StarCraft® II

Hi there! Some arcade maps are suffering in the arcade due to the abuse of map hosts in lobbies, as well as AFK players.

Hosts can refuse to start maps that do not regularly fill completely, simply to harass players waiting to start a game; in extreme cases, they can 'camp' a map, sometimes for hours or days, making it so that nobody can use matchmaking to play that map. The first problem is simple harassment of players, and this happens somewhat regularly. I've politely asked a host who appeared AFK to start, who responded with "this is not a democracy. i am the host, and you are my guests." With the second problem, a host can camp a lobby of a game that tends not to fill completely with players - at which point it will reach the bottom of the open games list, and never reach capacity to start, effectively killing an Arcade map. I have seen this done both unintentionally and maliciously.

I propose that there be a voting system for hosts, such that a majority is required to forcibly transfer host status from one player to another.

AFK hosts and players can also be a problem. I propose an "afk kick" option. If the host, or a majority, vote that a player be kicked for being AFK, upon the passage of 1-3 minutes, the player be kicked from the lobby.

Why can't we just get the old lobby system back where you could actually manually host a game and be able to join any lobby open under that map?

That would solve so freaking much of that problem... and others.

You forgot to mention that people can invite someone they know to be AFK (or can simply not accept) just to force everyone to wait 2 minutes, and they can do so repeatedly.

But the developers are preoccupied by answering some extremely important editor questions like "UNIT GROUPS WITH REGIONS" and "HIDING THE UI", they're very busy and can't respond to your thread no matter how important the issue it seems to bring up may seem to you.

Why can't we just get the old lobby system back where you could actually manually host a game and be able to join any lobby open under that map?

That would solve so freaking much of that problem... and others.

I strongly agree that it will greatly attenuate the AFK host issue by itself.

As for the OP, yes, there should be an option as well to kick at least AFK hosts. At bare minimum, they should lose their host status while staying in the game and have someone else have it.

In addition, I personally suggest the host should be also be allowed to kick invited players (regardless if they accepted or not) that are still pending. He is the host after all and should be able to decide to kick them.

If you don't have any promises... what's the point in posting.

Sorry, i've been around since the beta... and all we get is promises.

... and even those never pan out.

-A disillusioned fan.

If you don't have any promises... what's the point in posting.

Sorry, i've been around since the beta... and all we get is promises.

... and even those never pan out.

-A disillusioned fan.

Same.

to be honest, even if you do this it'll be really late, considering how many map makers just left because of the lack of playable maps in the beginning

10/24/2012 07:29 PMPosted by Nightfal

to be honest, even if you do this it'll be really late, considering how many map makers just left because of the lack of playable maps in the beginning

It's very late yes but I think all efforts from Blizzard's part before the release of HotS are still worth it.

It's after HotS that it might become pointless if too many custom mapmakers and players didn't return or didn't stayed long enough after HotS's release.

10/24/2012 07:29 PMPosted by Nightfal

to be honest, even if you do this it'll be really late, considering how many map makers just left because of the lack of playable maps in the beginning

Nah, if Blizzard REALLY picks up the ball again and improves the Arcade system exactly as advised by this very forum BEFORE they release HotS, then there's a good chance the very few of us remaining will spread the word about how Blizzard did a complete 180 and gave us a custom gaming system that was at least on par with that of Warcraft III's. There is still time for them to salvage a significant portion of the sales they have already lost through their neglect of the custom gaming system and the community.

I think I might create a thread summarizing everything that we want from Blizzard with respect to improving the Arcade system and getting it up to where we can look at it and say, "yes, this is truly the successor to the Starcraft/Warcraft 3 system."

10/24/2012 10:50 PMPosted by Cloaken

Definitely do that. We'll appreciate reading it.

It's been done. You can find it at:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6933237515

When you disabled the ability to make games public I pretty much quit custom games shortly after. I will probably come back now if you do bring it back.

Named lobbies also interest me. Especially if it is the default page when you want to join a custom game. Creating random lobbies for custom maps is extremely limiting because you can add a ton of parameters to what sort of game you want to play in that custom map.

Here is a huge example of why this is important. Part of the success of DotA was being able to join the game mode you wanted to play like -ap, -em, -lm, -cm, -ar, -cd, -sd, or -rd and many combinations of these. This is not possible to do under the current system. Doing all this in chat was slow and inefficient and sometimes you just wanted to join the games you wanted to play as fast as possible.

I have played DotA for over 2 years before playing Starcraft 2 including ranked leagues so I think I have some knowledge on this subject.

The usefulness of being able to do this can not be denied like say for example asking to play against arranged teams only on a 3v3 map. Or playing against players of a certain score level or ELO for that particular map only and other messages that warn you that you are going to face experienced players or they expect you to be experienced.