Halo: Reach Will Punish Quitters, Says Bungie

[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.

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.

Well why put the burden on the users to CONFORM!

You ignored my idea that people disconnecting mid-game should be replaced with bots. Bots are good enough for the time being until another real-user connects to take the same slot.

Nah, way easier just to penalise your users, the innocent will inevitably get caught up with the guilty as with all algorithm based justice system. Beta inclusion or not, how do people know if they are being locked out for this reason or because they just think it is buggy? And those who are being punished, do they even have a voice to speak out against it.

Then there is the simple precedent. Xbox Live has a terrible reputation for being poorly managed with a foul-mouthed, bigoted and unfriendly online community (born out woeful moderation) and poor complain resolution. If Bungie gets away with this (and if they do they will, because it's fugging Microsoft) it opens the war for more virtual bouncers making online gaming an arbitrarily inconsistent experience.

Ultimately it is the approach that users should be punished first and actual measures to preserve good gameplay are seemingly ignored... that's what I'm objecting to.

The Venn Diagram of overlap between abuse-of-quitting and genuine disconnections (inconsistent internet, other responsibilities, poor matchmaking, etc) is just too large.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

I'm with you. Why should I stick around in a game where I just keep getting my ass handed to me? Hell, if they gave me an option of "unconditional surrender" I'd choose that when such things transpire. There are many many times in games where it's obvious I'm going to lose and I find no enjoyment in being owned moments after I spawn.

Because the world doesn't revolve around you. Other players do not exist purely to make sure that you're having fun. We do not boot up Halo just to satisfy every spoiled 5-year old who decides to take his toys and go home whenever we kill him.

We have no responsibility to keep playing with you, and if Bungie is giving us a way not to, then God speed sirs.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

DO NOT WANT MAN!

I'm with you. Why should I stick around in a game where I just keep getting my ass handed to me? Hell, if they gave me an option of "unconditional surrender" I'd choose that when such things transpire. There are many many times in games where it's obvious I'm going to lose and I find no enjoyment in being owned moments after I spawn.

As i said in my above post...

READ...THE...THREAD!!

If you leave once, or twice that is fine =)

Leave 10+ times you will get suspended...

Happy gaming for everyone =)

I did read the thread. I also noted that the only mention of what qualifies as "excessive" was posited by a poster and not made by bungie.

Right...read this, before my brain explodes O.O

"Bungie:. . . Currently, we are only logging data for future action. . .

. . . So The real jerks are going to run into this, and then you're not going to see them online anymore. . .

. . . Second, quitting a game will forfeit any credits you may have earned for that game. In fact, it may even cost you some credits. . .

. . . 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. . .

Above are all the instances where they make note of the standard for their actions. You will further note that words like "some" and "handful" do not equate to a number, or anything else. It represents an ambiguous use of language where the precise value associated with such words is up to the reader to discern.

As a result, my previous two posts still stand.

 

[PsiMatrix]

Bungie's Brian Jarrard says that people who habitually quit online games create a "really negative experience" for other players and that while quitting isn't cheating in the strictest sense, Bungie is still eager to curtail it as much as possible. He said that Bungie had developed tools to detect quitters and that it wanted to "remove them from the population" so that they couldn't spoil anyone else's fun.

And what about those who just loiter at wherever they spawn? Instead of just quitting out they can just wait it out till the game is over. 5 vs 15-30 minutes and they might still come out with a win at the end.


You know what might help is if we had dedicated servers so players could setup their favourite map and play them continuously. Or at least be able to jump-in to games in progress.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Well that's fucking stupid. What if my friends just got online and I want to go join a game with them? What if something happens in real life (you guys at Bungie remember that thing, right?) and I just have to get off? There's a million perfectly legitimate reasons to quit a game.

EDIT: I have now seen Vrex's post. Sorry I responded when I had only read the (as it turns out, pretty biased) main article. Please stop quoting me to tell me what an angry prick I am.

