Alright I was just in a game where one player was booted.  Not a big deal, but should we increase or even give a penalty to those player who get booted from games?  I don't want to stop players from coming to the site, but I'd like to give them a reason to avoid getting booted in games.  I was thinking something like double points lost for booted games.  This way, I'm hoping, more people would just surrender instead of allowing themselves to get booted.  Thoughts?

Beastlymaster

The penalty is a lost game, which I think is enough. I never liked the idea of further punishing people for getting booted, because it sucks but sometimes you can't take your turn and it happens. What I would rather see is a better mechanic for handling the booted player's territories and troop counts. The best would be a bare-bones AI that takes over, but it could even be as simple as populating those territories with a token but minimal number of troops (so that they would all have 2 stacks instead of, say, 15 stacks that the booted player had).

Kjeld wrote:

The penalty is a lost game, which I think is enough. I never liked the idea of further punishing people for getting booted, because it sucks but sometimes you can't take your turn and it happens. What I would rather see is a better mechanic for handling the booted player's territories and troop counts. The best would be a bare-bones AI that takes over, but it could even be as simple as populating those territories with a token but minimal number of troops (so that they would all have 2 stacks instead of, say, 15 stacks that the booted player had).

Resetting a neutral was is a pretty good idea K.  The Basic Boot Bot is most preferred (there's at least one thread out there where a simple set of guidelines for the bot has been proposed), but either way the loss should be penalty enough.

Kjeld wrote:

The penalty is a lost game, which I think is enough. I never liked the idea of further punishing people for getting booted, because it sucks but sometimes you can't take your turn and it happens.

+1

Possibly a bigger slap on the wrist or something if a player collects 20+ boots, but something that would also expire within a reasonable time limit (ie as if no boots after 6 months of being boot-free).

Yertle wrote:

Kjeld wrote:

The penalty is a lost game, which I think is enough. I never liked the idea of further punishing people for getting booted, because it sucks but sometimes you can't take your turn and it happens.

+1

...

+2

The boot is the penalty...for missing your turn.  It already results in the loss.  I don't believe there are an overwhelming number of players on this site that are jerks who just let their boot timer go vs. surrendering.  Punishment for the latter is really what I think Beastlymaster was referring to.

EDIT: And to this last point I do believe there should be some sort of credibility loss, whether that be "official" or unofficial.  Similar to not paying your credit card.  The interest charged is the initial payment (a.k.a. the boot from the game) but there is also the loss in credit rating that is more long-term/impactful to future investors (i.e. people who would want to play a game with the player).

I agree with BM. Some players let themselves get booted when they know they have lost. Something should be done. The idea of making surrenders easier is an idea (it should be automatic, not requiring all to accept it).

Remember Genesis, 242 boots :  http://www.wargear.net/players/info/Genesis

Toto wrote:

I agree with BM. Some players let themselves get booted when they know they have lost. Something should be done. The idea of making surrenders easier is an idea (it should be automatic, not requiring all to accept it).

Remember Genesis, 242 boots :  http://www.wargear.net/players/info/Genesis

 

I would like to make a few points that I made a few years ago on these forums.

Yes, getting booted just because you are losing is not sporting, but there is a built-in penalty for getting booted because you are unable to take your turn, and there is no perfect way to tell the difference.

Boots of either type described above show up in the record on your profile.  This is a really a subtle form of penalty because other players can boycott games against you should they deem that you are booted too often.

Surrenders, on the other hand should be viewed as a sporting and conscientious way of ending those games whose outcomes are pretty much decided, and it's just a matter of playing them out.  Remember, Surrenders have to be accepted, which implies that the other player(s) in the game view the action as proper given the circumstances.

The problem that I noted many years ago is that not only is this distinction not documented or publicly promoted, it is implicitly discouraged because of the way that boots and surrenders are published right next to each other.  In my mind, there's a big difference between someone whose boot/surrender stats are 30/1 and someone else's at 1/30.

As a result I play all games out, even ones where I would prefer to surrender out of respect for the my opponents' time (not to mention my own).

I haven't thought this through thoroughly, but in games down to three players where it is clear that I am due to be taken out by one of the players, I often find myself in the position of being able to pick the winner by the way I play.  In many cases, it's an easy decision; I either pick the player most responsible for my demise and exact (sporting) revenge, or I pick the player most likely to win and "make it easier" for that player.  Luckily, in most cases these end up being the same player.  There are times however, when I would prefer to "surrender", especially if I knew that my actions would provide for a fair board for my opponents..  A dumb boot bot would be the optimal solution.  Kjeld's convert all territories to neutrals with "set-up" values seems like a very reasonable alternative.

