Suggestion: forget about the drawing!

[dweiler]

I created this topic so that I can stay on-topic. This thread is derived from the original viewtopic.php?f=72&t=8775 thread.

Let me just post the most relevant 2 posts in here:

In the past, Duckie and me have had arguments with iight and beep about this very topic as well. They have always claimed drawing after someone discs is more fair than not drawing. As we can see here, this calls for debate. There is one important reason, that is that drawing is not strategy-proof.

What this means is: drawing when one discs in a team is fair. This is true, because the remaining team members get an unfair disadvantage because of the disconnect. But, when someone is losing, he can plug, and avoid the disc. He can also do it more subtle: Eldryan states there is no strategy when someone has a 3k ping, but there are ways to up your ping (for example, start your torrent client and start a heavy download). The point of the matter is: when one plays it smart, it is impossible to ever prove that he discs strategically. So, there are situations (and those situations will roughly be there 100% of the games for one of the teams) in which disconnecting is beneficial for both you and your team and thus drawing is not strategy proof. It is a good thing that you all point out that intentional disconnecting will lead to an unvouch, but I also think we all know we cannot prove when this is the case.

My point of avoiding this matter is: don't make drawing compulsory. In fact, it is undesirable to ever draw. Although in individual games you might have an unfair disadvantage, in the long run everyone is likely to have about the same amount of bad luck. However, if half of the games are drawed and half aren't, those percentages may vary in negative or positive ways for different players. The rule should be: when the game has started, it will be played out: of course unless all players agree to draw (but not because of etiquette). In other words, when we avoid drawing, the effect of disconnecting is ruled out. This does not go for the person who disconnects, of course, and I think it is a good thing, because disconnecting is discouraged in this way. After all, it is a form of game ruining. In any given case, disconnecting can not be advantageous for your team and therefore this way of handling the disconnect is strategy-proof.

I know there have been flame wars between iight, beep, duckie and me in this different way of approaching the 'drawing' matter. However, given the growing discontent in the community abuot drawing, I think it is right to show my opinion on this matter. Not drawing is in fact not unfair, because bad luck will even out across time, and it is strategy-proof, whereas drawing does not have this quality.

To be sure, I am not saying Beep is intentionally disconnecting, just making a general claim to avoid situations like this.

@BeepBoopBeep

Can you please respond to my suggestion for changing the drawing system, on the basis of the arguments I have mentioned?

As you probably know, you are the one who is mostly accused of this 'strategical disconnecting'. Being an admin and a player with honour I am sure you want this suspicion to be gone. The only way to do this is to not draw anymore. Am I right in thinking that you, as an admin, would be in favour of my change in the rules? And if not, I am very curious why not (considering my arguments).

Please, I want Beep to be the next responder. I do not want this to make him look bad, but I want to know how he feels as an admin (or moderator) and as the person who is accused of this. He should have a good insight in this matter. Also, I am looking for someone who agrees with me (my points aren't that bad are they?!!)

[dweiler]

Alright, we posted at the same time, let me copy it, from Beep:

I don't think the draw rule should be changed, my view on this is that if people are gonna be punished for disconnecting then it effects me dearly because well i do dc/lag probably the most in LIHL its a well known fact... as for people thinking that i strategically am disconnecting it just comes down to my internet ever since i started playing legion i have had problems with autoban etc also i have dced after level 20 on level 4 etc i dunno how you can think this is strategically dcing.

like i said i like the rule as it is because i do disconnect and if im going to get punished for something i dont have any control over then it would cause me to play less and less.

[dweiler]

Let me reply to this with what I see now:

1. I can understand you don't want the losses. However, those disconnects will keep adding to the rumours of intentional disconnecting. I feel that as an admin you should stay clear from those accusations and take the losses as a sacrifice for your reliability.
2. Those disconnects leading to losses for Beep is frustrating for him. Disconnects not leading to losses is however frustrating for all players at some point -> the majority rule would suggest we take the least frustrating solution.
3. Although getting losses is frustrating for you, I'm sure you would agree it is not unreasonable that disconnects lead to losses. It is however unreasonable if intentional plugging does not lead to losses. Therefore, my solution would be best again.
4. Again, but put in a different way: if you are an admin and accused intentional disconnecting, I think you should do everything in your power to get rid of this accusation. Embracing my solution would do that. Not embracing it and wanting to keep the current system suggests to me you have another kind of advantage sticking to the current system, namely that you ARE abusing it. I would hate to keep this suggestion, because I do not believe at all that you are abusing it - but when you keep things open like that we cannot but question your reliability.

5. You have to admit that drawing is an abomination outside of your own situation, since it is not strategy-proof. Let me ask all of you: I have known about this strategical disconnecting since the beginning of the LIHL. Did I use it? How can you tell? Would not everybody want this option that I did to be ruled out?

