It seems like the simplest solution would be to only play with people that have a comparable ping . If each person is experiencing a delay of ~80ms, aren't they on equal footing?
Combat is M&B is also not as quick as it is in Overgrowth.. or is it? - M&B's combat is just as dependent on timing and responsiveness, if not more so.
I wouldn't go that far - you made an assessment on the role multiplayer had in encouraging people to buy and play Warband using the amount of traffic on a website - nothing about the number of units Warband sold can be determined from that data, and it's not enough to make any real assumptions about anything except the amount of traffic the Taleworlds website got after Warband's release. Keep in mind Warband is also a single example, and not definitive proof about the impact of multiplayer on the appeal of a game - Mount & Blade already offered something truly unique that no other game did or does, and that was a major reason for its initial success - people hardcore in to medieval history and warfare bought M&B because they finally found a game that could satisfy an itch not other game could scratch, but Warband appealed to a number of people who would have never considered playing it otherwise, simply based on its multiplayer component.Endoperez wrote:I cited facts.
And obviously the most sane thing to do is remove the chat function completely.Ednoperez wrote:If the best time to chat is immediately after one of you loses, it easily leads to gloating and such.
The fact that 1 person will almost always get demolished by 2 doesn't mean they always will - it means they almost always will - why doesn't that make sense? It seems like it should be really difficult for one person to take out two other human-controlled players by themselves - is that really that strange? You don't need long rounds either - Counter-Strike is still one of the most widely played online games in the world and yet its gameplay revolves around dying and then sitting out until the next round.
Overgrowth could do its own take on CTF, where each team is tasked with capturing something from the other team's base - then the gameplay doesn't have to be centered around fighting until everyone is dead, but around pursuing people form the other side while being simultaneously thrown around and attacked.