Hydra Discussion Thread

[Silverclaw]

So after

Barely Survivor

ended, I'd like to have a discussion on hydras in the space of LSGs.

My personal opinion: Good to have, by no means mandatory. I'll go into why later probably, but I want the thread to be up.

[Silverclaw]

I've never played with a hydra, but I'm curious to know if we think hydraing is an advantage or a disadvantage for the players in the game? It kind of seems like it's an advantage having someone you know you can trust to talk things over with and not getting as burnt out, but I could see there being some drawbacks as well. But most hydras do tend to have a more dominant hydra head, which can be a nice way for people with busy lives to still get to play, but I would also like to see more hydras which are truly equal partnerships.

If you want that, you should probably talk to MURDERCAT & June, because they were roughly equal partners.

[Silverclaw]

Hydras are bad, do not allow them in Survivor, use twists like pairs/partners if you want to coach newbies on the game

Pair/partners and hydras are very different for one particular reason:

You don't have to play with your pair if you don't want to. As the person who did pair twists in Mass Effect, then did them

again

in Eon with the "YOU CAN AUTOMATICALLY WIN" clause, it was fairly common for people to jettison their partner without a second thought and not even try to fight for them. And this was making sure that once we hit the merge everyone was paired via constant reshuffling of unpartnered players

I honestly feel like forced pairs are a total failure because people don't want to be randomly tied to someone for the length of a game (reminder that people expect this to be a solo game!). Whereas with a hydra you know what you're getting into and agreed to do it.

Does this mean that hydras should be an every-game thing? Hell no, it's just simply not doable and is unfair to those that want to play but dislike hydras - as the person who fought to have them in this game, I wouldn't want that.

[Silverclaw]

All of these games were either Advanced or Complex on the rating scale. In terms of which games should have them I would say that they should probably never be in a Vanilla game and used extremely sparingly in a Standard. If it IS a standard game then they should be limited in number and also expressly flagged out as such to the players.

Quick note to this - personal opinion here, but unless the hydras are a part of the mechanics of the game, it should be made aware

regardless of the game type.

I'd even take this a step further, and

force hydras to sign or otherwise make it VERY AWARE WHICH HEAD IS CURRENTLY ACTIVE.

I didn't force this in Barely Survivor, each hydra came to that decision on their own and I think it's very important for clarity reasons.

[Silverclaw]

All of these games were either Advanced or Complex on the rating scale. In terms of which games should have them I would say that they should probably never be in a Vanilla game and used extremely sparingly in a Standard. If it IS a standard game then they should be limited in number and also expressly flagged out as such to the players.

Quick note to this - personal opinion here, but unless the hydras are a part of the mechanics of the game, it should be made aware

regardless of the game type.

I'd even take this a step further, and

force hydras to sign or otherwise make it VERY AWARE WHICH HEAD IS CURRENTLY ACTIVE.

I didn't force this in Barely Survivor, each hydra came to that decision on their own and I think it's very important for clarity reasons.

I mean I do also feel like there should've been different accounts for each of the two heads of the hydras.

Then you just create a groupchat with both of them and congratulations it's basically the same thing? Feels pointless and clogging.

[Silverclaw]

All of these games were either Advanced or Complex on the rating scale. In terms of which games should have them I would say that they should probably never be in a Vanilla game and used extremely sparingly in a Standard. If it IS a standard game then they should be limited in number and also expressly flagged out as such to the players.

Quick note to this - personal opinion here, but unless the hydras are a part of the mechanics of the game, it should be made aware

regardless of the game type.

I'd even take this a step further, and

force hydras to sign or otherwise make it VERY AWARE WHICH HEAD IS CURRENTLY ACTIVE.

I didn't force this in Barely Survivor, each hydra came to that decision on their own and I think it's very important for clarity reasons.

I mean I do also feel like there should've been different accounts for each of the two heads of the hydras.

Then you just create a groupchat with both of them and congratulations it's basically the same thing? Feels pointless and clogging.

And what happens when you have different non-strategy-related conversations with both heads? Feels confusing and clogging.

That's on the hydras for making conversations difficult, which will just get them voted out faster if they can't stay on one topic.

This however could seriously have repercussions when a player decides to only talk to one hydra and not the other, or does a total stupid and forgets that the two accounts are one hydra [With how often you see people failing basic tasks like PM'ing the right player, this will happen a lot].

[Silverclaw]

FTR, the real problem point for hydras isn't the PM'ing thing, its the burnout thing, because hydras allow one player to take a break from the game for a day to recharge, which is a potential problem moreso than people not liking what is basically groupchats.

[Silverclaw]

Small correction to that. The veteran hydra came first, but the hydra that was two new players made it into the merge without issue and could have made it a decent distance in if they didn't both spontaneously agree to make a weird move during the ranger vote, and the hydra that was a new player and a veteran was quite well-liked but was just slow in acquiring allies. All three hydras did totally fine, and the mixed hydra doing the worst was an oddity because it was pablito and a real-life friend of his.

I'd be totally fine to add an inclination that veterans cannot hydra with other veterans because I think that's the real problem clause here that may be problematic [in addition to the burnout thing, which I do think should be addressed above and beyond everything else]. I don't think a veteran/newbie or double newbie hydra could cause nearly as many issues.

[Silverclaw]

Small correction to that. The veteran hydra came first, but the hydra that was two new players made it into the merge without issue and could have made it a decent distance in if they didn't both spontaneously agree to make a weird move during the ranger vote, and the hydra that was a new player and a veteran was quite well-liked but was just slow in acquiring allies. All three hydras did totally fine, and the mixed hydra doing the worst was an oddity because it was pablito and a real-life friend of his.

I'd be totally fine to add an inclination that veterans cannot hydra with other veterans because I think that's the real problem clause here that may be problematic [in addition to the burnout thing, which I do think should be addressed above and beyond everything else]. I don't think a veteran/newbie or double newbie hydra could cause nearly as many issues.

I do also want to see what happens to the newbie heads of those two hydras next time (if) they play! And I'm curious how they'd have done alone in a game. Hard to really analyze without the comparison, considering we get a very wild range of newbies from me not PMing anybody my first game to people like Maclow/Snakes going and winning their first time out.

I got to play with June during the marathon survivor if it helps, and she's actually really good on her own too. This was a situation where literally no one in the game but me would have possibly known who she was, and June was a total standout player. I'm confident in her ability.

I can't speak for MURDERCAT as a solo player, but I get the feeling he'd do totally fine on his own because neither head was really dragging the other down. They played off their strengths and weaknesses really well.

[Silverclaw]

+1 for the Twist Discussion Thread! I'd love to talk more about Redemption and why I did what I did with it here.

[Silverclaw]

I could see it being an every so often thing, but putting it on a schedule is probably a bad idea given the number of games that run a year normally.

[Silverclaw]

Why are we talking about ID'ing players as if this is a thing that should be weighing into how people play? Because it really shouldn't be.

[Silverclaw]

I can't believe you'd do this to me, kdowns