Halo: Reach Will Punish Quitters, Says Bungie

[Vrex360]

I prefer LAN parties much more than online play. You can stop for drinks, talk, smack idiots, etc.

Oh yeah I love those. Just me, some friends, some pizza and other unhealthy foods goofing it out and having some great fun times with our own matches of Halo with no one to answer to but ourselves.
If you ask me, that's the real soul of the game, right there.

 

[Treblaine]

This is bullshit as:

#1 what are the fucking chances that people want to or even CAN wait till a game is over before they either want to stop playing or must start something else? Imagined if you were COMPELLED to wait till a game was over or else risk being locked out of the system.

#2 NO ALGORITHM IS EVEN CLOSE TO PERFECT! Even a 10% false positive rate will unnecessarily penalise MILLIONS of good and loyal players.

REAL solution: if a player suddenly "disconnects" (for whatever reason), replace that character with a bot of suitable skill level (and disconnecting while losing counts = loss, but disconnect while winning = draw). Only that bot can be replaced by anyone else who wants to play that game so it doesn't fill a slot.

See that is a POSITIVE solution as it maintains the gameplay and doesn't arbitrarily PUNISH players with blanket measures. Bad players don't learn that way.

 

[Gutkrusha]

Erm, unless they give us a ToS agreement to sign, they arent allowed to do this.

You signed a TOS to even get Xbox Live. Playing games over Xbox Live are included in it.

If they're going to continue the Halo 3 trend of penalising me for not wanting to play a certain map or want to put up with the childish vitriol of some games, then they won't be getting my money.

I used to quit CS games all the time for that kind of reason. Listening to 13 year-old children whose balls haven't dropped yet jabber on about how gay things are, or playing DE_DUST for the millionth time, just weren't fun for me.

The thing with this sort of mechanic is if it is enforced with enough frequency to be effective, there is going to be far too much collateral damage. If it is not, then it is just needlessly ruining the game experience for someone. And a game company ruining the game experience for a paying customer is just a stupid business decision.

I'm not attempting to say the game is perfect, or the system will be. But it was implemented in Halo 3 with success, as well as the Reach Beta. Thousands and thousands of players have gone through this system completely unmarred, and it works to stop the people who quit simply because 'Oh I don't like this map, fuck my team.' You can mute ANYONE that you don't want to listen to. You don't even have to go into the guide to do that.

If you're playing a free for all game and you quit, no one minds. The people that mind are the ones who are relying on you to back them up as part of the team. That's teh same in any game that doesn't allow constant quits/joins in the middle of games. In games like Counter Strike or Team Fortress, other people can fill the hole in the team you left, in Halo, it isn't possible. No one likes to be outnumbered 6 to 2, or 4 to 3.(Unless you're the god at whatever game you're playing. If so, enjoy yourself, by all means.)

I really hate the mentality that "If i'm not dominating/having supreme amounts of fun, fuck everyone else in this game." In leaving in the middle of a game for no reason, you ruin the enjoyment/game experience of the players on your team. You can leave games early, you just can't do it constantly over and over again. There is no set number per day, nor are the suspensions permanent, the first one is 15 minutes, it increases marginally the more you quit for no reason.

I support this system, because so far? It's worked.

 

[Grey_Focks]

okay guys, this is taken directly from Bungie.net

<quote= Bungie>So, you may be wondering why we haven't fixed the quitter problem yet. Thing is, we probably have, but we just haven't turned it on yet.
As we speak, the Banhammer is watching, amassing data about who's been quitting, the manner in which they have quit, and who suffered as a result of that quit. Numbers are feeding into complex heuristics and deep databases, and somewhere in the middle of it, our very own disembodied soul howls for revenge.

"Swing Banhammer, swing!" you cry out. Well, problem is, this is a Beta and we don't want the Banhammer swinging wildly until we know for sure that the numbers coming in are correct, and that the Beta itself is stable and not disconnecting people (creating the illusion of quitting.) Currently, we are only logging data for future action.

So what do we have in store for when it goes live next week? Let me pull back the curtain just a bit:

For starters, our Banhammer is getting more data than even Halo 3 produced, which is going to let us dial it in and more aggressively deal with habitual quitters. The real jerks are going to run into this, and then you're not going to see them online anymore. It'll be great.

