Remove the penalty for disconnects

[Monterone]

This is beyond ridiculous to have in a game.

I have a storm outside. I can't control that. And my internet provider obviously can't keep up with the weather changes and the issues that come with it. So I got disconnected 3 times while I tried to queue up for group activity and now I can't play for an hour.

Why punish me, the paying customer? This is beyond my control, I am not trying to disconnect. Why these draconian measures for something that is not an issue. If I disconnect, the game will auto fill in my spot. It's not even an issue, there is already a mechanism in the game to remedy my disconnect.

Please stop punishing your paying customers, and remove these time penalties.

[Monterone]

Or maybe it's not my local issue, maybe it has to do with the CrowdStrike issues today that affect the whole globe.

I jumped on a lowbie char to do some flashpoints and other people dropped and said the same thing happened to them. Total kick to server select and the server doesn't even show. Have to quit game and re-log.

In any case, the time penalties should be removed. They don't belong in a game that has no ranked and where you can get locked out for things you can't control.

[SteveTheCynic]

If they remove the disconnect penalty, people will create "fake" disconnects (reboot router, that kind of thing) in order to avoid the "quit fight" penalty.

[Pirana]

The change would be abused. I can only speak for myself, because I would use it. If I feel like pugging and we get MM Esseles, then realize someone is going to read all the dialogue, I leave the group, I'll take the hit, find something else to do, log onto another alt, or log off. If I'm tanking or healing, I'll stick it out, but as a dps, they're a dime a dozen and easily replaced.

One thing I won't do, if there are high winds in our area or it looks like the weather might force the internet to drop, I won't queue for group activity, even for a guild run. Something to consider. 

[Monterone]

10 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

If they remove the disconnect penalty, people will create "fake" disconnects (reboot router, that kind of thing) in order to avoid the "quit fight" penalty.

That hardly seems like the problem for a paying customer to solve.

All I am pointing out is the current mechanism punishes paying customers for things beyond their control. And it's not needed anyway; all the games are regular games, no rating involved and the game auto-populates it if there is a drop. No harm, no foul.

Except in this game it's no harm, but definitely a foul.

[SteveTheCynic]

2 minutes ago, Monterone said:

That hardly seems like the problem for a paying customer to solve.

Yes, but no.  The people who would fake disconnects to get out of the "quit fight" penalty *are* (often) paying customers.

[Monterone]

I think you missed my meaning. It is not the customers' responsibility to figure out game design and security issues, this is for the game developers. They need to figure out mechanisms on how to prevent such behavior.

But many other paying customers should not get punished if the devs don't know how to do that. I am paying to play, I don't want a 1 hour penalty because the internet is wonky, or CrowdStrike has a bad update, or whatever happens in the future that causes me to disconnect.

It's just a game. A very non serious game that doesn't even have competitive ranked mode. Just let people play without time outs, we should not be treated like we're children.

[Toraak]

18 minutes ago, Monterone said:

I think you missed my meaning. It is not the customers' responsibility to figure out game design and security issues, this is for the game developers. They need to figure out mechanisms on how to prevent such behavior.

But many other paying customers should not get punished if the devs don't know how to do that. I am paying to play, I don't want a 1 hour penalty because the internet is wonky, or CrowdStrike has a bad update, or whatever happens in the future that causes me to disconnect.

It's just a game. A very non serious game that doesn't even have competitive ranked mode. Just let people play without time outs, we should not be treated like we're children.

1 hour penalty? I've never seen any penalty higher then 15 mins whenever I Disconnect. 

 

There is nothing wrong with penalizing people for leaving. Just understand it will affect DC's as well, BW/BS isn't responsible to have to code in such a way because some people have wonky internets either.

 

Even if they removed DC's from being penalized people would find ways around it. Alt+F4 for instance, instantly DC's you.

Edited July 21 by Toraak

[Monterone]

2 hours ago, Toraak said:

Even if they removed DC's from being penalized people would find ways around it. Alt+F4 for instance, instantly DC's you.

And?

