Let's Study Games - Redemption Mechanics

[zoraster]

That's really tough to argue your way out of in an FTC, especially the way they're laid out in LSGs. If site culture really is the underlying issue with returnees on MS, then I'm wondering if the solution lies in our collective approach to the endgame. We have a lot of focus on who played 'perfectly', who can sell that they made all the right choices, when frankly that's not an accurate way of viewing any game of Survivor. There are VERY few perfect games, and it's possible we'd be better off if we ditched the obsession with them. Obviously finalists are incentivized to sell their game in the best possible light, but maybe juries should be a bit more skeptical about that. It might help with the returnee problem, amongst other potential benefits.

At risk of taking this into a tangent, what do you see as a good alternative approach? I don't expect any player to play perfectly, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to judge a player's performance except on some scale of how "well" they did, whatever that means to me.

Is it just a sense of emphasis that overly punishes "mistakes"?

[Klick]

Is it just a sense of emphasis that overly punishes "mistakes"?

Basically this yeah. If our community cared less about punishing clear mistakes made by finalists, then we might be more willing to hear out returnees. I think it's pretty easy to focus on what's obvious about a finalist's game though - it makes it easier to make a decision. And often those obvious things can sort of be a juror's 'first impression' of a finalist's game that's difficult to shake off subconsciously.

[Malkon05]

So my understanding of your argument is that:

- the community has a significant portion of people that would outright refuse to vote for a returnee, for the sole reason of them having been eliminated from the game previously
- this attitude is the problem with having returnees in LSGs, as opposed to the implementation of the returnee mechanic, because no matter how a player returns, there will still be some players who refuse to vote for returning players to win
- if returnees were to be implemented (and you seem to like them as twists themselves), then there needs to be a change in the community's attitude towards them, instead of a change in their implementation

Does this sum up your argument against returning players in LSGs, Malkon?

This is actually a pretty good summary of the long ranty thing I did

first point: I would clarify, significant enough. On a strict ratio basis I think there are more people at least willing to entertain the possibility of voting a returnee than not, but with the inherent bias that for their vote a returnee would have to do more to prove they deserve it over people who played the whole time. There are people who would flat out "never vote a returnee" but I wouldn't call it a significant number of people, but significant enough that it does affect games with this mechanic.

second point: correct.

third point: Mostly yes. If there's a way to actually implement returnees into a game in a way people won't have returnee bias, I'm all for it. I just don't know if such a magical solution exists.

Aside from that you summed me up very well <3

[DeathNote]

I agree with Klick that no one is perfect but the nature of our FTC speeches and how we pitch ourselves is to put up a facade that we made all the right choices and should be the "obvious" winner. Seldom do you see people pointing out their flaws and will often even avoid questions where they are asked to point out their own flaws and that of their opponents.

We can argue why people vote for who in an endgame FTC as much as we want but the bottom line is that we have only had a handful of players even reach endgame as a returnee and never had anyone win so I'm of the opinion that it isn't a mechanic our site meta particularly respects.

[zoraster]

I agree with Klick that no one is perfect but the nature of our FTC speeches and how we pitch ourselves is to put up a facade that we made all the right choices and should be the "obvious" winner. Seldom do you see people pointing out their flaws and will often even avoid questions where they are asked to point out their own flaws and that of their opponents.

I mean a lot of this is just effective advocacy. I don't see a reason that's a problem.

People avoiding questions often just comes down to the format we have to use, which is that people ask and answer multiple questions simultaneously.

[Haschel Cedricson]

I agree with Klick that no one is perfect but the nature of our FTC speeches and how we pitch ourselves is to put up a facade that we made all the right choices and should be the "obvious" winner. Seldom do you see people pointing out their flaws and will often even avoid questions where they are asked to point out their own flaws and that of their opponents.

I mean a lot of this is just effective advocacy. I don't see a reason that's a problem.

People avoiding questions often just comes down to the format we have to use, which is that people ask and answer multiple questions simultaneously.

The July Let's Study Games is going to be about Final Tribal Council, btw.

[zoraster]

Neat

[Cheery Dog]

Arguments about just doing away with returnee twists because a returnee has not been able to win a game yet so not make sense to me.
And I suspect these same people would be arguing for removing them as a thing if a returnee had won a game.

Every game only has 1 winner. With the amount of returnees that have made it to the end so far, there is nothing to actually judge on, just because some have got there does not mean that one should have won.

[kdowns]

This site can't handle returnees as a concept so they probably shouldn't exist. I've returned to games twice now and both times felt like hitting a brick wall when you come back. Players alive have no respect for this mechanic and normally that's because people feel safe in their own gameplay so there isn't an attempt to use the mechanic to help themselves.

