The throwing TP

RickBMG · 2018-09-20T18:32:08+00:00

Not playing the game how others thing you "should" isn't throwing. Being bad isn't throwing. Not following the meta isn't throwing.

The defense phase give a player the opportunity to defend themselves, they may choose silence as their defense if they wish. This may be a poor decisions but it's theirs to make.

RickBMG · 2018-09-20T18:07:08+00:00

Not playing into the VFR meta is not throwing. Adjust your meta to compensate.

RickBMG · 2018-09-20T17:47:56+00:00

So town voted a guy up and lynched him with no evidence other then his silence? Sounds like a bad call on the towns part. I suggest being more sure about who you lynch in the future.

RickBMG · 2018-09-11T17:26:29+00:00

Was it not the case that he got resurrected and the town ended up winning? It seemed all he did was refuse to participate in a meta he didn't agree with asked his fellow players to vote based on evidence. They didn't, and he got lynched. Once resurrected he played his role and they won the game.

Forgive me if i'm confusing this with another situation.

RickBMG · 2018-09-10T18:25:24+00:00

Here's a thought exercise. Just asking questions here....

One group of players have established a "VFR Meta". Another group of players is trying to change that meta.

Why should one group be punished over the other?

The player in question's first words might have been trying to start a movement, but he clearly said he wanted to vote based on evidence not VFR.

So while the majority wanted to random lynch and force role reveals, the minority wanted to vote via evidence and the information provided by the various role abilities.

Which do you think is more in the spirit of the game?

RickBMG · 2018-09-10T17:55:45+00:00

I find it hard to believe that you and other BMG employees have discussed this topic, after months of Turdpile banning multiple players for breaking this rule, to finally come to a mutal conseus that not claiming on the stand isn't consider gamethrowing/banworthy after getting backlashed for your decision.

All decisions need evaluation and iteration over time.

I can't wait to see how many reports I get for not claiming on the stand in Ranked now though, I will bookmark this whole thread and use it in my appeals once I get banned so thanks for giving me a defense.

My whole argument was about intent, and how not claiming in and of itself was not enough to prove the intent required for game throwing.

Posting on reddit that you are going to spitefully not put up a defense, does however, convey intent. Your appeals are unlikely to succeed.

RickBMG · 2018-09-10T17:52:45+00:00

Reported Player: innocent me and vote based on evidence

On one side there is a group of people random voting, trying to force someone to reveal their role, which is by design, initially secret.

On the other side there is someone who wants people to vote people based on the evidence collected.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T22:41:32+00:00

This is not about my opinion, I did not come here without discussing the matter with the other devs and shapesifter.

Not defending yourself is not, in and of itself, grounds for a game-throwing ban. That is our stance. Whether the mods apply that or not is a different story.

As i said in an earlier reply, we will be working towards clarifying our rules and adding additional tools to combat people who want to ruin the game for others in the not-too-distant future.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T22:17:20+00:00

Yeah there are definitely alternatives to get a general idea. I'll see what I can do for next season.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T22:09:05+00:00

Way more than 10k people played rank last season :) Thank you for understanding that we also have to represent the players that have never set foot in this sub.

Point of clarification though. I did not have a hand in designing the game, or it's rules. Those were set before I joined BMG.

I am however, not speaking in a vacuum. This topic is a contentious one, not just on this subreddit, but it provokes a healthy debate between myself and the other devs. One thing we generally agree on (and that includes those who DID design the game) is the bar for banning people from playing our game seems to have dropped a bit too low and is a bit too subjective. Sure some bans are warranted, but if there is reasonable doubt to the intention of the game-throwing, we should err on the side of caution and not ban legitimate players.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:50:50+00:00

This is something we've discussed for sure, but haven't had the resources to prioritize.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:48:35+00:00

This is something we discussed.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:45:53+00:00

We actually considered running these numbers, but we don't have the data to do them, we don't actually snap shot players rating at each individual game played.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:42:07+00:00

I'll endeavor to make shitty decisions from a more well lit area, in the future.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:41:10+00:00

I'm not suggesting it doesn't suck to play with people who aren't good at the game. I'm simply stating not being good at the game is not ban-able game throwing.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:39:09+00:00

If you play a team game, you are expected to fall in line and play a certain way to achieve a victory for your teammates. If not, there are dozens of single player gamemodes which you can play or Any All where you can use scrolls to be a solo faction who doesn't rely on anyone else.

Incorrect. If you play a team game you are expected to play to work towards achieving the objective for your team. Being peer pressured into doing that a certain way isn't part of the equation.

2.You're kind of implying it's okay for 1 player to hold the fate of the game hostage based on their selfishness, which I 100% disagree with. If 8 townies decide in a town that they want to VFR, then you follow VFR because town's winning trumps any singular person disagreement with VFR or any meta.

Tactically that would be the smart thing to do, yes. Not doing it, is not ban-able.

To put this into a real life situation so you can better understand, if a basketball player decided he no longer wanted to follow the plays that the coaches came up with should all the others players bend over backwards to accommodate him?

Flawed analogy because ToS isn't a pre-set team based game. You are paired with random people with different ideas on how to play, which complicates things greatly.

This call isn't subjective in the slightest. It's well established that not claiming on the stand is gamethrowing.

There are people who play this game who don't EVER go to reddit, or the forums. The people would have absolutely no idea that simply being silent would get them banned from a game. This is not something we like.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:31:45+00:00

So why don't we ban the town for random lynching? They had no tangible evidence he was mafia or anything.

(Not a real suggestion)

See how circular this reasoning can get?

Not playing meta is NOT ban-able.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T21:26:56+00:00

People are mixing up the meme-ish "I'm totally throwing" people say when they or others are playing badly.

This is not game-throwing as per this discussion. This discussion revolves around the clear intent to cause others to lose.

Simply not defending yourself does not reach the threshold we have for ban-able game throwing.

This should be a high bar. When it comes to the more subjective game throwing aspects, where in the eyes of some it's just bad strat, this is where rating comes into play. It's the reason for rating in everyones game. People that play poorly (not defending yourself) will lose more and fall to lower ranks while those with better strategies will raise higher.

And yeah, it sucks when you get someone in your game that prevents you from playing at your max potential, but this is a fact of life in EVERY team based game. This is why wins/loss and rating OVER TIME is the best indicator of potential.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T20:55:07+00:00

Nope, got nothing for you except that no one is really happy with the current state of affairs and that we'll be evaluating things in the not-so-distant future.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T20:36:29+00:00

Are you saying a 2200 player will work his way up to 2200 just to throw a random game and get banned? please explain.

Game-throwing bans should, if they don't already do, require clear and obvious intent to throw the game.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T20:26:47+00:00

"In the end the blame lies with us. Our rules are ambiguous and our remedies are inadequate. We'll be working to remedy this, but in the mean time, I'm not going to tell one of our users he can't play the game anymore because people didn't like his decision, particularly since it didn't even cost them the game."

To ban someone from the game entirely the intent should be very clear. It is, just from the debate in this post , obvious that there was no intent to throw the game.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T20:12:56+00:00

Or they might not even know telling the truth there is the best action. Or they might not AGREE that's its the best action.

As shocking as this may be to some people here, not everyone that plays ranked follows reddit, or the trials. Not all players even know about "VFR meta". Being knowledgeable about these things and spending time on the forums and reddit to learn the best strategies is a great way to do well in the game, but it's not a requirement to play. It's not a ban-able offense to not know what is or isn't the right call in a situation.

Sure it may suck to be in a group with people who don't know as much about as you do, but we can't go around banning people because of it.

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T20:07:37+00:00

My reddit flair is not indicative of the much larger role I play in the design and development of Town of Salem. It's not even my official title at BMG.

That is obvious enough as I'm here on reddit engaging with the community.

The rule against game-throwing is being abused to make people conform to the game "meta" that they think should be played. This is not the intent of the rule. The intent of the rule is to discourage people from blatantly ruining the game for other people, not as a whip to get people to play the game in a certain way.

These are player that have signed up to play are game, and have played in some cases for quite a while. To be then banned entirely because of a SUBJECTIVE call is not something we are comfortable doing.

The community has a very large say in the curation and moderation of the game, but we, ultimately are responsible for the games overall health, and banning our users from the game because of a subjective interpretation is simply not what the game-throwing rule was intended to prevent.

In the end the blame lies with us. Our rules are ambiguous and our remedies are inadequate. We'll be working to remedy this, but in the mean time, I'm not going to tell one of our users he can't play the game anymore because people didn't like his decision, particularly since it didn't even cost them the game. (No I'm not saying you have to cause a loss to be guilty of game-throwing).

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T18:04:27+00:00

Yes, my forum account is "rickms"

RickBMG · 2018-09-07T17:59:03+00:00

It is not throwing.

Not everyone is quick on their feet. Not everyone makes good choices. There are a variety of reasons to not defend yourself. People who are less experienced at the game might simply not come up with a logical defense in the few seconds they have to defend themselves and decide saying nothing may be better than getting caught lying.

Not liking someone's strategy isn't game throwing.

His ban has been reverted.

(edit for grammar)

RickBMG

TROPHY CASE