Demerit system to replace vote kick

Hey guys,

It has occurred to me that there is an endless amount of complaint surrounding the vote kick system, and for several reasons that appear to be pretty valid. As I understand the reasons people dislike the vote kick system, they are as follows:

1. In a hectic game like this, voting is a nuisance, especially since you can never tell when a vote will be called.
2. People often vote simply to get rid of the vote box, without knowing what they're voting for or why.
3. People get falsely accused of offenses due to the real offender trying to deflect blame, as well as point 2 above.
4. It is very unlikely for players other than the one that called the vote to be able to make an informed decision at the time the vote is called, since they are unlikely to be in a position where they can see the offender at that particular time, especially if on the other team.
5. The "correct" percentage of votes to kick someone seems to be elusive. Every time it is tweaked, there is still a good deal of dissatisfaction with the results.
6. Successfully votekicking someone is an awful lot of work for such a brief penalty. Often, the offender will rejoin immediately upon their temp ban ending. Such is the nature of the troll.
7. There seems to be endless disagreement about which keys would be best assigned to the votes (since SOMEONE *cough @Geti *cough* refuses to put in the time to allow custom key bindings for everything), so sometimes voting mistakes are made.

I realize that not all of the above points are of a high severity, but they all do exist to some degree. I propose the following replacement system to mitigate and/or completely eliminate all of the above gripes:

If a player sees another player commiting a vote-kick worthy offense (griefing, teamkilling, whatever), that player can 'demerit' the other player. How that is done is up for discussion, but basically he can tag the offender as a teamkiller or griefer or whatever. When that happens, there is a notice that appears to all players on the server, something like "hierbo has accused norill of teamkilling!". All of the other players will see that message, but will not be required to take any action. In the score screen (tab key screen), the players can have a demerits counter on them, so everyone can see who's got demerits. Then, if, at another time, another player sees that same guy committing an offense, he can 'demerit' the offender, as well, which will increase his demerit counter by one.

When the offender's demerit counter reaches a certain threshold, which could be an autoconfig or seclevs value, that person would either be auto-kicked, or becomes kickable by any player (whichever ends up being better, I don't know). Once kicked, the player's demerits will decay at a slow rate (like maybe 1 per hour). Then, instead of the player just being able to re-join after 15 minutes or whatever, they would have to wait for quite a long while, until they have no more demerits. I believe the demerits should even be saved and decay at the same rate if the players stays in the server, or tries to quit and come back, so they can't cheat out of getting kicked and banned. In a big game with lots of players, it could be as long as several hours.

I think that if you look at my points above, you'll see that my proposal addresses all of them to at least some degree. I think it would be a lot better and something we could all get used to. What do you guys think?

 

This is a well-thought out suggestion, in my opinion. Not sure how it'll be implemented if it it chosen, but I'm for it.

 

The opaqueness of the voting system is definitely a huge problem. It is currently extremely inconvenient to even check who exactly is being kicked, and I have seen votes pass with only 1 vote on large servers. It should be a priority to at least make vote ratios visible, and to include the nickname of the player in the vote dialogue or provide some means of easy identification.

 

1. i dont think that vote box is annoying since its small, transparent and close to edge. especially when you compare it to the older one
2. it easier to click on the box to close it, than to press keys on keyboard to vote randomly
3. shitters are shitters, not much can be done about this
4. a vote is usually preceded by 10 minute "OGM COPPER20 GRIFF PLES KIKC!111" chat spam. if it's not, then its usually safe to vote against
5. vote passes if yes > no. simple as that
6. default ban length will be increased once a system to prevent vote abuse is in place.
7. keys will be made rebindable soon

as for your suggestion - it sounds too complicated

edit: also i planned to add scoreboard icons for kicker and kickee for easy assessment, but this got delayed

 

Yes, the "blame @Geti for everything" juggernaut cannot be stopped!

 

This is a much better system, especially when a moderator is online, as then they can take command of the situation, instead of them being like "Wait guys, stop! Why are you kicking him?" Then he gets kicked before any judgement can be made.

 

I do agree with you, @NinjaCell. Generally speaking, it is like each person casting a vote about whatever they want, whenever they want, and if there's enough consensus, the vote topic just happens. You don't have to keep re-calling the vote to get a consensus.

