drops and unfairness

[Lord Diamond]

I like the idea of 2 standbys being in the queue.  2 missed turns by a kingdom before turn 10 or a kingdom holding a census greater than 100k.  Automatically the first standby is put in place and +1 given to all of his emissaries, wizards, leaders, agents, influence but not greater than max.  No lich P8s, wraith p6s either.

This gives the standby person a chance to react to zero turns being used for the last two turns.

That would certainly make standby a lot more attractive.

[Ry Vor]

We're not going to do that (meaning nuking PC's of a dropped position).  If anything, given my 30 year history with PBM style games, we are doing probably better than any game in that generation for fewest early drops.

I'm going to ask Mike to make a couple changes, like the two JF identified on an agent just aborting the mission if counter espionage is high for an L7 or so (so skilled enough to identify the counter espionage), make a couple changes to starting brigades or characters for a couple kingdoms (Amazons and Halflings is what I have in mind, possibly Illusionist and Ranger).  Otherwise, not wanting to meddle too much with The Choosing.

[Frost Lord]

Just to make sure everyone understood my position.

I was NOT suggesting any changes to the game. My suggestion was to automate the manual steps that the Game Master has to follow to replace a dropped position. My suggestion was not "game-specific" and could be used in any past or future versions of Alamaze (2nd cycle, 3rd cycle, 4th, KoA....etc...)

[unclemike]

We're not going to do that (meaning nuking PC's of a dropped position).  If anything, given my 30 year history with PBM style games, we are doing probably better than any game in that generation for fewest early drops.

I'm going to ask Mike to make a couple changes, like the two JF identified on an agent just aborting the mission if counter espionage is high for an L7 or so (so skilled enough to identify the counter espionage), make a couple changes to starting brigades or characters for a couple kingdoms (Amazons and Halflings is what I have in mind, possibly Illusionist and Ranger).  Otherwise, not wanting to meddle too much with The Choosing.

Well it looks like I'm in the minority here but I have to politely disagree with everyone about not destroying dropped pc's. The very reason why certain kingdoms pull away from everyone else in a dropped game is that they receive a bunch of free pc's that doubles their food and gold production than everyone else. Heck, in one of my games (524), the WA dropped out on turn 6 and allowed the DE to grab control of region 3 early on without contest.

That threw the balance of the game out of whack and allowed the DE to have an extra 100k gold every turn which resulted in larger militaries, higher wizards than normal, more agents, better emissaries, and so on for the DE. The DE grabbed control of his 3rd region fairly quickly (which is understandable since getting twice the food/gold than everyone else) and nearly ended the game if it wasn't for the dumb luck that another kingdom or two that just happened to move against the DE at the right time.

So picking up the free pc's of an uncontested region due to a drop really does unbalance the game quite a bit. That's why I offered the suggestion to destroy the pc's and eliminate the issue even though it may mean that an entire region or so may become unpopulated. Which is ok too because that would be the equivalent of a region undergoing pillaging or meteor storms which is normal for a game.

It seems like I was unable to convince people on this matter but we need to consider that getting a standby player isn't a perfect solution either. Many times standby players don't know what's going on and don't really play to their full ability since it's only a temporary game of sorts. Most of the time, standby players carry out uncharacteristic moves for recovering a failed/dropped kingdom and end up issuing orders for some other agenda (like switching their kingdom's resources to pick up artifacts when such an action does nothing to recover a position in the game).

Even worse in diplomacy games, the standby player typically won't honor previous alliances that were made with the former player which ends up ruining the game for a partner/teammate who were working together on conquering a region (and is now left by themselves to hold their own against two other kingdoms they were battling). So not only the dropped kingdom loses but also any one else that was aligned with them. Anonymous games may not be that affected but in diplomacy games, it's certainly a factor.

So going the route of the standby player isn't a perfect solution either and poses other problems for a game. Also, granting bonuses for standby players need to be carefully considered and not get too carried away. A simple bonus of extra food/gold (like 30k per turn missed) is enough of a bonus because if you change other factors like adding levels to agents/wizards, that could end up ruining other players' actions in the game. Especially if others were gearing up to assassinate a lower leveled agent/wizard that suddenly gets bumped up in level (that doesn't show in a recon) could end up changing the course of the game. Bumping up wizards are even worse since it may mean that an opponent would have to suddenly deal with domes or demonic visions which weren't a problem before.

To discourage drops, I think Ry Vor had a policy that if you dropped a game (or was it only a warlord/magic game), you lose the ability to become a standby player or such. Something like that may be better to help reduce the amount of drops from happening since they do seem to unbalance the game quite a bit when they occur.

So having a standby player enter a game isn't a perfect solution and has issues on its own however destroying the pc's of a dropped player would address the problem of another from taking advantage and unbalancing the game. This is the central issue regarding drops and if the pc's were destroyed then the problem goes away without relying on a standby to play to their full ability which most don't do in a temp game.

So I wanted to reply with the above but didn't have the time to do so earlier. As mentioned above, I'm in a game right now that had a drop (actually TWO drops) near my location and it's not fun to end up winning the game by conquering an uncontested region like this. If the pc's were destroyed then the nearby player won't automatically gain control of a second or third region like I'm about to do in that game.

Having a standby player enter the game (turn 23 due today) won't be a factor since he/she is behind in catching up in the game and won't be as effective as actually destroying those pc's which would prevent another player from grabbing control of the region without contest. So I have to politely disagree with everyone and say that having a standby player enter the game is not a perfect solution and a better alternative would be to simply destroy the dropped pc's (and prevent a schmuck like me from winning the game).

