes in this thread are unnessecary.

when I play with someone and he quits it has to be a win for me, and a loss for him

if this isnt already in the game, start working on a patch for this now

I remember in street fighter there were people that quit every match they would loose so they could cheat themselves on top of the leaderboards
they patched "quit=loose" in a few weeks later but when street fighter was released it was horrible because of all the quitters

when I play with someone and he quits it has to be a win for me, and a loss for him

What if he's disconnected by a dodgy ISP or a power failure? Then you've got the game reporting that he's a rubbish player, which is bad news for everyone, not least people who play against him thinking he's on their level and get roundly thrashed.

Oh, and guys, LOSE is the opposite of WIN. LOOSE is the opposite of TIGHT. Please get that right, because if you can't spell a simple four letter word you look like an idiot. I don't know why almost the entire Internet has this blind spot for spelling on that word, but really, it's four letters. How hard is that?

Oh, and guys, LOSE is the opposite of WIN. LOOSE is the opposite of TIGHT. Please get that right, because if you can't spell a simple four letter word you look like an idiot. I don't know why almost the entire Internet has this blind spot for spelling on that word, but really, it's four letters. How hard is that?

And you are supposed to be a usermod?

You are tediously pedantic and about as friendly as aids

What if he's disconnected by a dodgy ISP or a power failure? Then you've got the game reporting that he's a rubbish player, which is bad news for everyone, not least people who play against him thinking he's on their level and get roundly thrashed.

well, thats bad luck but how often do you get a power failure or get disconnected for other reasons ?? :rolleyes:
who cares if you lose 1 of 100 games because of that ?

we have to stop the quitters from ruining our fun
you obviously havent experienced this problem yet (like when SF2 was released)
they will quit every f****** time as soon as they start loosing !!!!!
I dont want to see this happening in worms :mad:


Oh, and guys, LOSE is the opposite of WIN. LOOSE is the opposite of TIGHT. Please get that right, because if you can't spell a simple four letter word you look like an idiot. I don't know why almost the entire Internet has this blind spot for spelling on that word, but really, it's four letters. How hard is that?

sorry english isnt my first language :o

he's right though spelling lose is hardly difficult. he probably has to sit reading these threads with spelling mistakes all day and it got too much for him lol.

as for quiters i'd prefer a punish feature if you quite or switch off, i know its not perfect and i may get a few losses that weren't my doing due to a power cut or whatever but its far preferable to there being nothing. Also theres got to be something to stop the host dropping, far too many games stop if host drops so they dont get loss and everyone else in room doesnt get a win - or you get host standbying so that it drops all the players and they get lots of wins.

No, I think that failing some kind of clever detection of who's "winning" at any point, there's no real alternative to just giving the quitter/disconnected a loss, but I'm saying it's not the perfect system. Implying that there may be a better one.

sorry english isnt my first language :o

No, I know that's true for a lot of people, but it's every other post. Not just you. The entire internet cannot spell "lose" and it drives me up the wall. (Edit: Also I have something of a habit of expecting people are from an English speaking country unless their location line states otherwise.)

aids
That abbreviation is spelt AIDS.

Oh, and guys, LOSE is the opposite of WIN. LOOSE is the opposite of TIGHT.
took me 5 years to get that. i still make a typo occasionally. i also had trouble with hole vs whole for a while. the thing that drives me up the wall is when people write 'of' when they mean contracted 'have'.
well, thats bad luck but how often do you get a power failure or get disconnected for other reasons ??
who cares if you lose 1 of 100 games because of that
for someone who manages to run live via bad 56k, that might be more like 1/3. and yes, it's possible to run xbl via 56k. you just need a pc with a dial-up modem and an ethernet card to work as a bridge. i don't know how many people would do that, but i'm sure there are such players out there.

well, thats bad luck but how often do you get a power failure or get disconnected for other reasons ?? :rolleyes:
who cares if you lose 1 of 100 games because of that ?

we have to stop the quitters from ruining our fun
you obviously havent experienced this problem yet (like when SF2 was released)
they will quit every f****** time as soon as they start loosing !!!!!
I dont want to see this happening in worms :mad:


I agree with that - because I've seen it in many games that award a 'no contest' result for a disconnect. And I'd say it's not really fair to punish another player because someone they are playing against has a bad connection. Let's say you're 20 minutes in to a game, and the other player is disconnected (either legitimately or intentionally) - that time spent awards you nothing on your record.

