*Community Discussion #2* - New Deadbeat Rule?

[macbone]

I find it hilarious that players who actively miss turns on purpose to drag games out are advocating for a 3 missed turns and you're out rule. =)

The problem here is with polymorphic games. As others have noted, implement the "miss three turns in a row and you're out" rule to apply to polymorphic games. Keep the rules simple and fair to both the hardcore and casual players among us.

@Gweedo, starting the game clock when a player logs in is a terrible rule. In my team games, we're always discussing the best moves, and that side of team strategy would be tossed out the window with your suggestion. If you want quick games, I suggest you play more real-time games or buy some speed games.

Like Duk said, I can't help but smile when an opponent misses a turn. This is a huge disadvantage, particularly in team play or 1 on 1, and although it may not lead to an immediate loss, the player or team that misses turns will ultimately be negatively affected. The only time it's not necessarily a big loss is for early turns in standard games with a large number of players.

In the games I've seen where one player deadbeated and the next player got the troops and spoils, that team still lost. I remember in particular one das Schloss games where it happened and I panicked, thinking my team was about to get steamrolled, but no, we took the other team out, no problem. I've only seen it happen a handful of times, though, so my sample size is small.

Let's not implement a rule that kicks a player after missing one turn. We want the site to grow, not shrink further.

If a player pretends to deadbeat in a speed game, hoping for a sneaky win, that's a terrible tactic, I agree, but the other player should be smart enough to keep playing and make sure the game is finished.

Gweeedo, it really sounds like you need to invest in some premium, man. =)

Magnus, how did that game turn out? Did the missed turn lead to a stronger position for you guys? In general, attackers have an advantage over defenders. Deferred troops can't be used on the attack for that turn. It's better to have troops to use immediately rather than troops to drop for the player or a teammate to use later.

On several maps (Pearl Harbor, Supermax), missing the first turn is going to be nearly impossible to come back from due to missed chances to use or break bonuses/tert counts.

[Kaskavel]

My thoughts
1. The polymorphic case must finaly get fixed, it is been a long time. I have lost too many hours waiting for opponent to lose 12 rounds in a speed game. It is beyond comprehension.
2. I think def troops are just fine. Players losing turns cannot get advantage from that. This is not happening despite the widespread belief of the opposite. On the other hand, they work very well in limiting the damage of the lost turn.
3. A percentage is fine, but it complicates things. A fixed number, 5 missed turns total for example, should be just fine. I do not thnik games that have reached the 1000th round are important and after all, they need to end somehow.
4. Most of the problems that are being discussed here exist because of the game's lack of a resignation button. I know it is partially off-topic, but I consider this to be the site's most important handicap.

[_sabotage_]

Missed turns should not be rewarded.

It should not be a tactic but in many case becomes one.

3 player game: two missed turns and you're out. 3 player team (and all team games), player goes to neutral.

For long games where people may be expected to miss more turns: f*ck em. Maybe it became a longer game just bc people were missing turns. Three and you're gone. (I'd prefer one and you're gone).

Poly, a missed turn, player reverts to neutral.

Playing with a deadbeat is boring, forces others to work around their illegal strategy, awards players who never even take a turn, awards players who make the game more boring and is a fault of programming. It creates unsolvable C&A reports, creates bad feelings and brings down the site.

Discourage deadbeating. KISS.

[Kaskavel]

"Missed turns should not be rewarded"
Stop spreading this kind argument around. They are not rewarded. It is just that their negative effect is somewhat reduced. Player gets the troops in delay of 1 round, cannot deploy them like he would want to (but in one specific area) and cannot use them to attack, so they will get attacked, losing the attacker's advantage. IT IS NOT A REWARD. Instead of getting screwed by x%, the player missing a turn gets screwed by 0.2x%, it is limiting damage, it is not a reward. By recycling this illogical argument that it is a reward, you reproduce it as a belief in CC's members. Just because you get angry when you see opponent deploying 5 def troops, it does not mean he is rewarded, those are the troops he should have deployed in his missed turn and are now deployed in a much inferior way. And stop recycling fairy tale stories about very clever cunning players who somehow deadbeated on purpose and this turned out to be a clever move that lead to winning a game they would otherwise have lost due to def troops. It is like spreading around you have talked to Jesus, have been abducted by aliens or have striken Santa Claus with your car.

