Why not.

Keep in mind that a lot of the time people aren't choosing to leave. Rather they are being thrown out of the server. I am not sure why, but last week it was horrendous.

The easiest way to do this is, at the beginning of the match, you put a down payment of "x" ISK (could be 50k, could be 100k, etc) by reserving your contract.

All mercs should get 3 "free" passes a day. There are connection issues, Scotty issues, not deploying with the full squad, etc. So everyone should get 3 free "leave battles" free.

However, anything past the third one, you agree to forfeit your reserve if you leave before using the "return to merc quarters" at the EOM screen. Then, as you said, take whatever that down payment was and split it evenly amongst the rest of your team. If there are only 5 of you left, that means 11 people jetted. 11 * 100k is 1.1 million / 5 = about 220k. Not too shabby.

Here is the one HUGE problem with this. There are mercs with HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, up into the billions, of ISK. Hell, I'm only at about 41 million and 100k is a drop in the bucket. If we want to make it hurt them, set it to either 100k OR 2% of your total ISK, whichever is greater. Even for me, this is just over 800,000 ISK. For someone sitting at 500 million, you are talking a 10 million ISK hit. That is almost enough of a deterrent to keep people from leaving. If you do leave, your teammates are going to get rewarded for it.

On the flip side, if you only have about a million ISK , you are losing 100K if you bail. That is 10% of your total but you aren't paying the exorbitant fees those with huge wallets have. It is likely you will be getting a nice bump from those high rollers who do leave so it is worth getting stomped a bit to make a nice payday.

Why not.

Keep in mind that a lot of the time people aren't choosing to leave. Rather they are being thrown out of the server. I am not sure why, but last week it was horrendous.

... set it to either 100k OR 2% of your total ISK, whichever is greater.

Well I would think that the paying when you go in could cause a glitch where if you pay the 2% (which I like a ease for the beginners and a big hit for those sitting on a mountain) at the end of the battle it,l be split up and you will be may less profit no matter what.... say you pay the 10 mill ism and then you finish the battle with nobody leaving... you get about 250k+ lets say 500k payback from the split.... you are now 250k down profit... that's why I'm thinking the pay to leave might be better

And I ya the 3 for free could be good cause ik I used to get on and play like half of my first battle then just go "nope" and play a different game

Carrot > Stick

Folks are refusing to play certain matches for a reason. In many instances, the pay of a match simply isn't worth the effort. If those problem matches persist after squad-size changes, I suggest we make problem matches into opportunities using some form of an underdog bonus ...

Give players a reason to defy the odds, and they'll do exactly that.

I believe that if we turn bad matches into opportunities, we will see player behaviors change.
Better morale. Better matches. Better user experience.

I feel this would work much better.

In the meantime what everyone needs to realize is that the answer is not to force people to sit through protostomps.

The answer is to find a way to balance matches regularly.

In the week I've been back on I've only seen 1 protostomp and that was today