Why does town do so badly with the White Flag mechanic?

[chennisden]

it is detrimental to the game's atmosphere to demand others replace out, particularly if it's not on the basis of activity but rather player expectations of how a player should play the game

It does leave some leeway around for inactivity though

Obviously this should be done privately with the moderator in terms of activity.

[Creature]

I don't think it's good to demand others to replace out. Would rather just have stricter activity rules so everyone knows what to expect.

[chennisden]

Yet mods refuse to do this anyway

[chennisden]

It's really, really easy to tell when players are breaking this in spirit.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect mods to just force replace them without warning at that point. Yet mods refuse to do this

[Oversoul]

Replacements are pretty detrimental to the game state

[Creature]

If only we could stimulate players to stop replacing out.

Or like start not allowing them into our games.

[RadiantCowbells]

Can we talk about how both scum replaced out of grey flag while scum were at L1

Or how half the town replaced out of FOTM because they were gonna lose

Why does this keep happening

[chennisden]

I forgot who said this

But they suggested "replace out = temporary signup ban"

[chennisden]

Are there issues with that proposal? Yes. But I think this is a good first step towards fixing a big problem

[chennisden]

If only we could stimulate players to stop replacing out.

Or like start not allowing them into our games.

Hard to do

[chennisden]

Idk

This might make people take prods more seriously:

If you get prodded, the mod will search for a replacement. If none is found then great you can stay

I've never been prodded before and I've had some times when I was REALLY busy.

[Creature]

I forgot who said this

But they suggested "replace out = temporary signup ban"

I think that should only happen if they replace out of multiple games and try to sign up for other games right after.

[Creature]

Idk

This might make people take prods more seriously:

If you get prodded, the mod will search for a replacement. If none is found then great you can stay

I've never been prodded before and I've had some times when I was REALLY busy.

I don't like prods because it's not fair for players that post a ton of content then disappears for about two or more days out of exhaustion/to focus elsewhere while there are other players posting one "content" post every two days to dodge prods.

Frequently I end seeing a ton of 10 or less posters by the end of a day.

[chennisden]

Idk

This might make people take prods more seriously:

If you get prodded, the mod will search for a replacement. If none is found then great you can stay

I've never been prodded before and I've had some times when I was REALLY busy.

I don't like prods because it's not fair for players that post a ton of content then disappears for about two or more days out of exhaustion/to focus elsewhere while there are other players posting one "content" post every two days to dodge prods.

Frequently I end seeing a ton of 10 or less posters by the end of a day.

This is true, but post amount isn't a good measure of content. Wallposters post more content in one post than I do in two pages of spam and fluff

I honestly think the current system is unusable and moderator discretion should be used instead.

In the first case just "poke" them (i.e. send them a PM saying "Hey, post!" but don't look for a replacement) and for the second case I think you should start looking for a replacement.

[popsofctown]

Winrates aside forum mafia doesn't really have a mechanic where the people who would be enjoyable to play with get put into the same games as other people who would be enjoyable to play with and the people who aren't play with people who aren't.
If you leave a League of Legends game when you queue up again the system puts you with other people likely to leave a League of Legends game (actually mostly it just bans you but I think there is a short probation period where it's like that). Forum mafia is totally self-directed queueing with little-to-no playerlist control.
The dream would be some kind of system where at the end of the game you rate the other players and you can give the guy who met the letter but not the spirit of the activity requirement a -1 and then you don't have to do something as dicey as banning that guy you just making him play with other people who earned a -1. Eventually those people are playing hellhole games with eachother and some of them quit, rather than the current system they keep playing and enjoy the energy the games have without adding much of their own like a deer tick. And you give good fun players a +3.

I would probably enjoy a bastard game with a player who got a sane cop role PM but was informed by the mod he was actually cult recruiting and not investigating the whole time on Day 4 better than the most balanced normal setup ever run if the playerlist in the bastard game was much better.
Last I heard numbers were down not up so mafiascum can't actually tier out players to create semi-invitational playerlists in this way. But playerlists are probably much more of the answer to the riddles than setup mechanics. With data like this they have to be. It's not "what does a vengeful mafia goon, who causes 1 step towards the game's flag mechanic, do to the balance of a mafia setup in theory", it's "what kind of person is looking to join 9p opens with roles like vengeful mafia goon, what kind of player is avoiding those types of games, what kind of player replaces out from that kind of game, what kind of player replaces in". The best scum players seem to be able to bulldoze through anything but a hard guilty and it's amazing. So if you're going as extreme as saying "when we play games with hard guilties from night instead they play out differently" yeah you're not wrong. To the extent that night actions can focus the dayplay they sometimes do that but it's soft PRS that do that more, hard guilties actually just timewalk a day, a soft guilty will actually create a dayplay eddy. But probably it's the wrong questions and answers. Games without 50% winrates can be awesome, especially if they have a hidden knowledge component, like netrunner is awesome.

[popsofctown]

IDK if that wall had a point

[geometry]

What's to prevent personal bias?

[popsofctown]

law of large numbers

to some extent "personal bias" can be valid if you are active, 60% winrate, but can't finish a game without calling 3 players a **** you should be gradually ostracized

[geometry]

I don't like the idea of ostracizing players in such a manner

I'd prefer that these sorts of players change rather than be "banned" from playing with enjoyable players

[popsofctown]

In theory they could get upvoted a bunch in their purgatory games then graduate back up to playing with the enjoyable players again.

Before that point, they deserve their punishment essentially tautologically, if the ratings don't actually reflect the impact they are having on other players, then the good players they are not getting to play with also aren't actually that enjoyable to play with so it's not any punishment at all.

[geometry]

What you're saying is that ratings even out to be universal and I don't buy that

The playerbase isn't "large" enough for it to "smooth" out.

[popsofctown]

that criticism may be valid

[geometry]

I also don't think that I'd sign up for a site with this kind of system and it would deter newbies.

Like, officially it'd start strictly as an activity score. But soon it'd devolve into a "do I like this player" or a "am I salty as hell" rating.

[geometry]

It's also mostly pointless. People sign up for the games they want to sign up for (this is mostly setup-wise).

Players already self-regulate to some point with blacklists.

Also, who's going to mod the "bad players?" The "bad mods?"

This has a lot of parallels with US education ("bad students" get "bad teachers") which is a complete and utter objective failure.

[popsofctown]

I also don't think that I'd sign up for a site with this kind of system and it would deter newbies.

Like, officially it'd start strictly as an activity score. But soon it'd devolve into a "do I like this player" or a "am I salty as hell" rating.

nah this is wrong according empirical data, games like League of Legends and Overwatch have incorporated these systems and found them to mostly indicate actual toxic players, leavers, and cheaters.

Lots of people promoted this viewpoint before they were widely tried and it was interesting to muse about whether it would pan out that way or not.

But this experiment has been run already. File it away with "I don't think hot water would freeze faster, that doesn't make sense"