View Full Version : Creative Assembly MP - Disconnected Players
Hey Guys,
Currently, on a Multiplayer game, if one of the other players is disconnected, his Army stands it's ground.
It will do nothing. Just stand there.
Unless, you provoke it. Come into contact with any "unmanned" troops and they will fight yours.
This kind of spoilt an epic MP battle I had the other night. 4 players. My English took on the Germans while my Allies Turks took on the French.
My Ally managed to route the French Army, while my English Army fought the Germans for ages, until our huge armies were reduced to about 2 or three Units, when mine routed.
Sticking with the game until it finished, my Turkish ally took on and routed the remaining Germans, but the game didn't end.
They guy playing the French, thinking he'd lost completely or because he was cut off, bailed from the game.
My Allies Cavalry came accross a unit of 20 Gallowglasses that had stopped routing, just at the edge of the map in a forest.
They weren't moving because there was no player to control them, however, as soon as my Ally attacked, they fought back, caused his cavalry to route, and BANG
The absent player just won the game???
Should this be the case? I think it would be better if someone is disconnected or leaves, their army should route.
What do you guys think?
Azrael
well, we had a discussion about this before the patch changed it, some guys wanted this what u right now see http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
if someone drop the game is "lost" game anyway....but the mainproblem is....that if someone drop or hit esc, his units stand there....still if all enemys are out, u have to fight every unit down.....so sometimes this is realy silly..... but, well...we cant just get good changes we have to live with some new problems as well.
koc
Dionysus9
11-17-2002, 22:07
I had originally thought it would be best for the dropped army to stay on the board. That was, however, assuming that if there were NO ACTIVE ENEMY PLAYERS on the map that the game would be over with. It was also assuming that if a player dropped before deployment that his troops would auto-deploy.
Unfortunately as it stands now the "no-route" policy is becoming a pain in the rear.
As Kocmoc says, if someone drops it is a "lost game" anyway. This isn't altogether true, because in a 4v4 where one person dropped before deployment (or before first engagement), their troops would rout. It would then be 4v3. We would ask one of the 4 to voluntarily rout and leave the game. His troops would rout and then we'd have a good 3v3. It worked a lot better than the present system.
We asked for this system, but it isn't being implemented in the ideal way. It needs to be fixed so that pre-deployment drop by one player doesnt ruin the game for 7 others. It needs to be fixed so that after all active enemy players are routed, the game ends.
Nobody wanted it the way it is now.
Oh man
This just happened to me again. 2 v.s. 2. Very good game. England eventually routed, so their player bailed. Hard battle to defeat the remaining General.
When all the dust cleared, 16 English troops on completely the other end of the map.
Sheesh. March your knacked troops all they way accross the map just to chase 16 guys away for the win.
Does anyone who "knows" about this sort of thing know if this can be remedied through a Patch?
I hope so.
Azrael
So your ally attacked and lost. Does it matters whether the computer is controlling the 20 Gallowglasses? He made a bad decision to attack with his lone (tired?) cav (and attacking from behind is a better idea, no?). Unless AI controlled units fight better than human controlled, I see no problem with it. If the quitter self-rout (which induce no morale penalty to nearby friendlies, I think), or withdraw, before quitting, there is no problem.. right?
You guys are always complaining. First, you complain that when a player dropped in battle halfway, the rout in v1.0 affects his allies in battles.
I like it the way it is now.
Dionysus9
11-18-2002, 08:42
Tootee,
We have a valid complaint that you are missing. If a player drops his units stay on the board. If he takes 16 hashashin and then drops, you have to go around the board to find 16 hashashin before you can win and get a logfile and results. This is just lame and it needs to be changed.
If a player drops before deployment then the game is locked up. It wasn't like this before. This is bad.
Nobunaga0611
11-18-2002, 09:25
I think the army should just withdraw , not route. No sense in affecting the quitters allies morale. Same with if someone gets dropped before the game starts, withdraw, not a frozen game.
Bacchus,
Is that any different from a player that doesnt quit but stay around and has his decimated 16 units all over the board.. you still have to go hunt for to find 16 hashashin before you can win and get a logfile and results? It is that player who is lame, not the system. He should have routed or withdraw his army. Thats my point.
