LeaverHandling

Leaver Handling

Direct Strike games often include players who leave before the normal end. This can change the game dramatically because the remaining players may gain stacking, control, or resource advantages.

To keep ratings fair, dsstats does not score every leaver game like a clean 3v3. It identifies the leaver pattern and adjusts rating impact.

The examples below are current public replay-detail screenshots from dsstats.pax77.org/replays. Red player rows mark leavers in the replay view.

Clean replay

Open example replay

• Normal 3v3 replay.
• No detected leaver.
• Full rating impact is applied.
• Commanders and CommandersHeroic count for Commanders rating.
• Standard counts for Standard rating.

One leaver

Open example replay

• One player left before the end.
• The leaver receives the game as a loss.
• Other players receive reduced rating impact because the game state changed.

Leaver on both teams

Open example replay

• One player left on each team.
• Leavers receive losses.
• If the leave times are close enough, the game can be scored closer to normal.
• If one team had a longer advantage, rating impact is reduced.

Two leavers on the same team

Open example replay

• Two players left on the same team.
• Leavers receive losses.
• The remaining player has an unusual game state, including stacking advantages but limited control.
• Rating impact for non-leavers is heavily reduced.

More than two leavers

Open example replay

• Three or more players left before the end.
• Leavers receive losses.
• The replay is treated as heavily distorted.
• Rating impact for non-leavers is reduced because the game no longer represents a normal team result.

Why not ignore leaver games?

Ignoring all leaver games would lose too much data and could create incentives to leave bad games. Scoring them with reduced impact keeps useful information while limiting abuse.