Leavers are Ruining this game

This thread is directed to the good folks that bring us Smite. First off, let me say how much I love this game. You have created something that actually surpasses the other MOBA'S out there. Thanks so much for all your hard work.

But your game has a cancer growing within it. That cancer is leavers. I'm not exaggerating when I say that fully 40% of my games involve a leaver. Every time a game has a leaver 9 other players game experience is affected negatively. 9 other players are now wasting their time as they go through the motions of completing the game. I have many games in which the leaver is gone in the first minute and never returns. So what is there to be done about this? I'm not here to just complain. I have solutions!

1) From reading these forums it is clear that you are banning leavers. That is good to see! This policy would work better if you took an official position and let ALL players know that leaving games is not only bad sportsmanship but punishable by banning. I realize that from a company perspective banning players is undesirable. However, if you continue to allow them to run rampant you will lose many more players as they become increasingly frustrated with the state of the game. I have played League of Legends for years now. They used to have the same problem with leavers you do. They started dropping the BanHammer with heavy force and their leaver problem pretty much dried up. So this approach has worked in other games. I have no reason to believe that it can't work here as well.

2) I have another suggestion as well. In any game in which a player disconnects, give him say, 2 minutes to return. If he has not returned in that allotted time then block him from returning and randomly remove a player from the other team in order to balance the sides. You could soften the blow by providing that player with some points for having been flushed in this manner. What does this do for you? Instead of having 9 players with a negative game experience you now only have 1. The other 8 can continue on and have a unique game experience in Smite and try to win 4 on 4. I would be happy to get randomly removed from time to time if it meant improving the fun for everyone.

3) There are players that will try to circumvent this by simply standing in the starting area until the end of the game. Right now you depend on players to report this activity at the games end. But many players just can't bring themselves to do this. You can't blame them. They may be playing one game a day and just don't see how bad this problem has become. Therefore, you should institute a policy that will automatically remove a player that has stood idle for say, 2 minutes again. As above, he should be blocked from returning and a random opponent will be removed as well.

Instituting the policies in sections 2 and 3 above has the added benefit of automatically correcting these problems on the fly. This should greatly cut down the amount of time you have to spend sifting through reports of afk/leaving. It also would greatly improve the fun of each game for your players. And isn't that what this is all about?

In conclusion, let me again thank you for a wonderful, fun game! With a few tweaks concerning this issue I know that Smite can become the huge success that we all want it to be.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Bro I ruined my ELO from nearly 900 to 200 and some just because the leavers and trolls and feeders and right now I just quit playing ranked just cuz of them. Im in favor of brutal punishments of these kind of players.
I like your proposal and my vote is YES on that matter just let HI REZ do something about the issue and let the leavers know that they wont be tolerated

I agree that people leaving the game can wreck it for the team that the leaver is on but for the other team its a nice free win. Regardless people shouldn't leave games, period. Its not fair to the team that had them but i think that a distinction needs to be made between a disconnect and a leave in terms of punishment.

If you leave you deserve to be punished by whatever the company thinks is right and if you leave X number of games you should be banned accordingly ( starting gradually then increasing to the more serious bans )

If you have a connection problem and leave the game I don't think the penalty should be as sever IMO. Someone who leave a game does so willingly and for someone like me who experiences an internet drop every now and again has no real control over it.Now I am not saying this is ok and personally i only go on if i think ill be fine for X number of games, but i don't think a disconnect should go to banning as fast as an actual leave.

This is just my idea and a suggestion but Ive lost some games myself from people showing up feeding and then leaving in a rage and those are the people who should be banned, not the guy doing well looking to have a good time that gets dropped out of his/her control.

No, no, no nononononononono
1) the **** would you remove players from the game after 2 mins, that makes just NO sense. Maybe their computer or internet crashed and they would be back in 5 mins, this is just so stupid
2) if they put that remove from the other team in the game, I am done and I quit. Makes NO sense at all, why would they punksh me for an other dc-ing?

Are you crazy or what?

About number 2, I agree with comicguy, people may have crashed. Second, if someone leave, why would you make the other leave especially randomly. That's totally unfair. I'm sure you will not even happily let everyone else feel good, instad, you will be cursing the game, the players and stopped playing.

About number 3, we don't only live in the game world. We may need to go to toilet or opening the gates for guests or answering phone. People need to let their god stand.

Not a fan of the removal of enemy team player. Not only for fairness issues, but also with balancing issues. What if a mage D/Ced on one team, and 2 minutes later the main carry got auto-kicked from other team? While Hi-Rez could do more to fix leaver issue, this is not the way to approach it.

How about if there is a leaver, all the team with 4 players gain a buff. And if someone stand for 1 minute, the team also gain buff but will automatically gone after the player comes back/move again. This will even add more strategy planning to the game

That is a nice idea raze mage but people can abuse the standing still buff easily

That's what I mean. You will need to have more teamwork to when giving your teammate the buff and you don't do the work. So, if you stand still, your teammate will get stronger but you will have less members fighting

Nah I wouldn't like that either, I think they would just need to make leavers loose favor, that would punish them, unlike goodwill