[_sabotage_]

Uh, thanks Kas, but I wasn't talking about deferred troops.

Two team games I've played where my teammate never took a turn. When he was booted, I received their troops and won both games. One never took a turn on CC ever and yet has won a game. This rewards deadbeating.

3 player games: many examples of one player deadbeating twice, remaining players leaving them be and engaging each other, third player comes back with massive advantage.

In the case you brought up. If the player isn't patient enough to wait out twelve rounds of deadbeating, then the potential is there for a deadbeater to sneak a win.

Deadbeating in escalating to take advantage of troop per card. Not terrible, since the player could prevent carding first, but if they have failed to do so, a deadbeat shouldn't provide this advantage. Perhaps first to five gets the rate regardless of when they card.

Deadbeating in multiplayer games can be an advantage depending on the circumstances.

There are several places where deadbeating are rewarded. I didn't mention deferred troops, but maybe my post got abducted by aliens.

Please stop spreading rumors about me spreading rumors. Don't make me post an extensive breakdown of your tactics.

[Donelladan]

There is only a handful of maps in which a deadbeating teammate can make you win the game. In most of cases a deadbeat teammate is a huge desadvantage. 3 turns during which you had no troops, and you do not deferred troops afterwards, if there was spoils you miss 3 of them. Games in which you win because your partner deadbeat are rare. Saying that deadbeat are rewarded because of that isn't true.

Deadbeating in escalating to take advantage of troop per card? wtf? You don't want a card you don't take a territory, missing turn doesn't help. Or you run out of time after taking a territory.

Deadbeating in multiplayer games can be an advantage to get ignored - yup - that's one of the cheapest strategy ever but it could be possible, I agree - remains rare and doesn't work that often - no need to punish normal people missing turn because of real life issue because of that.

In my opinion, 99% of missed turns are real missed turn because of real life issue. All those people doesn't deserve a punishment because of the 1% or more probably 0.0001% of people that abuse missing turn.

[willedtowin1]

"_sabotage_ " Two team games I've played where my teammate never took a turn. When he was booted, I received their troops and won both games. One never took a turn on CC ever and yet has won a game. This rewards deadbeating.

There are a couple maps were this is a true statement and people do use the deadbeat ploy for a better chance on winning. It is dependent on the drop tho.

Otherwise I do agree with Donelladan completely..............

[_sabotage_]

I've played 5000+ games, and in probably about 30 has deadbeating been used tactically and of those several were an accidental tactical move.

On the other hand, when it is done, its hard to determine and is not punished.

The most common is the new recruit deadbeat and the revenge deadbeat. But however the deadbeat comes about, whether through actually cheating, or not wanting to take the turn, not being able to take the turn or never taking a turn again, it should not be encouraged.

I have given my primary examples of this, such as teammates receiving the troops of a teammate deadbeating out. If you are team 1 and team 2 has a guy deadbeating, why should you be punished for it?

Deadbeat rule in team games, deadbeat reverts to neutral, no points won by deadbeat.

3 player-game and multiplayer games down to 3-player games, 2 deadbeats and your out.

New recruits, under 10 games, two consecutive deadbeats and out.

Malicious deadbeat, lose double points.

Most of these things can be programmed in. C&A gets malicious deadbeat reports anyway and can finally do something about them.

[TeeGee]

My suggestion would be 3 consecutive or 5 total in a game and deferred troops to be half value (rounded down)

[codierose]

My suggestion would be 3 consecutive or 5 total in a game and deferred troops to be half value (rounded down)

why still keep the deferred troops

[funk renegade]

The deferred troops are never an advantage in comparison to having them on your own turn. Never.

in some cases, i agree with this statement, but in most cases, i don't.

