'Instanced Group Play' How to deal with ppl who disconnect

This is a comment regarding “accidental connection” problems in Guild Wars. Especially for PvP battles (but I’d like to see something similar in PvE missions as well). I read the Fansite Friday article that came up with a few solutions to this problem (link at bottom of post). None of them seemed entirely fair to me. Perhaps this suggestion may work…

Have AI standing by waiting to take control of any characters who gets disconnected. I’m assuming that the AI similar to the henchmen’s AI could be used here. If a player gets disconnected, the AI takes over… with the same exact health, stats, position on the map, etc… If the team with your AI entity wins, you get a win… if the team with your AI entity loses, you get a loss. But this isn’t the end of it.

Since it is common knowledge that AI doesn’t do as well as human players… that player should have the opportunity to rejoin the game and take over where the AI left off. Once again… same health, stats, position on the map, etc...

There should also be a way for the other players in the game to identify when someone is disconnected and the AI is playing for them. There are several easy ways to do this. For example, change the color of their health bar on the ‘teams’ window to green… or some other color that isn’t being used yet. That way the current ‘gray color’ can still be used to show that someone is attempting to join the game for the first time still… and then the ‘green or other color’ shows that they have disconnected somehow or ‘timed out’.

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Now I’d like to address the questions posted in that Fansite Friday article I read. I’m confident that my solution works out. Let me know what you think! Help me improve on this concept!

Is there a way to detect a real disconnect from a faked one?
With the system I detailed above there is no reason to detect a real connect from a fake one. Since the player will always be in the game, regardless of whether they are in control or the AI is in control… the player will not benefit from leaving. In fact, it’s better if they stay (or come back; if it was a legit disconnect)… I know I wouldn’t want a henchman in control of my character for long!

Can we prevent people from abusing the system and simply joining right at the end of a mission to get credit (i.e., power leveling)?
Like the current Guild Wars setup, this one would mean that players could only be on a team if they were there at the start. And in PvE... if a player left they should probably only have a certain amount of time to rejoin. This would avoid people from leaving a mission and coming back at the end to get the experience or skill points rewarded.

Do we set a cap on disconnects before someone suffers some sort of penalty?
There is no reason to do this with my setup.

Can we and should we stop players from swapping out skills before they rejoin?
Like I said above, if you rejoin (and take over where your AI left off) you are forced to have those skills, stats, position, etc…

If they spawn at a waypoint, is it a safe zone? Would that safe zone then be exploited by others within the game?
There would be no waypoint spawning for disconnectors. When players disconnect and rejoin, they should be prepared for immediate battle… escpecially since that henchmen AI has probably been getting itself into trouble while you were away!

How long should someone be allowed to rejoin?
In the case of PvP… the entire round… But in the case of PvE this should be modified so that players don’t leave and come back at the end for the experience and skill points rewarded to them... or perhaps let them rejoin a mission at any time... but if they disconnected at any time during a mission they do not receive the 'end benefits' of the mission (like the 1,000 xp and the skill point).

Do they incur death penalty for their disconnect?
Since with this system, the character never really leaves… I would say no.

Here’s a link to the Fansite Friday I am referring to:
http://guildwars.tentonhammer.com/in...play&ceid= 52

Sounds like a good idea to me. Do you think that there should be an AI placeholder for those of us with long loading times, i.e. dial-up, at the start of a mission. I've had incidences where my group quits before I finish loading because they thought I DC'd.

Both yes and no. I don't think the AI should have control from the get-go... but after a period of say... 90 seconds or so then it should take over until you join.

Sounds like an interesting fix to me. But what if the group didn't want the AI fighting with them? Maybe it could just save your place without creating an AI, that way when you get back on you can rejoin your group.

That's another idea that I think has promise. I definitely think it would be better than what is in the game right now... but I would argue that AI should be used. That way the player will be with the group when he/she comes back... and I really don't see why a group would be opposed to having the AI fighting with them... after all every little bit helps, right?

And let's say that the player never comes back (which would probably happen often)... then we are in the same rut we have right now... a team with too few players fighting...

I wonder, however, whether the A.I.s would know what to do with odd skill combinations. They might end up being utterly useless, especially in team setups. On the other hand, that's probably not the majority of the time. Still I doubt they have the time to put something that would require that much A.I. testing before the game comes out. It's always a possibility for post-game additions, though.

I completely agree. I'm sure their team is plugging away at a million little final touches. But I guess that's the beauty of the streaming technology they've invented. If they think this is a high priority issue they could probably have it working a couple weeks after release.

Thanks for your input!

disconnects happen

how about something revolutionary?

redo the botched up match

That would be nice... but it would only be possible if everyone revolved their entire life around GW. Too bad it tis' not so!

This sounds like a great idea. I would enjoy seeing it implemented.

Although what about situations where a player purposely leaves, or possibly someone who bought two GuildWars games and just has one of them disconnect, just to help out their allies with a high level AI?

There could be times where players have to go somewhere, and before they go they decide to help some random team out by leaving during a mission giving them a high level AI.
There's also the possiblity where someone buys two or more of GuildWars, which of course promotes GuildWars, but would it be fair that those who can afford more than one GuildWars can get a higher level AI helper to help them mission and possibly go "solo"?
I’ve actually seen the AI play better than some players… ok just me, but still, having a level 20 AI monk would help a lot of players get through several areas. I know many teams for PvE wish that the AI you can hire were higher level for some areas.

