Yes, we’re still talking about Gevlon and Game Theory.
Because I like game theory.
The Ultimatum Game
Part of Gevlon’s response to Tam’s original post was about a game-theoretical/economic concept called “Inequity Aversion”. Gevlon’s take on the subject is this:
This ape-subroutine is called “Inequity aversion“, and it’s literally an ape-subroutine as it is observed among monkeys. The typical test of it is the following: there are two test persons (actually it’s enough if the second is the test person, the first can be researcher in disguise). The researcher put money to the table and the first guy splits it among himself and the second. The second person cannot affect the split but can reject the deal. This case the researcher takes all the money back. Most experiments show that people use to reject “unfair” splits (typically below 25%). Let’s think again: they reject the gift of the researcher just to prevent the first person from getting a larger gift.
Gevlon clearly seems to think this is a bad idea. In fact it’s anything but.
Taken in splendid isolation, Gevlon is quite right. It is irrational to reject a small gift simply because another person is getting a larger one. However this ignores the fact that the first person’s decision making is directly informed by the way in which they expect you to react.
The experiment Gevlon describes (the “Ultimatum Game”) is one in which both parties are presented with an opportunity for – in his own terms – gain. But the gain of the second player (who gets only to accept or reject it) is contingent entirely on the first player’s belief that the second player will reject an unfair distribution.
If both players are perfectly “rational” the first player gets all the money, and the second player gets nothing. The first player can rely on the second player not vetoing the deal, however unequal, and therefore has no reason to give the second player anything at all.
So the optimal strategy for the second player is actually an irrational one. By introducing the possibility of a veto, the second player gives the first player an incentive to actually give them, well, something. Rejecting any individual offer has no value, but it is necessary for the second player to reject some non-zero offers, to avoid their veto becoming a totally empty threat. Negotiations between two parties rely on the fact that one party can reject a beneficial offer simply for not being beneficial enough. This isn’t envy, and it’s very different to some of Gevlon’s other examples (free-for-all PvP, kicking over other people’s monopolies) because it involves dealing directly with how other people react to you.
You Yank It, You Tank It
If I am tanking an instance, and the DPS pulls without my say-so, I can let them get killed. If I do this, they will no longer contribute their DPS to the run. In absolute terms, this will make my group less effective, which will in turn make it take longer for me and for everybody in my group to get emblems. From a purely rational perspective, if a random DPS insists on chain-pulling, the healer and I should both take it upon ourselves to handle the situation with good grace. That’s the rational thing to do.
Except of course it isn’t. For several reasons.
Firstly, I’m not in this for badges-per-hour. For a start I’m done for Triumph now, so all I care about in Heroics is the two Frost Badgers I need for my cloak, and I can get that a maximum of once per day. I’d rather have a low-stress run lasting twenty minutes than a high-stress run lasting ten. I’d rather four-man an instance over the corpse of a moron than waste my time saving people from their own impatience. Just because I have spells on my bars which can compensate for your stupidity, that doesn’t mean I’m obliged to use them.
Secondly, it is a bad idea to encourage people to be lazy. Yes most healers can heal through Slad’rann’s poison nova now, but they can’t heal through Ick’s. If you let DPS think their job is just to spam their rotation and not worry about little things like situational awareness, you’re creating a rod for your own back.
And finally there’s pure, simple schadenfraude. After all, this is a game, and ultimately we play games to enjoy ourselves. And frankly I enjoy watching people die of their own fail. Certainly I enjoy it more than I enjoy mindlessly grinding Heroics or running repetitive daily quests.
Asshole Chicken
A lot of the discussion of Tam’s posts has hinged around the extent to which Tam was “right” to refuse to res this particular dickhead. Curiously, few people have bothered to ask whether it was right for this guy to refuse to release. There seems to be a perception that because Tam clicked the “healer” box that this means he’s obliged to do things for other players that they are perfectly capable of doing themselves. This is completely fucking stupid.
It is not the healer’s “job” to resurrect you any more than it’s the mage’s “job” to port you to Dalaran or the Rogue’s “job” to open your lockboxes or the Warlock’s “job” to summon you to the instance. These are all things that other players might do for you if they feel like it, but you don’t have the right to expect it. You certainly don’t have the right to demand that other players go out of their way to give you the benefit of their class abilities.
