A little bit of frustration is settling in with Blood Bowl my past handful of matches. No, not the gameplay (which can be punishing) No, not the randomness (which I love) – but Yes, the weak network programming.
BB keeps a “reliability rating” with your account. Basically it is a percentage based score of matches played vs matches completed. My first 17 games I had a rating of 100% and proud of it. Players who challenged me knew I would stick through to the end no matter how poorly, or how brutal, the game was going.
It is now down below 80% – none of which I have control over. Since the last patch I have been getting funky network sync errors and random disconnects. Strange, and very frustrating.
Final frustrations after the jump…
BB made the odd decision to connect players directly together instead of a central server. Teams are stored on a central server, both pcs pull from there then hook up directly.
This has lead to the speculation of rampant cheating. Everyone knows that if you pull the plug on your Internet during s match (if a player you like dies, for example) then your team info isn’t updated. The pulley gets a safe team (and still gets the loss and the rep hit) while his opponent gets the win, some SPP and couple MVP designations.
Some of these disconnects have cost me losses, while some have not. It doesn’t make much sense to me how the same error can produce different outcomes. I am starting to suspect my opponents when it happens now when I am winning and it happens. I don’t know what my opponents think of me when I am losing when it does.
Strangest part of it all is that we can both play the game until the end most times, and the error isn’t obvious until players don’t progress after the game, or players who should be injured aren’t.
I don’t mind losing – you still get money and advancement points when you lose (and also strategy experience). I get nothing but the brackets and a reliability rating hit – basically nullifying anything positive for time spent – with the added kick in the jewels of a lower RR.
I’d have to buy a new game to reset my RR – it is per account. Frustrating when you lose pieces of your online reputation when it is beyond your control.
Seems like one of those things that they should have known would be gamed.
Yeah, you would think. I mean, there is enough demonstratable evidence that people will always find a way to skirt any system – so the lack of forethought on this front is somewhat surprising.
Of course, there is speculation that the making of the game in the first place is part of a settlement of a suit GW did against Cyanide for their making of a similar type of game, which would point to getting out a product to avoid a suit, and not stressing over the overarching issues – such as customer satisfaction and cheating.
*boggle*
Odd, I’ve never had a sync issue like you describe. I’ve crashed while online twice, which affected my RR, but otherwise smooth sailing. I’ve also only had one person pull the plug during a match (two of his players died, and the score was 3-0 at half-time), everyone else has finished a game (I played vs one guy who had his star die, two of his players get stat loss injuries, and two others will miss the next game. Oddly he took it all in stride and was still nice during the game).
Hopefully the next patch fixes whatever is causing you the issue, good luck!
Thanks Syn – for some reason it just got back to normal on its own. Past few games have been smooth, but the reliability rating only climbs 1% at a time. I have had a few players not want to play me based off it – a little discussion and it they changed their minds and had some good matches.
Maybe those disconnections were from other players, on purpose, for some reason or another (I don’t know) – but whatever the case or reason, things have settled back down nicely and I can enjoy the game again.
for the record too, with the disconnects and all, I now only have a .500 losing percentage (note – not a .500 win percentage as half the games I have lost, the other half I have won OR tied.) =) I also love the fact that most games end up by a 1 TD win or loss, so I really feel into every game. Funny how it does that when you play closely rated teams.
Hey, I just wrote an errant comment somewhere that was supposed to be here. I’m happy that you’ve written this post because I’ve never heard of this game before and it seems like the perfect solution for my turn-based fantasy bug! (I’ve had it for longer than I care to remember and single-player Age of Wonders can only sustain me for so long) Maybe I’ll see you online soon!