New Player Feedback Methodology

[grumpy]

And.......I guess one more unpopular opinion is this:

Veteran players cannot and should not populate newbie threads with....for lack of a better word....crap. As already mentioned, but we have to minimize the amount of barriers for newbies to join games and all the theorization/rambling/inside jokes/stuff newbies don't really care about is a HUGE barrier. Newbies just need a place, free from all that, to learn. That's it. Of course the site moderations will be there for any questions, but besides that....no one else is needed.

That's all newbies need: a dedicated thread solely for them where they can easily learn. That's it. The quality of Survivor games will increase. The number of people willing to mod a game will increase. Number of available games/players will increase. But we can't get there without a foundation for the new players

[grumpy]

One thing that I've also noticed is that some players seem to "know" things about the game that haven't been officially announced; like the number of jurors, whether its going to be 2 or 3 FTC, when switches are going to happen and how often they might happen.

Hopefully with these guides, it would solve this issue so that everyone is on the same playing field.

I think Aura was going a bit more for the "outguess the mod" that gets played when it comes to merge and FTC timing, and swaps. It's a bit of an acquired skill, honestly, I just know when to expect things because I've been through the ringer that is onsite Survivor some absurd number of times. The one thing we can emphasize even more than we already are is to read past games.

And that's the thing, how do you expect a newbie to read through past games? Hell, I didn't even know past were available until I was writing my opening for Medevac! But even if you did, how do you even find what you're looking for when you click on the link while trying to shuffle through 10+ player confessionals? There needs to be a guide with links to show newbies in these games exactly what happened, why it happened, and what were the consequences

[racefan12]

I think newbies should join the Clubhouse Skype chat and/or add veterans/repeat game mods on Skype because people love to talk about past games there and they are more than happy to tell you what happened and why it was important without having to wade through all the fluff

Because yeah no one has time for that

[D3f3nd3r]

I've been in Xof's ear over the last day or so about redoing and/or restickying relevant portions of the newbie guide. With some sort of r/askReddit style [Serious] tag so that it doesn't become the same land of shitposting that the other one became.

The problem is that guides can only give players so much. Way too much about this game is just sheer trial and error, and beyond "use PMs a lot" there's only so much more we can do. My honest opinion is that if we make a system/guide/anything else to get to where we can eliminate any Arwen-like games (my first game, where I didn't send PMs at all) we've done our job. We're not going to have newbies coming in and becoming Snakes or Jess or Kilby or CC with any sort of regularity. And there's going to be people that are upset that they didn't do really well in their first game. We just need to make sure we're capturing those people that are on the fence after they get booted/the game ends and doing what we can to get them to come back, and some of the comments that we've seen in this thread so far are a good way to do so.

[racefan12]

On the whole, I honestly think that this community is pretty newbie-friendly, especially compared to other sites I've been a part of. The mods and players are all quite active and more than happy to answer any questions a newbie might have... they just have to ask.

And that's the thing: Ultimately, newbies have to put forth some effort to integrate themselves within the community. Everyone else can certainly help facilitate that process. But the problem comes when a newbie is just thrown into a game without knowing anything about the community.

Like I know all large social games now have at least one mod guarantees to not be playing in that game. That's the person who should be communicating first with new players about questions not related to procedural/community meta questions, preferably before a player's first game gets underway.

Something like "Hey, I saw you're a new player who applied for Survivor: Blahblahblah. I'm a mod of the large social game forum and I'm here to answer any questions you may have about the community you just became a part of!"

Well something less cheesy that that, but yeah. Basically new players have to learn about and integrate into the community. We can tell them who to ask, but we can't make them put in the effort to do it.

[racefan12]

With respect to retention of players... literally the only reason I'm not playing anymore is lack of time. However, I suspect others are turned off by the frequent arguments and heavy emotioms that always seen to come out at the end of these games.

