Repick Train Issue

Background

The lowered repick requirement implemented recently has led to an issue of endless repicking, which often leads to players leaving en masse as no consensus can be built.
See attached replays for example.

In any given lobby, there is a mix of setup preferences:
* Those who like Cult saves
* Those who like Chaos mode
* Those who like Standard setups (933, 8331)
* Those who like semi-Standard setups (82221)
* Those who like certain roles and have those as confirmed slots in the game (e.g. Constable vs DF, Judge vs Crier)
* Those with setups that were haphazardly put together without any consideration / knowledge of balance or game mechanics (i.e. "shit saves")

This is not counting individual role settings like exact role Investigator, unlimited execution Jailor, 99% Judge, etc, which cannot be seen from the setup screen.

Previously, due to higher repick requirement, usually a handful of players in every round will have to compromise.
E.g. Cult lovers who don't get to play a cult save, or Standard lovers who don't get a standard save

Now, due to lower repick requirement, even a minority of players have the power to repick the setup.
E.g. A minority of cult + A minority of non-standard lovers have the ability to repick a 933 save

This leads to endless repicking, which in turn often leads to a complete lobby meltdown. Leave training ensues.

*****

Solution

In any given group of people, it is rare to achieve 100% consensus on anything.
While it is important that different voices are heard, at the end of the day, only 1 path of action can be taken.
And in this case, the outcome is mutually exclusive (e.g. a lobby cannot play BOTH a Cult save AND a standard 933 at the same time).

Currently I see two possible solutions to this:

#1: Revert repick requirement back to original
Majority wins, minorities conform.

#2: After X number of repicks, lock-in to Standard 933 / 8331 with no further repicks possible
Everyone has enough decision-making power to influence the setup, but if no consensus is reached, default to standard.


Does anyone else see the repick-leavetrains as a problem, and/or have any other solutions?

I didn't even know they reduced it. I didn't notice it happening more than usual, i think i had it happen less than 5 times since mafia 2.0 so pretty standard rate. Actually very often clearly bad setups are just not getting repicked. Same goes for chaos, there was a leave train today actually after chaos was picked, they didn't repick it in time and Disco Inferno rolled so everyone left.

I don't think they reduced it. What happened, is that Frinckles inflated the points gain during beta testing. A lot of people managed to reached 20k points for double repick power.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrMostache

I don't think they reduced it. What happened, is that Frinckles inflated the points gain during beta testing. A lot of people managed to reached 20k points for double repick power.

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LOL

4 of my games tonight had too much repicking

I don't think repick requirement should be reverted back. and SC2mafia vets are usually 100% willing to stay in the lobby even if hosts are getting repicked left and right, b/c eventually a save will be agreed on, and they know that if they were the only ones to leave, they will end up sitting in a lobby with nothing to do for 20 more minutes.

I advocated for lower repick requirements. There were always issues with higher repick requirements even back in 1.0, such as AFK hosts being hard to remove, or saves that are so shit yet so on-par with the meta that they weren't repicked, causing people to suffer through a shit save. And worse case scenario, an extremely shit save went through despite babyrage from most, b/c repick requirements were SO high, causing a leavetrain and another period of waiting for a new lobby to slowly regrow its strength (although the boost from players in previous lobby might be enough to cause new lobby to start easily).

Issues with higher repicks have become even more glaring as Chaos Mode was added. Its novelty yet similarity to standard saves meant people started hosting them, and as people found out that Chaos Mode is practically rigged in favor of shitty modes with imbalanced evil factions and/or completely bullshit RNG mechanics that can steal wins without anyone's input on a whim, people (including me) started leavetraining it once a bad Chaos mode was selected; because, guess what, repick requirements were still too high to let those shitty "Chaos" modes get repicked outta the sky before disaster occurs!

The idea with lower repick requirements (of which I should suggest 8/15, or as close to 50% as possible), is that with higher repick requirements, repick votes are weaker, meaning bad hosts are more likely to send their troll saves through, necessitating a leavetrain, and both the current lobby and the future lobby to be grabbing those refugees to be enveloped in chaos. Reports, kicks, bickering ensue. Beefs fester.

