There is a wide difference between fighting a person in 1x1 and fighting multiple people in multiplayer battles, like 4 competitors, 6 or 8. In this thread i will explain how a match whit multiple people develops, and the difference between fighting players in 1x1. 

Alas, here are some *short*  tales i created about multiplayer matches in 1vs1, and how fun they can be, when players dont leave in the middle of the fight. 

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forums/76-creations/threads/29828-endless-tales?page=1#post-265489

When you fight one person in ES2 at multiplayer, you can pause the game any time you want, you can play as much as you desire stopping the match anytime you want... But when you fight multiple players in multiplayer... many, many problems starts to rise up. First, players can leave any time during the match. You can be playing whit a person who is your neighbouring ally, and when you most need him during wars he says "Oh i gtg!" Or you can simply get yourself sending a massive fleet to an enemy, just to see he witness his defeat and see how he would react (or something like that), after a lot of planning... and then he simply leaves and you are left whit nothing else to defeat... besides bots. 

Sure, fighting bots is not really an issue in multiplayer... But how is the feeling of planning everything else you can to defeat a player and then he leaves in the very last moment you plan to attack him? 

What if you start building your empire and expanding... and suddenly you have to leave the game because you dont have more availble time to play it and, once you leave, you know you can't finish the match you started, since other players will continue to play the game whitout  you, you can't join the game in a later period of time once you leave. And worst of all, once the match ends and most players start leaving, its nearly to impossible to organize the time avaliability of all players in the match if there are too many players, to continue the next match in a planned time and date. 

Lets suppose you are playing whit 6 people. Every one of these six peoples have one time avaliable in the week, and one time they are not availble. Then tell me: How can you plan wich time they will play together for 2 or more hours STRAIGHT if everybody has a different time avaliability? 

Thats one of the problems in multiplayer battles at ES2. Its almost impossible to continue multiplayer matches after they started because, people, against such major problem of having to talk hours and hours and hours to see WHEN to play just one match will happen, they just surrender after that. and they play the match whiteout even contuining it. 

That means: If you play a match whit 4 or more players, wich should make the game much more fun and intriguing to play than playing against one player, wich at the current state, doenst happen because of these flaws, you are then forced  to play hours and hours straight, and can't even continue the multiplayer match after you leave, since finding all the players who played before and attempting to create a planned time for everyone to play, is nearly to impossible. 

And to make everything else even worst in multiplayer matches: You are forced to play hours and hours straight. Why? because, if the game will end as soon as players start to leave, and you can't continue it in a later period of time... You better play as much as you can before it ends , right? Yup. and thats how it is. 

Alas, people feel forced to play hours upon hours because, most of the fun in game is on late game, and not in early game. But how is the feeling of playing only thje first 30 minutes of each match in game and then leaving because "I gtg bye :D" and never experimenting the fun part of the game after all? Seems very bad, for me... 

Well, as you can see, most of the problems the current multiplayer system has are based on this primary factor: 

• Matches are too long to play,  and they take hours upon hours to complete. But the divergence of time avaliability between players creates a ton of flaws that needs to be changed. 

So, unless we find a way to make people have their avaliable times based on the matches they will play, unless we find a way to mix people availble times in a way everybody is affordable to play the match whiteout having to quit because they can't plat during that time, If we create matches that people are affordable to play in that period of time... 

Every single problem i listed here, is solved. 

And this is what my idea works at. 

It creates a new way of finding matches to play, based on players time avaliability, in wich this information is gathered by the system and creates then planned matches to the future... In an automated process. Why discussing whit other players if you are avaible a X time or not, if you can play then or there... if you can Automate the whole process?  Man, its basically like producing wheat whiteout any single machine!!! 

Lets automate the process of finding available times for everyone!!! :) 

So, here is the link for my idea, in case you are intersted in it :

 https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/1632-a-new-multiplayer-system

If anyone would like to discuss this, feel free. I'd like to know the opinon of the community if multiplayer can be boring or not, as i currently see it. 

The part in multiplayer i mostly dislike is the inability of finishing multiplayher matches because of all the factors above... and being forced to play only the early game, when i want to play the late game whit people, not bots. 

Does most people in games2gather community also feels like this way?

Yea. But imagine if we had the ability to automate the process of finding people to play whiteout worrying in finding out when people are availble to play?

What you stated, is possible. And some people can like that. But most people can't afford to do what you did. Instead of planning up matches they just say "Ooooh it's so difficult! I better play as long as i can and forget the continuity of matches!"

I just met a very dear friend of mine who just said exactly this phrase to me after i ask him to stop his multiplayer match (4people) to continue in a later period of time, in which he refused to continue:

"I have tons of matches planned for the future". Explaining his clear hopelessness for continuing our matches. 

Is that how 4xx games are meant to be?

I must agree with the fact that the system needs a rework. At the very least a way to make joining someone else's faction after the game starts more appealing, since once someone leaves, it sorta ruins the rest of the game if too many people leave with them, and it gets really irritating to play a medium sized game of 6 players, then 2 need to leave and *bam* you have 2 bloodthirsty AIs after you... This sort of ruins the returning game experience, and ends up with 10 unfinished games. I have only ever successfully finished 1 multiplayer game that contains more than 2 players. I finished 4 matches vs another person, and about 20 on AI.

There should be an option in multi-player for players to 'resign' and have their whole empire razed rather than have an AI take over. 

The games with more players, sometimes 10-12, are enticing and for as long as everyone stays, they are definitely entertaining. Eventually though people will leave, and when you have that many players deciding on a time to save and reschedule for is difficult. When AI start taking over a game of that size, it's no longer a multi-player so much as it is a co-op - not to mention the more AI making calculations in MP, the slower the turns tend to process.

This function could work a few ways:

1. Raze colonies and create hunting grounds where they were. I'm not convinced this is a good way as it gives a clear and quick advantage to any nearby remaining players.
2. Raze, but no leave hunting grounds. I'd say this is a fair compromise.
3. Raze, and destroy the systems. A more extreme route, but a way to take that part of the map out of the game altogether and keep the tension of the game going by also reducing the effective map size for the remaining players to compete over.

My vote would go for 3 or 2.