 

[Doclector]

Seemed a little harsh, but after reading V-rex's post it seems a little clearer. Still, if my internet simply has a bad day and I end up waiting around for thirty minutes, I'll be angry.

 

[Cowabungaa]

[HEADING=1]What Bungie actually means to say on the matter is here:[/HEADING]

<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.)

[HEADING=1]They are not talking about permanently banning people from the system based on singular acts of rage quitting!
The longest anyone will be banned for is twenty minutes and only if they are frequently quitting from matches, like ten times in a thirty minutes.[/HEADING]

I feel that this post is under-appreciated. It speaks truth, more people should notice it.

 

[Irridium]

Well that's fucking stupid. What if my friends just got online and I want to go join a game with them? What if something happens in real life (you guys at Bungie remember that thing, right?) and I just have to get off? There's a million perfectly legitimate reasons to quit a game.

As explained by Vrex on the first page.

[HEADING=1]What Bungie actually means to say on the matter is here:[/HEADING]

<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.)

[HEADING=1]They are not talking about permanently banning people from the system based on singular acts of rage quitting!
The longest anyone will be banned for is twenty minutes and only if they are frequently quitting from matches, like ten times in a thirty minutes.[/HEADING]

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I'm with you. Why should I stick around in a game where I just keep getting my ass handed to me? Hell, if they gave me an option of "unconditional surrender" I'd choose that when such things transpire. There are many many times in games where it's obvious I'm going to lose and I find no enjoyment in being owned moments after I spawn.

Because the world doesn't revolve around you. Other players do not exist purely to make sure that you're having fun. We do not boot up Halo just to satisfy every spoiled 5-year old who decides to take his toys and go home whenever we kill him.

We have no responsibility to keep playing with you, and if Bungie is giving us a way not to, then God speed sirs.

Nor do I have any responsibility to stay in a game where I am not having fun. Given it's status as an entertainment product, the expectation I have is not unreasonable. Just as it is not your responsibility that I enjoy my time in the game, it is not my responsibility that I stick around and play fodder. Your accusation is that my quitting is unsporting - a rather meaningless accusation when the reason I would quit is because I am being slaughtered, something that is, itself, unsporting.

Regardless, this is precisely why I do not play such games online. Having spent my time playing a great many games I have ensured that I will fair poorly in most for a time. The failure is not that I or others will quit but rather a problem with matchmaking.

The system is supposed to ensure I play against people of relatively similar skill. When I first tried Halo 3, this system worked fine and I played for a few hours without issue. Later, when I got the multiplayer disc with ODST, I hopped on again and found that people of allegedly similar skill would absolutely wreck me without effort. This implies one of two things: either the matchmaking system is fundamentally broken (or being exploited), or that the quality of players has become so very high that the best it can do is match me with people of dramatically superior skill.

I have no problem losing games. I've stuck through many, many losing games of Battlefield and Dawn of War II. Indeed, out of nearly 800 games where half the games have been losses (and many of those were brutal ass kickings), I've quit less than 20 times. Not unreasonable when you consider the incidence rate of game halting bugs.

One round of being murdered I'm fine with. When it happens a half dozen times in a row, I (or any reasonable person) is going to get frustrated. To be penalized for calling it quits is silly.

All that aside, I can accept such a system, provided that the threshold is forgiving enough. If all I do is join games, get owned for 30 seconds and then leave a dozen times in an hour, then I probably have no business playing the game as I clearly don't enjoy it anyhow (or am too angry to have fun even if I were to do well). My problem right now is that they have been incredibly ambiguous in what qualifies as "too much".

 

[Random Argument Man]

Sheesh...What happened to the friendly escapist that I knew?

I think it's a fantastic idea. Besides, 15-30 minutes isn't that bad.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Sheesh...What happened to the friendly escapist that I knew?