A lot of the time, dickhead behaviour in game boils down to something I’m inclined to think of as asshole chicken. All you have to do to get your own way is to engineer things in such a way that for somebody to deny you what you want makes them the bad guy.
Tam’s resurrection debacle is an example of one such. Essentially the res-begger challenged Tam to a game of chicken. By refusing to release, he was effectively saying “I am willing to hold up the entire group until I get my own way”. The guy was betting on the fact that he was more willing to wreck everybody else’s fun than Tam was. And it was a safe bet, because random pug morons are always going to want the most expedient solution to any problem, so either he’d get ressed or the healer would get vote-kicked, which was exactly what happened.
The problem with asshole chicken is that it’s very hard to fight against, particularly because we live in a society where people are encouraged – from an extremely young age – to side with bullies and assholes, and not with the people who stand up to them. People will always side with the dickhead against the person who is “making a fuss” – it’s a code of conduct that’s drilled into us in childhood. Putting up with shit is a sign of strength and maturity, trying to do something about it makes you a snitch, or a whiney bitch, or an uppity … well you get the idea.
Worse, siding with the dickhead gets presented as the “brave” or “controversial”. Like people bitching and moaning about “political correctness” people wear their willingess to put up with assholes like a badge of honour. It’s fucking pathetic.
There is a reason the name of my blog is "You Yank it, You Tank it".
I have watched so many dps think they're going to pull half the room over to where I'm already tanking a group and that I'll immediately take it all off them. Sorry, doesn't work that way.
I haven't had near the same problems on my healer as I've heard tell of, but I suspect it's a matter of time.
Askevar
My recent post Just an FYI to DPS:
I think the thing about healing is that a lot of the jackassy stuff is low key. It's little things like people expecting you to heal through damage they could perfectly well move out of (because "you're a healer, you should heal").
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
There is a reason the name of my blog is "You Yank it, You Tank it".
I have watched so many dps think they're going to pull half the room over to where I'm already tanking a group and that I'll immediately take it all off them. Sorry, doesn't work that way.
I haven't had near the same problems on my healer as I've heard tell of, but I suspect it's a matter of time.
Askevar
My recent post Just an FYI to DPS:
There is a reason the name of my blog is "You Yank it, You Tank it".
I have watched so many dps think they're going to pull half the room over to where I'm already tanking a group and that I'll immediately take it all off them. Sorry, doesn't work that way. I haven't had near the same problems on my healer as I've heard tell of, but I suspect it's a matter of time. Askevar My recent post Just an FYI to DPS:
Every school teaches children to not side with bullies in principle, but in practice…well it just doesn't work because of the "snitch/uppity" problem. So school fail, and it's certainly not the only life lesson they horribly fail at.
From a healer's perspective, Tam was absolutely right in not rezzing and from the DPS perspective, he was absolutely right to not walk back. They each made their own decisions based on their own situations. The DPS wants to play "asshole chicken" and Tam does not. For those of us who don't grind heroic and are here to enjoy ourselves, Tam's position makes more sense.
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As Ratshag points out below, the guy lying on the ground wasn't really right from his perspective. Everybody running is faster than waiting to be resurrected. Lying around waiting for a res when you can just as easily corpserun is the very *definition* of expecting other people to carry you.
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
Yes, the DPS was correct from HIS point of view. You two have completely ignored the fact that the DPS player's benefit was that they were probably surfing the web and catching up on something else while the healer runs back. The calculus you set out is that the group goes slower and that's a detriment to the DPS'er. They do not care. They figure if they play this chicken game that the healer will be forced to relent…so they get free time to do what they want instead of run back.
I'm not approving of it, but it's absolutely wrong to make your conclusions based on the group perspective. Remember, I'm a HEALER. This situation annoys me as much as you.
My recent post Will questing become obsolete?
"from the DPS perspective, he was absolutely right to not walk back"
Wrong – He broke the first rule, did the first wrong, he didn't BOTHER to walk back when everyone else did then he demanded a res.
There is no way that is the right way to behave – even if he had a quick bio without mentioning it he should not of assumed the healer would res. If he then when on to explain himself and then ask for a res, Tam may of ressed him, and if, for whatever reason Tam didn't he should of released and ran back.