It is a huge advantage if the game is at a point where everyone is thinned out (onesies/twosies everywhere), and it makes sense logistically to miss your turn. I've experienced it far too often...mostly in doubles games and in manual deployment games (where lots of people like to deploy their entire army on one location to start the game). Example: Doubles game/no spoils available...lets say everyone is down to 1's/2's...something like 10 countries/12 troops...and logistically there is NO WAY the other team can eliminate me before i make my next move; I can do a lot more damage and swing the momentum of the game if i can deploy 6 instead of 3 (or 8 instead of 4)...so why not miss a turn on purpose?

I believe the rule was put in place to help the unfortunate events like you described earlier, but when i see a member listed as online and not going...that just irks me...

I agree it shouldn't even be an option in speed games...but in all others, no deferred troops.

[Donelladan]

The deferred troops are never an advantage in comparison to having them on your own turn. Never.

in some cases, i agree with this statement, but in most cases, i don't.

It is a huge advantage if the game is at a point where everyone is thinned out (onesies/twosies everywhere), and it makes sense logistically to miss your turn. I've experienced it far too often...mostly in doubles games and in manual deployment games (where lots of people like to deploy their entire army on one location to start the game). Example: Doubles game/no spoils available...lets say everyone is down to 1's/2's...something like 10 countries/12 troops...and logistically there is NO WAY the other team can eliminate me before i make my next move; I can do a lot more damage and swing the momentum of the game if i can deploy 6 instead of 3 (or 8 instead of 4)...so why not miss a turn on purpose?

I believe the rule was put in place to help the unfortunate events like you described earlier, but when i see a member listed as online and not going...that just irks me...

I agree it shouldn't even be an option in speed games...but in all others, no deferred troops.

No you can't. Coz you get the deploy troops at the end of you turn.
I already developed. You wanna prove me wrong? Come play me polymorph and miss your turn on purpose, and except if you get way above average dice, you'll see that you lose because of your miss.

No offence funk renegade, but you've played 141 game, I've played 9688 games. Deferred troops is never better than troops on your turn.
Sometimes, you miss a turn, next turn thanks to your deferred troops you secure a bonus and win the game, and then you get to think : " I won because of the deferred troops". That's wrong. If you hadn't miss, ( assuming equal dice) you would have win as well, and probably easier.
Mistake people are making is here, they say a win thanks to deferred troops and believe deferred troops can be an advantage. It isn't, the win would have hapened withouth deferred troops and no miss as well.

[funk renegade]

No offence funk renegade, but you've played 141 game, I've played 9688 games.

I love when a player goes to the well with this statement. You want to instantly have someone lose all respect for your statements? Quote your game totals as inferiority between the two of you.

Just b/c you've fired 10,000 rounds out of your rifle vs. my 200 rounds doesn't make you a better shot than me...
Just b/c your car has 100k miles on it vs. my 35 doesn't make you a better driver than me...
Just b/c you've fathered (assuming you're a guy) 10 kids to my 2 doesn't make you a better parent...

Let me know if you want me to keep going...

[Donelladan]

Sure you're right, experience means nothing ! I was so wrong.

But let forget about experience, you're missing the point.
During my 9k+ games I have seen way more often than you a player missing a turn and getting deferred troops.
And I have observed the effects of this deferred troops on the game, you too, but the size of my sample is bigger, therefore my statistic are more accurate.
Totally forgot about judging the situation please, I am not saying I am smarter than you. I am saying, I have seen a lot of people missing turn and getting deferred troops, and in close to 99% of the case it was a disadvantage to miss.
So, missing turn is a disadvantage, and getting deferred troops doesn't make missing a turn an advantage.

It is true that is theoretically possible, but in almost four years on Conquer Club, I have only seen one (ONE!) game where it is pretty certain the the player made strategic use of his deferred troops to win a game. In the meantime, I have seen hundreds of games where a player missed a turn at a crucial time and lost as a result.