[supersexyy]

Putting an automatic ELO deduction is also a deterrent for PPs. Furthermore if players are deemed to be intentionally PPing then they will be unvouched.

[dweiler]

@supersexyy , but the question then remains, when is one 'deemed to PP' when one cannot prove it? Is Beep disconnecting often in games when he is losing and being against the solution that would rule out PPing deemed to PP? It is at least provocative and suspicious. Again, your ELO-solution is a step in the good way in my opinion, but I think just getting rid of the strange 'drawing' policy would settle the discussion once and for all.

I have been in favour for not using draw for disconnects ever since the drawing option was introduced. It should be used for when all people agree to draw for whatever reason (wanting to play another game with all of them, bugs, because they are bored), but not as a gentleman's agreements on disconnects. As I have hopefully shown by now, it is a trojan horse. It seems nice when you give it, but when you open the gift you may find out you have been cheated upon. Wouldn't you feel utterly stupid if you have drawn for mr. X all those games only to find out he has used your time and manner for his cheating? This is not needed if we just agree that not drawing is not unmannered, but that disconnecting is part of the game.

[supersexyy]

How is your solution more a deterrent than mine?

[Diablo_]

I'm not in LIHL but when I've read about the drawing rule I had a bit bad feelings aswell, as this can easily be abused to some extent. I also think it is fine to "punish" the one who disconnected, but it's not fair to also punish his team. To prevent the unfairness a bit I would suggest to to adjust the amount of ELO you get/lose depending on when someone disconnected. This could work like this:
Team A vs Team B
After level 15 one person of Team A disconnects and thus the ELO on stake for Team A gets adjusted, depending on how long this game lasts from this moment on. Like for every level after the DC players of Team A lose 5% less ELO /win 5% more ELO up to a maximum adjustment of 50%.
So if Team A would then die on level 20, they would lose 25% less ELO than they normally would. Of course numbers can be changed as you guys in the IHL probably have a better sense of what would be fair and what not. The other question, however, is if this would be technically possible.

Edit: Damn, had this Tab open a bit too long ^.^

[dweiler]

@Supersexyy Well, my solution is not a deterrent at all to be honest. This is so because it is impossible to ruin a game by intentional disconnecting in my solution. This means there will never ever be an intentional disconnecter who will achieve his aim.

Your solution does deter, this is what I like about your solution. However, as said, the ELO would have to be diminished by a lot more than your 'normal elo-loss' in a game to be effective. Therefore, non-intentional disconnects will be punished (too) harshly. Also, it is very hard to prove intentional disconnecting, so in practice your solution may have no effect at all. Like I said, can you tell if I have intentionally disconnected in games?

Therefore, I think my solution is better, because you do not have any disadvantages, except for the fact that people may feel it is unfair that they have a disconnecter in the team (and I think I have made it clear they don't even have to feel this way. And even if they do, there are so many advantages to not drawing that it outweighs this feeling)

@Diablo_ I like your suggestion: it does justice to both my point and the 'draw-defenders'. I don't know about the technicalities as well I am ready to accept that one.

I know this will sound like I cannot let go, but, although your solution will sound more 'friendly' towards the 3 allies of the disconnecter, your solution is not really needed for fairness. If we assume everybody gets roughly the same amount of disconnects in their team (that is reasonable, isn't it?), then everybody get's roughly the same amount of games where they lose 75-50% of their ELO and it wouldn't make a difference between players. This would therefore be more of a 'symbolic feature'. (But I think some people do not accept my argument that disconnects do not influence the ranking because all players have to deal with it, and for them this is a very real solution)

[iightfyre]

Let's first put aside all of the accusations and conspiracy theories please. Nothing will ever come of "I think you cheat! No, I think you cheat!" All this pointing fingers in THIS thread is frivolous and I refuse to comment on them.

The subject at hand is the current !draw system and I will comment on that.

I believe that the draw system should stay in place. We designed the LIHL to have fair games. Keeping the teams balanced is a key part in keeping a game fair. 2v2 or 3v3 or 4v4 is fair. 3v4 is not fair. Plain and simple. No one should be awarded a win in a 4v3 matchup. It's basically free ELO. The !draw ediqutte will not be changed.

This brings up the PP issue and I think that this is a very good topic of conversation. Although I do not believe that anyone in the LIHL is intentionally pulling the plug, I do believe that maybe a deterrent is in order. I will support the idea of giving an ELO loss to a player who DC's but I think that -20 ELO is too harsh. I would favor a -15 ELO loss to a DC while the rest of the game ends in a draw. (Remember that we all have had DC's in public games and have lost ELO do to this but no1 cries about that for too long). This will not only deter people from PP it will also encourage gproxy use and paying for a more stable internet connection.

I'm not certain if this is possible to adjust. I think this is a Cyberpunk or uakf.b question to be honest. I will speak with the other Mods about it but I feel that this one simple measure will solve all of our problems.

