Dears,
Have you ever faced people who directly unpause while the game is paused, without even notifying the facing player ?
it have faced it several times this week and to be honest it really makes me sad as AOE is probably the best gaming community around, I found it disrespectful and frustrating.
If pause is a game feature, it would be a great improvement to ensure it is respected by adding a 30s delay with no unpausing allowed.
Hope it could improve this lovely game
hahaah the very fact we can actually pause in a MP game is incredibly remarkable… having a timer on it could just lead to even worse griefing, what are you going to do with 30 sec?
Not sure if 30s is the best option, but some 3…2…1 timer when unpausing would be nice
Could add a X second minimum pause duration, but also a cooldown that only lets you press pause once every X minutes or something like that
Or, make multiplayer pauses into timeouts like they have in sports. Each player begins the game with a certain number of timeouts. Let’s say two 30 second timeouts and two 1 minute timeouts. Hitting pause charges the player with a 30 second timeout. Shift pause is a 1 minute timeout. A countdown appears and the game automatically resumes at that point. Neither players can ‘unpause’.
Both players are allowed to scroll, chat, and command units (like in a single player game) during the timeout – similar to how coaches are allowed to give advice to players. This would allow players to use legitimately use pauses strategically when they are getting overwhelmed, just like in sports.
Just ran into an unexpected opponent castle? Call a timeout. Command your units to retreat. Command your siege to attack. Maybe queue some stuff at your base. When the timeout ends the action resumes.
Need to run to the answer the door or let the dog out? Fine. Call a timeout without fear of unpause. However, your opponent doesn’t have to sit bored. They can review their map and issue commands.
Wait for my PC to catch up with the game. It hasn’t happened much recently, but sometimes my PC needs a 30s break.
If we had one uninterruptible 30s pause each game and it was considered ‘fair’ to use it, I think it could be used to think about strategy when you’re getting completely overwhelmed, to grab a quick drink, or to ask your opponent for a slightly longer pause to go to the bathroom. (I’ve had a game where my opponent asked me. I didn’t mind.)
This could be nice, but you’ve got to be careful what you wish for. If we had some limited number of ‘fair’ pauses each game, I’d use them a lot more often then I do under the current honour system. (I know we’ve currently got a limit of 10, but that’s hardly relevant unless you’re actively trolling.)
I have already created an extensive post on the topic of changing the pausing system (I wont flag this post, but mods may move this topic regardless). I too frequently have players abusing the pausing system and outright griefing. It has become a major problem since the implementation of DE and the growing of the community. I’ve had countless players refuse to allow me to pause at all (immediately unpausing when I try to pause) and players trying to pause for over 15 minutes. Please see the exisitng forum here: [Multiple Polls] Pausing Needs to be Changed/Limited: Definitive Discussion Thread
While i think its awful,you know you can stop this right? You can unpause someone else’s pause. Im sure not waiting more than 5min on a pause. And ive had a couple times when opposing teams tried it. So after 5min i unpaused. Opposing allies tried to keep pausing. Not having explained why they paused in the first place, no communication whatsoever.
Fortunately the game only allows 10 pauses per player. But an infinite number of unpauses.
If the incident is that serious they can quit.
Will 100% lead to abuse. Yall forget the trolls that exist on the Internet. Guarantee a total of 4min pause in a ton of 4v4’s on top of all the queue time, desync, rage quit issues will guarantee player frustration…
An uninteruptable pause would definitely be used for trolling. I just thought, getting trolled for 30 seconds once every dozen games wouldn’t be so bad?
TBH I didn’t think through 4v4 games. You’re probably right that 4 minutes of pause time every game would get annoying.
Im probably over exaggerating it… And hopefully the community isn’t that spiteful. I just fear for the worst but i know there’s mainly decent peepss out there…
I imagine that they did explain, use a different language, but/or forgot to set chat to ‘all’
On a side note, in a game like this, where games often reach into the 2hr+ mark, 20 minute pauses for the often unexpected need to shiz or 5-10 minute pauses to take care of things irl/2-5 min quick bathroom breaks must be expected and respected without breaking down into childish tantrums.
I’ve had ‘pros’ pause the game right at the start the game saying something about the seed of the map, and later when our team attempts to pause to use the restroom they immidiately unpause the game repeatedly instead of waiting for even an explanation. I despise those players and I don’t even remember their usernames. Rude af