Some Possible Solutions to Ragequitting

Hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Critical Dissection. Today we're not going to be looking at an individual game but rather an issue that affects almost all online multi-player games and then examine a few possible solutions. The issue in this case being ragequitting, an issue that's at least as infuriating as my spellchecker insisting that 'ragequitting' isn't a real word. Ragequitting is the act of quitting or disconnecting from a game due to a frustration over an opponents tactic(s) and/or to avoid taking a loss on ones record. I wouldn't go quit so far as to call this behavior a blight on online multi-player games but it, to various degrees depending on what game is being played, can be an extraordinarily irritating occurrence. So let's first look at why the two main reasons for raging occur.

Frustration is a natural human reaction in many situations. In the context of a competitive online game it usually comes from dealing with either an opponent who is significantly better than us and is therefore beating us down with relative ease OR from playing against an opponent who is utilizing a tactic that is simply hard to deal with (or at least hard to deal with from the victims perspective). While in my opinion all forms or ragequitting are inexcusable that first one, quitting against a strong opponent, is the least excusable. The reason for this is that getting smashed by a stronger player is usually one of the best opportunities to learn more about the game. I remember playing a series of matches in 'BlazBlue' against one of the best players on Playstation Network. Not only was this guy one of the best players on PSN but he also happened to use the same character that I did so I got to see how he played the character and how he approached the mirror match. I went 1(win) and 25(losses) against him but from all the stuff I saw him doing in those games I was overall a better player for that experience. An inability or unwillingness to learn from ones losses is a common trait among those who quit when overmatched. For those who are quitting against the perceived hard to deal with tactics they are, like those quitting when over-matched, shortchanging themselves in the learning department as you don't learn how to deal with a tactic by avoiding it. 

Now with regards to those who quit in order to preserve their record I actually feel a bit sorry for them as they really can't be mentally healthy individuals if they place that much importance on their record in a video game. That said, and depending on the game, quitting in order to preserve ones record (many games don't assign a loss in the event of one of the players disconnecting) is more common than quitting due to being overmatched or quitting due to an opponent using a “cheap” tactic. The reason for this being that most games have some type of leaderboard system. That is, a way of letting the whole community know who the best (in theory) players at the game are at any given moment. Some people, for some reason place a very high premium on their status withing such a ranking system. Also before anyone suggests that an easy solution to this would be to simply assign a loss to whoever disconnects doesn't know how seriously gamers take these rankings, as under such a system people would find a way (legal or not) to induce disconnects from their opponent in order to score free wins. Some people are looking for the (illusory) status of rankings and are not actually looking to improve at the game.

So how can we combat ragequitting? Well as already mentioned it would be hard to assign a loss over a disconnect due to the possibility of players gaming that sort of system. Now if a technology where to come about that allowed for an accurate assessment of who disconnected and why then it might be worth considering implementing. Also one must consider those who enjoy online games but whose internet connections aren't reliable. It is unfair to lump those people in with the raqequitters and while it would help their cause if they upgraded their internet services in many parts of the world that isn't really an option. And after all of that we're still left the question of what to do with disconnects? The system I propose would be to simply have people who have disconnected over a certain percentage of their matches be excluded from the leaderboards regardless of their record. While that proposal has a moderate chance of screwing those with unstable connections the main “victims” would be those who are quitting intentionally. Another follow-up to that several games have tried to implement (and usually failed at) is a so called "Ragequit Hell” wherein the players who've disconnected above the specified percentage of their matches will only be matched up with one another. This concept excels in two respects.  Firstly by matching the rager up only with other ragers you've removed him from the general players population and thus likely improved everyone else's experience with the game.  Secondly in his banishment to Ragequit Hell you've assured that his potential opponent pool is comprised of similarly immature individuals and that if he wants out of Ragequit Hell (granted when the percentage of disconnects falls below the specified threshold) he's going to have to be on his best behavior.  Ok, those sound like changes that could be implemented in almost any online game. What about a way to deal with raging due to being overmatched?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Now this proposal is a little more radical and as I've currently conceived it isn't as comprehensive as the leaderboard ban and Ragequit Hell solutions as it won't work for fighting games. The idea is to simply add the ability for players to concede. You're team is down by an insurmountable amount but there's still 2/3 of the game time left? Hold a vote and if the majority votes for it your team concedes. This is basically a feature that all team FPS games should already have. Especially ones like 'Left 4 Dead 2' where a full 4 vs. 4 match can, depending on skill discrepancy and map, take upwards of a hour and a half. There's no reason to subject a team on the losing end of that, especially if it's pretty obvious that the losing part isn't going to reverse course, to the entirety of the match if they don't want to. Similarly there's no reason that the losing teams only option to stop the pain is to quit. This idea gives them an out without denying the winning team their 'W'. The concession. Problem (probably) solved.

Oh and the reasons that adding the ability to concede won't work in fighting games are as follows. The first being that players, just to be dicks, would wait until the last possible moment and then concede in order to deny their opponents a more legitimate and satisfying win. The other issue with concession in fighting games being the concept of boosting. Boosting is the use of multiple accounts controlled by the same person to generate wins for their main account in order to give the impression that they're a highly skilled player. Now, in theory if there was a way to track boosters and ban them from the leaderboards (thereby greatly if not entirely discouraging the behavior) then in spite of the potential assholish behavior it would allow for then concessions could be added to fighting games. That said there isn't to my knowledge a real way to track people who're boosting (other than to play and expose them) and there's also the fact that even the most slow paced fighting game is still over relatively quickly such that the need for the ability to concede isn't as pressing here as it is in first person shooters.

Ok, so after hopefully some of the ideas presented here find there way into future games as there really isn't a reason to be nice to ragequitters and if done well the leaderboard ban, Ragequit Hell (not an original idea just never done correctly), and option to concede would drastically reduce (hopefully) the desire to quit in addition to sufficiently punishing those who do with minimal collateral damage. I have a few more thoughts on this topic but this article has already run pretty long so those will have to wait for another time. See you next week.