Where is the problem though? Who cares if someone disconnects or even ALT-F4s? Nobody loses any rating, nobody is left with an empty game... the game will literally fill the spot with the next person in queue and everything continues. There is zero reason anyone should get upset over this, whether it's flashpoints or warzones.

On the other hand, there is a real world consequence to the paying customers who may get an unexpected slowdown in internet or some funkiness, and then get locked out for hour(s).

And yes, I disconnected 3 times last night right after I logged in and tried to queue up for pvp. My internet was working fine for hours before that, as I was working from home; no issues. So I did not even expect any problems in the game. I got a pop each time after I relogged, and got a disconnect in the first few min of the game. 5 min penalty, then 15 min, then 1 hour.

I think the next one would have been 6 hours, but whatever it was stabilized and I did not get any more DCs. Still, this was unnecessary. My family went to bed and I wanted to play, and then I got put through some 2 hours of waiting for something that's not even an issue. And I paid to play, I'm not a FTP. That bothers me.

Edited July 22 by Monterone

[Toraak]

18 minutes ago, Monterone said:

And?

Where is the problem though? Who cares if someone disconnects or even ALT-F4s? Nobody loses any rating, nobody is left with an empty game... the game will literally fill the spot with the next person in queue and everything continues. There is zero reason anyone should get upset over this, whether it's flashpoints or warzones.

On the other hand, there is a real world consequence to the paying customers who may get an unexpected slowdown in internet or some funkiness, and then get locked out for hour(s).

And yes, I disconnected 3 times last night right after I logged in and tried to queue up for pvp. My internet was working fine for hours before that, as I was working from home; no issues. So I did not even expect any problems in the game. I got a pop each time after I relogged, and got a disconnect in the first few min of the game. 5 min penalty, then 15 min, then 1 hour.

I think the next one would have been 6 hours, but whatever it was stabilized and I did not get any more DCs. Still, this was unnecessary. My family went to bed and I wanted to play, and then I got put through some 2 hours of waiting for something that's not even an issue. And I paid to play, I'm not a FTP. That bothers me.

Players that intentionally leave because they are on a losing team should be penalized tho. Just because there is no rating doesn't matter. Stick around and fight it out, try. That is why those penalties are there in the first place. People would ditch a match as soon as they saw the team was losing and then put the rest of the team in an even more difficult position because they are now short 1 person.

 

There is no problem with having these penalties, and 15 mins is not that much time to be penalized anyway. If someone is getting an hour penalty, they must be leaving a ton of matches or DC'ing a heck of a lot, because I've never seen it go higher then 15 minutes whenever I DC.

[Pirana]

Penalties for leaving a dungeon are industry standards, they're in nearly every MMO, but these games do have similar penalties, these are pugs, not pre-mades. WoW's Mythic+ doesn't have a penalty for obvious reasons. Going off memory:

ESO - 15 min
WoW - 30 min
FF14 - 15 or 30

To elaborate on my post from earlier, the only reason I wouldn't abuse this system for a run where everyone is reading the dialogue on my tank or healer is because they take longer to replace, I can also control the pace of the fight easier. If I'm on a DPS, I'm easily replaceable. This is only one person's opinion, and I can all but guarantee you, I'm not the only one that would do this. If someone disconnects, that is not BW/BS's problem. 

For the record, I've never had an hour long penalty, it's always fifteen minutes with this game. It's possible that's a bug or there's an exponential value tied to it for leaving consecutively within a certain time frame.

[eabevella]

Well, there's no way to tell whether it's a genuine disconnect or not, so to make it fair for those who are online, a carpet penalty for all disconnection is a compromise we all have to accept. It's not like any of us will suffer huge storm 24/7 and if your internet provider is so unstable other than the occasional extreme weather that it affects your gaming greatly, you should change a provider, or simply accept it if you really can't get a good internet provider in your region.

[Traceguy]

How can you prove it? Someone could easily unplug their modem, their router, their Ethernet cord, any number of things just because they're upset over premades or losing in general.