What games/setups are good for new players?

[Ydrasse]

hello! as part of the mod team’s efforts to make a better new player experience i would like to reach out to ask our playerbase what they think makes a good newbie game.

this can be any suggestion - link to a setup, general ideas, playstyles, mentor programs. anything is on the table!

and thank you in advance for anything posted!!

[Ydrasse]

this is a bit of my Personal Takes on newbie queue and newbie reform and how i am approaching it atm

i think the newbie queue shouldn't come back in its original form. i valued and really enjoyed the games that were played there, i had a lot of fun, but i think that we can offer a better and more expansive newbie experience for players than this setup. while it's good for people who are completely new to the game, i think that it creates a disparity between what new players play and what an average site game is like - if they go to the normal queue and are confronted by multiple unknown night roles and interactions, and lack an understanding of how to approach them, it can be disheartening.

while i would like this to benefit mainly newer players of mafia as a whole i also want this new take on the queue, whatever form it takes, to be a nice introduction to people new to MS and the types of games we play here as well in general. newd3 doesn't... really cut it for that.

i have a few ideas for how to implement this (and this is me myself and i alone in these opinions) but what i was thinking was to have, at the very least, monthly games launching. it can include newd3, i think it should include stuff like an easier pyp or c9++, i think it should have some of our open games that have interesting mechanics rather than roles. there should be some simpler normals! there should be a variety of what we offer to new players over a period of time - and returning ones, too - that let them try out various things to see how it works for them in an environment that is supportive to learning moreso than being the Most Competitive Games ever. i also think that for super new players if there is something a bit more 'complex' in queue, like say pyp, and they want the newd3 experience we could easily just accommodate this by running it.

the idea of a mentor program intrigues me too. having a space where you can connect with at least one person who you know is on your side in a game is really nice, and would help players adjust to the new space. the vague idea here is that: there is a thread where people can choose if they want to be a mentor, post a little profile for themselves. if someone wants a mentor, they can reach out to someone specific or ask for a random one. i don't think that they should be added into any other queue nor should they be allowed to join midway through a game - this should be a normalized process that's the same each game.

i think i'm also against secret alts being used in these games. i think if we want people to build connections with our community i personally would it rather be with the person. also i think having the anonymity introduces a weird pseudo-game potentially where experienced players try to figure out who's who when instead we can just emphasize that, if possible, not as much meta-based play should be indulged. it's impossible to get rid of it entirely but we can request that it be spoken about less or something. mitigating it entirely seems unlikely.

[Ydrasse]

(also i don't wanna get into this but it maybe helps to give more of an idea of the scope of it all, this all would happen in step with, hopefully, a better newbie guide and arrangement of resources)

[Ydrasse]

i don't know if our population of players currently would be willing to do that - or if it can be more concretely identified, what needs to change. less toxicity? sure? less competitiveness? mmmmaybe? i, personally, think that it's fine if our games are competitive but we have to walk a fine line.

it's a lot harder to change the entirety of a website than it is to make our beginner experience contain a bit of preparation i think. also setting up certain games/themes/playstyles/etc, doesn't mean that that change will never happen. it's too broad-scope i think to plan for currently and i thiiink a different conversation than current reform but idk. maybe different thread conversation worthy but still interested in exploring. this isn't trying to be a downer reply either i'm just trying to be realistic about what can be done in the immediate future i guess.

[Ydrasse]

i think of those i'm not really interested in forcing x amount of games to be newbie-friendly; i'm actually unsure of the exact numbers right now (and bad at finding them so it might take me a while if i do it later lol) but i feel that's a bad choice to force it unilaterally across the site, like. in particular places sure - i'm not the normal queue runner but i'd be fine with a permanent 1 simple or something there, an open slot and of course this queue/project/etc would always have the place for newbie friendly things but when it comes to spaces like theme games, it feels like we might hamstring people by saying "ope we haven't ran a newbie-friendly theme game in a while sorry, can't do it boss" sort of thing. i wonder if i'm incorrect there.

that was kind of why i wanted to run games that weren't newd3 but were explicitly newbie friendly regardless - the opens, the closed, treat it not so much as a "this is how games work on mafiascum" sort of deal but rather "these games offer fundamental building of things and skills people value in games, whether or not you choose to after is fine but we want you to be able to experience them."

i am also really into the idea of a feedback/play review thread actually too. i think that would be a nice addition to all of this and would pair well with a mentor program or something of the sort.

(also i do think more of our games are 'newbie friendly' than we realize probably, at least in the setups being ran, we just don't qualify them like that atm.)

[Ydrasse]

also since this is sort of being the thread for newbie reform now in general:

i am also resistant to promising or committing to broader scale change at the moment because... i am one person, the mod team is a few people, and i worry that the level of support isn't there honestly. i appreciate very much the people who have given ideas to us, who are continuing to and are trying to make things newbie-friendly even without a queue or guides yet but there's always the chance that everyone pitches in the concepts but when it comes to run these things regularly, to dedicate time to helping players, they can't or don't want to. which is fine but i guess i am treating this whole shebang a bit more ""realistically"" or whatever in terms of implementation. framework first, meta/site change after if it's wanted.

[Ydrasse]

The approach that seems to seek out a specific or small pool of newbie-friendly setups to have always firing IMO has the flaw that it narrows decision-making about the kinds of games to run to a single top-level policy commitment that down the line would require top-level decision-making to refine. There's one (or a few) official newbie-friendly setups and place to run them, and what everyone else is doing is secondary and might take more searching for a newbie to look for.

I'd rather "What games/setups are good for new players?" be a question that is continually posed as part of the setup review/firing process and involves anyone interested in running games rather than ahead of comparatively infrequent policy shifts involving only a smaller pool of highly-engaged stakeholders (site mods and -- more peripherally -- MD/site-ideas frequenters).

i wonder if i made it not clear about at least, my personal philosophy on this but i am treating "newbie friendly" as a very open ended thing and i don't want like five setups only that rotate or us picking out of a hat things that are "simple" because i think there are an infinite amount of things that can be done in games that can be presented in a newbie friendly way or can be fun for players new to our site etc. it's a very broad spectrum and i tried to express that in the opening post!!

[Ydrasse]

we are drafting up all of the queue stuff currently for newbie 2.0 but mentorship has a seat at the table atm as does an extended list of setups beyond newd3

of the most recent post i think i want to throw the immediacy part more into the mix though to figure out the best solution depending on the amount of new players we get

[Ydrasse]

i’m personally unsure of how well that would work + also not a mod who would be dealing with it as a purble but i’ll throw it into the mix as a potential

[Ydrasse]

(in that it collides with our mentorship idea which i believe should be kept to very specific games and not spread out over queues but again personal)

[Ydrasse]

having thought a small amount about it i think i would prefer smaller, shorter games firing in the newbie queue than i would distributing newbies across multiple queues to expedite them playing

[Ydrasse]

alongside scheduled games that are confirmed to fire

[Ydrasse]

i think that any sort of mentor/buddy program that allows a person to offer relevant advice and help should be strictly in the newbie queue; people can be funneled to other games but at the cost of forgoing that aspect of it.