Replacing out

[NorwegianboyEE]

I think it's better for people to replace out of a game than to just not play.
For example, i've signed up to some games where i roll scum and there is a lot of heavy mech talk and huge blocks of text, and i just don't feel like doing anything because the game is so dull for me. In that situation i should obviously try to be better, but all in all i think it's better to stop dragging down your team by just replacing out rather than insisting you should keep yourself playing even if you just aren't feeling it at all.

[T3]

I've been thinking about this for a while and I want to revive this thread, specifically because I've been looking around on MU and I like their replacement policy

[T3]

I feel like there are just so many replace-outs on this site. In a recent mini normal that I modded 7 of the 13 players replaced out: viewtopic.php?t=90494, I'd say that on average about 15-25% of players in a given game will replace out, and sometimes you get hell games like this with 11 replace-outs with 15 players. viewtopic.php?t=90168 - I would very much support a rule that says that you can't join a game for 2 weeks after replacing out but I want to hear what others think.

[DkKoba]

I support some level of flake management being implemented that is above what is currently done, whereas MU's system is a little too strict and forces players to interact with people they might not want to anymore in a game, ultimately it is the game mod's job to take care of players being problematic and not having people leave around 1 player's behavior.

Incentivizing being more conservative about your replace outs while acknowledging circumstances change with how long our deadlines are here. we need a middle ground here

[T3]

I don't know, I kind of like the fact that MU forces players to interact with people they don't want to anymore. As long as no one is breaking any rules then isn't it just part of mafia that sometimes things get heated and emotional?

[biancospino]

If an emergency prevents you from being able to play the game, then you should contact the host and request to be replaced, while at the same time providing them with a valid explanation of why you require a replacement.

Now, I've never actually played on MU so I may be mistaken, but I think this is like, a very bad policy? It actively prevents players that may have an emergency

of a personal nature

to replace out, unless perhaps they're personally close enough to the mod. In general I do believe that any policy that

requires

players to tell anyone anything about their meatword life is horrid

[DkKoba]

I don't know, I kind of like the fact that MU forces players to interact with people they don't want to anymore. As long as no one is breaking any rules then isn't it just part of mafia that sometimes things get heated and emotional?

yes which is why like it is the onus of the game mod to make sure things are kept to acceptable levels. but sometimes it does get to the point where its just unacceptable and 2 people are just straight up not getting along.


essentially like instead of how MU is like "never replace out over not liking playing with someone else" go with "have the game mod actually moderate the game to disallow situations that might make players want to replace out" as well as force replacing problem players clearly in the wrong rather than allowing the game to bleed replacements due to 1 slot, and only in really dire situations go with the replace out there.

[Zachrulez]

Oh we're actively talking about punishing replace outs now? That definitely won't chill site activity even more...

Punishing replace outs isn't going to do anything but make the people who are angry about it feel better. It's definitely not going to help the site and it's not going to stop anyone from actually flaking. It might actually prevent them from returning if the site culture is more hostile to flaking actually.

The only real practical thing I think can be done is game limits. You simply prevent people from signing up to too many games. That actually would limit the damage a single user could do when the need to replace out arises.

[DkKoba]

Oh we're actively talking about punishing replace outs now? That definitely won't chill site activity even more...

Punishing replace outs isn't going to do anything but make the people who are angry about it feel better. It's definitely not going to help the site and it's not going to stop anyone from actually flaking. It might actually prevent them from returning if the site culture is more hostile to flaking actually.

The only real practical thing I think can be done is game limits. You simply prevent people from signing up to too many games. That actually would limit the damage a single user could do when the need to replace out arises.

We don't need players that don't take their commitment to signing up for the game seriously. I'll take less fired games over consistent sub outs

[DkKoba]

Haven't seen you actually playing or hosting in a while regardless

[Zachrulez]

Haven't seen you actually playing or hosting in a while regardless

Sorry I didn't realize we were gatekeeping opinions.

[TemporalLich]

I still believe replacement requests should have good faith assumed unless good faith cannot be assumed.

I also believe players should be able to contact the game moderator if someone is being toxic and making the game unfun for them.

[DkKoba]

Haven't seen you actually playing or hosting in a while regardless

Sorry I didn't realize we were gatekeeping opinions.

your opinion was that we need to just deal with people who are flakey because "lol no games" while having no skin in the game. its frankly, obnoxious.

[Zachrulez]

Haven't seen you actually playing or hosting in a while regardless

Sorry I didn't realize we were gatekeeping opinions.

your opinion was that we need to just deal with people who are flakey because "lol no games" while having no skin in the game. its frankly, obnoxious.

Actually making zero effort to actually read and digest anything I say is kind of obnoxious. You're acting like I've never played a game of mafia in my life when I've put 6 years into this site and dealt with this problem for literally all of that time.

Edit: More to the point it's openly toxic to instill a culture where players are

forced

to finish a game upon reaching a point where they either can't continue or are finding the experience miserable for whatever reason. There is definitely a game or two that I would have loved to have been able to have just left because the players in it were so openly toxic to me it was suffocating. To have had someone like you around back then telling me I'm not worth having around for feeling like that is frankly insulting.

