52 replies to this topic

[FireStoat]

I've been playing this game for over a half year. Regardless of how great or poor my skill is, or how quickly I've advanced in Tiers, one thing has stayed the same - I have an extremely low disconnect ratio from matches. I am fairly certain I have less than 5 since I've started last September.

Ever since the patch dropped for the skill tree, the amount of disconnected players from a match has sharply increased for my games. What's more, I've started to recognize the names of players who repeatedly disconnect in matches on both team sides.

I'd like to propose that PGI internally track a player's account for Disconnects and intentionally flag players who are very reliable in loading into a match and playing it through (at least until they die) without an issue. Then, I would like PGI to funnel reliable players to be matched against each other in a priority pool so they can enjoy a game experience with a more reliable match of full teams.

Other game companies do this, with Riot Games and their League of Legends being one of them. People that have a habit of dropping games over time suddenly find themselves matched up with other players with unreliable connections. They've been doing this since 2011.

What are other players' feelings on this issue? Am I the only one that has seemed to hit a rough streak of discos during an evening's string of games?

[Tyler Valentine]

Sounds like a bucket system to me.

this will make Russ very angry

[Khobai]

a lot of times people disconnect because the game crashes. then when they try to rejoin it crashes again. repeatedly.

I dont think people should be overly penalized for disconnecting when the main reason for disconnects is PGI's client being unstable.

Fix the game crashing constantly first. Then maybe disconnect penalties could be a thing.

Edited by Khobai, 22 May 2017 - 09:08 PM.

[Hindenhoot]

Khobai, on 22 May 2017 - 09:07 PM, said:

I dont think people should be overly penalized for disconnecting when the main reason for disconnects is PGI's client being unstable.

Is it actually chronically unstable though? My experience matches the OP's - the only times I've even DC'd is when my connection has been interrupted.

Is it prone to crashing with certain hardware or OS's? I hear people talk about the game crashing when they alt-tab back in, but I do it all the time.

[Thorqemada]

Dahoota, on 22 May 2017 - 11:08 PM, said:

Is it actually chronically unstable though? My experience matches the OP's - the only times I've even DC'd is when my connection has been interrupted.

Is it prone to crashing with certain hardware or OS's? I hear people talk about the game crashing when they alt-tab back in, but I do it all the time.

Have not played in a while but i can force the game to crash by Alt-Tab from Game to Windows but can use the Statstic-Button in the Mechlab to switch via opened Browser-Window to the Desktop and alt tab back or use the taskbar.
In a Match i would allways crash.

The game is notoriously unstable what makes me quite angry bcs i dont crash that often but if i crash it goes some crashes in a row and i never made it back in time thus my penatly was growing more and more and yeah - screw that crap!

Fixing this though will not make me play more it will make me less unhappy if i Play anymore after the tech update wents out and makes the game spark my interest to play again.

Whch means - Crap like thart drives me away but getting me back Needs way more effort!

PS: And too screw the Auto-Correction aka Error-Insertion!

Edited by Thorqemada, 22 May 2017 - 11:24 PM.

[Xetelian]

Khobai, on 22 May 2017 - 09:07 PM, said:

a lot of times people disconnect because the game crashes. then when they try to rejoin it crashes again. repeatedly.

I dont think people should be overly penalized for disconnecting when the main reason for disconnects is PGI's client being unstable.

Fix the game crashing constantly first. Then maybe disconnect penalties could be a thing.

I don't think he is exactly asking for a penalty on people with bad connections/client issues but a boon for people who don't.


As someone who played over 6000 hours of LoL I can tell you it made a big difference.

[Hindenhoot]

Xetelian, on 22 May 2017 - 11:24 PM, said:

I don't think he is exactly asking for a penalty on people with bad connections/client issues but a boon for people who don't.


As someone who played over 6000 hours of LoL I can tell you it made a big difference.

Doesn't that amount to the same thing? People who disconnect regularly get shafted into games with others who disconnect, reducing their enjoyment of the game as a few people reliably disconnect from each game.

Edited by Dahoota, 22 May 2017 - 11:30 PM.

[FireStoat]

Xetelian, on 22 May 2017 - 11:24 PM, said:

I don't think he is exactly asking for a penalty on people with bad connections/client issues but a boon for people who don't.

I worded it in a manner that was optimistic for rewarding people who make a dedicated effort in only playing when they know their client isn't going to crash or suffer a disconnect. I'll agree it does work out to the same thing as punishing players who constantly have connection issues or client stability problems.

As a personal example, when I play the game on my desktop it is the only program running aside from an MP3 player. Having multiple programs running and several of those requiring internet access for packet transmission / receiving can eventually cause a problem. PGI's game is stable but not outstanding in that regard.

Meanwhile, I have certainly seen Streamers have their client crash every so often during a week or even as much as twice per time they are streaming. That only seems to happen when their hardware is either ancient or they're using a laptop with a multitude of processes going... Which again, is all on them. I'm not buying the "It's PGI's fault with the program's stability" excuse so easily because I use both an AMD processor and a Radeon card for this game - both of which are reported to be 'no no's' as the game was patched for best performance with Intel and Nvidia hardware.

Edit - all that said, is it okay for players that constantly crash or disconnect to be continuing to play the game in some sort of demented roulette wheel gamble that "this next few times, it should be okay" when you're depending on a team of 12?

Edited by FireStoat, 22 May 2017 - 11:34 PM.

