Suggestion: replace disconnected players with AI

there’s too much waiting time for games, and sometimes we don’t want to quit and search for a new game.

give us the option to finish the game with an AI teammate

8 Likes

Amazing proposal!
At the moment of disconnect the remaining players (or just the host) should vote for the AI difficulty to continue the game for the dropped-off player.

This is a fantastic idea. Plus, it’ll reduce the number of overall complaints from people still in the game about disconnecting players.

Company Of Heroes 2 does that. Works fine, in my opinion.

if this isn’t happening, at least give the population from the disconnected player to the other teammates

like if it’s 3v3 and someone drops, give 100 pop to each ally so that there’s a chance to play 600v600 pop

2 Likes

In a team game, if a human player leaves (disconnects/crashes/quits/resigns), their spot should be taken over by AI at a moderate level. If all humans leave a team, the game would end with victory for the other team.

This would prevent disconnects and crashes from being a near-automatic loss. It would also compensate for the situations where a weak player quits a team at the first sign of trouble. It would encourage remaining players to fight on.

A moderate AI would contribute without being game-changing. Alternatively, the AI level could be based on the ELO of the lost human.

6 Likes

ive recommended this as well, we know other RTS have similar features or sharing resources and units etc… but this forum and supposedly most aoe players dont like the idea

2 Likes

I love this suggestion, especially with current patch where one player disconnects from 50% of my 4v4 games (unranked). If I add games where a weak player quits on first attach, that would be close to 75% of games.

At least with this change, other players would try their best, hoping that level of the team didn’t fall too much.

3 Likes

If someone thinks the game is over and resigns, i dont think you need to replace it with an AI.
If someone drops, then he can be replaced by an AI to me.

On the other side: What needs to get more prio?

  1. Fixing that some droped
  2. Adding the feature that the AI take over the human if someone droped.

The devs can spend there time just once and have to make some choices. I dont wanna make the choice for them.

1 Like

I love the idea

Moderate AI is really weak even for unranked games. I would say that this should be a setting.

You can choose the level of the AI entering the game, or it can be just the set level (i thinks it matter only for wolves if only humans are involved).

The AI is also programmed to follow some build orders. So, entering a game if you are loosing, is difficult even for extreme AI.

So I would say:

  • a player disconnects
  • the extreme AI takes the control for 5-10 minutes
  • the level of the AI is set equal to the set difficulty
2 Likes

When disconnection, it is not always because you loose. It can even happen in the first minute when nothing is decided.

1 Like

I’m not sure of the primary cause of drops. Is it:

  1. Crash (code bug)
  2. Alt-F4 (intentional force-exit of application by user)
  3. Networking code bug
  4. Bad network (ISP issues)
  5. Other (random OS bug, overheat, power outage)

I assume it isn’t 5.

Issues 1 and 4 can be tackled by the developers. But, if the primary causes are 2 and 4, then the developers can only compensate rather than fix.

If making AI take over is too difficult to code, perhaps a quick temporary improvement would be to cancel research/queued units of the dropped player and divide all of their banked resources among the remaining team members?

2 Likes

anything except the current system would be great… but everytime someone recommends something, half the guys here say it should INTENTIONALLY be left as it currently is, because they’re stuck in the past…

I think that also there should be a5 minute period in which a player can come back, like, he enters the game and “You have an uninished game, would you like to return?” option

3 Likes

I think it would be a good idea and then link the difficulty with the team game rating of the dropped player. Don’t know how difficult that is to implement though.

1 Like

It would be great if when a multiplayer match is won, players had the option to continue using AI as an opponent. Some matches you spend a lot of time preparing your army for your opponent to just quit as soon as there’s any sign of trouble! It would be great if you could carry on but with AI taking over as an opponent. And you get to choose the AI difficulty.
Or have the option if a player drops out from the game, AI could also automatically take over.

What do people think?

1 Like

I mainly play in team games and I would prefer the starcraft method of the rest of team getting control over the guy who resigned.

1 Like