With lower repick requirements, bad saves will be repicked, we will eventually and assuredly end up on a host with a good save or who is willing to just calm the lobby down and compromise on a standard save. Lobbies continue as normal. No chaos, no leavetrains, no grudges developed further as disputes regarding saves were handled quickly and in civil manner.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrMostache

I don't think they reduced it. What happened, is that Frinckles inflated the points gain during beta testing. A lot of people managed to reached 20k points for double repick power.

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God damn it, so thats why everyone is 100x richer than me. I held my hiatus from SC2Mafia (beginning somewhere btwn June-August 2020) just as a long period of extra points began.

But hold on. Pause. Repick Power? Are we really letting super-rich veteran players have more power with their repicks than new players? New players NEVER naturally outnumbered veterans inside a lobby at any point in time. In fact, veterans who aren't super-rich are the most disadvantaged by this repick system: we know that save is absolute dogshit, but we don't have enough points for our repick vote to magically matter much, especially if the rich veterans are not repicking. Oh well, time to leave or conform.

The Repick System as it stands had and always was a broken system, and the small adjustment to the repick requirement isn't enough.

I agree with Exeter's 2nd proposal: after 3-5 repicks in a row, the save should default to a Standard 8331 or 933.

But I have more proposals:

1. Equal Repick Votes. No matter how new you are to the game or how rich you are, your repick vote has the same weight.

2. A repick counter. Everytime someone types -repick or -default, a message should play in the chat, saying "# more votes needed to pick a new/default save.". This lets people know that their repick votes are ACTUALLY fucking working, and further encourages repick trains.

3. Allow all players to be able to click through the rolelist during the setup. What this means is that they can click through the alignment, roles, and categories sections to the left of the Roleslist, and click on roles/categories to see the Weight and Role Options of any role they wish. Hopefully this can be clientside allowing 15 people to seperately see through the roleslist and come to their own conclusions quickly, but more realistically its likely that were this feature be added, it might actually hijack the Host's ability to adjust stuff during the Lobby (which is on him, he's expected to work and tinker his save on his own time.). Irregardless, checkboxes and sliders are greyed out, so the roles and other settings can be viewed but not edited. This will make for more informed lobbies who can easily expose any tomfoolery the host might try pulling, and -repick in due time.

Some functions of the map will probably seem odd considering they were made almost a decade ago. Different times.

Good suggestions, this is in part why I bring up when anything point related is discussed in brings into question literally everything involving points. My opinion is everything needs to be re-scrutinized to see if it holds up to todays standards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrMostache

I don't think they reduced it. What happened, is that Frinckles inflated the points gain during beta testing. A lot of people managed to reached 20k points for double repick power.

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I checked with Frink. He DID reduce the repick requirement, and originally had a 2nd round of reduction planned for the Feb patch. But after I informed him about the endless repick and leave trains, he withheld the 2nd round of reduction.

But you're also right, the point inflation from beta testing & holiday season has given many players extra repick strength.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grakylan

With lower repick requirements, bad saves will be repicked, we will eventually and assuredly end up on a host with a good save or who is willing to just calm the lobby down and compromise on a standard save. Lobbies continue as normal. No chaos, no leavetrains, no grudges developed further as disputes regarding saves were handled quickly and in civil manner.

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As seen in my replays, this is not always the case.

Lower repick requirement means host has less power. Even if he is willing to compromise, he can still be repicked as long as there are some dissatisfied players.
In a lobby with different opinions of equal strength (let's say 3 groups: Standard lovers, Cult lovers, Lawless lovers), you can pretty much go around in a circle forever.

Tbh I haven't seen this issue much after that day, so possibly it was a trolly lobby.
But the fact remains that it is now easier for such things to happen compared to previous, due to lower repick requirement.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grakylan

2. A repick counter. Everytime someone types -repick or -default, a message should play in the chat, saying "# more votes needed to pick a new/default save.". This lets people know that their repick votes are ACTUALLY fucking working, and further encourages repick trains.

