Discussion about ACUs and their volatile nature (i.e. possible Disconnect Share rules)
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This is a repost of a post made by @Jip on Discord:
It goes without saying that when an ACU is destroyed that it should explode. This discussion is not about the 'typical' way that an ACU ends up exploding. Instead, this discussion about what should happen when a player disconnects. There's some interest of adjusting this behavior, see for example:
And with thanks to @Nomander we now have a technical solution:
We just have to enable it. At the moment it is disabled. We can make the behavior work like any of the other share conditions. And we can also introduce a new behavior: the ACU recalls individually.
The question that remains is how this feature should work in practice. A few relevant facts:
- A) It is difficult, if not impossible to determine whether a player left the game on purpose or because of technical reasons. We'll refer to this as the player 'leaving' regardless of what the cause is.
- B) It is possible to make it configurable, in the same way that the victory conditions and the share conditions are configurable.
And the primary questions for this topic?
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- Should we adjust the behavior of the ACU when a player leaves the game?
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- Should we make the behavior customizable (through the lobby options)?
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- The new (individual) recall behavior, how should that work exactly? Are there conditions, and if so - what are they?
I'd like to add some more details based on what's possible with the current implementation too:
- Aside from recalling the ACU individually, we can share the ACU for a limited time or permanently.
- The share condition for units can be changed based on if a player disconnects, and whatever anti-abuse measures are used (ex: use fullshare for disconnects unless we detect abuse, then use no-share just like for normal deaths).
- Some ideas for anti-abuse measures are checking current ACU HP, if the ACU was damaged recently, or letting the ACU live (and possibly sharing it) and calling it abuse if it dies too quickly.
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Giving bases for most high rated players is already pretty strong and sometimes even stronger than keeping the players. Transfer of ACU shouldn't be allowed, but disabling ACU explosion in case it wasn't in a fight is reasonable (example being seton air player 10st minute disconnect). One of possible implementations can be making an ACU a civilian.
Anything else should be avoided as it will stimulate abusive usage
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@Sainse said in Discussion about ACUs and their volatile nature (i.e. possible Disconnect Share rules):
Giving bases for most high rated players is already pretty strong and sometimes even stronger than keeping the players. Transfer of ACU shouldn't be allowed, but disabling ACU explosion in case it wasn't in a fight is reasonable (example being seton air player 10st minute disconnect). One of possible implementations can be making an ACU a civilian.
Anything else should be avoided as it will stimulate abusive usage
What kind of comment is "shouldn't be allowed". Yeah it shouldnt be standard, but why not have it as a setting?
Saying anything else will incentivise abusive usage, which can be true, is nonsense. You can say that about anything. Imo I can see it being a very good feature lower rated and not used higher rated.The main problem with all the ACU share settings is that they will just be used as bombs 90% of the time, and 10% to keep as a backup. Does not mean its abusive lol
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I think this should not be implemented in the game as it can result in uncontrollable deception in any variant. You can take a low ranked friend to play with you and then he ‘loses connect’. Unprovable.
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S Skrat referenced this topic on
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@Skrat True. But I know for sure that there is at least one player (I won't point fingers) that got his high rating doing something like this. But instead of directly controlling teammate's army he tells him to suicide his guncom and then takes over his base.
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@rampeer Yeah, I see players like that sometimes too. But now such actions are noticeable + they do lose ACU, with the introduction of the proposed options it will only get worse
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Based on the discussion here but mostly on discord I think for ACU sharing it will be two options:
- Recall ACU: avoids the explosion killing all BP/army in mid/late game.
- Permanent share: for people who don't mind ACU share due to balance (including mods) and lobby wait time reasons.
- No long-term temporary sharing as it is too complicated for players. This means early game is unsalvageable after a disconnect.
For the share condition on disconnect, there will be no lobby option:
- Recalling ACU fullshares the units unless the ACU dies during recall, in which case the normal share rule is used.
- How should this "recall" be done? Some have said teleport it for a long time (30s) so it can get killed.
I prefer the idea of sharing it for 30s and then it quickly teleports away because it creates a more natural situation for how the ACU can be killed or saved (avoids TMLs or snipes, doesn't stand in important locations).
- How should this "recall" be done? Some have said teleport it for a long time (30s) so it can get killed.
- If the permanently shared ACU is killed then the normal share rule is applied at the time of death. It's simply as if they gave you all their units and then died.
- Originally I had a hidden timer turning the death into fullshare after some time, this idea is now removed to simplify the rules.
- Should the permanently shared ACU count for keeping your own army alive?
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N Nomander referenced this topic on