Second, quitting a game will forfeit any credits you may have earned for that game. In fact, it may even cost you some credits. We're waiting to see how effective the Banhammer is before deciding exactly how much.

Lastly, and all new for Reach, we have a new type of ban called a Quitter Ban. This is a relatively soft ban, so we will be using it quite aggressively, activating after only a handful of quits and lasting a rather long time. What does it do? A player with a Quitter Ban will be temporarily unable to re-enter Matchmaking for 15-30 minutes following any further quits.

Oh, and we're playing around with some gametypes which end early (think "Sudden Death") when most of a team quits out, so that you don't need to play 8v1 Slayer to 100 (aka. "Hide and Seek".) You may see some of these in Matchmaking if we're unhappy with the other countermeasures.

As custodians of the online experience, we will be monitoring and adjusting out countermeasures as necessary to keep things ticking along nicely, without games being marred by habitual flakes who quit when they don't get the Sniper Rifle first. So in the meantime, enjoy the Beta!
And quit quitting, because we are watching, and it is going into your personal Banhammer dossier.

(Special pre-emptive note: Online game designers are familiar with "virtual guilt", whereby a perfectly upstanding, innocent player will feel irrationally nervous and guilty upon hearing about a potential punishment. And now, you're familiar with the concept too. Well, relax. We are very deliberate about our enforcement policies, and if you're not a habitual quitter, we're not going to ban you for that one time that your internet cut out. And if it cuts out every game, well, you should probably use the downtime between games to call your ISP and get a technician out. It'll be for the greater good.)

So yea, it doesn't sound as bad as the OP made it out. Your not going to be perma-banned for quitting if your connection dies a few times, or if something comes up, or any other legit reasons. Looks like you just get "quiter banned" for 15-30 minutes if this happens, which sounds fine to me. All in all? I think it's a step in the right direction.

EDIT- Just re-read the OP. Christ Logan, no wonder everyone is saying "fuck this game" and what not. Poorly worded OP was poorly worded.

 

[Vrex360]

This is bullshit as:

#1 what are the fucking chances that people want to or even CAN wait till a game is over before they either want to stop playing or must start something else? Imagined if you were COMPELLED to wait till a game was over or else risk being locked out of the system.

#2 NO ALGORITHM IS EVEN CLOSE TO PERFECT! Even a 10% false positive rate will unnecessarily penalise MILLIONS of good and loyal players.

REAL solution: if a player suddenly "disconnects" (for whatever reason), replace that character with a bot of suitable skill level (and disconnecting while losing counts = loss, but disconnect while winning = draw). Only that bot can be replaced by anyone else who wants to play that game so it doesn't fill a slot.

See that is a POSITIVE solution as it maintains the gameplay and doesn't arbitrarily PUNISH players with blanket measures. Bad players don't learn that way.

As I've said a couple hundred times now, it doesn't flat out ban you for leaving one game. It is only when someone does this repeatedly, like ten times in thirty minutes, that it locks someone out of the system, and even then this is not forever. The most anyone will be suspended for is thirty minutes.
True, this article is quite vague but ask around some of the other fans and they'll give you the actual proper article by bungie explaining how this system is supposed to work.
Plus anyone who played the beta obviously had no problem with it then as it was implemented in the beta and there sure as hell weren't any problems with 'mass bans'.

The idea was to 'train' players to learn that there would be consequences for constantly quitting and disrupting the balance of the game for other people. Of course occasional quits aren't going to do anything.

 

[DynamicPenguin]

I always quit when something in real life comes up, but I've never quit enough to be worried about this new feature, so unless you do rage quit a lot, then I doubt this feature will be a problem to you. Or you know, I could be wrong.

 

[Uber Waddles]

Erm, unless they give us a ToS agreement to sign, they arent allowed to do this.

Plus, Bungie doesnt seem to realize that there are legitimate reasons to leave. Someones hacking the game, and I should just stay around and take it? Going bowling with my friends, they showed up 10 minutes early to pick me up? Some level 50 makes a new XBL account and decides he wants to thrash on people like me who arent that great at Halo? Cmon Bungie...


