The Newbie Queue Setup

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The Newbie Queue Setup

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:50 am

Post by PenguinPower »

Hey all. The current Newbie setup is going on 4 years with some slight variation (2 years - 2d3 and 2 years - Newd3). The site has changed over those four years, and I wanted to pose the question: Is this still the setup the Newbie Queue should be running, or should we explore moving to something else?

If we're going to move to a new setup, I would also like to consider items such as:
  • Game size
    - is 9 players still the right mix? Should it be less than so that games can fire faster with fewer Newbies/SEs?
  • Phase lengths
    - previous feedback from Newbies was that the 14/2 mix wasn't ideal for them so we began to shorten phase lengths. Should we keep the phase lengths the same or modify to be quicker/longer?
  • Design
    - we've utilized a Matrix-style system for the past 8+ years. Should we keep a new setup in the same system or move to something else? Previous ideas raised included a rotation of closed or open setups.
Feel free to discuss openly, but please keep the following priorities in mind:
  • The primary goal is Newbie attraction/retention. Whatever setup we continue with/move to should be easy to understand, but also be engaging for new players for preferably more than one game. It should be continuously engaging for our SE population so that they have desire to continue to join games and help integrate newer players to the site.
  • Secondary is game balance. Game balance does tie into the primary goal, but I would prefer a setup that addresses the primary goal even at the cost of the secondary. So long as people want to keep playing it - and do feel like they have a chance to win as either alignment - I am not particularly concerned with theoretical balance.
Just wanted to get this discussion started - I'm a fan of change and 4 years seems long enough to me.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:31 am

Post by Micc »

I think moving Day 1 to have a 7 day deadline might be beneficial. Newbies have a hard time manufacturing discussion without a flip or night actions so Day 1 tends to drag along. It might be better for engagement to jump into the “action” earlier.

I think addressing queue time is important, but I would not support downsizing the playerlist. Mechanical solves are already common, and I think they just become more common once more town power is added to compensate for the smaller playerlist.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:40 am

Post by Micc »

Is the question of how to bring new players to this site part of the scope of this thread?
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 11:01 am

Post by T3 »

rotate semi open, open, and an easy closed setup
make days shorter
day 1 in newbie games are really, really, boring
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 11:02 am

Post by T3 »

like:
newd3
cop9
and then a 9 player closed normal setup from this list: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=87599
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 12:48 pm

Post by Ythan »

Ego I might have thoughts later
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:10 pm

Post by Cook »

ego
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:53 pm

Post by T3 »

the only way to get more newbiesis through other sites
the only eay to retain newbies is interesting games. i've noticed that some newbie games that are active have very high player retention. best way to get active newbie games is through se's helping the discussion. best way to get se's is through interesting setups.
i think
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 4:56 pm

Post by PenguinPower »

In post 2, Micc wrote:Is the question of how to bring new players to this site part of the scope of this thread?
Sure. Ultimately, this is about attraction and retention. I’m fine to hear all ideas, though the focus is on the setup.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:00 pm

Post by Ircher »

I think the size should stay at 9 players because 9+ players is typical throughout the site making it less of a jump to go from the newbie queue to another queue. 9p is also better for balancing reasons and setup variety.
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Fri Sep 24, 2021 11:07 pm

Post by Not Known 15 »

Semi-open setups are only a very small part of the games played here. The majority is closed. The rest is mostly open.
Many of the tactics used in newbie games don't work in closed games, we are not giving them an accurate picture of the site. This can't be good for long-term player retention.
What would probably work, then?
We have Normal Games. Normal games have a fixed list of roles, currently.
Newbie games could be made of a smaller list of relatively simple roles. Yes, this drives up workload. But it would probably help player retention more than anything else.
The player count is necessary for player retention - smaller games are too chaotic or have not enough choices to work upon.
The roles/modifiers we could use are very easy to understand:Bodyguard, Doctor, X-Shot, Neighbor, Cop, Roleblocker, Mason(2x), Tracker, Visitor, Macho, Night 1. You also have a decent chance to encounter any of these in a game(except maybe Macho, but that's needed because of Doctor). IC and Vig would be not good because they are special roles. Some of these roles are low power.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Sat Sep 25, 2021 4:28 am

Post by Cook »

cough cough basic roles using a blacklist
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Sat Sep 25, 2021 4:38 am

Post by Ircher »

The problem with closed setups though is that someone has to be responsible with making them, and someone else must review it. That will impact the speed at which games launched. Making them is probably not an issue, but finding reviewers can sometimes take a while.
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:09 am

Post by T3 »

True.
Expand the NRG then?
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:42 am