I just don't think players are going to ever take this mechanic seriously so maybe we just let it die. Now doing variations of it with the fittest challenge isn't bad because the player who gets voted out isn't missing out on gameplay. It's akin to being sent to exile.

Bottom line though, in order for this to work, we have to have a majority of players being willing to accept it as a feasible way to win and I don't think we are there.

I am really only going to speak about my experience from Greece as I was a returnee in that game, but this is something that I had dealt with when I had come back into that game was that I literally had hit a brick wall when I returned into the game and I was only gone for a few rounds that game. That and literally the challenge I got back could be done in a way were I had 0% chance in winning the immunity for that round, which meant I was eliminated right as soon as I got back into the game.

In fact, Dark Rey and Mipha are the only finalist returnees I can think of, though I may be forgetting some.

Monika returned in Greece one round into the Merge and ended up losing the FTC vote 5-4, but (sorry Ceph ily) for a time we used the term "Monika'd" to describe a player having a particularly bad FTC performance. Relevantly though, Monika wasn't out of the game for any meaningful amount of time, she re-entered the game when the first RI twist ended immediately after she was voted out.

In Monika's defense though, I spent that whole FTC grilling them because I didn't like how a returnee could have the possibility at winning that game... Though I believe I was just really really salty at that time with how I was treated when I came back into the game.

[kdowns]

I'll say what I was going for with the two returnee twists I designed.

Terra Incognito from Survivor Civilization was ripped off wholesale from Arkham City's Death Row. In the latter game, I as Clock King got my ass handed to me because I didn't know what to do anymore. Death Row served as a wakeup call and if it had not been for the worst Riddler ever I think I would have improved. I wanted to recreate that experience in a game that I knew was going to cast a number of new/nearly-new players.

The School of Friendship from Survivor: Equestria was done in service to the game's overall thesis of "Friendship Is Magic". Here returning to the game meant encouraging people to vote you back in, which led to ultimately a stronger landing for Pinkie Pie. The goal in the game design wasn't "How can we return a player to the game?" but "How can we have a mechanic where friendship is important?"

You know that Riddler was kind of an asshat though.


(For those that aren't aware. I was that Riddler)

[kdowns]

Though I will say that if it's done right I believe that a returnee twist can happen. Also I do think that just moving forward we should probably publicly announce if a game will or will not have a returnee twist, because I do know that some players also just check out at the TC that they are getting eliminated at especially if there is no chance that they can fight back their elimination, they can look at the possibility at getting back into the game, and sometimes returnees with a vendetta make games much more interesting.

[Cheery Dog]

I'll say what I was going for with the two returnee twists I designed.

Terra Incognito from Survivor Civilization was ripped off wholesale from Arkham City's Death Row. In the latter game, I as Clock King got my ass handed to me because I didn't know what to do anymore. Death Row served as a wakeup call and if it had not been for the worst Riddler ever I think I would have improved. I wanted to recreate that experience in a game that I knew was going to cast a number of new/nearly-new players.

The School of Friendship from Survivor: Equestria was done in service to the game's overall thesis of "Friendship Is Magic". Here returning to the game meant encouraging people to vote you back in, which led to ultimately a stronger landing for Pinkie Pie. The goal in the game design wasn't "How can we return a player to the game?" but "How can we have a mechanic where friendship is important?"

You know that Riddler was kind of an asshat though.


(For those that aren't aware. I was that Riddler)

Mods still made a bad judgement call on assuming my vote was locked in on death row with Clock King's elimination! It might not have moved, but I wasn't happy with that tribal ending early.

[Fluminator]

I remember Riddler didn't show up the whole game except the one round he showed up to vote Clock King before logging off again until he was unanimously booted lol.

[DeathNote]

Arguments about just doing away with returnee twists because a returnee has not been able to win a game yet so not make sense to me.
And I suspect these same people would be arguing for removing them as a thing if a returnee had won a game.

Every game only has 1 winner. With the amount of returnees that have made it to the end so far, there is nothing to actually judge on, just because some have got there does not mean that one should have won.

Because there have been lots of returnee twists and very few have reached FTC with obviously none of them winning. I'd be willing to bet money on returnees not ever winning a game in the next 5 years.


Could it happen eventually? Idk I guess anything is possible but I have serious doubts that this twist provides anything beneficial towards games.