You cannot ban players from playing the game on Xbox Live for quitting. There is nothing in the TOS or EULA that would permit them to suspend my ability to. While I understand they are trying to make the game better, everyone needs to back out of a game some time. Ever concider the CoD style gameplay, where a new teammate can join you in one person drops out?

Bungie, your game is played by, well, a varied group. Some of which include idiots, kids, etc. While I understand they are just trying to make people happy, the kids who play this game WONT know about this mechanic. So if you get an 8 year old brother playing his brothers copy of reach, UHOH, brothers banned for quitting.

Seriously, Bungie. You didnt have to try this hard for Halo and Halo 2.

Yes Bungie do understand that there are legitimate reasons to leave. You won't get permanently banned if you leave just once or twice, only if you repeatedly leave the game about ten times in sequence and even then when you do it's only for about fifteen minutes or so and that time out period rises according to how often you do so.
They never permanently ban you, you get time out time if you quit games frequently. That's it.

EDIT: Also it is true that a lot of players won't know about this system put in place because a lot of them clearly DIDN'T know it already WAS in place back in the Beta. It was already added in the beta and it was one of the things being tested. There certainly weren't any angry outcries of 'mass bannings'. Or at least none that I heard about.

Well, my anger was out of place then, haha. Trust me, I love Bungie, but I just have to question the sence of this feature.

For example, if the ban is only a "Time Out"; why is it implemented the way it is? Who quits 10 times in a row? Trust me, Id be 100% against a perma-ban feature, but if they are going to include a "Time Out" Feature, why not make it reasonable (like 5 consecutive quits, or 5 quits within x ammount of hours).

I still think its a waste of time and energy. It punishes the very, VERY few who repeatedly quit, and does so at the cost of, well... money. Money that could be spent making sure Reach doesnt have a stock, 1980's Cheesey Action Movie plot that includes a love plot between two characters no one cares about filled with stock characters like "the Badass", "The Silent Protagonist" mand "The Woman" *glares at ODST*. Money that could be spent on Gameplay Innovation (like Halo and Halo 2), or something USEFULL.

This is a bit of a rant, I loved all the Halos (even ODSTs FireFight was good... Not the story). It just seems like Bungie is trying too hard. If Reach turns out anything like ODST (story wise, which it does), I think money could have been used better.

 

[teisjm]

No offence meant, but the fact taht you unlock stuff doesn't say anything about how the game works team-wise
What i meant was, what happens if someone leaves mid-game, is his slot just taken by the next player trying to join or what happens?
Cause if it's like say CoD in that way, i really can't see the problem with people leaving mid-game.

It uses matchmaking (mostly 4v4 for teams)- there's no joining a game in-progress.

Games usually take 10-15 minutes.

Okay, i understand then.

Then i think it's fair enough to have leaver protection.

I love that it's there in HoN, cause leavers fucks the game up, a lot. It makes a huge diffference from DotA where you had nothing but third party ban-lists which was pretty useless.

In HoN, it tracks how many times you've left games, and if you're over 5% you're marked as a leaver, and can only join games that has "leavers allowed" enabled.
An important thing to note is, that if you leave, you can reconnect withing 5 minutes, so if your game crashes or something, you can reconnect and avoid a leave on your stats.

 

[Hybridwolf]

When I played Halo 3 my internet provider was starting to pull the plug, as they hadn't "recived our payments". Whilst that was bull, there was nothing to be done about it and that ruined halo for me. The problem was, I'd lose connection from live, drop out of a match and lose exp. I ended up with minus 50 exp, and was set back a huge amount from my friends. It also killed any intrest I had in the game and wrecked my experience.

Thats all bungie needs to do really, make it cost exp to leave a game. Leave a game once, lose one. Leave a game again (In a row), and lose two exp points and etc. This way, rank hunters have to finsh their game or lose preicous points, and people who drop out, due to connection issues or unfair balancing, aren't penalised heavily. Banning people from playing for leaving a game too many times is excessive, and won't help someone who's lagged out or was forced into unfair fights.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Okay, i understand then.