The preponderance of examples, at least from what I've seen, is that missing turns is not generally an easy path to victory.

[jcmagno]

miss a turn is never an advantage between skilled players... if some guy says is an advantage, no meaning have a discuss with he...

[owenshooter]

in a poly game, where the guy is obviously missing with yellow and only playing one side... after 2 missed rounds, he magically can now take yellows turns, receiving his troops and 6 deferred... luckily, i was able to bust up his bonus and limit the damabe, but it is garbage. karma seems to be kicking him in the ass, because his turn is just frozen and he is about to time out of his turn... however, missed turns in poly games should be different as others are stating.. it should be 3 total, if even that, and then the entire game is done. just funny to watch a guy grab a bonus, then miss all of his turns for yellow, while taking all of blues turns, until right before he is kicked out...

Game 15452037

the black jesus is not amused...-Jésus noir

[Donelladan]

owen, everyone agree on the change for polymorph. They just don't know how to do it yet.

[purehardnut]

a simple solution to the dbing for 2 turns for deferred is simple, the rest of the players just card or deploy and don't fight until he db's 3 consec turns, and if he/she comes back on their 3rd turn, then just gang-bang him for trying a nub tactic what i generally do is suicide into them for trying it

[Lillo]

Earlier I posted in another forum my concerns regarding both deadbeats and deferers. After being directed here I posted in that thread this comment.

here is the link to my original statement

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=211560

Thank you for the post xxxxxxxxx and I read a great deal of it. I did notice that a large portion of it refers to poly games which I don't play but I do understand the frustration is the same. Regardless, I remain of the same opinion. Deferres should not get their troops and a different system should be introduced to stem the abuse. The simpler the rule the easier to enforce, so I would be quite happy with you miss three or even four turns you are out. It, at least to me would seem obvious that a person does not have the time to play if they miss so many turns or they should not have joined a game if they were not going to have time in the future.

[Dukasaur]

Earlier I posted in another forum my concerns regarding both deadbeats and deferers. After being directed here I posted in that thread this comment.

here is the link to my original statement

https://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewt ... 6&t=211560

Thank you for the post xxxxxxxxx and I read a great deal of it. I did notice that a large portion of it refers to poly games which I don't play but I do understand the frustration is the same. Regardless, I remain of the same opinion. Deferres should not get their troops and a different system should be introduced to stem the abuse. The simpler the rule the easier to enforce, so I would be quite happy with you miss three or even four turns you are out. It, at least to me would seem obvious that a person does not have the time to play if they miss so many turns or they should not have joined a game if they were not going to have time in the future.

Missing a turn is never an advantage. Deferred troops are not an "abuse", they are a small and partial compensation for the disadvantages you suffer when you miss a turn.

Here, from earlier in the thread, is the best post on the subject:

The deferred troops are never an advantage in comparison to having them on your own turn. Never.

Furthermore I very often miss my first turn in speed game because the fucking pop-up didn't work, and when you wait 30 mins for a 1min speed to start you may miss the 1st turn. Without the deferred troops I would simply lose half of my games directly.

Deferred troops are a small compensation for people that miss turns. And missing a turn happens to everyone, you never know when you'll have a real life issue that will prevent you from taking a turn.



Concering polymorph. I understood the fact that people are not kicked after missing 3 turn on polymorph was a bug, isn't it?? This should be fixed and treated independently of the pbs of people missing many turns in very long games.


Now on the real topic. I barely ever had the problem of people missing many turns but not being kicked because they play 1 turn over 3 or 1 turn over 2.
I think it affect very very few numbers of people and games. I think there is more important stuff to be improved on CC rather than taking care of what I think is a minor problem. Do we have statistics on that?
Nevertheless if the problem has to be adressed, the fix seems simple by making it a percentage of missed turns after 10 rounds as it has been suggested. We can have a more or less complex formula in order to cover most of the case. Several of them has been proposed in the past.
Let say maximum of total 10 missed rounds if the game is less than 100 rounds. I think it is fair.
If it goes to more than 100 rounds just keep it 10% miss round maximum ?

