Dear all,

we are having discussions on the forum about how to decrease the rate of aborted games. The first small step is introducing a system for reducing people's kickrates. From now on, if 8 weeks pass from your last kick, for every 15 games you finish without being kicked, one kick is automatically cleared from your profile. If you get kicked in the process, the 8 week and 15 game counter starts over.

The reason is that we want to give everybody a chance to improve. Until now, if you had a lot of kicks, you were done - you were basically never going to get MoT status. This created wrong incentives for finishing games. It was especially harsh on new players, who started on the wrong foot because they did not know how the system works. Everybody can redeem themselves now.

We don't think notorious quitters will abuse the system - they don't finish 15 games in a row without a kick. But we will see how the system works out, and will change the terms (15 games and 8 weeks) if need be.

This clearing kicks does not affect any sanctions imposed manually by judges.

More steps to reduce the abortrate will follow. If you have any ideas, you are welcome to raise them in the forum.

EDIT:
reduced from 12 to 8 weeks.

Last edited by JM Grip on 2016-Feb-19 14:43, edited 2x in total

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You probably mean round, not turn. There's a difference.

May I ask how the removal of kicks is reducing the amount of aborted games?
Games get aborted because:
- One player (willingly or not) is kingsmaking and the rest agrees to abort
- When a player is kicked so the game is not fair anymore
- When the game totally fall asleep because of users not visiting the site or any reason.

The only reason for aborted games which is connected to the kickrate are the kicked players and the reduction of someones kickrate doenst afflect his intention to leave a game.

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AFFC PBF - #10
You do not need to know everything, but where to read it.-Albert Einstein-

Reading is overrated.-sarcasm off-

i'm not against the rule, i just wonder, what "wrong incentives for finishing games" means. every incentive to finish a game should be a good incentive, shouldn't it?

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My kung fu is the best

@Harakon: This is just a necessary step before introducing a system which automatically acts on kicks (less games possible, restriction from rated games or even ban). We would like kicks to have more impact than they have now, so that players think twice or even thrice before risking a kick. But it would be unfair if those kicks you collected in the beginning as a noob, when you didn't know better, would impinge you forever.

So this is basically easing up on the number of kicks, before we bring down the sledge hammer on notorious quitters.


@ajant: it is a wrong incentive, because you should enter a game with the aim to win it and not to finish it as soon as possible.

May I ask how the removal of kicks is reducing the amount of aborted games?
Games get aborted because:
- One player (willingly or not) is kingsmaking and the rest agrees to abort
- When a player is kicked so the game is not fair anymore
- When the game totally fall asleep because of users not visiting the site or any reason.

The only reason for aborted games which is connected to the kickrate are the kicked players and the reduction of someones kickrate doenst afflect his intention to leave a game.
Two things, what Duesterwald says (we need this for another system). But also we have seen that players that get past the 5% mark for kicks basicly do not care anymore. They cannot become MoT anymore and just figured whatever...

We will introduce a harsher regime for high kickrates (ie. not being able to play, limit the amount of games you can join, etc. still in development) but  it also allows you to drop kickrates again and become MoT even if you now have 5% kickrate.

Lastly, it makes the system feel more fair to people who recieved their kick or kicks in their first few games by mistake and could never recover from it.

What Duesterwald and Cobis said.

Until now, if somebody had too many kicks, he did not have an incentive to finish a game he was losing. Why bother? He would not get MoT rights anyway, and his chances of getting reported are slim. That's what I meant by "wrong incentives".

Of course this is only a small step in solving the issue, more things (and more on the punishing side) are coming.

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You probably mean round, not turn. There's a difference.

hi all, i know this is heavy weight chat, hope u dont mind i join

have you considered easier way to replace players in game? lets say players decide to vote "/replace playername" and the game will show up in online games again with one free spot and anybody can immediately replace player, and game can continue, that would be much better than some kicks not all cares about (moreover game with kicked player usually doesnt finnish, this way it would and others in game are not disapponited after hours they put into it) - replaced player can also recive "kick" stats with whatever punishment u create for players with high kickrate... moreover it would be nice if new player can decide if he wants the game to be ranked or not (only for him)

just consider u can never threaten all players with kicks and hope they finnish games because of it, isnt it eassiet for all just to replace them?

just my 2 cents

So I went through a really busy and stressful time in my life, and I had too many aGoT games going on top of that.  I was kicked several times from PBEM (never from live).  I am trying to do my penance and recover.

Per the rules in this chain, it has been 12 weeks since I was kicked. So now, as I complete 15 games, I will drop one kick.  At 30, I would drop two, etc etc.  In addition to the dropped kicks, my percentage of kicks continues to fall regardless as I add more games to my completed amount.

Do I understand this correctly?

Yes Saidin, that's correct

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You probably mean round, not turn. There's a difference.

@Saidin

also check you account info page: https://www.thronemaster.net/?goto=account&sub=account_info

there you can see when you can clear one of your kicks.

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- What do we say to New Features? Not Today.

That is great info!  I did not know about this page.  Thanks, JM!