Then i think it's fair enough to have leaver protection.

I love that it's there in HoN, cause leavers fucks the game up, a lot. It makes a huge diffference from DotA where you had nothing but third party ban-lists which was pretty useless.

In HoN, it tracks how many times you've left games, and if you're over 5% you're marked as a leaver, and can only join games that has "leavers allowed" enabled.
An important thing to note is, that if you leave, you can reconnect withing 5 minutes, so if your game crashes or something, you can reconnect and avoid a leave on your stats.

Yeah, quitters made Dota flat-out unplayable.

League of Legends has a really good system: you can't start a new game until the one you just quit ends. As long as the game is still running, you can reconnect to it.

 

[TheTaco007]

I doubt they'll ban people, I think they'll just match people up with people who quit as often as them.

 

[Dfskelleton]

What if Nazis break into my hous while riding chainsaw motorcycles and I have to fight them, but I'm in the middle of a match? If that happens enough 9considering chainsaw motorcycle nazis break into my house every tuesday) then I guess I'll get banned from it.

However, some firm proof why I won't get kicked from it is because I'm not freaking buying it. Oooooooo burn, Bungie. Burn.

 

[lawdjayee]

From the point of view of the other players in the game, ragequitting is no different than having your internet drop out; the results are the same. While I'd guess in the broadband era ragequitters outnumber tech issue drops 10-1 (at least), both screw up the online experience equally. It's not necessary for the fix that Bungie promotes to punish ragequitters for being cowards; it just has to identify people who want the same kind of online experience etc.

 

[Atmos Duality]

After playing DotA for years, I have a hard time feeling any sort of sympathy for quitters/leavers. Or the assholes who all cheat on Leaderboards/Ranked by dashboarding when they're about to lose or induce lag for the purposes of calling the match a draw.

If you're going to lose, just man up and take it. I respect someone who takes their losses in stride more than anyone with a "near-perfect" record; because with a playerbase this immense and diverse, NOBODY should be doing that well. Ever.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

I'm gonna say this right out: Bungie are douchebags now. If I'm new to Halo and accidentally get stuck in a match full of pros, should I just suck it up now? If I'm not okay with the game, I should have the right to leave. Even worse, what if your interrupted while gaming and have to go. If this happens some times, then what? First that bonus for PC gamers, now this? Thank you, Bungie, you've made me not want to buy this game.

It's true, ragequitters are a problem, but it's better off when they leave, otherwise they'll just whine and not care. I've played Halo 3 very much, and I've been stuck in impossible games over and over. It's not fun to have to quit. And I think it's my bloody right to leave the game if I'm not having fun. Shouldn't it be fun for everyone?

I have to agree. Usually, we quit because we ether have to get off the xbox for real life things or we lose our connections. There turning into idiots and pieces of shit.

 

[Vrex360]

okay guys, this is taken directly from Bungie.net


So yea, it doesn't sound as bad as the OP made it out. Your not going to be perma-banned for quitting if your connection dies a few times, or if something comes up, or any other legit reasons. Looks like you just get "quiter banned" for 15-30 minutes if this happens, which sounds fine to me. All in all? I think it's a step in the right direction.

EDIT- Just re-read the OP. Christ Logan, no wonder everyone is saying "fuck this game" and what not. Poorly worded OP was poorly worded.

I agree, I actually rather shamelessly copy pasted that huge Bungie Quote and put it on my original post on the first page, I figure that way people would see it as they scroll down.
But yeah, I agree it is quite poorly worded and while I usually have a lot of respect for Logan this has to be one of the times when I have to be a little critical.

 

[Grey_Focks]

I have to agree. Usually, we quit because we ether have to get off the xbox for real life things or we lose our connections. There turning into idiots and pieces of shit.

Over-reacting much? If you have to leave for IRL reasons or bad connections,your not gonna get banned. The most that will happen, and this is only if you do it multiple times in a short period of time, is that you'll get "quiter banned" and won't be able to join matchmaking for 15-30 minutes. That's it. Nothing else.

 

[Balobo]

So, in this topic I see several angry users bashing the feature. Then there are one or two people religiously defending the feature.

...lol