New players are far more likely than others to look at the games just as a fun thing to do. Most aren't going to care about ELO or Crazy's scores or other stuff like that until they become veterans themselves, if at all.

People play games to distract themselves from the stresses of life, not to add to them. If Survivor causes more stress than it provides a fun diversion, people aren't going to play.

Being competitive and taking the games seriously drives some people to play better; I'm not saying to take that away by any means. But Survivor isn't life or death, and whatever happens in a game should stay in the game. Moreover, even within a game, people are still human. They still deserve respect, even if they've betrayed you or you're about to betray them.

[Iprobablysuck]

i'm literally only here because this is the only place that does good survivor

I only speak for myself but IDGAF about advice or any of that shit. I learn by making mistakes.

[mallowgeno]

With regards to Racefan, has there been a lot of Survivor drama before? I can imagine there probably are hurt feelings and whatnot after you get betrayed but does that cast a permanent dislike between two people?

[Haschel Cedricson]

Suffice to say yes there has been lasting drama before, and no this thread will not be about discussing specific incidents.

[grumpy]

Yeah drama's going to be a given since players invest so much of themselves in these games, but that really doesn't pertain to newbies I don't think

[D3f3nd3r]

Yeah, not much drama involves newbies. At worst the newbies become memes. (Remember Bananakai?)

[racefan12]

I didn't necessarily mean to imply that drama extends to newbies directly, but at least in my opinion, that distinction doesn't matter, because even seeing what happens with other players can turn me off to playing again... because next time I could be involved.

It isn't fun to me to see others fighting.

[Shrek]

as a newbie i was a bit overwhelmed by the extremely quick pace of games

like if you don't send at least 200 messages a day you are condemned to die

[Cephrir]

son you sent more messages than god in civ

fewer and longer would have been fine

[BROseidon]

son you sent more messages than god in civ

fewer and longer would have been fine

Still requires a certain amount of content/up time.

Learning "you should always be sending pms when you have time and also make them good" took me like 4 games

[D3f3nd3r]

Sending a lot of PMs isn’t inherently a bad thing. Just ask pre-Civ BRO, or Ani, or Bella, or someone like that. But don’t make those hundreds of PMs look like you’re only doing them for the sake of getting PMs out. That was your issue in Civ IMO.

[Iprobablysuck]

Indeed.

[pablito]

Maybe I should've started with this question really to help keep this thread on topic, but for all you new players:

Aside from the "questions thread" in a confessional in-forum that grumpy and others mentioned, in which settings (forum, ms, or other) have you felt comfortable providing feedback and why? Do you have suggestions for any more?

If this thread about new player feedback methodology maybe I should've asked and inquired new players about where they can do that already, so I can get that baseline.

[TheWayItEnds]

Um.

I think a lot of what bugged me about what happened in my first game ends up being an artifact of the format of MLS and probably doesnt affect anyone else?

Its hard to give meaningful feedback on that.

[Iprobablysuck]

I am more comfortable not asking for feedback at all, tbh.

[pablito]

I am more comfortable not asking for feedback at all, tbh.

How about providing feedback on new player experience?

[grumpy]

In regards to feedback, maybe in future survivor games it should be required to complete a simple, unbiased feedback survey that highlights to technical aspects of the game and critiques the mods. Maybe like right before FTC since everyone is just waiting around for openings anyway. Might be a good idea

[grumpy]

Forgot to say the remaining players, the jury and all specs are the ones to complete it. (Especially since most specs would be premerge players)

[Iprobablysuck]

oops misread

probably talking in the confessional during the game about if i'm enjoying myself or not. Talking about it in the moment feels more natural than after the fact IMO

[racefan12]

I personally am not really good at providing unsolicited feedback during a game because I'm not really sure what you're looking for... Well that, and because I'm using all my time and energy on actually playing the game.

But if you give me specific questions to answer, I'll be happy to answer them. I liked the format of Medevac where we got like 5-10 questions per round to answer.