OR 3% maximum of missed rounds after 10 rounds. That is quite harsh but then it make people happy. It means 97% attendance minimum after 10 rounds. And before 10 rounds we simply keep the 3 consecutive miss = kicked out.

And some others you should read:

"Missed turns should not be rewarded"
Stop spreading this kind argument around. They are not rewarded. It is just that their negative effect is somewhat reduced. Player gets the troops in delay of 1 round, cannot deploy them like he would want to (but in one specific area) and cannot use them to attack, so they will get attacked, losing the attacker's advantage. IT IS NOT A REWARD. Instead of getting screwed by x%, the player missing a turn gets screwed by 0.2x%, it is limiting damage, it is not a reward. By recycling this illogical argument that it is a reward, you reproduce it as a belief in CC's members. Just because you get angry when you see opponent deploying 5 def troops, it does not mean he is rewarded, those are the troops he should have deployed in his missed turn and are now deployed in a much inferior way. And stop recycling fairy tale stories about very clever cunning players who somehow deadbeated on purpose and this turned out to be a clever move that lead to winning a game they would otherwise have lost due to def troops. It is like spreading around you have talked to Jesus, have been abducted by aliens or have striken Santa Claus with your car.

It's up to the people who keep making allegations about missing turns being a winning strategy to provide examples. So far, in the four years that I've been on Conquer Club, I've heard this allegation made dozens of times, but in all that time only ONE actual example where it happened.

If among the 14 million games that have been played on Conquer Club, there is one where this odd situation happened, I would say that it's not worth punishing thousands of users because one user managed to exploit a loophole. Even if there were hundreds of examples, I still would say it's not worth punishing several thousand users because a couple hundred exploited a loophole. Only if the numbers were in the same ballpark, if thousands of people were unfairly winning games by missing turns, would I say there might be a case.

One, or even a couple hundred, examples would not change the obvious fact that in most cases missing a turn is not an advantage. Missing a turn costs you a chance to card, it costs you all your autodeploys, it costs you a chance to defend any bonus you might have, it costs you a chance to break your opponent's bonus, in a team game it costs you the chance to fort to your team-mate, in a multiplayer game it costs you a chance to possibly score a kill. Those are tons of costs which make missing disadvantageous. The chance to make some oddball strategic gambit where you turn those disadvantages into advantages is certainly theoretically possible, as I've said before, but it has got to be on a struck-by-lightning level of frequency.

I honestly can't imagine why anyone would care if their opponent handicaps himself by missing a turn. I always see that as a gift to me. That's one card i have more than him, that's a chance to break his bonus when he isn't defending, etc., etc. I see people in games humbly apologising for missing a turn, and I always wonder "why?" Be my guest. Miss a turn. Miss all of them if you want; I'll take the cheap win!

This drive to persecute people who miss a turn seems outlandish. I don't understand the motive behind it. You think because the guy had to work unscheduled overtime and came home after 14 hours at work to find he missed a turn, that you should kick him when he's down? Have you been harmed in any way? You got a hot date somewhere that you can't go on until after this game ends, or what? Maybe you don't have a job, and you don't understand the idea of a guy working unscheduled overtime. Or maybe you're one of those pampered pussies that works in an office with no work ethic and can play games at work, and you don't realize that in the real world most workers don't have that luxury.

[jonofperu]

Not sure it needs to be repeated, but I'm in several poly games where my opponent missed 3 consecutive turns... but apparently I have to wait for him to miss 12x 9x consecutively... fix the bug please!