Magyar Khan
11-18-2002, 10:45
if the LAST remaining enemy player drops than teh game should be over....
thats all we need.
a routing player cuz of a drop spoils teh game instantly, as well withdrawing the army. but it matters if the last remaining enemy drops.
i was under the impression that an orderly withdrawal or the AI taking over the dropped person's units were going to be the planned options....?
The way it is now is simply frustrating as no-one enjoys fighting or chasing uncontrolled troops.
GilJaysmith
11-18-2002, 11:55
The idea was that the army should stage an orderly withdrawal, but it turns out there's a bug in the withdrawing code which stops it working (possibly only for large bulks of troops). The units forget the withdraw order unless it's repeated, but when a player drops the server only issues the order one time.
Not ideal. However the troops should still fight back on an individual basis if attacked, so they aren't just fodder for sky-high kill counts.
Gil ~ CA
Yes, logically the game should end when one side has all its armies routed, and/or there are no more active players.
Not too sure what will happen when one drop b4 battle begins in v1.1 *game freezes I read?*, but I think more than half agrees that the dropped army should disappear (like v1.0?) at this phase.
Once battle starts, I will prefer the dropped army to stand rather than rout or withdraw, as it is the best single mechanism to handle drops which may occur b4/during/after the main engagement.
shingenmitch2
11-18-2002, 17:54
I'll throw my vote in with Magy on this one -- the army should stand so that other allies can "hide" in it --- BUT, if all active players are gone, then the "dropper army" should withdraw and game over.
Dionysus9
11-18-2002, 18:22
The only point i disagree on w/ maggy is that the game is ruined if you have a single dropped player prior to deployment. The game is always "ruined" when any player drops before his army flees the field. But I would at least like to be able to play it out. You can salvage a "ruined" game sometimes. A 4v3 vs. newbies can be just as good as a 4v4 vs. vets. Also in a 4v4, with one drop prior to deployment, you get a 4v3 = ruined game (really ruined now--it freezes). But if one player volunteers to drop, you get 3v3 = perfectly fine game. Maybe not the game you wanted or expected, but 3v3 is better than having to go back to hte lobby and start over.
Games can be salvaged in this way, without a problem, under v1.0. Can't do this under 1.1. Yes, tootee, it freezes the game. We appreciate the try, Gil, but this situation is not much improvement. It almost is, but not quite.
Dionysus9,
I disagree. I'm not going to leave a dropped clanmate or friend back in the foyer for 30 to 60 min while the rest of us go ahead and play. I go back and get him/her.
Players who quit my games without routing or withdrawing their armies will be #ban . Same thing for players who quit prematurely.
That only leaves unintentional drops during the battle as a problem, and that's only a problem if all the active allies are eliminated before the dropped player's units are all routed. In that situation, if we don't want to bother eliminating all the dropped units, we esc from the game. I don't think the side that dropped is going to claim they won the battle.
I'd like to point something else out. "Withdrawal" of dropped units is about the same as "routing" of dropped units. There is no morale penalty to allies if you manually rout your units. What you loose is any morale support those units may have been supplying, and any morale penalties those units were projecting on the enemy. If you withdraw, you loose the morale support to allies which is directional, but probably retain the projected morale penalties on the enemy, which is non-directional, until the withdrawing units are out of that effect's range.
Dionysus9
11-18-2002, 23:23
Yuuki,
Well, I can see your point (and Magyars too), especially because you often play with clanmates. I, however, have no clanmates and I host numerous open 4v4's. Usually I have no problem getting a volunteer to drop if the game has become a 4v3-- there are many honorable players who have volunteered over the years. Ahhh...the life of the ronin. We care not by whose side we fight-- only that the blood shall flow Heheh...there's usually plenty of other games for the ronin to join, so its a minor inconvenience to the volunteer-- and it saves 6 other people from having to re-start an otherwise acceptable game.
I totally understand that this is not an issue to you two--and it shouldn't be--but it is an issue to me (albeit a minor inconvenience). I will say that, since v1.1's inception, I have only had 3 or 4 games "lock up" due to pre-deploy drops. This isn't all that bad. It probably amounts to 30 minutes worth of wasted time, which is acceptable.
Also, Yuuki, if you ESC from a game you dont get a logfile, do you? I mean, I know its a moot point now because the gamespy logfile thing is bugged, but eventually (or I should say "theoretically") if a league comes around or if we wanted to use logfiles for custom-league play, the ESC option wont really work. So, you are still faced with the "sky high kills" if you go around the map cleaning up abandoned units in order to get a logfile. Am I wrong on this? Does ESC'ing give you a logfile anyway?
