Replacing out

[Ircher]

like i said in the other thread, replacements hurt the flow of the game, and there should be a system in that *strongly* encourages finishing games you signed up for, though again i don't know a way to properly implement that in practice

This definitely needs to be a thing.

I think something as lenient as a 3-day ban on joining new games after replacing out of a game would work. It's not very punitive (3 days is rather short), but it does serve as a consequence and deterrent to nonchalantly replacing out. I think replacements happen a bit too much on this site, and that in turn has greatly influenced the outcomes of various games.

[Ythan]

Track reps in minus reps out per player and only allow those with a non negative score to join new games. More a conceptual jumping off point than an exact policy to be implemented.

[MURDERCAT]

I think you should have to replace in to a game for every 2 games you replace out of before signing up for a new game

[Ythan]

I was actually considering the other direction, requiring multiple reps in to equal one rep out.

[Ythan]

Obviously if that were implemented site wide though there wouldn't be enough replacement opportunities to go around.

[TemporalLich]

like i said in the other thread, replacements hurt the flow of the game, and there should be a system in that *strongly* encourages finishing games you signed up for, though again i don't know a way to properly implement that in practice

This definitely needs to be a thing.

I think something as lenient as a 3-day ban on joining new games after replacing out of a game would work. It's not very punitive (3 days is rather short), but it does serve as a consequence and deterrent to nonchalantly replacing out. I think replacements happen a bit too much on this site, and that in turn has greatly influenced the outcomes of various games.

I don't think it's fair to punish people who have good reasons to replace out. 3 days is a slap on the wrist but potentially missing a game in signups is not worth repping out of a game you honestly can't stand (a 3 day V/LA is not worth replacing out over).

same applies to a "karma" system where those who are replaced out too much are banned from joining new games

I am of course assuming replacements are

strictly

NAI and in good faith for this system.

[Ircher]

I don't think it's fair to punish people who have good reasons to replace out.

While you can view it as a punishment, it's not really that. It's more of assigning a tangible consequence to your actions. Also, even if a replace out is in good faith, it will still impact a game. This in itself is one of the primary problems with replacements as they are handled right now.

I am of course assuming replacements are strictly NAI and in good faith for this system.

I think you are going to have to change your assumption. In my experience, this is practically never true regardless of the underlying reason for the replacement.

[TemporalLich]

I don't think it's fair to punish people who have good reasons to replace out.

While you can view it as a punishment, it's not really that. It's more of assigning a tangible consequence to your actions. Also, even if a replace out is in good faith, it will still impact a game. This in itself is one of the primary problems with replacements as they are handled right now.

yeah, a NAI and good faith replacement will still affect a game mostly due to the slot being replaced with a different person who plays differently.

A 3 day new game ban should probably be phrased as a "cooldown" period instead of a ban to highlight it is not punitive but rather administrative in nature and also encourage players to stay in games they don't like playing. However this would require more oversight when it comes to force replacements for breaking game rules, as those will trigger the cooldown period as well (flaking should definitely warrant the cooldown period imo, I consider it worse than repping out of a game you can't bear to play).

[TemporalLich]

I am of course assuming replacements are strictly NAI and in good faith for this system.

I think you are going to have to change your assumption. In my experience, this is practically never true regardless of the underlying reason for the replacement.

Bad faith replacements can get warnings and new game bans as usual.

Good faith AI replacements are accidental breaches of game integrity. No laxity would be given in such cases but it would be a good idea to be notified why your replacement was bad so you can avoid such a problem in the future. (in fact, AI replacements are technically modkillable!)

[OkaPoka]

meh, indiscriminate punitive consequences might have the unintentional consequence of slowing down the queues and it might be worth letting game integrity be sabotaged a bit so we get better queue times (oh my god am i riot?)

[MURDERCAT]

I wonder what percentage of games have a replacement though, I bet it's over 50%

[OkaPoka]

it probably is closer to 100% than 50% and most games have multiple replacements

[TemporalLich]

meh, indiscriminate punitive consequences might have the unintentional consequence of slowing down the queues and it might be worth letting game integrity be sabotaged a bit so we get better queue times (oh my god am i riot?)

This is part of why I insist on a blanket new game ban policy on repping out be called a "cooldown" period - it's administrative in nature and also prevents selfish replace outs.

But yeah new game bans for having too many replace outs that will only be listed on repping into games is extremely punitive (imagine if you had such punishment applied to you) but also basically amounts to an indefinite new game ban in a just world. By basically removing players from the queues it will slow down queues and just snowball to those such banned having to appeal their /in bans to zoraster.

A cooldown still is punitive, but it is a slap on the wrist and is a good deterrent. Cooldowns are probably the best "stick" when it comes to handling the problem of replacments. I don't really have a good idea for "carrots" but these should encourage playing games to completion whether you /in or rep in.

pedit: My two modded game that didn't have a replacement to this date were one that had a modkill because of Twilight Extender shenanigans, and one that was incredibly short due to quickhammers

[MURDERCAT]

it probably is closer to 100% than 50% and most games have multiple replacements

Yeah all of my last 10 games had replacements. It is pretty unfortunate that it is so common. I understand that things come up but is it really so hard to find 13 people that can commit to a game?

