Disbanding Groups and the “Deserter” Debuff; It’s Not Working

As I type this, DC Universe Online has gone live with game update 28. As a part of that, they’ve re-introduced “Disband Group”.

*sigh*

Ok, briefly. A while back they decided to discourage people ragequitting PvP matches by making them sit in the corner with a dunce cap on for 10 minutes in what they called a “deserter” debuff. They did this to stop players who were losing matches from just leaving and jumping into a new one. DCUO liked it so much, they put it into the PvE raids and alerts as well. So if you disconnected, had to leave for real world reasons, or simply found yourself in an instance that was already finished but someone thought it’d be hilarious to open the instance up for new players anyway and decided to leave, you had 10 minutes to sit in the corner and think about all the harm you did to your group by leaving them.

So in the patch prior to this, they introduced an option to “disband group”.

Again, great theory. You could initiate a vote to disband the group, and nobody gets a deserter penalty. In practice, it was a troll tool. People came into 8 man raids and immediately voted to disband it. Players who realized they had to actually do work and wouldn’t be carried to victory would “vote to disband”. And if 50% wanted to leave, it was over. I spent 2 hours with a group only to have it disband on the final boss fight because the group stumbled a few times trying to figure out the fight. That’s more than a little heartbreaking.

So now they’ve revamped and reintroduced it and, mark my words, it’s still broken. Because now, you can vote to disband, and if 50% want to go, they go without deserter penalties. The rest of the party is left in the instance without access to the “matchmaking” pool of hundreds of players, but can try to beg others to join their instance instead.

Ya ever tried getting the teeth out of a chicken? Just askin’.

I’ve had a conversation with the DCUO folks on twitter (which in itself is a reason I like playing DCUO, they actually DO that!) and they’ll be monitoring it they say, but I can tell you from prior experiences, it’s not going to work. I asked them to defend the deserter debuff and they said “When you queue up, you’re saying you want to play ASAP with random people. When you leave, you hurt them.” I instead see this as punishing everyone involved. The quitter gets a meaningless 10 minute time-out, the party now has to wait for who knows how long for someone else to join. Or, they can “disband group” and try to find bodies who want a “one and done” instance.

But instead of punishing, how about rewarding? Beating a dog into submission might make you feel better and get what you think are results, but it makes the dog resent you and bite you in the backside later. I’ll admit these are ideas off the top of my head, but it’s always seemed to me that you get desired behavior through rewards more than punishments. So, how bout rewarding the behavior you’re looking for?

Some ideas?

How about a “group award”? You could make it several achievements. “Finished a raid / dungeon / instance / alert (whatever) X times with your starting party.” Have it ding at the 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and so on times. Add a title to it if so inclined: “Team Player”. That alone would be an incentive to stay with it. Yes, it would suck to have people trollquit at the last boss, but it could be made so that the people who stick it out get the reward, the guy who quits doesn’t.

You could also create a “reinforcements” award in the same spirit. “Finish a raid / dungeon / whatever as a last-minute addition”. Again, abuse would be there, but it would also encourage players coming into an instance on the last boss to stay.

If that’s a little too obvious, metrics. Look, we all know that games like this keep records on EVERYTHING. So it’d just be a matter of looking at the averages. If a player quits instances in the upper 50%, they get progressively penalized if you seriously think that’s the best route. Or restrict them to how many instances they can do in a day. Every completed instance gives them a token to play another one. As they complete instances, their quit percentage goes down and they will in theory eventually not need the tokens anymore.

I don’t want to see this prompt anymore, there are better ways.

Alternatively, you can look at the numbers, and ask what instances people are quitting at the most, then figure out why. Most of the time it’s because a fight involves a mechanic that players aren’t used to. This frustrates the “hardcore” players who get frustrated at the “n00bs” and leave. You could create a tutorial for them, some kind of practice arena where new players can learn the fight without the pressure of a hardcore player screaming at them “OMFG U SUK!” in voice chat. OR, even better, create an incentive to teach. A “mentor” achievement system, for example.

My overall point is that making players sit out for 10 minutes is not an effective system to stop them from leaving an instance. Most players laugh at how much of a joke it is. They either use the time to go to the bathroom or sort their inventory. Most player see it as an inconvenience, not a punishment. It doesn’t work as a deterrent against ragequitting.  The punchline is that DCUO has recently created a “participation bonus” in PvP, effectively removing the real need for this debuff at all.  If the goal is to “not hurt the team”, then put the focus back on the team. Reward the team for finishing the mission, don’t punish them all for one person’s impatience.