If a player drops during deployment, during the game, escs, or even while loading, any allied players should gain control of the units or the player should be able to rejoin the game. That would fix the problem real nicely. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
Also, if the host escs during the game, it ends. Back in stw another player would just take over the game, but that dosn't happen in mtw, which sucks big time. The sad part is now people with 56k can host 4v4 games and the game won't switch over to another host. Let's not forget if you leave the game before it has ended you can't see the kills/losses of all the players. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif
Orda Khan
11-19-2002, 01:39
As it stands I would say restart the game. Regardless of clanmates, a person has dropped for whatever reason and that person wanted to play in this game. To carry on and play the game in any way is not the 'real' game. I say give that person the chance to rejoin
.......Orda http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif
Dionysus9
11-19-2002, 02:25
Sometimes that person drops because they see it is raining. Or they don't like the map. In that case, would you still go back and give them a chance to re-join?
I doubt it.
I see your point, and normally that would be my preference (it used to be, at least). But I learned in STW to play-on, play-on, no matter what, because you never knew when the server was going to crash and your games would be over for the weekend. Now with MTW multi down, that policy is as relevant as ever. I can't remember how many times we've gone back for someone in a 4v4, only to have drops, out of syncs, server problems, etc. for the next hour and half. Maybe I'm even greedy, but I don't get much time to play and if I'm sitting on the battle-map with my army, I'm not going back the lobby if I can help it.
Interesting discussion and different views--I like it.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif
Dionysus9,
I believe a logfile is created even if you esc. However, if you are playing in a tournament or for a ladder rating, you will have to play it out and defeat all dropped player units. If you esc, the logfile will register it as a loss.
Another way to view a game with a drops during the battle is that no army has to stand down just because someone dropped since the dropped army is still in it and can win. I know what you're saying. We did turn some early drops in v1.0 into ok games by having someone withdraw their units. On the other hand, I've had players in v1.0, who were attacking right beside me, quit at the height of the attack because they didn't like how the battle was going. Immediately, I would be facing a 1 on 2. I actually won one of those. I've also seen 3 armies beat 4 in v1.1 after an early drop by regrouping units behind the dropped army and using it to shield one flank while we attacked.
Anyway, I agree that, since a v1.1 game cannot start if someone drops before deploying, the decision to continue or not is taken out of your hands.
Dionysus9
11-19-2002, 23:51
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif
I would post this in rants, but no need to start a new topic. Today I got a chance to come home from work for lunch--rare. I even had time to play one game of multiplayer MTW--even more rare. Shaping up to be a good day? Nope.
I start a 4v4, it fills up fast, good, off we go. Player out of sync. No option to continue on w/ 4v3 or 3v4. Go back to lobby. Start another 4v4. Now I'm running out of time I gotta go back to work. The Same player goes out of sync.
So instead of a great 3v3, or at least an epicly tragic 4v3, 8 players spent 30 minutes trying to play a game that never happened. Thats 2 man-hours of wasted time. I suspect the player had loaded a SP game and then played MP (that loads different statsets for those who dont know). He accused well known and honorable players of cheating, then syncs out of 2 games in a row. I give him the benfit of the doubt. It was probably SP/MP statbug. In any case, he is left thinking we are cheaters. We try and explain its a bug. Now he thinks game is crap, bugged, wont play, and rife with cheaters.
Combine that statbug with the pre-deploy drop problem and I wasted my lunchbreak. Sucks. I would have gone for a walk at the park--its a nice day.
These problems seem to bother me more than other people...either that or I just expect a more "finished" product than most.
Grrrrrr
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif
That bug when going from SP to MP should be fixed. It's catching a lot of players. It generates that "player xxx is cheating message", and then drops the player. It's a pretty bad bug that leaves a bad impression as you say Dion. I've even been caught by it, and I know it exists.
Dionysus9
11-20-2002, 07:44
well they added that "refresh" command, but didnt make it the default on the command line. That would help things if the game defaulted to a reload of stats for every game.
I've added the -reload option to the command line. Does it help?
I've tried it, and the -reload does not help with the SP to MP bug. The bug is being caused by a discrepency in the upgrade cost of ranged weapons, and upgrade costs are not in the external parameter files. The -reload apparently just loads the parameters in the external files into memory.
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