To sum up my proposition:

Do not change the !draw system. Implement a -15 ELO penalty to anyone who DC's from a game. Period. End of story. End of problems. Use gproxy or pay for better internet if you don't want to lose -15 elo

[MurkemHanks]

^AMEN brotha!
!Support

[dweiler]

I am sorry iight, but I find this a very bad solution and I will have to seek to have independent admins to review this, because your solution does not make sense at all.

1. You do not address the 'strategy-proof' problem. You say it is a 'conspiracy theory'. If this option to exploit happens around 100% of the games, it is just waiting for problems to arise. I have asked many times, do you know if I have exploited the fact that I knew about this problem? Can you really tell? Can you tell for other persons they did not? My solution does not have any of those problems.

2. If you lose 15 elo my argument of the combined intentional disconnecting stays. It is still not strategy proof. Whether you wish to denounce it as a 'conspiracy theory' or not, the possibility of exploiting stays. In my solution, there is no problem whatsoever and it is just as fair as other mechanisms.

3. You are trying to imply that I am pointing fingers. I have repeatedly said I do not believe beep to be PPing. You either don't read my posts properly or you are trying to put me in a corner where I do not belong.

4. People who have played hard to get an advantage over the other team, spent time playing are still forced to draw. This is not fair for them. If this was the only solution I could live with it - but it is not. The three/two remaining players will not be treated unfairly as I have proven over and over now.

5. I just have to quote this part:

(Remember that we all have had DC's in public games and have lost ELO do to this but no1 cries about that for too long)

This is what I have been saying all along. Disconnects are part of the game. As long as everyone has to deal with them it is no problem, because everyone will roughly get the same amount of luck/bad luck. I, for one, have no problem at all playing 3v4, but I do have problems with having to draw when I'm 4v3 and have played for 30+ mins.

(Let me colour this so you will get that this is really important)
6. The point is: drawing leads to strategy-problems. Not drawing does not. Do not draw. It's a gentleman's agreements for fools who want to be misled by the cunning cheaters who are good at hiding their intentional disconnects or want to help Beep because he gets losses because of disconnects. The rest of the community can either be cheated upon or wasting an x amount of time of their lives because of drawing. There is no advantage whatsoever in drawing. Drawing only leads to speculation, 'conspiracy theories', frustration with the players and great room for abuse. Not drawing leads to no problems at all, it is perfectly defendable, fair, simple and honest.

I am truly sorry, but I cannot live with the fact that 2 (befriended) admins are willing to let their integrity and reliability go, because of a gentleman's agreement for fools.

[iightfyre]

3. You are trying to imply that I am pointing fingers

No I am not. Please note that most of my threads start with the pretense that I will not comment on any pissing matches. This is a general statement designed to keep the post on topic. I apologize if you feel that I was pointing fingers. I did read your post thoroughly and saw where you mentioned that you feel beep was not intentionally pulling the plug.


My proposed -15 ELO for a DC should solve the problem of "pulling the plug". How wouldn't it? Let's say Team A is losing. One player (lets call him X) on Team A decides to pull the plug. He loses 15 ELO 100% of the time that he chooses to do this. If player X on Team A continues to play the game, he is not 100% certain that he will lose 15 ELO. He may still win. How can this be taken advantage of?

Are you proposing that players should GAIN ELO when they win 4v3? I disagree whole heartedly with this. Regardless if the game is 30 minutes in or not. Winning means WINNING. Fair and evenly. I'm not sure where you are going with this or how my proposition still doesn't seem like it would fix the "PP issue"

Drawing only leads to speculation, 'conspiracy theories', frustration with the players and great room for abuse. Not drawing leads to no problems at all, it is perfectly defendable, fair, simple and honest.

1. In my proposition, drawing would result in the DC player losing 15 ELO and the other players not being penalized. The frustration at the DC player should be dimished because that player is the only one who lost that game. Drawing does not lead to conspiracy theories. PEOPLE WHO MAKE UP CONSPIRACIES LEAD TO CONSPIRACY THEORIES!
2. "Not drawing" is in no way fair, simple or honest. I just don't see it.

[iightfyre]

It's a gentleman's agreements for fools who want to be misled by the cunning cheaters who are good at hiding their intentional disconnects or want to help Beep because he gets losses because of disconnects.

The whole idea of the LIHL and it's guidelines are to provide an environment free of cunning cheaters... we are making strides to get to this point. Players will be unvouched who TK or excessive afks or PP or don't draw. The unfair players will go away. Plain and simple.

This whole thing about helping Beep is just LOL. C'mon man.. I just suggested that he loses 15 ELO for every disconnect! How is this helping him?

[dweiler]

Alright, perhaps I need to quote some old posts from the other topic again. I agree it is kind of confusing and makes it harder to follow the argument.

1. About your suggestion not cutting the deal:

@Supersexxy, this would be an improvement, yes, but still not strategy-proof. This is so because the ELO-loss will not be disadvantageous for the disconnecter, he will still lose the same amount of ELO as when he had stayed, but advantageous for his allies. Suppose the friends A and B are 2 games in the same team and losing, if A fakes a disc in game 1, and B in game 2, they will both have saved eachother 1 loss and (about) 15 elo. Again, not saying this is happening, but you rule out the chance of this happening if you don't draw.

Again, this is not about how likely such a thing is. Even if the chances are 1/50 someone will do this, if that 1/50th chance is happening right now (which we do not know) it is unfair cheating in this game. Once again, my option is not susceptible to this kind of behaviour. To be sure: the disconnecter has no (or a slight) disadvantage, team has (a greater) advantage in your suggestion = not strategy-proof.

2. About not drawing, perhaps it is because (one of my) study(s) is sociology, so I tend to look at things in a more general way. Sure, if you single out 1 game then the team with the disconnect is disadvantaged. But imagine every player plays 100 games and the chances are about 5% you have a disconnecter in your team. This means that in about 5 games you have a disconnecter, 5 the other team has a disconnecter and maybe 1 you have both a disconnecter. As you can see, in 5 games you have the luck, 5 games bad luck = netto 0 more luck/bad luck. Of course, it can be some players have 6 discs in other team and 4 in theirs, but that is the same kind of bad luck as that some players have 10x elite archers and some only 4. Or that a good player has a bad game when he plays with you, sometimes it is even better then to have him disconnect than to stay. We are not gonna draw because someone stays instead of disconnects, are we? It is part of the game. However, in general, the more games you play, the less influence disconnects have on the fairness of the game.

3. About helping Beep: I am saying it is one of the reasons why you could want this gentleman's agreement for fools. I guess I forgot a third, which is that you still do not understand why this is a gentleman's agreement for fools, but then I would call you a fool and I do not want to do that.

A couple of more quotes to clarify:

about 3v4 being a loss

This is not true at all. In fact, I think I have only played 1 game out in the LIHL where 1 person disconnected. This time it was even worse, let me state the facts: 1. it was 3v3, so the disconnect (Feor) had an even greater influence. Feor was the top player of their team. The game went on for 20 minutes after that. We LOST the 3v2 (game = https://entgaming.net/findstats.php?id=1350756). As you can see, that game is from 16 days ago and I still remember it. Not because it was dull, boring and a waste of time, but because it was one of the most memorable and exciting games I played.

about the claim that the 3 remaining players of the team who had a disconnecter are unfairly 'punished

'] They are not punished because they just have bad luck. If I play with Beep and has an extraordinary bad game, so much that it is worse to have him on the team than that he disconnects I get punished because he stays in the game. We are not gonna draw that too because I get 'punished', are we? Disconnecting is a fact of wc3, and it is fair as long as we do not draw because everyone will have to deal with it.
[about the statement that this is irrelevant for the case] How is this irrelevant? Just because you say so? It seems highly relevant to me, because it shows that you do not 'punish' innocent players, but that they have 'bad luck'. If you look at it this way (combined with the fact that bad luck is evened out after a period of time) the need to draw disappears.

Finally, one about the fact that you tend to look at this from the side who had the disconnect:

You tend to forget that a lot of people feel frustrated when they play a won game and someone disconnects and they have to draw (especially if they are the only one feeling this way). They are punished by our current system and by your suggestion, they are not punished by my suggestion. In this way, in your way of thinking you punish 4 innocent people (the other team) with an opponents disconnect and benefit 3 innocent people. Then STILL your solution isn't numerically the best.

Lastly I want to ask you to stop calling my reasoning a 'conspiracy theory'. I have never made a claim which is out of the ordinary. Every step in my argument is valid and follows from the previous one. Calling it a conspiracy theory is just a sophist (as in the Old Greek profession) way to counter my argument. When 100% of the games are susceptible to plug pulling it is not strange to try and get rid of that property. It is no conspiracy theory - even if plug pulling is not happening right now. It is just a suggestion to prevent this kind of behaviour from happening.

I dearly hope my stand point is clear now, because I have too much faith in you to believe that you genuinely want an agreement that is so susceptible to fraud to stay in place while a perfectly feasible alternative is available.

Please do state exactly in which way you do not agree or what you do not understand. I don't mind explaining, I do mind ignorance.

[Furbolg.]

What about leavers? We had 4v4 today where one guy says at lvl 12 that he maybe has gtg in 5 mins. Then on lvl 15 we paused for 15-20mins because he was taking a shower. Then we paused again on lvl 16 because he was doing something else. So if he left pre 20t was it a snap draw?

A lot of people who read here were in that game