Hi there,

I am writing to request the implementation of a time-out feature for 4on4.

Some that I have talked to have argued that the cons of this are as follows: abuse, abuse, abuse

If that is the case, why not make it non-abusable? The only cases where time-out is required is if a player drops, or if his connection starts to become extremely erratic.

My suggestion to resolve this is, make the server the one using the time-out and not the player(s). If it detects that one player in one of the teams is timing out or has disconnected, it pauses the game automatically. If a player then re-joins, the game un-pauses as if nothing ever happened. This is just the base idea, but perhaps we could figure out something better?

The reason that I request this is because I think it is a great shame to have some games ruined because this feature is lacked. What do you guys think?

I dont think that pausing a game with 8 ppl is very smart. Just play on for a few minutes and if he doesnt come back or is replaced then just break the game. If the game is indeed paused and everyone is waiting then for how long are they going to wait? What if some random player joins and the game is unpaued?

In Teamfortress clan games team captains are usually allowed to pause game.
It may be useful in duels also.

And of course it may be optional: pausable: on/off.

for duels: just replay the map

I seem to remember that something like this was actually available at some time. I definately remember one 4-4 match being paused (whether automatic or not) because someone dropped out. It is extremely distracting and makes you lose track of the current situation around you (even though you have ample time to study the screen) and of all item timings on the map. It can impact the game pretty severely.

ktpro used some weird and wonderful hack to pause the game should a participant lag out, much like you describe.
we have server extensions for this kind of stuff now - muuch easier.

for duels: unplug your network cable when you get a string of bad spawn spots, and just replay the map.

for 4vs4: when you get bored of waiting, permit the remaining players to unpause the game to continue without the person that dropped. But yeah, a pause longer than 5/10 secs is annoying, and if it keeps happening then you're just going to annoy everyone for no good reason.

A lot can happen between losing connection and actually timing out. You'd need a mod-side check for sanity.

I think the server should do it only for the first time, or maybe only twice or thrice. And when the player rejoins, give countdown of 5 seconds at least before the game continues.

Also support my feature request if you like.

Well the main idea behind this kind of feature is usage in EQL etc isnt it?
Where it really cares when a player drops for 30sek-1min. In public mixes autopausing would be kinda fucked.

One thing ive thought about before is what was available in some q3 mods "competition mode"
Because their is always some settings that sounds really nice for official games, but just lowers the experience for casual ones.
Which really just disables/enables "pro-gaming" specific settings. (kinda like smackdown ruleset in a way but serverside)

I can think of 2 ways of implementing this in quakeworld:
Changeable by admin (elect/rcon)
and/or Voteable like rpickup

Hmm im not familiar with QW mods feature but, my netQuake mods have a voting system that allows people to issue vote for timein/timeout. Also. in match mode, it autopauses if you lagout and, you have a ghostcode that you can use, (much like the name password system provided per connection) to rejoin the game. If you need any quakeC code i could help.

Well to the argument that you lose track of the game, having played q3 osp tdm, cpma tdm, q4 tdm and duel in those games, I am quite used to it - it does not distract me anymore. But I do understand where you are coming from with that, the thing is sure, you get distracted for a minute. But what about the consequences? I have had it happen that for example, squeeze dropped in one game, where we had 3 RL's and control, 12minutes into a dm2 where the opposing team had a full start.

Needless to say our control spiralled back against us pretty quickly because squeeze was not there. I just do not think the cons outweigh the benefits in this kind of situation, playing 4on3 when it, as you say, can often be unknown when the player will return is fairly pointless and self-defeating. In a practise it is fine, prac is prac, but when it comes to the officials - surely the benefits of a time-out feature outweigh the match ruining possibility of a complete player drop, even if it is just for 30 seconds?

I do not wish to rattle any cages! I realise things have been this way for a long time so people are used to it, I guess being fresh blood into this scene I have a lot of opinions still.

Thanks

I think there were some threads & polls on "player ping timeout" issue and not many people were happy with what we have know (just play, don't move until he's back, etc).

i think it is a part of the game that a player can be disconnected; either he comes back, is replaced or the game is breaked. either way we can only hope that teams dont abuse the game by disconnecting in order to have the game stopped

Random disconnecting is no more an intrinsic part of qw than I am an intrinsic part of the swedish female beach volley-ball team.

Both are something that the players have to deal with, both would rather this thing didn't exist, and both take steps to heavily limit their exposure to it.

Depending on the implementation of a timeout feature (SERIOUSLY HEAVILY DEPENDANT), it could be just as effective as Miss Svensson's restraining order.