[Bellum Dominum]

Okay sure it is incredibly annoying when people obviously intentionally disconnect from a match. I agree and understand.
There is a system in place to try to 'combat' such behavior: Report System. :Use it.
I understand people don't want to be a 'narc' sure, but what you are proposing IS a penalty. Even if you 'look at it' as a 'reward' for not disconnecting then you are still penalizing those who do whether or not it is intentional by way of rewarding those who don't.
This is like picking on the little kid in school. Some disconnect due to having a poor ISP or route to the game servers, some because they are having issues with their rigs, some because... well they are <insert preferred explicative>.. but the vast majority ESPECIALLY after the latest patch are because of client issues.
I use a fiber connection, dedicated 1gig, a very nice and up to date rig I built myself, latest Windows build (yeah I know and agree screw windows but it was the most solid route to go with the new rig for the games I enjoy) and I NEVER intentionally disconnect. I have however had the game crash a crazy amount of times since the last patch, let the client send in the crash report every time it was triggered (pretty close to if not over 10 times now in just he last few days).
Excepting a couple of issues with my rig that I figured out and fixed I've really never had the game crash on me before. Keep in mind the last couple of years I've also not played very often so....

Sugar coat what you are proposing however you want to but the fact remains what you are proposing is a penalty. Luckily having been around for so many years I can guarantee that PGI WILL NOT implement anything like this. Heck they even refused to implement any sort of 'cheat detection/punkbuster' all though there were quite a few calls for it just a couple of years ago. They did however consent to implementing the report feature... so USE IT. Hopefully that feature includes a variable in it's script to check if a crash report was sent by the reported player to 'kick out' the penalty of having been reported. If not then PGI needs to add it (wouldn't even require 12 lines of code).

Edited by Bellum Dominum, 23 May 2017 - 02:59 AM.

[Burke IV]

It is a very rare but occasionally the game will just boot you out at the start. Sometimes you can get back in but sometimes the option to rejoin isnt there.

It could well be something to do with streamers

[Bud Crue]

I have rural internet. I drop my connection at least once an evening during most sessions of play. There are a couple guys I play with regularly who disco paerhaps as bad as every other match some evenings. As limited as the population is, if you were consistently dropping on those evenings you might be led to believe that such folks are disco-ing on purpose. Yet, there is nothing malicious here. Just bad connections.

As to the larger issue of disconnects, regardless of motivation or reasons for it occurring...why is it that is is nearly always an assault mech? I hate that. Hey...maybe now that assaults are nerfed to the ground, no one will play them and hence: less discos!?

[Kanil]

I don't really care about discos, honestly. Is a sub-100 damage player really worse than a 0 damage player? I suppose the former at least eats a few shots, but it's not like most games have someone who isn't contributing due to some reason or another.

Anyway, I find the game goes through fits and spurts of reliability for me. I was having assorted crashes prior to Tukayyid, but haven't crashed once in my last 40 games. If we do go through with purgatory, how long do you stick people in it?

[meteorol]

I always wonder what is going on with all those people having crashes and discos.

I didn't have a disco or crash for like... 2 or 3 years now. I srsly can't remember when the game crashed the last time.

[Thorqemada]

meteorol, on 23 May 2017 - 07:28 AM, said:

I always wonder what is going on with all those people having crashes and discos.

I didn't have a disco or crash for like... 2 or 3 years now. I srsly can't remember when the game crashed the last time.

You are sure you run a Windows™ Computer???

[Birthright]

I disconnect from about every 4th game, but not because I quit, because the game ******* crashes.

And it keeps happening again and again and again.
If that happens to you in FW your ****** because you will not receive any payout even if you reconnect asap.

Relaunching the game and gettting back into it can sometimes take several minutes because the whole thing just freezes up.

This happens to a lot of players.

So no, your idea is BS.

If u want less DCs in your games, tell PGI to finally fix their ****, its a common problem for over 2 years now.

[meteorol]

Thorqemada, on 23 May 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

You are sure you run a Windows™ Computer???

Yes. And both Win8 and 10 didn't produce crashes in MWO. I don't really know what people do to get their systems so unstable.

[Burke IV]

When it happens alt tab and end the process, you should drop to desktop with the lancher still there. You can get back in quite fast.

[Napoleon_Blownapart]

i would estimate over 90% of my games since beta have at least 1 disconnect, the game has always had optimization problems.myself i have maybe crashed twice in 3 years.rarely youll end up in a game where many crash.

[Roughneck45]

I've been here from the start, and my connection has nearly always been fantastic.

However, one patch maybe 2 years ago made it unplayable until the next patch. I was getting disconnected at least once every 3 games and just had to stop playing till the next patch came. No idea what was causing it, nothing had changed on my end, but it was gone after the next patch.

In short, I HIGHLY doubt people are disconnecting for the sake of it, there is no reward or reason to do so. Server stability has always been an issue for some.

[FireStoat]

NebeIparder, on 23 May 2017 - 11:38 AM, said:

I disconnect from about every 4th game, but not because I quit, because the game ******* crashes.

This happens to a lot of players.

No. Not buying it. Your claim that disconnecting from every 4th game 'happens to a lot of players' is simply untrue and it boggles my mind you even said it. The very vast majority of players of this game are close to being like myself - a disconnect or crash possibly once every few MONTHS of play.

I don't believe I'm incorrect for simply wanting PGI to follow the same steps other companies have with rewarding players who play the game with the understanding that others are counting on them for a shared past time experience. But I'll go ahead and turn it around just for a moment.

Please explain to me why you think 23 other people should be understanding of your disconnect rate every time you enter a match?