[DkKoba]

Haven't seen you actually playing or hosting in a while regardless

Sorry I didn't realize we were gatekeeping opinions.

your opinion was that we need to just deal with people who are flakey because "lol no games" while having no skin in the game. its frankly, obnoxious.

Actually making zero effort to actually read and digest anything I say is kind of obnoxious. You're acting like I've never played a game of mafia in my life when I've put 6 years into this site and dealt with this problem for literally all of that time.

according to your profile you have not touched a game on this site since 2018 - an assertion that people won't play while you have no idea what the current playerbase is like is ignorant. I currently occasionally play, host, and review games. As does T3. I believe that perhaps, just perhaps, we have a significantly better perspective than random retired player who likely does not know the majority of the current players and is making an assertion about whether or not they would play with better flake moderation.

I read what you said. I digested it. I found it offensive coming from someone who only hangs around to comment in social threads.

MafiaUniverse has the most strict anti-flake rules of all mafia sites at the moment(I, actually play and have experienced mafia in several communities) and they are currently the number 1 site for longform mafia. People who are actually return players WANT flake moderation because it is a negative experience to have half the PL replace out midgame.

If a player doesn't want to play because they cannot be consistently flakey, they were never going to be a consistent presence in the first place, so the assertion it would prevent games from filling and kill the site, is frankly, extremely laughable.

So yes, I'm gatekeeping your opinion as it is completely uninformed and does not understand how active players and game mods actually feel. Consider not sticking your nose into topics that don't affect you nor that you have sufficient experience to give an informed answer on.

[Zachrulez]

So yes, I'm gatekeeping your opinion as it is completely uninformed and does not understand how active players and game mods actually feel. Consider not sticking your nose into topics that don't affect you nor that you have sufficient experience to give an informed answer on.

But I do have sufficient experience, probably in fact more of it than you do.

Yeah I'd probably be lost as all hell in the current game meta if I actually played a game in this day and age on the site but the reasons people don't finish games don't really change all that much. The stories are as old as time and I've experienced probably most of them. The fact that I haven't played a game in 8 years doesn't actually invalidate my experience re: replacing and the reasons for them and my opinion on why being outright hostile toward replace outs is probably a bad idea.

Edit: This is my last post RE:

You so don't bother replying because I won't be reading it.

(Actually this comes off too harsh. I don't want to continue back and forthing on public forum though and we're definitely past the point of actually contributing to the argument by doing it.)

[T-Bone]

I can't imagine punishing people for one off replacements...but we have and do punish serial replace outs.

If you're seeing higher replace outs I wonder what the source of that is. We did have high turnover in the Newbie queue, where newbies would log in once or twice and then never return necessitating their replacement. Since we direct newbies to mini normal and opens, we could be seeing a knock on effect from that.

There's no easy way to track this sort of thing to look for patterns, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss a way to do it anyway.

[Alisae]

1) MS's high replace rate is a blessing in disguise, except when it gets to the point where games are bleeding people faster than they can replace

[RadiantCowbells]

Anyone happen to have stats on DGB's claim that replace outs are very disproportionately done by scum?

[RH9]

I still believe replacement requests should have good faith assumed unless good faith cannot be assumed.

I also believe players should be able to contact the game moderator if someone is being toxic and making the game unfun for them.

Agreed.

[T3]

Anyone happen to have stats on DGB's claim that replace outs are very disproportionately done by scum?

I want to say that someone did a study on newbie games and found that scum are 50% more likely to rep out in newbies. In my experience, yeah, rep outs are very disproportionately done by scum tho.

[T3]

I still believe replacement requests should have good faith assumed unless good faith cannot be assumed.

I also believe players should be able to contact the game moderator if someone is being toxic and making the game unfun for them.

I think that if someone isn't having fun and can't figure out how to advance their win condition they should still be punished for replacing out. Obviously you shouldn't be punished for a one-off bad rep-out but I think that it's harmful to the game that players can replace out in these situations. What Norwee described in 75, for example, is exactly what I want to avoid.

[T3]

I absolutely agree that if someone is being toxic that's bad, and you should not be forced to play with the toxic player, but that seems like an issue for the moderators.

I've never gotten involved in an emotional conflict in a mafia game so I can't speak to that, but I've had many games in which I haven't had fun because of the gamestate, or due to constant mechtalk, or because I'm being scumread when I don't think I deserve it, but I've still persevered and kept going with the game. It's

my problem

that I'm not having fun, and I'm not about to harm the experience of the other players because of that.

[Gamma Emerald]

I don't think there should be punishments implemented for that but I do think there should be consideration by players of whether a game is within your bandwidth. If you struggle to get into mech-heavy games and end up replacing out of them a lot, maybe reconsider joining them?

[Ythan]

Temporarily limiting the number of games someone can join after some amount of flaking doesn't have to be framed as a punishment. It's just a matter of protecting game integrity, like requiring a number of completed games before a player can sign up in a certain queue or mod.