[Cephrir]

i guess i'm not as down on their chances. to me several players coming close is actually pretty good. i don't love return mechanics for game purity reasons but i feel like the evidence seems to indicate they have if anything a surprisingly good chance of winning

[Cephrir]

i don't really feel like doing the math to figure out how many games returnees should have been expected to win if their chances were equal to everyone else's -- which they obviously will never be given they were already voted out once for at least some reason and have missed some time to connect with the players -- but i bet it isn't more than the number who have been one vote away or real ftc contenders or one immunity away

[zoraster]

for any really enterprising awesome people, one thing i'd like to know is who got to compete to come back in (or whatever mechanic) and at what point(s) they were reinserted.

[zoraster]

which they obviously will never be given they were already voted out once for at least some reason and have missed some time to connect with the players

this assumes people who are voted out weren't voted out because they had really strong chances of winning the game. Now we can talk about how seeming like you're going to win the game too early is a huge flaw, etc. but especially if the mechanic is known ahead of time (so you can play theoretically a bit more out in front), it's worth considering.

[Cephrir]

it does, yes. but unless there's an idol or swap screw involved, usually a voted out player has made some sort of error that hurt their chances of winning, right

i'd like to think so at least

[Silverclaw]

which they obviously will never be given they were already voted out once for at least some reason and have missed some time to connect with the players

this assumes people who are voted out weren't voted out because they had really strong chances of winning the game. Now we can talk about how seeming like you're going to win the game too early is a huge flaw, etc. but especially if the mechanic is known ahead of time (so you can play theoretically a bit more out in front), it's worth considering.

Given how most redemptions are really early (like first few votes early), most RI's probably aren't considering who's most likely to win.

[Klick]

Based on D3f's list, there are only two games (KSS and Equestria) where there was a redemption mechanic that early. Unless you're talking about the eventual returnees themselves being from the first few rounds?

[Haschel Cedricson]

Here are the games I helped mod:

SotF: Snowy Owl eliminated at TC 12 (F10), returns at TC 17 (F4 -> F5), eliminated same TC
Equestria: Pinkie Pie eliminated at TC 4 (F19), returns at TC 5 (F18), eliminated from game TC 12 (F11)
Civilization: Washington and Hannibal both eliminated TC 4 (F18), both return at merge/TC 10 (F12), eliminated back-to-back in TCs 12/13. Willem is eliminated TC 5 (F16), does not return but does become a juror.

I started to do Barely Survivor but, uh, pass.

[Malkon05]

If we aren't counting survivor meet, the only game I had a returnee mechanic for was PCW:

Oaki was the 3rd boot, Ancient Oven was one of the two 4th boots, both returned at f13 merge (3 rounds on RC for Oaki, 2 rounds for Ancient Oven). Mipha was idoled out during the 7th vote and returned 3 rounds later at the final 9 from RC. All three finalists made the final 9. Oaki was then eliminated officially in 9th, Ancient Oven 7th and Mipha lost FTC 6-5-4 (she was the 5, though one of those votes was an advantage an ally gave her).

RC = Resurrection Chamber which was like RI, but you have lives and can opt to quit at any time like EoE (which 3 people chose to do).

[CaptainMeme]

RtC: MvM eliminated at TC 6 (F11), returned TC 7 (F10->F11), Eliminated same TC

Barely Survivor:
note: I count the Shipwreck as the time when the Hole returnees returned. They were technically officially returned to the game a little earlier as their own tribe, but they did not meet up with the other players again until shipwreck. Michael Cera and Zero III would technically classify as returnees if I counted the time their new tribe formed as the moment of return.

Dark Rey eliminated TC1 (F24), returned TC10 (F11 -> F13), Survived to FTC and lost 4-3-1 as the 3
Cleric eliminated TC1 (F24, returned TC10 (F11 -> F13), eliminated same TC (F13), returned TC13 (F10 -> F11), eliminated TC19 (F5) on firemaking
Grogu eliminated TC7 (F12), returned TC9 (F10->F12), eliminated TC20 (F4) on firemaking
Ranger eliminated TC7 (F12), returned TC9 (F10->F12), eliminated TC12 (F11)

[CaptainMeme]

If we aren't counting survivor meet, the only game I had a returnee mechanic for was PCW:

Oaki was the 3rd boot, Ancient Oven was one of the two 4th boots, both returned at f13 merge (3 rounds on RC for Oaki, 2 rounds for Ancient Oven). Mipha was idoled out during the 7th vote and returned 3 rounds later at the final 9 from RC. All three finalists made the final 9. Oaki was then eliminated officially in 9th, Ancient Oven 7th and Mipha lost FTC 6-5-4 (she was the 5, though one of those votes was an advantage an ally gave her).

RC = Resurrection Chamber which was like RI, but you have lives and can opt to quit at any time like EoE (which 3 people chose to do).

Should be noted here (if I'm remembering correctly?) Oaki won every single immunity from his return until his elimination, otherwise he probably would have gone home earlier.