[Ircher]

Yeah, the number of games without replacements is probably 90% or higher. I've had a couple games with no replacements though (one was fairly recent); those are always nice to mod.

[OkaPoka]

hard to know tbh its always been like this from my experience, we could pull from other sites but i don't know about them enough to really speak about it other than vague handwavy stuff

[TemporalLich]

part of why I don't think replacements are a big deal when it comes to game integrity or game health is because they're so common I don't put much weight on them

this is a site meta issue though - all replace outs impact game health and some impact game integrity - but the perceived impact is low and honestly I don't put much weight on players repping out, though I would like to not rep out if I could because I don't count games you rep out of as games you have played.

[Infinity 324]

it probably is closer to 100% than 50% and most games have multiple replacements

Yeah all of my last 10 games had replacements. It is pretty unfortunate that it is so common. I understand that things come up but is it really so hard to find 13 people that can commit to a game?

Tbh I think there will always be a lot of replacements in long games, people are bad at planning. Hopefully there are things we can do to mitigate that though

[DrippingGoofball]

I am of course assuming replacements are strictly NAI and in good faith for this system.

In my experience, replacements are strongly AI.

If you want to hone your scum game, hit up the replacement thread and chances are you're going to end up with a scum slot.

I believe that the situation has gotten much worse over the history of the site. I would say that about 60-70% of my personal replacements were scum slots recently.

========================

Why do players give up the moment they get a red role PM?

What can we do to fix it?

• Allow one or more scum coaches who aren't playing the game to motivate scum players in the PT
  
  
• Foster a culture of good sportsmanship where being scum means "giving the town a good game."
  
• Do you prefer playing town? Remember that you owe your pleasure playing town to the scum team
  trying to win
  .
  
• Townies should make it a tradition to thank the scum for a good game whether they won or lost.
  
• Scum isn't "evil" they are the game's unsung heroes. Let's remove the "unsung" part.

[DrippingGoofball]

We can't stop replacements.

But we need to make replacements NAI again. Right now town could win games just by eliminating all replacements.

[TemporalLich]

In my experience, replacements are strongly AI.

If you want to hone your scum game, hit up the replacement thread and chances are you're going to end up with a scum slot.

I believe that the situation has gotten much worse over the history of the site. I would say that about 60-70% of my personal replacements were scum slots recently.

Report players to the listmods if they replace out to spew alignment.

This is a site meta issue but this still puts the onus on the players.

Why do players give up the moment they get a red role PM?

What can we do to fix it?

• Allow one or more scum coaches who aren't playing the game to motivate scum players in the PT
  
  
• Foster a culture of good sportsmanship where being scum means "giving the town a good game."
  
• Do you prefer playing town? Remember that you owe your pleasure playing town to the scum team
  trying to win
  .
  
• Townies should make it a tradition to thank the scum for a good game whether they won or lost.
  
• Scum isn't "evil" they are the game's unsung heroes. Let's remove the "unsung" part.

Report the player to the listmods if they are replacing out upon seeing a red Role PM and not giving a good reason. That is a bad faith replacement. That player is not only making an AI replacement but also practicing unsportsmanlike conduct.

1 - Should not be considered Normal as you're allowing outside influences to coach players. Probably acceptable in non-bastard Themes as long as it is clearly marked. This was workshopped for Newbie games, but I think the proposal fell through.
2 - I would not know how to do that myself, besides that is a cultural shift that would likely take a while to implement.
3 - Good idea, gamethrowing makes games unfun.
4 - Probably another cultural shift is required for this but we can at least not be sore winners or sore losers. Mafia with no third parties could be flavored as a zero-sum game, and those aren't fun.
5 - This would require fundamentally changing the language we define to use in Mafia to the point of changing the name of the game itself.

All in all I suggest making losing fun. Losing should be preferable to replacing out even if you're one who cares about winrate or ELO (not the same thing as ELo - ELO is a rating system) in Mafia.

[TemporalLich]

I'll compose my thoughts:

Players should be at liberty to replace out of games they legitimately can't bear to play or are unable to play

Alignment indicative replacements and replacements that are not replaced in in a timely matter harm game integrity
All replacements harm game health
A sign of bad game health is you as a player not wanting to play the game because of something that happened in the game
A sign of bad game integrity is you as a player feeling the game doesn't matter because of something that happened in the game
A 3 day new game cooldown period for replacing out should be considered in a separate thread
A /in ban is likely to result in a de facto indefinite new game ban
Clearly bad faith replacements should be reported to the list mods

[DrippingGoofball]

5 - This would require fundamentally changing the language we define to use in Mafia to the point of changing the name of the game itself.

I meant this to apply in post-game, during the game scum are dastardly masterminds.

Culture change happens when people decide to model a new behavior and inspire others.

[DrippingGoofball]

Clearly bad faith replacements should be reported to the list mods

How do you prove that someone got a red PM, stewed for a few days with lame posting, then noped out of playing scum?

You can't.

That's why we need to brand playing scum as noble and selfless.

[DrippingGoofball]

Maybe mods can use the first post of the scum PT to add a pep talk about how important scum are to the game, and they should play scum the way they want others to play scum when they are town.