3. Allow all players to be able to click through the rolelist during the setup. What this means is that they can click through the alignment, roles, and categories sections to the left of the Roleslist, and click on roles/categories to see the Weight and Role Options of any role they wish. Hopefully this can be clientside allowing 15 people to seperately see through the roleslist and come to their own conclusions quickly, but more realistically its likely that were this feature be added, it might actually hijack the Host's ability to adjust stuff during the Lobby (which is on him, he's expected to work and tinker his save on his own time.). Irregardless, checkboxes and sliders are greyed out, so the roles and other settings can be viewed but not edited. This will make for more informed lobbies who can easily expose any tomfoolery the host might try pulling, and -repick in due time.

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I like these ideas. Good QOL and lets the lobby make more informed decisions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Exeter350

I checked with Frink. He DID reduce the repick requirement, and originally had a 2nd round of reduction planned for the Feb patch. But after I informed him about the endless repick and leave trains, he withheld the 2nd round of reduction.

But you're also right, the point inflation from beta testing & holiday season has given many players extra repick strength.




As seen in my replays, this is not always the case.

Lower repick requirement means host has less power. Even if he is willing to compromise, he can still be repicked as long as there are some dissatisfied players.
In a lobby with different opinions of equal strength (let's say 3 groups: Standard lovers, Cult lovers, Lawless lovers), you can pretty much go around in a circle forever.

Tbh I haven't seen this issue much after that day, so possibly it was a trolly lobby.
But the fact remains that it is now easier for such things to happen compared to previous, due to lower repick requirement.




I like these ideas. Good QOL and lets the lobby make more informed decisions.

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by how much REEE

the whole iss ue is like

afk hosts

so

to fix afk
hosts

we just make auto-repick if host afk

likemake a progam

I think he mentioned 0.75 -> 0.65, implemented on 28th Jan.

He was originally going to reduce it further in 2nd Feb patch.

I have no idea what those values mean.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Exeter350

I think he mentioned 0.75 -> 0.65, implemented on 28th Jan.

He was originally going to reduce it further in 2nd Feb patch.

I have no idea what those values mean.

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make it 0.7 @Frinckles

0.725

OR I BAN

!!!!!

Does doing -default not put it in the 8331/933 saves, I thought it did.

it might be interesting if people can't make a decision within a set time to just force start the game with a default setup

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aamirus

it might be interesting if people can't make a decision within a set time to just force start the game with a default setup

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or if the game autokicked everyone! i think this is the BEST solution

The formula is:

#players * .65 - 1

UwU

Attachment 28359

>:CC

The only time I type -repick is when Plaugerat is hosting.

Or...

When I see UwU

as I join the game. It brings back SC2Mafia memories from 2015.

+1 from me on this, i messaged frinckles on this multiple times in-game, he does not care at all, i have so many replays of lobbies just ruined by constant -repick, solution is simple, add 10 second repick delay after a host is repicked. In past few days 6 out 10 games are just non-stop repicks until people start to leave, extremely dumb decision to lower repick rate, clearly person who decided this does not play games with randoms and is out of touch with their player base.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Segment of Life

+1 from me on this, i messaged frinckles on this multiple times in-game, he does not care at all, i have so many replays of lobbies just ruined by constant -repick, solution is simple, add 10 second repick delay after a host is repicked. In past few days 6 out 10 games are just non-stop repicks until people start to leave, extremely dumb decision to lower repick rate, clearly person who decided this does not play games with randoms and is out of touch with their player base.

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great fact-checking on the last sentence. i too have never seen frinckles play a game except for last night, the night before, and almost every other day before that. he’s truly one disconnected game developer who’s trying to eventually make us pay REAL MONEY to prevent repick trains!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Segment of Life

clearly person who decided this does not play games with randoms and is out of touch with their player base.

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Have you been involved in 2.0 BETA and subsequent patchworks? Clearly not.

I noticed recently that if a lobby repicks through all 15 player, it goes back to the original host and cannot be repicked.

Not sure if this was always a thing but this means that the current limit is 15 repicks before the host is "locked".

Still seems a bit too much, I'm not sure lobbies would stay long enough for all 15 players to be repicked. I've only seen it happen once, all other occasions people leavetrain before it gets to that point.