I think it's a fantastic idea. Besides, 15-30 minutes isn't that bad.

Friendly escapist? Could I get a link to that?

 

[Withall]

Well that sounds a touch unfair, I guess we'll see ihow it works out.

Thanks for that one, JBJ. Yes, it IS unfair, but immediately declaring that function as Bungie's attempt at becoming the SS of the XBL is bullshit. (I might be harsh here, but I'm pretty certain that there is SOMEONE out there who think that Bungie's making a major dickmove.)

What Bungie PROBABLY is implementing is a counter that logs the numbers of games you log in to and how many games you log off from, and through a ration counter, decides if you are a quitter or not. This ratio is what might become the problem in the future.

Of course, seeing as I don't have an Xbox 360 or either of the Halo titles, I can't really be arsed to care right now.

What I can do is agree or disagree about someone throwing a fit over something. In the end, Bungie decides what to do with their IP.

 

[maffro]

It's not just one quit, it's quitting multiple times.

And also, the ban is only for like, 5-10 minutes. So if you get called away to do something the ban will pass while you're gone, so no point in complaining.

 

[londelen]

I could certainly see a temporary ban. I think that would be good, but a permaban? That just isn't right.

 

[Fenolio]

...The amount of knee jerk reactions in this thead sadden me.
As has been mentioned before.
IF YOU QUIT OCCASIONALY YOU WILL NOT BE PENALISED.
IF YOU QUIT TEN TIMES IN A ROW WITHIN HALF AN HOUR(give or take) YOU WILL BE PUT ON A WEEK LONG 'PROBATION' THIS IS JUST A WARNING AND DOESNT AFFECT PLAY.
IF YOU QUIT ONCE MORE WHILE ON THIS PROBATION YOU BE GIVEN A 15 MINUTE TIMEOUT.
IF YOU CONTINUE TO QUIT.... IT DOESNT SAY BUT REST ASSURED ITS BAD.
LEARN TO MANAGE TIME PROPERLY. IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE INTERRUPTED IN THE NEXT 15 MINUTES DONT START A RANKED MATCH.

Also to quote bungie:
"If you quit because of an internet problem we wont ban you. If it happens multiple times in the same day/couple of day, then maybe you should contact your internet provider while waiting for the ban to be up"

Not that I don't believe you (or will be affected since not getting Reach) but, where in the article or source we're these details mentioned?

They explained it on their website in a weekly update while the beta was running and it seems i made a slight error, I'll edit my OP.

To quote bungie once again:
"and if you're not a habitual quitter, we're not going to ban you for that one time that your internet cut out"

Link to the bungie news post : http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=BWU_051410

Edit: Wow, major ninja'd. If you got this far and it has not sunk in yet, there is no hope for you.

 

[Random Argument Man]

Sheesh...What happened to the friendly escapist that I knew?

I think it's a fantastic idea. Besides, 15-30 minutes isn't that bad.

Friendly escapist? Could I get a link to that?

Eh. There's a lot of us. However, there's plenty of insulting people too.

I remember a certain quote that I read a few months back.

"The Escapist was like a local pub. Now it's a sport bar".

 

[Danpascooch]

Why don't they just allow people to join in the middle of a match just like all other modern online FPS's?

Problem solved.

 

[Buizel91]

Well that's fucking stupid. What if my friends just got online and I want to go join a game with them? What if something happens in real life (you guys at Bungie remember that thing, right?) and I just have to get off? There's a million perfectly legitimate reasons to quit a game.

and it has been said a million times that if you quit frequently you will get banned, if you leave once or twice you will not.

-_-'

 

[Sporky111]

Okay, people calm down. You aren't going to be banned for the occasional quit or connection error. I'm sure you'd have to quit several times in a short period of time to get their attention.

That being said, I hope they use more of a rehabilitation system than a removal system. I can see the use of 10-minute or 30-minute bans being very effective tools to curtail habitual rage-quitting.