I have read the thread and I agree with Dukasaur (good summary above), Kaskavel, etc.
Deferred troops are not an advantage, but a way to slightly minimize the negative effects of a miss. Makes sense since we've all had unavoidable misses.
Same thing for team games. Having a deadbeat player's troops and cards shift to a teammate rather than going neutral only slightly minimizes the disastrous effects of missing three consecutive turns. All deferred troops disappear in that case, right? Yes, it's possible to imagine a case in escalating spoils where a teammate picks up extra cards that way and wins, but it would be extremely rare. The overall effect is to give the unlucky teammate of a deadbeat a fighting chance at saving such a game - not much of a chance, but something. Most of the time a single miss can lose a game.

Aside from the annoying effect of prolonging a decided game, I welcome all misses by my opponents.
It might make sense to implement something like

3% maximum of missed rounds after 10 rounds. That is quite harsh but then it make people happy. It means 97% attendance minimum after 10 rounds. And before 10 rounds we simply keep the 3 consecutive miss = kicked out.

However, that would mean a single miss would kick you as soon as you hit 10 rounds (10%, or 9% at 11 games). Not sure that makes sense.
Let's explore the 10 round scenario. Say you miss your first 2 turns, but manage to take your 3rd. What scenario should kick you?
I don't think we want a rule that kicks a player at some future round limit. I can imagine some interesting dynamics if you know you're going to lose at round 10 because you already had X misses.
So let's imagine a worst-case scenario. Somebody misses 2 turns, takes a turn, misses 2 turns, takes a turn, etc.
First off, this player is going to lose anyway...
But when should he get kicked, just to make the game more playable?
Right now you have to miss 3 out of 3 - three consecutive turns.
What if any time your misses hit 30% of your turns taken with a minimum of 3 misses, you get booted?
So in the first 10 turns you can ONLY miss 3 turns TOTAL. More than that and we can assume you are probably going to lose anyway, but it would just be considerate to your opponent to automatically remove you from the game.
Games with hundreds of rounds would have the same very generous limit. But then that scenario makes me think the setting should be 30% of ANY 10 turns. Of course if somebody kicks the bucket after playing one game for three years he's going to get kicked for the 3 consecutive anyway.

So...
Kick a player as a deadbeat if they miss 3 out of any 10 turns (in the same game). No need for the consecutive thing, because it would also be 3/10.
OR maybe keep the 3 consecutive rule and add a max cumulative miss total of 4/10. Most people will probably think 40% is too high though.
I feel like 3 consecutive OR 40% are too high. 3/10 seems about right to me. I wouldn't want to make it a 1 or 2 miss limit.

Remember, this is just to make the gameplay more enjoyable for the person who is stuck playing against someone who misses too much. There is a natural penalty for missing - you tend to lose!

**Edited: accidentally said "3 out of 10 games" rather than "3 out of 10 turns"

[Donelladan]

Kick a player as a deadbeat if they miss 3 out of any 10 games.

I don't like that. I often had around 100 ongoing game during the last 3 years. If I happen to be away for my computer for 24h, which of course happened in the last 3 years, I definitely miss at least 3 turns out of 10 games. Should I be kicked out of all those games? I don't think so, I think that's harsh. Only works if you have a low game count.

[jonofperu]

Sorry, I said that completely wrong. Corrected previous post to say "Kick a player as a deadbeat if they miss 3 out of 10 TURNS" in the same game.

[Donelladan]

I see, that way you avoid to give an extra tolerance for very long game in case a player suddenly start missing 1 turn over 2 after 200 rounds for example.
I like it. Would definitely be fine for me.

[Arama86n]

I don't have time to read through this thread today: but I would like to pitch in and say that having to wait for NINE turns in a trench Poly triples game... It's an issue.

I've always been in favour of the "three turns total" solution. Some always argue that it's unfair for the really long standard FR/NS games games. I disagree. Who really loves a stalemate anyway? If someone misses three turns, let him drop. It would be an improvement, and I'm sure most will agree.

3 total = dropped.
2 consecutive = dropped.
Sounds about right to me.

Kudos to anyone who see's this through and get's it changed. Best of luck.