Again, all players must accept the surrender, so surrenders should be viewed as a characteristic of sporting players. Lumping the number with Boots and providing no guidance as to what the numbers mean all but takes away its value.

The problem that I noted many years ago is that not only is this distinction not documented or publicly promoted, it is implicitly discouraged because of the way that boots and surrenders are published right next to each other.  In my mind, there's a big difference between someone whose boot/surrender stats are 30/1 and someone else's at 1/30.

Yes!  This is exactly the problem.

And Toto, there are good reasons why a player must accept your surrender.  One of those is that when there are more than two players, a player surrendering can throw games out of balance.  For two player games I think that an automatic surrender would be nice.

BlackDog wrote: For two player games I think that an automatic surrender would be nice.

Yes, I forgot to mention this.. There is no need for a surrender to be accepted in a two-player game.  They should be encouraged.  In fact, the more I think of it, surrender as a stat is somewhat meaningless. It might be hard to distinguish between polite/sporting players ..and players who quit prematurely.

I would love to be able to surrender, but because it is discouraged, the best I can do to speed my demise is suicide my way out of games, and at worst ..be a spoiler.

BlackDog wrote:

And Toto, there are good reasons why a player must accept your surrender.  One of those is that when there are more than two players, a player surrendering can throw games out of balance.  For two player games I think that an automatic surrender would be nice.

I agree with you BD that a player surrendering can throw games out of balance. But isn't it better than this player getting booted or kamikazing ? I have seen some games where the surrender is not accepted by one player, sometimes for no understandable reason. Then the player having surrendered stopped playing, also I guess because he did not understand why the surrender was not accepted (as I could see from the other games that he was still playing other games).

I also agree with M57 that the surrender stat is somewhat meaningless. I feel the same about the number of players eliminated. This stat might lead to bad playing or to refuse a surrender in order to eliminate the player. At least, in a game with only 2 players left, the surrender should be automatic and the elimination point should be given even if a boot or a surrender occured.

To go with the boot stat, I would prefer a "turn skipped" stat. When you see a good player with a poor global ranking and few boots, it's difficult to understand that many games have been lost because of many turns skipped.

Toto wrote:

 ..I would prefer a "turn skipped" stat. When you see a good player with a poor global ranking and few boots, it's difficult to understand that many games have been lost because of many turns skipped.

This is an interesting idea.

BlackDog wrote:

The problem that I noted many years ago is that not only is this distinction not documented or publicly promoted, it is implicitly discouraged because of the way that boots and surrenders are published right next to each other.  In my mind, there's a big difference between someone whose boot/surrender stats are 30/1 and someone else's at 1/30.

Yes!  This is exactly the problem.

And Toto, there are good reasons why a player must accept your surrender.  One of those is that when there are more than two players, a player surrendering can throw games out of balance.  For two player games I think that an automatic surrender would be nice.

I frankly think you should bury surrender stats since I too have played out games that I would have preferred to surrender simply because I didn't want it on my bio page. As a side note, I Hated the boot threshold at ToS and I like that a boot simply affects your stats as a loss and it shows up on your page but nothing else.  

I think a boot bot would be a huge improvement to the site since it would tend to eliminate the aggravation people feel when someone gets booted. Just another item to "drop into the list that is years and years long" (Can anyone come up with that reference?)

So two simple actions seem appropriate here:

1. Get rid of the visibility of the surrender stat - it should not be discouraged by being visible as it's an honorable way to conclude a game where there is a clear winner without wasting everyone's time playing out till the end.

2. In two player games or games with only two players remaining, surrenders do not require the approval of the other player.

Agree?

Sounds good.

I like.

Both done.

Good thing

SWEET!  Now I don't have to feel bad about surrendering at all.  Tom wins again.

I think these are good changes and I like Kjeld's idea for boots, revert to neutral with same number of armies as were there at game start, for example 3 on global warfare, 0 on a board like seven.

I felt the need to weight in on the accepting/not accepting surrenders in games.   I believe there is a request for a popup when a surrender has been offered which may solve some of the problems with players not accepting.  I have also been in a couple of games where I didn't accept a surrender because I wanted to eliminate them and take there cards.  This can be important on boards with elimination bonuses and pivotal card turn-ins.  There are other reasons why it is preferable to not automatically accept a surrender.

I think it's a good idea to have a popup to say that a surrender has been offered - just so player's are alerted that it has been requested. It should only appear once per surrender so it doesn't become annoying.