It was the guy laying on the ground who chose, for no particular reason to break instance etiquette, and when someone confronted him about that he did it again by refusing to release, in turn causing Tam to retort to his refusual to follow basic group etiquette and then to argue with it by deciding to not res.
I play a resto druid and I'm fortunate to not have run into this situation yet…on any wipe I've encountered everyone has ran back. The one exception has been the new 5-mans, as sometimes people get utterly lost on the ghost run (one disadvantage of the LFG tool…people don't know where the instances are!) so I rez them out of mercy.
I think if it did happen though I'd go with my normal all-purpose principle – the "that's your one freebie" mindset. If a DPS pulls aggro, I'll heal them and keep them alive…once. If a tank doesn't wait for mana replenishment but instead rushes ahead, I'll do my best to catch up and keep him alive…once. Etc. Then after that, regardless of if we wipe or succeed, I'll make sure it's known in chat that doing it again will result in me not saving you and being perfectly willing to drop group or /votekick if necessary.
Yeah, I've had the "can't find the way to icecrown" problem. We went into ICC for the first time today and I had my very patient raid leader explaining over vent that "it's the great big spire in the middle of icecrown." I still couldn't find it.
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
I'm glad you pointed out the immense satisfaction derived from watching some spastic DPS eat his own pulls. I play this game to enjoy myself, and that is a LOT of enjoyment!
I also will let a DPS lay on the ground if he or she refuses to run in. I am not his bitch.
And finally: the only way to win at the game of Gevlon is not to play.
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"from the DPS perspective, he was absolutely right to not walk back."
Absolutely wrong.
The fastest way to recover from a wipe is for every bugger ta release and run. Every glubbernugger whatsits around, waiting for the rezzer to run in, mana up, find his corpse, rez, and mana up again slows the process down for everyone. Including the lazy dickhead what wouldn't release. Tam were right, and it don't matter if yer doin' ten heroics a day, one a day, or one a week.
My recent post Gone Fishin'
To me, its a given that the dps was wrong to not run back. Presumably nobody else in the group was his maid and thus not obligated to clean up after him when he left his stinking corpse on the floor. Only a few exceptions give somebody a pass to not make the run of shame after they've failed to keep upright and breathing.
My recent post Festergut Gutted
You schadenfrauder you!
Zero-sum games and the Cold War…. ah yes, I remember the days.
I enjoy a game of chicken or two, but what I really prefer in my Sanity Tap is a nice, quiet, smooth run.
Honestly, whether I rez or not won't depend a whole lot on logic. I'll decide to rez, or not, to tank, or not, to save the idiot from him/herself, or not…. if I feel like it at the moment.
My recent post Putricide nerf incoming?
You schadenfrauder you!
Zero-sum games and the Cold War…. ah yes, I remember the days.
I enjoy a game of chicken or two, but what I really prefer in my Sanity Tap is a nice, quiet, smooth run.
Honestly, whether I rez or not won't depend a whole lot on logic. I'll decide to rez, or not, to tank, or not, to save the idiot from him/herself, or not…. if I feel like it at the moment.
My recent post Putricide nerf incoming?
I agree with the 99.9% of what you said.
My only *slight* disagreement is with your POV about why folks side with bullies & assholes. I agree with you about the perception of whuiny, bitchy, but I don't about the rejection of PC and the brave, anti- PC thing. (this is strictly my opinion)
To me, most people are simply stress averse AND are relatively easily intimidated. (which may both be the same thing, to some degree)
Caving in to, or at best, ignoring buillies is a behavior I would strongly agree has been socially ingrained in most of us. We don't necessarily even need to see the actions of an indivivual to know their "true colors". Attitude (verbal & posture) is usually enough for us to recognize them and then "treat" them like bullies. This, to me, means to either actively accede to their demands, or to simly do nothing, which is usually the same thing.
I had to break this up into to bits, since I'm so long winded. (sorry!)
I have a sneaking suspicion that if Tam had taken an aggressive, "bully-ish" stance to the guy BEFORE he even had a chance to ask for a rez, the kicking would have been reversed. Especially if he could have made the other guy defensive…
Hmmm… maybe I'm not correct, and it's not "bully-ishness" that is actually being responded to (and accepted), per se, but the posture of "defensiveness" is responded to (by kicking, etc)? Food for thought, for wiser folks than I…
I wonder if it wasn't the DPS who wouldn't rez that started the vote-kick – which would have been immediately aggreed to by the others as the most expedient way of ending the conflict and moving on. Had Tam initiated the vote-kick, they would have hit "yes" too, just to get it over with. They're not even thinking about the right and wrong of it, just ending the conflict before they have to get involved.
