I’m very disappointed this has to be said, but there should be a limit on pausing in the game. There are people who abuse unlimited pausing and start griefing when they lose. Having no safeguards against this type of behavior is folly.
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I thought there was a limit of 9 pauses?
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Pausing - for as long as needed - is a good thing
For instance when having a sudden urge for emergency erruption out the rear volcano or for the similar cousin ‘the shits’ if anything there’s unpause abuse where someone is too impatient to really be called a sportsman-like player.
Too many people won’t wait 5 minutes, 10 minutes, to a half hour for their opponent to return from taking care of something in life that requires immidiate attention, sometimes just taking a pi s s is considered too much time by some. Those types can screw off
AOE2 has games upwards of 2 hours often even on 1 vs 1, it is common that people will need a restroom break or have to take care of something else that may be important to them while still not screwing the game or their allies
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I think most games take around 30 minutes (at least for 1v1). Why would i just pause for 30 minutes for some random stranger, while i can play another game against someone else? Who guarantees me he will still come back after 30 minutes? Waiting for just 1-2 minutes is fine, but waiting for 30 minutes? I wont wait for 30 minutes for a stranger at the other end of the world. Just dont play the game if you might need AFK for 30 minutes. It is not like i play this game for 8h each day. If i just wanna play 1-2 games, i really dont wanna waste half the time by waiting for some stranger that isnt able to play at that moment, but did signed up to play.
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Wanting people to wait 30 minutes for you betrays a total disrespect for other people’s time and a deep-rooted self-centeredness. Most people will not have a problem waiting 2-3 minutes for a bathroom break, anything upwards of that will be up to people’s generosity and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Common practice and a show of courtesy would be to warn people before you pause, and provide a reason or rough estimation of how long it will take. I had a game where the guy was spamming pause and unpause like a madman as a show of lack of general manners and impoliteness, the topic was created to address that. Someone mentioned there is a 9 pause bank. Seems a bit too much, but fair enough, as long as there is a limit.
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I was thinking it’s 9, but I’m not totally sure you’re right though it seems a bit high. Ultimately though the pause function is necessary thought shouldn’t be abused.
I think 5 mins is probably ok, I probably couldn’t get into another game within 5 mins with the queuing system. 10 might be a bit long but maybe if you’ve a good skill or civ matchup it’s not too bad. 30 mins does seem a bit too long to freeze someones computer on them. Ok sure you could alt+tab, but why ask the game if it wants more reason to crash out on you 
Just no LOL.
Curteousy is important, and I wait as long as needed (unlike literally everyone else i vs when i pause) but if you force someone to wait 30 minutes, no. That’s absurd. 10 minutes is even a stretch and testing of my patience, but if i enter the match in good faith and i can, I don’t mind , but not everyone has that time to spare when they’re in a game. If it comes past a certain point, you should just resign instead of making someone wait so long since other things are taking precedent
Real pause abuse is in ranked when the other team is losing so they just start pausing, or keep unpausing when a team mate pauses
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Afaik its 10.
Ive had pause wars before. Opponents paused for too long. I kept unpausing. Eventually they ran out of pauses.
Everything around pausing has terrible etiquette.
People that pause for too long. People who pause and then offer no explanation. People that pause and then after a few minutes unpause without warning. People that repeatedly pause.
There’s tons of self absorbed toss bags in this game who are too selfish to realise they should just resign if such a pause is required. Due to the level of abuse i would be happy with a limit of 3 pauses. 2 min max. That’s already infinitely more than 99% of all real-time MP games.
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The pause button should have a timer of 2-3 mins when no other people can unpause if not the one who paused but after 2-3 mins everybody can un pause it. After 5-6 mins it automatically unpauses.
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Would totally lead to abuse. “im unhappy, le pause, my ally is unhappy he will le pause when my pause is done”
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Think if you were the one to pause to get something urgent but your opponent unpauses immediately.
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I’d be in favour of a single, short, unblockable pause. Because I’ve had experience with people who unpause me immediately, and it feels bad. At least there should be enough time to explain the reason for the pause.
Most games my opponents aren’t trolls, and if I get trolled for a short time in some of my games, I think it’s worth it.
Capping the amount of pauses available is tricky. If you both agree to pause the game for 30 minutes, or to pause the game every 5 minutes, it should be possible imo. But OTOH if one player keeps pausing and the other player doesn’t want to pause the player who keeps pausing is just being a douche.
Maybe a good solution would be that both teams start with 2 pauses available, and when one team uses a pause the other team gets a pause.
That way trolls can only pause twice, but if you’re cooperating you can pause as often as you want.
In free-for-alls you could give all players an extra pause when all players have used at least on pause.
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Definitely a good idea, but maybe increase to like 5
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A few people, if not all of them, attempt to communicate why they pause but forget to select to add their enemy team to the chat - some others don’t realize that they pressed pause through speratic clicking of hotkeys
Pauses are a nice option to be used if all players agree on using them. But there should be no option to force the opponent to accept my pause. In the end they might have things to do after the game, just as much as I might have the need to pause. So why should I have priority over them?
If really something terrible is going on, that needs my attention, it is not the end of the world if I get a loss in a video game for doing so.
I really like that AoE has the option of pauses, but it should never become mandatory, especially not when playing with strangers. I think the way pauses are implemented right now is exactly right - players can use them, but if someone wants to continue they always can. Being able to force pauses on opponents is surely a terrible tool to give out to the community, regardless of whether they use in on good or bad purpose.
Accepting a pause should be seen as generous, not as required.
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Hello all. So I played a multiplayer game a bit earlier and I found first hand the problem of the pause feature:
When I paused the game because my ally (who I was communicating with via a mike) said he was going to be AFK for a moment, the enemy players immediately unpaused the game. When I tried to explain in type chat that my partner needed a quick break, one of the enemy players responded with “p**s off!” .
My partner and I ended up losing the game to our frustration. Our losing did not so much as bother me, as it was the two enemy players who (1) were rude to us and (2) refused to allow us to pause the game for a few brief moments.
So naturally, I am typing this to you all to point out that the pause feature in DE (currently) has a major problem. If any DE game devs are reading this, I kindly ask you to PLEASE take away the ability of players to unpause the game once a player uses the pause button.
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The best fix is to take the reports seriously
That way any abuse is punished and you can keep the pauses
Ah yeah for sure. In a perfect world devs have the man power to do this, and balance the game and maintain reliable servers and get the pathing to work
AND make another game to bring in more money…
How many multiplayer RTS do you know of that have a pause function?
Exactly this!
Having played thousands of hrs of multiplayer games i have zero issue with the concept of “there is no pause”
People keep forgetting AOE is pretty unique with its pause option for a RANKED REAL TIME game…
Ive lost tons of games because I’ve had to “go do something”, was it the end of the world? Is my life worse off because i had to do something irl? Is losing elo such a huge issue because life is more pressing?
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