I don't like the argument "it's part of the game'. I like ddk's suggestion as I also wondered about the pause option a while ago. Didn't do much with it, but i'm happy to see this topic. I've also played q3 and allthough it rarely happened it was nice to have the pause option imo. I think there was a timelimit to the pause in Q3 of about 2 minutes allthough that was flawed I think as when the 2 minutes ended you could again pause immediately. This shouldn't be much of a problem. Just make sure that after the max 2-3 minutes pause the game can't be paused anymore for 5 minutes or something.
Anyways it just sucks to play a game where your teammate times out and you lose the game because of that while a simple pause would help.

I dont like the idea with pausing the game. it is better that 1 player is gone for a little while than to stop the pace and flow of the game... you never know what the other 7 guys might do during that time. also it could be abused by the losing team: just timeout one player and you will have some time to discuss what to do while the game is stopped

but just like with the map issue the div-noob players will probably argue like hell to get their way

so what's stopping teams now from just plugging out so they get a breakgame?

sportsmanship (yes it actually exists in qw)

so with a timeout function sportsmanship would disappear?

If your argument against timeouts is that people will abuse it, citing "sportsmanship" as the reason people don't disconnect now makes no sense at all.

it would just be another feature to abuse and it doesnt really help to solve the timeout issue (which i dont consider a big issue anyway, i have played for over 10 years and even in the modem times it didnt bother me or my clan enught to actually wanna pause the game)

again, what you could abuse aswell is just plugging out so the game is broken, while you admit theres actual sportsmanship in qw you think it will be abused.

could you make up your mind ?

the game isnt always stopped because of a timeout and i see no reason to add a pause function

again, just like with the maps, what itsnt broken doesnt need to be fixed

seriously, wouldnt there have been a pause function by now if it was needed? i mean it isnt rocket science to add such a function and we discover the need for it now when most of us started to play between 1996 and 2002? i find that hard to believe

again, this is a forum thread where you present your arguments for something, or against.

you don't say "I dont see a reason", you argue the merits of the suggestion posed in a thread.

here we go again with the attacks on someones choice of words...

the words i put in quotations, don't add anything to this thread, if that's an attack, then yes i'm attacking you

Does this even happen alot? That players drop in tournament games?

Pause-vote (like break) with a short countdown so players can brace themselves.

Could be nice for pracs. For official matches, sort out your connection and standins.

No but when it happens its nice to have a time-out function. Time out is a good thing and it doesn't remove anything from gameplay except randomness.

"it is better that 1 player is gone for a little while than to stop the pace and flow of the game" - The game is then not 4on4. It is 4on3, due to a random external factor that could have happened to any player on either team - what the "7 guys might do in that time" is meaningless no? Whether it be in the form of a power cut, or the form of a dodgy route that night. If it is not 4on4, then why is it worth trying to preserve the pace? Is it not one of the benefits of QW over other games which helps make it so competitive its lack of randomness? (despite spawns). Yet here, there is a chance to prevent external randomness from randomly occurring and detrimentally affecting one team or the other. It is like, developing cancer, then saying God meant for you to die - so you should do nothing about it - it is this similar conservative attitude which hinders progress!


"it could be abused by the other team" - was the solution I offered one which could not be abused? You, yourself, in another post here stated that the QW community is one of sportsmanship and integrity, although not in quite so many words. So why does the integrity of our community suddenly vanish with this magical time-out feature?

"just time-out one player and you will have some time to discuss what to do while the game is stopped" - Yes this is true, but the other team also has this advantage, the team in or out of control are both able to discuss their tactics during the period that one player has dropped or lost connection. Just restarting the game is not always an option. For example, on dm3, 14minutes are played and the scores are tied, after the losing team finally managed to pull back control and 30 frags in the last 2minutes. Pent is spawning in the next minute, but wait - one of the players from one of the teams drops, and he had an RL ! or maybe he did not, either way he misses pent, dramatically reducing his teams chances of getting it. Can you really replay a game that is that tight? It is unfair on both teams to then roll the dice on a match restart is it not?

I think you are over-estimating the element of "pace" and its impacts on the game, a good player will know what he is doing always, as the theory is solidly cemented into his mind.

"but just like with the map issue the div-noob players will probably argue like hell to get their way " - So you are saying that because I may be new, or from division 3 along with Stev and fern, that my opinion is meaningless? That any logic I put forth is completely useless simply because I am new? Or is it that you do not have a real argument to present. If these "newbs" have a flawed and valueless argument, then expose it with logic.

Oh and for the record, from my perspective, a player dropping on my team has always hurt my pace more than waiting for him to re-join..

the arguments you present, much like the arguments presented in the map issue, are not convincing enough to make me wanna implement a pause feature. like i said, we have played this game for over 10 years and this relatively easy feature has not been called for or used (when it was possible to pause) EVEN when we had much worse connections than today