Specific situations aside, I think an additional problem (at least for me) is less a case of society teaching me/others to SIDE with a bully/asshole (though I agree with your point, and there is certainly an element of that at play), and more a case of society not equipping me with the tools I need to defend myself and others from them.
…continued…
My recent post Just do it
In being an asshole, that person has escalated the conflict to a level I can't necessarily compete on without also being an asshole (on whatever level). Since society has taught me that being an asshole is wrong, I logically can't take that route, but society doesn't leave you with any other alternative (short of walking away entirely, which is often the asshole's goal or at the very least unfair as I don't get to finish my run despite the fact I was the one "behaving").
Also, in my experience people who "side" with assholes, ARE assholes. Birds of a feather and all that. Everyone else just tends to stay silent for fear of appearing like an asshole or initiating conflict, which gives these people free reign to run roughshod over the whole lot of us. They specifically use that instinct against those they bully.
In that respect, Tam absolutely did the right thing, AND he did it (in my opinion) without lowering himself to their level.
My recent post Just do it
Was it right for the DPS to refuse to release? For me this is a ethics issue: I was taught growing up to work hard and do as much for myself as possible, not to rely on others (except in childhood) to provide for me those things I could do for myself. Therefore my opinion is that the DPS was lazy because he demanded that somebody else do something for him that he could have more easily and quickly done for himself. It reeks of 40 year old guy living in parents basement, but I digress.
As you say, "it's a bad idea to encourage people to be lazy". This game of chicken actually had more than two players, there were three others playing who were not as lazy as this one DPS, but they still sided with the lazy because most likely that's what they would do in real life. Don't kid yourself into thinking you don't bring your entire personality and set of standards into a game as socially interconnected as wow, because you do. The greater problem isn't the lazy DPS, it's everyone else reinforcing the lazy behavior so that it persists long into the future.
Inequality in not a simple matter of more and less. When others have more they are in a stronger position. From that position they can dominate, to the detriment of the weaker person; hurting both their economics and freedom.
Fairness isn’t about being nice, it’s about being safe and free.
"Fairness isn't about being nice, it's about being safe and free."
I rather like that.
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
A curious game indeed…
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
Inequality in not a simple matter of more and less. When others have more they are in a stronger position. From that position they can dominate, to the detriment of the weaker person; hurting both their economics and freedom.
Fairness isn’t about being nice, it’s about being safe and free.
Same her, and same for Tam, but a remarkable number of people seem to be popping up and saying "you're a healer, it's your job to res people".
I'm trying to build up a collection of equivalents. "You're a Death Knight, it's your job to Death Gate back to Ebon Hold and stock up on reagents for us."
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
I like a quiet smooth run too. Curiously the quietest, smoothest runs I've had (outside of guild-runs where everything dies in seconds) have been the ones where everybody was coasting on an easy 1.8-2k and not waving their electronic wangs everywhere.
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
I think the thing is that saying "stop being a dick" makes you a target far more than actually being a dick. Saying "stop picking on this guy's gear" is a lot harder than picking on somebody's gear.
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
That's pretty much it exactly. It's a bigger problem when there's an existing power imbalance, because it's so easy for the party with the power to force other people to either go beyond what is socially acceptable. In this case, for example, it's extremely easy to lie around and force a healer to either res you or hold up the run by refusing to res you, and because once everybody is *back* it most definitely *would* be quicker to res you than to make you run, you get everybody on your side and put the healer on the side of the snitches and whiners.
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
Very true, and again this is why it's important to challenge this kind of thing, even if it slows things down in the short term. Telling one guy that they don't get to slow things down for everybody might make things take longer than the initial offense, but if one guy gets to slow the run down, so does everybody else.
My recent post Inequity Aversion and Asshole Chicken
Hats off! Brilliant post Chas. Most people still doesn't understand WoW is largely a team-playing game, no matter if it's just a pug or a bunch of guildies. So just let them be dickheads, when they've annoyed enough people they will find they're alone out there and the only people accepting them are other dickheads. Then bring out the popcorn, kick back and enjoy the show.