Also, @norill, thanks for responding. your insight is most valuable on this. Though, I do have to take issue with some of your points. I'll bring it back down for reference:

1. I think this issue is a matter of opinion. While I agree with you that the box itself is not a nuisance, many other users do not seem to share our opinion on that point, which is why I brought it up.
2. While you may be correct that it is easier to do the right thing and just close the box, the ergonomics do not bear that behavior out. Many users, including myself, have seen a large number of people vote 'yes' to a vote kick, including users that could not possibly have made an informed decision on the matter.
3. I just do not agree here. In the system I outlined, someone trying to trick the people in the server into falsely voting for someone else, in order to deflect blame from themselves would not have an easy time doing so. They'd essentially have to start a mini misinformation campaign in chat and talk people into issuing demerits to someone else in spite of those people not having seen the victim doing anything wrong. I think that is much more difficult than calling a vote against someone else in response to someone calling you out as an offender.
4. You're right that often people do call out offenses in chat. However, that does not change the fact that, at the time of the vote, it is still quite unlikely that most of the players have witnessed an offense, and they're just going on hearsay. In the demerit system, players can cast their vote at any time, so they can do it when they do see the offense. The guesswork and false accusations are gone, or at least quite reduced.
5. True, but that is often not even a quorum.
6. Fair enough.
7. 

In regard to my suggestion sounding too complicated:

I think that the description of it may sound complicated, but in practice, it is actually not. What it boils down to for users is this: If you see someone doing something illegal, then formally say so, and it will be dealt with democratically. The users don't have to understand how its being calculated, or what happens on the back end. They just call out an offender and then that's all they have to do; the player either gets kicked or they don't.

On the back end, however, I am completely unqualified to comment, and will have to take your word for it. Are you saying that it would be too complicated of an undertaking to revamp the voting system to such a degree? If so, then I understand and must accept that obstacle.

Again, thanks so much for chiming in. Forgive me if I am too zealous in my defense of this idea; I just thought it to be such a good one that I just had to hurry up and post it, and was a bit surprised that you didn't agree. I certainly don't mean to be combative, and will take my spoonful of cement if that's how it must be!

 

i'm not saying your idea is bad - after all its very similar to the system that is used in classic and that system worked (more or less). i dont know if your system is better than the current one or not

 

Decent enough system ,but I do not trust the majority of kag players to fix a flag case without me screaming at them let alone kick a greifer

 

Spoiler

On topic: I think demerit could be abused, imo it works fine as it is now (not really, but if everyone were a little smarter it should and that's the same reason I don't think it may be able to be fixed). Honestly, the system you propose would work - if griefers weren't themselves able to vote. For example, if the seclev was 2 token = autokick, what if 2 griefers join and decide to put 2 demerits on each of their team members? You may think that's preposterous, but I've seen 'buddy' griefers before. With a system like this, they would even be able to abuse the very system that's trying to prevent them from being able to ruin a match, to ruin a match AND server if no admins step in (at which point, innocent people have already been force kicked and have probably exited the game). Seriously, there's a reason they're called griefers, unfortunately for everyone else that wants to actually play.

 

I like this idea a lot if not to replace the current system at least to supplement it.
The problem with the current system is that no one cares/ they don't want to take the time to find out the right decision during game play. This system would always be on. You see someone team kill click a, demerit, you see a griefer, demerit, someone shouting obscenities, demerit.
If the total demerits you have been issued was next to your name on the score board all someone would have to do when a vote came up would be look at the number you have and make a judgement that has had the collective thought of the whole team, along with chat and anecdotal evidence. There would need to be balance as far as how many could be issued and when they would expire, maybe even have a positive direction too.?.
along with norill's idea to have the voter and accused present on the scoreboard this would crowd source the decision, allowing for better more fair votes.

 

Even better, just stick the demerit number of both the voter and the accused in the actual vote box. Would stop people trying to counter-kick.

 

Literally a example of this me and Punk have experienced is where someone was team-switching to greif both teams in a game. Before a vote against him was made a vote against Punk happened first and he was kicked with hilarious yet unjust impunity from the server.

People don't ask questions unfortunately and just mash yes. Maybe this demerit system can add that much needed buffer where a record is kept on who gave the demerit.

This gives the opportunity for dispute in a relevant area of the forums. Although that may be too over zealous on instances that may be simple misunderstandings.

 

The only problem with this is that it can't be moderated as easy as a votekick. Someone who is disliked across the community can be spammed with demerits and then won't be able to play ... anywhere. If there is an admin in a server, they generally cancel unjust votes.

 

Are you referring to yourself? there would be balance like i said with how many times you can give one. It's no more easily abused than votes are right now.

 

No.

 

@Geti pls fix