Post by Cook »

if we do a review system for newbies i'd like to suggest the following:
1. all setups are predesigned by a group of people who are trusted to make them, like the NRG but they review each others' setups
2. a list of all roles that can/are used in newbies needs to be maintained publicly and changes should be declared in the queue thread
3. modifiers should be legalized case-by-case and used sparingly, if for instance odd-night cop is a role that passes, then odd-night cop is part of the list of roles that is publicly known to be possibly used.
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:10 am

Post by Gamma Emerald »

I like the idea to use modular closed setups
I also wonder whether repeats of setups would be more or less secure in the newbie queue, I’ve seen a few runs of “friends and enemies but as a closed setup” in the normal queue so I think it shouldn’t be too offensive to rerun some setups
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:56 am

Post by OkaPoka »

In post 1, Micc wrote:I think moving Day 1 to have a 7 day deadline might be beneficial. Newbies have a hard time manufacturing discussion without a flip or night actions so Day 1 tends to drag along. It might be better for engagement to jump into the “action” earlier.

I think addressing queue time is important, but I would not support downsizing the playerlist. Mechanical solves are already common, and I think they just become more common once more town power is added to compensate for the smaller playerlist.
i agree with the first sentiment, when i spammed newbie games, day 1s were often the worst part of the game because of how slow it was and its hard to kick things up a notch without things 'happening'. and day 1s do set the tone of the game and dragging it along can decrease retention

in fact i think a large part of me sticking around this site was my first game having someone die in 2 pages, concrete things happening makes it a lot easier for a newbie to speculate and participate. perhaps we should look into something like that, and besides, rvs isn't as mandatory as it once was
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:30 am

Post by Micc »

In post 8, PenguinPower wrote:Sure. Ultimately, this is about attraction and retention. I’m fine to hear all ideas, though the focus is on the setup.
I don't have any ideas, but if other people do I think its good they share them. I don't watch game fill rates as closely as I used to, but the drop off is concerning.
Not Known 15 wrote:Semi-open setups are only a very small part of the games played here. The majority is closed. The rest is mostly open.
Many of the tactics used in newbie games don't work in closed games, we are not giving them an accurate picture of the site. This can't be good for long-term player retention.
I don't think this is a problem that needs solving. It's actually good that newbies have open information about the setup because it helps focus their discussion and scum hunting on days 2 and 3. They would really struggle for direction without it. That's bad for retention in the sense that it's not fun for newbies to play town games and whiff on all their scum reads. Whereas if they maneuver to a mechanical solve and feel that success of finding scum, that's something that I think brings people back.
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Post Post #18 (ISO) » Sun Sep 26, 2021 4:59 am

Post by Isis »

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Post Post #19 (ISO) » Sun Sep 26, 2021 5:06 am

Post by Isis »

Noble Novice Bodyguard

Noble Even Night Tracker

Noble Night One Neapolitan

Neighbor

Neighbor

Vanilla

Vanilla

Vanilla

Vanilla

7-2 Small-town.
Special effect: when night one begins, if the mafia do not have a living Noble, they will learn the identity of a random Noble. (Noble has no other effect)
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Post Post #20 (ISO) » Sun Sep 26, 2021 5:22 am

Post by Cook »

IME bodyguard is not a very common role
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Post Post #21 (ISO) » Sun Sep 26, 2021 4:14 pm

Post by TemporalLich »

In post 3, T3 wrote:rotate semi open, open, and an easy closed setup
make days shorter
day 1 in newbie games are really, really, boring
probably a good idea

however you'd 100% run into Follow The Cop if you want an Open with the classic Cop and Doctor roles.

I think we need standard deadlines and easy deadlines (easy deadlines are shorter for newbie games, while standard deadlines are what the current site meta expects for a standard deadline game) and a 48 hour prod timer (easy for newbies).

A smalltown is not a Newbie setup.

Semi-open should be either NewD3 or something like C9 but modernized.

Open could be a classic game of standard roles.

Closed would be Cook's Basic but with a review.
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Post Post #22 (ISO) » Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:19 am

Post by Gypyx »

well, to develop on needing a more closed thing (because imo, turning into an open isn't the right move, simply because i doubt SEs would be very enthusiast to play what's roughly the same setup for 1+ years

so basically, in another site dedicated to mafia i know of, the way games are designed is that each role has a point value, and a setup can't exceed a certain total value, the better the role is for town, the highest it's worth

can't we combine that idea with a smaller whitelist to create basically randomly generated normals?
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Post Post #23 (ISO) » Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:45 am

Post by RadiantCowbells »

the values of roles aren't static
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Post Post #24 (ISO) » Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:09 pm

Post by Gypyx »

fair, but not by a landside, or, even if it changes a lot, the list would be small enough to account for indicidual scenarios
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