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Step one:
You must make an automated formula for dealing with both accidental and deliberate TKing. The formula considers all team damage (especially component destruction) and TKs at progressively reduced importance the more damage and kills have been done to the opposing team.
In Effect:
TK before any opposing damage done? Maximum importance.
TK late in the battle after your team has 11 enemy kills and 3000 damage done to enemies? Least Importance.
There is no timer for determining "TK points". It is all a formula based on when the TK was done compared to the progress of the battle.
Step Two:
Obvious Penalties:
Reduce the C-Bill and XP reward the player gets during the match by a value determined by the importance of the TK according to the above formula.
TK early? Large penalty.
TK late? Small Penalty.
The Penalty can easily put the player into negative money if he/she went into a TK frenzy.
Step Three:
Goad the deliberate TKers into showing their true colors. Getting deliberate TKers to think they are getting the attention they want for their TKing is important.
Include information about Team Kills and Team Damage on the match summary screen.
People that accidentally TK will be embarrassed, and be more careful. People that deliberately TK will revel in their infamy.
Send the TKer Emails saying he has been reported for TKing, even if he hasn't really, and it's just the Formula detecting his pattern. Again accidental Tkers will put more effort into not accidentally TKing. But if the Deliberate TKer thinks he/she is getting attention, they will ramp up their efforts to continue TKing. Ironically this is important for step four.
Step Four:
Hidden Penalties:
This is the idea for preventing the player from just creating a new account.
The Match Maker will make players with too high of a TK ratio simply wait an additional 3-8 minutes for each match. They will be put into a phantom queue filled only with other high TK ratio players. After a suitable period of time they will be released back into to regular MM queue.
Players determined by the formula or by the PGI employees to be chronic TKers will also have the game deliberately disconnect them "just as they were entering the game" only it will never be a real game they are being put into. They will just be loaded into a game with other TKers and placeholder empty 'Mechs. After a couple of seconds, they will be disconnected again.
Do not tell the deliberate TKer that he/she is being penalized!
If they think they haven't been stopped yet, they will continue to attempt to use the penalized account rather than use a new one. If they think the game is unreliable but it is actually because they are being penalized for being a TKer they will just go away and possibly not come back.
Step Five:
Hardware Ban. Use the methods of a hardware ban to detect Tkers that have simply created a new account on the same computer. Put them into the phantom queue immediately so even this second (or fifteenth) account is already being penalized for what their other account is doing.
Traditional Banning of a TKer in a FTP game is only effective if you can accomplish a hardware ban. Making them just leave because they don't know they are playing in a private hell version of the game is much better.
Step Six:
Forgiveness. Let the TK formula include a timer that slowly reduces the value of their TKs based on both the time since their last TK, and the number of matches since their last TK.
Some players can mature in time. Some players had their account used by a destructive younger sibling. Some players bought a used motherboard on Ebay that used to belong to a particularly ambitious TKer.
At the same time. The formula needs to penalize former TKers that return to TKing with an extra large penalty.
- edited for spelling, and a bad sentence structure.
Edited by Smith Gibson, 03 March 2015 - 04:17 PM.
