Curse

Ken Dei · May 25, 2006, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Ragequitters and spies are becoming more and more prevalent, very close to, if not at FPE levels.

As we all know, this significantly reduces the enjoyment and importance of any given battle in which this occurs.

Since individuals insist on continuing these disreputable actions, action needs to be taken.

However, A.Net has stated that it will not lay down arbitrary punishments due to the nature of varying connectivity of the community. That's fine.

Therefore, in order to retain balence during times when team members drop, I suggest instead of hunting down every person who does this, we simply give passive benefits to the hindered team for the remainder of the match.

For example:

We have Team 1 and Team 2 in a 12v12 match.

Within a few minutes team 1 loses a player. Team one is subsequently compensated for the loss with a 2% morale boost and a 1% boost in capture speed of all remaining players.

Let us say Team 2 maintains the upper hand in spite of the balence, and suddenly a spy team within their ranks drops, thus reducing the number of players on their team to 8.

Team 2 gets 8% morale boost (2% for each player), 4% capture speed (1% for each player), and it takes 4 extra seconds to capture posts held by team 2.

(The anti-capture bonus only kicks in after 4+ players leave and increases 1 second for each player after 4 that leaves.)

Therefore, the feild of play would remain relatively balenced. Less players with more firepower/defense vs. more players with less firepower/defense.

Of course A.Net would have to run actual numbers and tweak the bonuses.

Some other possible bonuses:
-Increased running speed (to move about the battlefield faster)
-Increased dmg
-Additional NPCs upon capture
-Faster Rezzing
-Stronger NPCs
-Replacement NPCs (to take the place of a few players when so many have left bonuses won't help. But these NPCs must have GOOD builds, not PvE henchies.)

In addtion, for people who are quitting on purpose, those obviously NOT having connection issues.

The Coward Title:

Every 12 hours the amount of quits that you proformed during 12v12 would be tallied.

Every quit above 5 (I'm on dialup, I don't dissconnect more then 3 times a DAY on average) counts as a point towards the Coward title. Every 48 hours, if you have less then 3 "coward points" the points are voided, and you're reset at 0. The Coward title is account based, so you will suffer the consequences across all characters.

-10 points: Coward title overrides any other title you currently have on. Merchants/Faction Rewards charge double prices and PvP unlocks cost an extra 1k Balth.

-20 points: Shameful Coward title occurs, Faction Rewards NPC and all merchants except for the Basic Merchant (salvage kits and the sort.) refuse to deal with you in ANY city. PvP Unlocks cost an extra 3k Balth. Faction and you are locked out of Team Arenas and HA.

-30+ points: Traitor title occurs, All NPCs refuse to speak with you. You cannot unlock for PvP and are locked out of all formats of PvP except 12v12.

To reduce/remove the title you must do the following.

-To remove 1 point, play through 3 Alliance Battles, start to finish, for which you will recieve NO Faction win or lose. Players with a Coward title on will be assumed to be attempting to cheat the system by going afk during the battles, therefore will be auto-booted if they fail to leave the base, within 20 seconds and proceed to the vicinity of another post.

There's only so much you can do, but if they afk next to a post at least they act as a play counter in defense of that post, and if they die and remain afk they'll be auto-booted for not leaving the base if they rez there.

I think all of the above punishments fit the crime of intentionally ruining the fun of other players or cheating for the sake of the opposing Faction. Even people who pride themselves on being jerks (who might go for the title on prupose) won't want to get these titles, due to the stiff penalties associated.

Frankly, instituting the Passive Benefits suggestion would be fine. The Coward Title is icing on the cake.