I feel it’s unsportsmanlike to resign/drop early in non-team games, like 1 vs. 1, as well… and, so, would like either a reporting capability for that, too, or give a serious drop in their ELO, or some other effect to dissuade the behavior.
Someone resigned in one of my 1v1 games simply because I reached Feudal Age first and had a slightly higher score. Literally, two seconds after I reached Feudal they resigned, with no warning. I know it was purely a result of score and Feudal speed.
Yes, it’s tough to realize you might not win, but to resign so early is unsportsmanlike, imo. Without impactful penalty, it’s contagious to other players.
Seems like Uncharted 2, back in the day, had stiff penalties for dropping from matches… like removing a lot of XP and downgrading their level a few rungs… which was a painful hit, but made you not want to leave matches mid-match. Not sure if Uncharted 3 and 4 had similar, but 2 was not messing around with unsportsmanlike behavior.
For AoE, unsportsmanlike behavior penalties should be well thought-out, so as to be fairly reasonable and commensurate with the offense. It’s tougher for AoE, since the full game is available to you, and you don’t have to level up like Uncharted to access new things. (It’s not like ESO is tied to unlockables; so if you lose ELO, you’re not farther away from getting anything new, for instance.)
But for AoE, some things the devs could consider include what age the player drops in, what age the opponent is in, what their score is relative to the opponent, how long the match has been going on, and maybe how often they resign, to help determine how unsportsmanlike the drop was. Some algorithm could generate an “unsportsmanlike behavior score” on the back-end to help decide on punishment. The algorithm could know what their historical unsportsmanlike score is based on past resigns/non-resigns and maybe factor that in, too.
And, when someone clicks the Resign button, I suggest adding verbiage to the, “Are you sure?” pop-up screen, telling the player the ramifications of doing it. For example, “Are you sure? Resigning at most any time can be seen as unsportsmanlike, but especially if done before the Imperial Age and less than 15 minutes into the match [or whatever the player’s timing or situation is]. If you resign now, your ELO will drop 400 points and won’t be able to start a new Multi-Player match for 30 minutes.”
Something like that. Just a thought. Albeit, the 30-minute ban from playing another MP match might be overkill and too mean.
I’m somewhat okay without penalties for early resigns, if that’s the consensus. But I do feel it’d be funner if you knew your opponent wasn’t going to drop at the very first sign of possible defeat. Some of the more respectful and gratifying matches for me are when your opponent lets you truly win in a Conquest match, and vice versa if you’re losing.