My recent post What DPS class you fear most as healer?
"frankly I enjoy watching people die of their own fail" This. Best part of the game!
In the years to come, we will be able to look back at this post and say "this was it, this was where the revolution started". Sounds like im kidding right?
Well, in part. But the truth is, that for a game such as WoW, that has so many non-typical gamers playing it, its amazing that this level of stereotypical gamer-mentality gets to live on. The one where you, safe at home behind your screen, can call people the most horrendous things and get away with it. They get to win at asshole-chicken everyday they log on.
Like Kurnak said: The lessons games like WoW should be teaching us, is that if you play nice, you get to play more, and if you are a team-player, the game gets even more fun for you.
My recent post The Porn Star and the PUG
In the years to come, we will be able to look back at this post and say "this was it, this was where the revolution started". Sounds like im kidding right?
Well, in part. But the truth is, that for a game such as WoW, that has so many non-typical gamers playing it, its amazing that this level of stereotypical gamer-mentality gets to live on. The one where you, safe at home behind your screen, can call people the most horrendous things and get away with it. They get to win at asshole-chicken everyday they log on.
Like Kurnak said: The lessons games like WoW should be teaching us, is that if you play nice, you get to play more, and if you are a team-player, the game gets even more fun for you.
My recent post The Porn Star and the PUG
Brilliant post Chas, totally agree.
Nah, the reason they sided with lazydps was due to them wanting to "go go go".
They obviously didn't really think about "kick healer=wait time=2minutes+ OR kick lazydps=wait time=1.5seconds" DOH!.
I'm thinking lazydps initiated votekick and the others followed like sheep :].
It's amazing how often that happens. As I've mentioned elsewhere in comments, I've seen somebody vote-kicked because somebody accidentally hit the "vote to kick" button while trying to inspect their gear, and didn't get a chance to say "whoops" before it passed.
My recent post incoherent icecrown ramblings
In the years to come, we will be able to look back at this post and say "this was it, this was where the revolution started". Sounds like im kidding right? Well, in part. But the truth is, that for a game such as WoW, that has so many non-typical gamers playing it, its amazing that this level of stereotypical gamer-mentality gets to live on. The one where you, safe at home behind your screen, can call people the most horrendous things and get away with it. They get to win at asshole-chicken everyday they log on. Like Kurnak said: The lessons games like WoW should be teaching us, is that if you play nice, you get to play more, and if you are a team-player, the game gets even more fun for you. My recent post The Porn Star and the PUG
You schadenfrauder you!
Zero-sum games and the Cold War…. ah yes, I remember the days. I enjoy a game of chicken or two, but what I really prefer in my Sanity Tap is a nice, quiet, smooth run. Honestly, whether I rez or not won't depend a whole lot on logic. I'll decide to rez, or not, to tank, or not, to save the idiot from him/herself, or not…. if I feel like it at the moment. 
My recent post Putricide nerf incoming?
There is a reason the name of my blog is "You Yank it, You Tank it".
I have watched so many dps think they're going to pull half the room over to where I'm already tanking a group and that I'll immediately take it all off them. Sorry, doesn't work that way. I haven't had near the same problems on my healer as I've heard tell of, but I suspect it's a matter of time. Askevar My recent post Just an FYI to DPS:
There is a reason the name of my blog is "You Yank it, You Tank it".
I have watched so many dps think they're going to pull half the room over to where I'm already tanking a group and that I'll immediately take it all off them. Sorry, doesn't work that way. I haven't had near the same problems on my healer as I've heard tell of, but I suspect it's a matter of time. Askevar My recent post Just an FYI to DPS:
There is a reason the name of my blog is "You Yank it, You Tank it".
I have watched so many dps think they're going to pull half the room over to where I'm already tanking a group and that I'll immediately take it all off them. Sorry, doesn't work that way. I haven't had near the same problems on my healer as I've heard tell of, but I suspect it's a matter of time. Askevar My recent post Just an FYI to DPS:
There is a reason the name of my blog is "You Yank it, You Tank it".
I have watched so many dps think they're going to pull half the room over to where I'm already tanking a group and that I'll immediately take it all off them. Sorry, doesn't work that way. I haven't had near the same problems on my healer as I've heard tell of, but I suspect it's a matter of time. Askevar My recent post Just an FYI to DPS: