More Thorough Reviews of Game Throwing Reports

[ProjectSYD]

I realize that this thread is very similar to my previous thread. However, in my previous thread I did not have the full picture of the trial process.

For those of you who don't know how it works, this is how:

A player get's reported and if found guilty that report is then reviewed by a Moderator / Judge for a final verdict. Moderators and Judges are able to look at all the reports given to a player to make their final decision. If a player feels they were wrongfully suspended, they can appeal in the forums (although, I imagine not every player is aware of this.)

For the most part, the system works. Most of the appeals I have read over the past week have been players who have used racial slurs / hate speech. However, I did come across a few cases that I would argue the suspended players were not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. All of these reports that I reviewed involved players who had been reported for game throwing.

So we have to ask our selves. What is game throwing?

Here is a link to an official post from one of the moderators defining game throwing:

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14540

An action is not considered to be game throwing if the intention behind this action is to benefit one's alignment. However, by only reviewing the games in which the suspended player has been reported you don't get to see the full picture. A player may have died before their strategy had a chance to play out to it's fullest and what at first glance may seem like game throwing may actually have had positive outcome for that players alignment had things gone a little differently.

Furthermore, a strategy in a game with the exact same roles might work one game, but completely bomb in another with different players (same roles, different players.) There are so many elements to this game that I would argue that it is near impossible to determine whether or not one player's actions (whether you agreed with them or not) had an impact on the overall result of the game.

Universe A:

A Lookout claims to be a Vampire and threatens to bite player A in an attempt to have someone visit that player so that they can confirm their role. One might argue this is game throwing because the Lookout is claiming to be an evil role. Despite proving themselves, they were then shot by a vigilante who failed to notice that the next day they shared their will and confirmed they were town.

Alternate Universe:

Same Lookout keeps quiet and doesn't find any results that can confirm their role. They are then shot by a vigilante who thought they were suspicious for not having any information.

As it stands now:

According to the moderators, Universe A has a much greater chance of being suspended for their actions, despite their intentions being the same as the Lookout in universe B. So then we could conclude that game throwing is not restricted to intentions, but also whether or not you claim to be evil if you're in reality good.

HOWEVER

Alternate Alternate Universe:

In this universe, a Vigilante was never confirmed, and never forced to claim their role. It is the final four. Mafioso VS Neutral Benign VS Town, VS Jester. In a last stitched effort to potentially win the game, the Lookout claims to be jester (hoping to cause enough confusion to let the day drag on long enough for them to shoot the mafioso.) The Neutral Benign claimed their role day one, and when the Vigilante revealed themselves as jester, the real jester countered their claim. The mafioso isn't sure which one to believe, and no one gets voted up. The vigilante then shoots the mafioso that night to give town the victory / suicides with the mafioso for a tie.

If claiming to be evil is against the rules and should result in a suspension, then the vigilante who may have won the game for the town deserves to be suspended.

WHAT IS YOUR POINT?

Currently, a suspension is only handed out based off of the games a player is reported in. In one universe, the player might have been the savior for his alignment. However, in another, he may have appeared to be the fall of their alignment. Despite using the same strategy.

Moderators and Judges can currently only view reported games. My suggestion is that they should also be able to view a players entire history, to get a better picture of that players intentions. If it appears as though they are trying to lose every game that they play in, then a suspension is warranted. However, if it looks like they're actively trying to win every game, then perhaps don't prematurely issue out a suspension. I ask now that we have an intelligent discussion, and avoid derailing this thread because you disagree with some of the strategies I have used in the past. For the record, my appeal for my blackmailer strategy eventually went through after long discussions with the moderators. I got a better picture of how the system works, and therefore created this new thread with a more accurate suggestion. Also, I won't be using that strategy anymore, because of the recent changes to spy. Doing so would just be stupid.

[iggyvolz]

the suspended players were not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

First off - nowhere to my knowledge has BMG ever said the threshold for a ban needs to be "beyond a reasonable doubt". As long as Turd and/or Naru believe that they've committed gamethrowing, they're banned. (Devs could technically overrule them, but it's not likely to happen).

A Lookout claims to be a Vampire and threatens to bite player A in an attempt to have someone visit that player so that they can confirm their role. One might argue this is game throwing because the Lookout is claiming to be an evil role. Despite proving themselves, they were then shot by a vigilante who failed to notice that the next day they shared their will and confirmed they were town.

This (assuming it's really a tactical move and not trolling) is called fake gamethrowing. Whether or not that's allowed is a debate that's been going on since before people could even be banned. AFAIK, there's no definitive answer for this, although I recall the developers at one point saying it's technically allowed, but you might expect to be reported or even suspended as people don't know you're faking it, and thus ask that you don't do it.

Same Lookout keeps quiet and doesn't find any results that can confirm their role. They are then shot by a vigilante who thought they were suspicious for not having any information.

That vigilante is really bad, if their only reason for shooting is that someone didn't have information to bring forward.

According to the moderators, Universe A has a much greater chance of being suspended for their actions, despite their intentions being the same as the Lookout in universe B. So then we could conclude that game throwing is not restricted to intentions, but also whether or not you claim to be evil if you're in reality good.

Gamethrowing is absolutely restricted to intentions by definition. However, Universe A is not a case of gamethrowing, but fake gamethrowing (which falls into the murky category of metagaming). It's also difficult to tell the intentions of A - someone may believe that you are truly gamethrowing.

In this universe, a Vigilante was never confirmed, and never forced to claim their role. It is the final four. Mafioso VS Neutral Benign VS Town, VS Jester. In a last stitched effort to potentially win the game, the Lookout claims to be jester (hoping to cause enough confusion to let the day drag on long enough for them to shoot the mafioso.) The Neutral Benign claimed their role day one, and when the Vigilante revealed themselves as jester, the real jester countered their claim. The mafioso isn't sure which one to believe, and no one gets voted up. The vigilante then shoots the mafioso that night to give town the victory / suicides with the mafioso for a tie.

If claiming to be evil is against the rules and should result in a suspension, then the vigilante who may have won the game for the town deserves to be suspended.

This is not an issue of gamethrowing, nor fake gamethrowing. The Jester had reason to reveal, as did the fake "jester" (to cause confusion).

Moderators and Judges can currently only view reported games. My suggestion is that they should also be able to view a players entire history, to get a better picture of that players intentions. If it appears as though they are trying to lose every game that they play in, then a suspension is warranted. However, if it looks like they're actively trying to win every game, then perhaps don't prematurely issue out a suspension. I ask now that we have an intelligent discussion, and avoid derailing this thread because you disagree with some of the strategies I have used in the past. For the record, my appeal for my blackmailer strategy eventually went through after long discussions with the moderators. I got a better picture of how the system works, and therefore created this new thread with a more accurate suggestion. Also, I won't be using that strategy anymore, because of the recent changes to spy. Doing so would just be stupid.

Forcing moderators to trudge through dozens of games to solve a report would slow down the trial system immensely. Also, it's still difficult to tell the difference between your situation, and a situation where someone just gamethrows one in a hundred games - giving other games as context doesn't give any additional insight into the reported one.

[ProjectSYD]

I see your point. But also not every game requires further investigation. Maybe even if it were only appealed reports that the moderators had this tool if a player rightfully defended their actions. Perhaps they had won the last 9 games using that strategy and this is the one they lost and it was the only one the moderator had to base their intentions off of. I'm just saying it's hard to determine intentions based souly off the reported games as usually many things went wrong during that game that were out of that players hands.

[DBrock01]

By claiming blackmailer day 1 you put suspicion on yourself for no reason. This results in stuff like trans transing you and sheriff/invest checking you. I don't see how you can say this suspicion helps you; your excuse of helping your teammate is silly because it only works if you die and there is no spy WHICH YOU DONT KNOW YET.

Not using what you believe is the best tactic is gamethrowing. If I claim exe D1 as ww that's gamethrowing, because I know that's a stupid move. I highly highly doubt you believe that claiming BMer D1 is the best tactic you can do.

If you want to test controversial strategies at least do it in RP or custom, not ranked.

[ProjectSYD]

By claiming blackmailer day 1 you put suspicion on yourself for no reason. This results in stuff like trans transing you and sheriff/invest checking you. I don't see how you can say this suspicion helps you; your excuse of helping your teammate is silly because it only works if you die and there is no spy WHICH YOU DONT KNOW YET.

Not using what you believe is the best tactic is gamethrowing. If I claim exe D1 as ww that's gamethrowing, because I know that's a stupid move. I highly highly doubt you believe that claiming BMer D1 is the best tactic you can do.

If you want to test controversial strategies at least do it in RP or custom, not ranked.

But the strategy has been working for me (at least before hot fix.) So not sure what you're trying to say here.

[Flavorable]

Long story short: My opinion is that the person judging the Trial where a player did whatever it is they did, doesn't need to look at every single game they ever played.

First off, there's too much room for witch hunting. I.E. imagine running into a report on Syanna or NapQueen (no offense), there's plenty of people out there with access to the Trial System who would go looking for broken rules just to get them out of the game and banned for life as soon as possible.

Second, strategies shouldn't matter. If the person is going against their faction or is seemingly trying to lose on purpose (townies who claim evil roles and get lynched for it, (people who refuse to claim a role on the stand or in jail, townies who CC their own townies, etc etc), need to be voted guilty and it really shouldn't matter if they won with a likewise strategy before. It's like saying a Vet can use hatespeech as Vet Bait and then saying "Well, last game he did this he didn't get reported because he did kill 4 evils in one night, so it must be a valid strategy and can therefor be excused". It's the same principle. If you can read every single game, you build rapport with players, which means you will lose your objectivity.

Judging reports should be (and stay) something that people can do when they have a half an hour to spare or something. Having to look through all other games of players just to see if something would be a valid strategy or not would entail way too much work for something that should be fairly simple.