I am pretty sure this is one of the most looked after feature community wants besides Pathing.
So, let’s discuss how it could be implemented, I would suggest the way I see it, feel free to improve it below.
In 1v1
When a user disconnects:
Pause the game automatically.
Open a popup, with a countdown timer for 3 minutes letting the user know that the opponent has disconnected and they have to wait 3 minutes until either the opponent rejoins or after will be considered as a drop. If the disconnected player fails to join in 3 minutes he losses the game and the opponent will be awarded a win.
In Team Games
When a user disconnects:
Pause the game automatically.
Open a popup, with a countdown timer for 3 minutes letting the user know that the opponent has disconnected and they have to wait 3 minutes until either the opponent rejoins or after will be considered as a drop.
If it’s a drop ask everyone to do a vote to “save and exit” or continue the game.
If they agree to “save and exit”, exit the game without anyone losing or gaining ELO otherwise continue the game like it is done now.
Just some automatic save and exit + rehost system where everybody automatically gets put in the automatically created new looby with the automatically fixed safe of the dropped game
A no show would be then considered a lose. At best everything goes auto except for the click ready, a matter of 2 minutes of implement just right
Pausing the game is abusable, I can totally see how some trolls could exploit that.
I think the best solution would be to just keep the game as it is and give the disconnected 10 minutes to reconnect and if he fails to do so, then surrender him.
This way it wouldn’t be abusable, it wouldn’t prolong the game and people with a crash could still be able to reconnect.
Btw… why a game in 2021 does not have a reconnect feature is just a mystery on its own
When u join the game, u are prepared to play it till the end right? If the game ends sooner because the other guy left that’s an extra thing. Why should the disconnected guy not reconnect back? Sometimes the game just crashes and you would reconnect immediately yet you cant.
In my experience with Voobly, a crash was almost always the end of the game. The reconnect feature did exist, but wasnt used a lot for games with random players. There you can even more easily ask the dropped player if he want to reconnect if needed. Based on that i think many players just dont borther about reconnecting (some would, but most not, at least that is what i think).
Otherwise just look at the next case:
The game is clearly over. At one team 3 out of 4 allies already resigned. The last player is already toxic by hiding his vills all over the place. Just before his last vill is found he let his game crash. Now the other 4 players have to wait for 10 minute to see if he will returns. Clearly not.
So having to wait for 10 minutes is really excessive. Make that time a lot shorter and make it a feature that the majority needs to agree before the counter starts. We had something like this in the past as well. You could vote for Save and exit (so you can restore the game) or continu the game. Based on the voting the game continues or could be restored. Just adding a 10 minute waiting period doesnt seem to be smart.
Its funny that in other threads, people saying that a 30 min timeout is okay, and now suddenly a 10 min wait is not okay
Anyway as for the feature itself, the game definitely needs a way to restore a dropped game because drops happen a lot. Close to 20% of my games end in a drop, whether it be me or opponent dropping. This feature is badly needed. Perhaps 10 mins might be a bit long to wait, but I think a 3-5 min wait would be perfectly reasonable.
I think you are taking it to a far too extreme corner mate.
What I’m suggesting is non forced 10 min window for the disconnected player to return. So in your scenario the game would end exactly as now → when the last villager is dead.
Imagine that you are playing 1v1 and your opponent is as toxic as you wrote, he clearly lost but he tries to prolong the game for as long as he possibly can. IF your game crashes then such toxic person wins and YOU lose. With this reconnect feature it wouldn’t be a thing. So its just a Quality of life improvement not downgrade.
Yeah I totally agree, my game crashes on average like once per 30 games. Sometimes I have not crashes for weeks and then 3 crashes in few days… and I play only ranked so its free elo for the enemy team.
Seriosly this game needs a simple reconnect system that would allow a player to quickly join back. Its that simple. I can totally see though that the core of the game might not be ready for such thing, but thats not a valid reason of why not do that. This is definitive edition and as such should have such a critical improvement.
Not sure what will happen in these 10 minutes ingame. Your idea isnt really clear about that… The game just continues in the mean time, so one player is just idle for 10 minutes? Clearly the game will be over before you reconnect.
Let me be clear: I support the idea of a reconnect function, but that function should be well thougth out.
I havent seen someone claiming you need to have a 30 minutes time out for reconnecting?!
Yeah every feature in general should be well thought through I didn’t state the specifics, because this isn’t really a design meeting, so I didn’t want to make it longer than necessary.
But if you want more complete overview then here it is.
A disconnected player would have 10 minutes to log back in, the game continues as if the player was still there
If the player fails to reconnect within the given time, he automatically surrenders
There would be a “reconnect” button on the main screen for as long as the game is on
The game does not wait for the player to reconnect, it can end sooner if the winning conditions are met
If a player is reconnecting while the game ended an “error” screen is shown telling the player that he lost, player is then transferred to the match results
Special Case
All players disconnected
If all players are disconnected, the game still runs, it’s not ended, it’s not a tie
The game automatically surrenders the players after the given time, meaning the winner is the team with the last player “online”