I guess this is more of a concern on if people would find this "problem" fair than a problem with your idea.

Honestly I wouldn't care about this possible problem as long as I get to play GuildWars. I just brought it up to help weed out possible problems and create a solution for them before the problems occur, cuz I really like this idea.

I think when the person logs back in, they should be asked "Would you like to rejoin your party?" If yes, then they replace the AI. If no, then the AI disappears. This would hopefully prevent abuse. But still, how will the AI know how to use the build properly?

I like this idea.

As for cheating by "helping" someone in the way you described, Tifa, I don't think you're ever helping someone by sticking them with an AI on purpose. The "high level" thing is irrelevant, because nearly all of the people doing PvP in Guild Wars are going to be level twenty and the AI simply won't be able to handle complex skill combinations and group attacks. All you'd be doing to the team is crippling it.

Great input. I didn't think about a high level player dropping out of a game right away to help out some lower-level friends.

Maybe that wouldn't be all so bad though... its better that the lower level players get the help if they want it... rather than have them get frustrated being stuck on a mission. Don't get me wrong... the missions are great, but going through one 5 times isn't always desirable.

So then what happens if players don't want the help... or say a PvP group... for some reason... doesn't want the AI there. A simple fix for that would be to give the group the ability to 'kick' disconnected players.

But then if it is PvP.. does the 'kicked' player get a win or a loss? ... any input?

If only an entire group of people could play by the rules and not look for an exploit of the game or others, this would be a great idea.

However i can just see making a team to go to Lyon's Arch...

One of our team "disconnecting at the first fight," we go on with the henchy....someone gets a whisper from the disconnected member that they are "having a problem joining but they'll keep trying"....the disconnected member then asks where we are....we tell them we are at 1/4 through....get another message a few minutes later that they are still trying, they ask where we are....1/2 way through the mission now. This goes on until we are near they end, we get messages but can't reply because we are in battle to cleam up the swamp of undead, as we are finish the boss, or are about to, the henchy is replaced with our missing team mate...

The henchy "stand-in" probably isn't necessary and maybe isn't a good idea as it will likely have a more generic skill set and to go much farther than that would likely require alot more coding.

It would be nice if they could rejoin wherever the team is, if not for how many people would abuse it. However if the team was stopped from moving forward for some period of time, so the disconnected member can rejoin where they are unless the team chooses to go on without that member (yep alot of coding, so never gonna happen like this), then rejoining would be great.

im sure we will see alot of "no dail-up" guilds.

I'm really wondering exactly how bad it'll be post-release to tell you the truth... It will be very interesting to see, having all the content pre-loaded on your machine from the installation disk should seriously cut down load time, so it should come down to downloading the streaming updates and keeping up with gameplay, which from what I've heard is entirely doable with a good dial-up connection (I.E, not a free service or one of the cheapo providers) Even heard of someone using Teamspeak while on dial-up (using a lower codec quality) and not having any latency issues.

Unfortunately, I agree with you. While I don't suffer from the curse of the 56k some people I know do or have some other type of very poor connection. Although it can be a pain to be waiting for a slower connector to join it's really not that bad. If you think about, the high end of wait time for a slow connector would be about a minute, one single minute. Though it can seem like an eternity I really think it's worth the wait to stick with someone trying to play with you. It's also polite and respectful.

Though I doubt it will happen, hopefully people will just wait out the last connectors and take that minute of free time to get a snack, go to the lavatory, or whatever.

Finding the right party is hard enough, but for your whole party to abandon you right when you're about to start a mission must be quite discouraging.

Actually, not that difficult to solve. Put two timers on the rejoining ability (one a dialog box that prompts the relong user if he wants to join his party, 30 seconds or so...). Another one that is around 5 min, that when it runs out and the user is not relogged on... then poof his ability to join the team vanishes to. If the party notices that the user keeps d/c right b4 the battles (they can kick him), or if it is their goal to speed level him. So what? The level cap is 20, your only hurting the user who hasn't learned that actual gameplay is needed to be good at this game.

Lansing Kai Don

P.S. I don't see why a henchmen cannot fill in for a user that is taking 3+ minutes to connect. Let the henchie fill till the user can fill this slot. The ONLY problem with this that I see, is that if the henchie gets him/herself killed... then the player comes to the game with a DP.

P.P.S Really good idea, I'd like to see it implemented. Nice brain work here.

Yeah, I was afraid of "no -dialup" guilds, or individuals. individual in the sense that if they think someone is on dialup, they will refuse to play with them. At home, over the summer, I'll get to play on a 56K connection, and it played really well for the most part. But there still are occasions when people drop out of games because my loading time exceeds a minute, usually because I haven't spent enough time in the pre-mission area, or on the freak chance that a peice of software decides to update virus definitions in the background.

Wouldn't this just be open to abuse by players who want their team to do all their work? I would take away the bonuses gained from playing, but still let the character follow the team around. This way, the team doesn't lose, but the player that left doesn't gain in his absense.