[Frost Lord]

I definitely understand where you are coming from UM.  But my thought is that destroying PC's ranks right up there with granting level promotions to all wizards, agents & emmies.  I think they are all extreme fixes for a problem.

I think that we should do our best to discourage drops from happening in the first place, and when they do happen, have a quick, easy, and systematic way to fill the position with a warm body.

One thing that I am looking into is creating a section in Valhalla that highlights the players that drop too often. I have not finalized it, but it will be very comprehensive and will look back over each players last 10 games they played to produce a rating value (probably called something like "Honor") to highlight the honorable players vs. the less than honorable ones.  Using Valhalla & the forums, we should kindly try to discourage players from dropping viable positions early-on in the game.  

On the part about filling the position as soon as possible...  I think there should be a list that Rick adds too (or signup queue on a website) where players get their names on to be in the list of standby players.  When a "drop" event occurs, the game server should grab the next active player from the top of that queue and systematically place them in the dropped position (assuming the game has not reached a certain 'cut-off' turn -- like T10 or T12 for example) and have the game server offer that player a gift (like the food/gold you mentioned above).  Once the player is removed from the standby queue, they could get their name added to the bottom of the queue using the same method as before.  Rick is familiar with this, because Fall of Rome had a standby queue website where the player went to and they added themselves to the list (assuming they had the appropriate service level to do so).  Any active game that needed a standby player, pulled from that centralized list systematically.

Another idea (let me stress the word "idea").....I remember Rick mentioning a while back that (one day) you guys plan to merge the active player DB and billing system with the game server DB.  Once you get all of the systems merged together on the same platform, we could build out a "deposit" process whereby players put a deposit on a game and if they play past T12, they get their deposit back to be used on the next game they want to join.  If they drop before T12, they forfeit their deposit and have to purchase a new one for the next game.  This could be in the form of "token" that players could purchase from a website.....maybe the same place where they add their name to the standby queue.  This would definitely encourage players to continue playing at least to the turn where they get their deposit refunded.  ....again....just an idea for the future.

[IMPERIAL_TARK]

Ok, so here's another possible solution to dropped positions (though it involves more coding). When a player drops, all of the PCs that he held are randomly distributed amongst all remaining kingdoms still in the game (and Human and Neutral could be considered kingdom options as well.... or not). In essence, those PCs all quickly shift their allegiance to a remaining power and become immediately controlled by them.

[unclemike]

Frost: About a deposit, Phil McDowell had that policy for North Carolina where a player would pay an extra $25 when signing up for a game which would be reimbursed on turn 10 (to ensure that players would last at least that long).

Imperial Tark: Granting pc's to surviving kingdoms may not be fair when there's three pc's to give among four kingdoms. Not to mention the original problem of kingdoms getting "freebies" when they don't deserve it (if you're a purist like me).

Back to adding a standby player vs. destroying pc's. In my current game, the standby player went south instead of north perhaps due to the previous player heading in that direction before he dropped because my kingdom isn't encountering any opposition up north. That's resulting in me gaining control of my 2nd and 3rd region fairly quickly and I don't want to win this way.

Other players may be ok with grabbing a dropped and uncontested region like this but I was expecting a fight when I moved into these two regions. To my disappointment, the previous player dropped before our first fight and the standby must be heading south or doing other things (like searching for artifacts) because it's too easy for me up north.

So adding a standby player may resolve certain issues with team-oriented games but for single player games, it's definitely better to destroy the pc's as if they were pillaged to prevent others from unbalancing the game (or to have an easy and undeserved victory).

Anyway, that's my opinion and I couldn't respond to this thread until today but I really do feel that destroying pc's is the proper way to resolve the problems associated with dropped positions. Doing so would handle the situation in a fair and consistent manner for all those involved in the game.

[Frost Lord]

I am not saying I agree with it, but maybe a less drastic measure would be to convert to Human controlled and reduce the food/gold production by 50 to 75%. Destroying the PC's could instantly cause the attacking kingdom to gain control of the region.

...and I assume you are talking about drops later in the game, because a T1-T6 drop (for example) should be viable enough for a standby player.

[Lord Diamond]

What is the primary reason that causes established, skilled, and stable players drop games?

I believe that most players who drop games do so because they want to start a new game that is more interesting to them after it becomes apparent that they will not podium in a current game taking up a valuable game slot.

If I am correct, then the problem is actually the current subscription pricing model. I would much rather pay an upfront fee even if it ended up being more expensive in the long run because I wouldn't have the commitment and I would get more games out of it.

If the pricing model were to change in this manner, I would sign up for a lot more games. I bet other players would as well and then drop far fewer of them.

I am not asking Rick to lose one penny. Indeed, I am encouraging him to review his pricing model and possible make even more money from the same number of players.

[IMPERIAL_TARK]

Imperial Tark: Granting pc's to surviving kingdoms may not be fair when there's three pc's to give among four kingdoms. Not to mention the original problem of kingdoms getting "freebies" when they don't deserve it (if you're a purist like me).

Never said it would be fair, but at least its random and doesn't make it a slam dunk for another player to grab up the region.  I think once a player drops a position, then fair is out the window for that game, regardless of the solution.  But the random re-assignment solution is not as extreme as destroying all the PCs; destroying exacerbates the problem in my opinion.  For example, if I control the Talking Mountains, and players in the E. Steppes and N. Mists both drop, then I just need to destroy the few PCs in NE Amberland, and effectively NO ONE can move an emmy into R3 for the rest of the game and no enemy agents can reach me either. Destroying also unbalances things in terms of meeting victory conditions.  If enough players drop, a Rex/Usurper victory could be made impossible.