It's a sad, but true statement that online game play has an abundance of people that take the game seriously enough to cheat or exploit their way out of a loss. Because of this, I've never really been able to enjoy making an effort at getting on the leaderboard for any game. The top of the list is almost always people that exploit on a regular basis, and have rediculous records because of it.

It has begun.. ranked matches are having a lot of people quitting just before they lose, and the match results are discarded. :/

It has begun.. ranked matches are having a lot of people quitting just before they lose, and the match results are discarded. :/

Yeah, I wonder if they are truly gonna do something about it, or if it will never be fixed.

-Owl

I thought that Xbox Live has a feedback mechanism? Something along the lines of, "bad sportsmanship."? Wouldn't it be reasonable to use it in these circumstances?

I've played a few games (including one against Defcon - a Darksiding Puppet Master git if I ever met one! :p) and I've only had one person drop out. Of course, I've only been playing Ranked Games so dropping out impacts their stats on the Leaderboard. I didn't really feel it necessary to report the guy who dropped, largely because just before he went he said "OH SHI-" and then vanished. I imagine his Xbox crashed or something.

I've played a few games (including one against Defcon - a Darksiding Puppet Master git if I ever met one! :p) and I've only had one person drop out. Of course, I've only been playing Ranked Games so dropping out impacts their stats on the Leaderboard. I didn't really feel it necessary to report the guy who dropped, largely because just before he went he said "OH SHI-" and then vanished. I imagine his Xbox crashed or something.

I haven't tried it myself to confirm - but it appears that dropping out of a ranked match does not coutn as a loss, which is what my concern is. I know we've been over the topic plenty, but I still hope to see a change made in that area.

As for negative feedback, it depends on the situation. I wouldn't automatically give someone negative feedback for dropping from a game, for example if the person was talking and seemed to be having a good time and then was gone, I would assume they were dropped. However if a person is very serious in the way they talk, talks smack, etc - and then drops out of the game when their last worm has 15 health and I'm about to drop a nade on them, they will get negative feedback

largely because just before he went he said "OH SHI-" and then vanished. I imagine his Xbox crashed or something.
then he wouldn't be able to say "oh shi-". unless his parents got back and he wasn't supposed to be playing, or he divided by zero, it was just a diversion to be able to quit.

I can 100% confirm that if your playing a ranked match, and the other person quits or gets disconnected, you still get the win. But I'm not sure how it effects the person who quits/disconnects.
My second game I was ranked 24 and the other player quit (which he admitted after we exchanged messages after the game). I proceeded to check my stats immediately, and found I was now ranked 15 :D

I've played a few games (including one against Defcon - a Darksiding Puppet Master git if I ever met one! :p)

I hope you have evidence to back up this shameless, unfounded allegation. I am in no way and never have been a 'git'. Of course the rest of the stuff it totally true and I am proud for it.

STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHT TO BE A DARKSIDING PUPPET MASTER!!!!

I can 100% confirm that if your playing a ranked match, and the other person quits or gets disconnected, you still get the win. But I'm not sure how it effects the person who quits/disconnects.
My second game I was ranked 24 and the other player quit (which he admitted after we exchanged messages after the game). I proceeded to check my stats immediately, and found I was now ranked 15 :D

I just had something really odd. Played this french guy, he quit when I was still finding a decent map. I exited, my record remains unharmed (19-0), but I dropped 2 TrueSkill rankings, from 30 to 28, thus causing me to drop on the ladders. Why is this, and how does it make sense at all?