Anyone who has played any game online knows the frustration that comes from your teammates bailing on you mid-match. Over the years different games have tried plenty of tactics to discourage players from quitting in the middle of the game, to varying degrees of success. The developers over at Friday The 13th had an interesting new take on the matter.
In blog post last week, community leader ShiftySamurai announced the creation of The Salt Mines.
Now, when players quit, they will begin earning a new type of currency: Salt. But, Salt won’t be used to purchase anything. Instead, accumulating Salt get you sent to The Salt Mines. Salt can be accumulated in several different ways. I’ll let ShiftySamurai explain:
“Earning Salt is EASY! Just do any of the following:
1. Leave a match early, like a jerk
2. Leave a match while being killed, like a big jerk
3. Leave a match as Jason, like a super jerk
4. Leave a match while hosting, like a mega jerk”
Once their Salt reserves are high enough, players will be banished to The Salt Mines. This special matchmaking playlist will consist only of serial quitters, keeping them out of the pool of good and honest players who don’t leave their fellow gamers hanging. This rule only applies to Quick Play. Private matches will remain open to anyone.
They aren’t releasing exactly how much Salt you will earn for these offenses, or how long it takes to go away because “that would be like a “how to” for trolls.” But eventually Salt will decrease and players will be allowed back into the main matchmaking playlist.
It will be interesting to see if this will have the desired effect and reduce quitters in the game as a whole, or if it will simply become an attraction for trolls. Either way, this new feature will launch with the game’s next engine upgrade update.