In post 3, zoraster wrote:I don't think Best Role Claim is likely to come back. It's such a specific award that focuses on one very narrow element of playing when we don't do the same for other actions that are equally as worthy,
it doesn't get much nomination love, it's extreeeemly context specific (whether someone wins the award or not depends heavily upon game elements), and it may negatively influence game behavior (though I doubt this).
That said, we are looking into adding an award that captures some of what we like about Best Role Claim: namely that it recognizes good play in an individual thread that doesn't require being good year round. We're still discussing what the best way to implement this is, however.
Best Gambit has been suggested before, but it's just not a good award. While I don't really believe Best Role Claim causes bad behavior, Best Gambit may well do so.
I understand your concern with Smooth Operator. That's one of the reasons we've made a few changes to the award. First, we changed the name it's being called in the award to Excellent Moderation. This isn't a true change as it's always been its "official" name, but I think that puts a broader look at moderation policies. Second, we changed it to a body of work award. While doing good vote counts, etc. in any individual game isn't all that special, being a consistently good moderator who acts swiftly, fairly, etc. is something we should want to celebrate.
I don't think we'll do shared scummies except where it makes sense. This is an awards show, not a participation trophy.
I see why you suggest the body of work award that you do (sort of a best rounded player), but I don't think it's a practical idea, and I like that we recognize the very different functions that scum and town players do.
In post 165, quadz08 wrote:I think the reasons people like Best/Funniest Role Claim is because it is a non-serious award.
It is just there for the lolz of it all, most of the time.
We need more lolz awards, not less, IMO. Mafia is all srsbsns on this site, and that's fine. I like it that way, for the most part. However, there's no reason we can't celebrate the stuff that isn't that way. Funniest role claim was a superb way to do that. Even if we just do a "Funniest Post in a Mafia Game" award (which is broader than Role Claim) I think it would be good. We need a solid mix of serious "you dun good" awards and chilled-out/not that big of a deal/look back on the funtimes awards.
In post 5, chamber wrote:I was throwing around the idea of merit based achievements instead of the classical way scummies are handled with someone over aim the other day. The entire process for awarding them atm seems flawed because I think judges are rarely as invested as they'd need to be to make strong choices, and the nomination process requires you actually get nominated for a given award. Examples of achievements being something like winning > x% of your town games, winning > y% of your scum games, never getting mislynched as town, never getting lynched as mafia, being in a game where you were only on scum lynches. I'm sure you guys can think of more. The idea would be objective awards that could be handed out to any number of people.
In post 7, IceGuy wrote:In post 5, chamber wrote:I was throwing around the idea of merit based achievements instead of the classical way scummies are handled with someone over aim the other day. The entire process for awarding them atm seems flawed because I think judges are rarely as invested as they'd need to be to make strong choices, and the nomination process requires you actually get nominated for a given award. Examples of achievements being something like winning > x% of your town games, winning > y% of your scum games, never getting mislynched as town, never getting lynched as mafia, being in a game where you were only on scum lynches. I'm sure you guys can think of more. The idea would be objective awards that could be handed out to any number of people.
The problem is that this kind of awards would lead to bad incentives, such as not joining a game when you're above your win rate or never got lynched, not replacing into "doomed" slots, getting modkilled or vigkilled instead of lynched, not getting on wagons after you've been on scum lynches, and so on.
It's also an entirely different beast whether you've only been on scum lynches in a 5p vengeful or in a 25 player Large Theme.
In post 8, chamber wrote:I'm not too worried about negative incentives, people should play mafia to play mafia, the awards should be secondary.
In post 5, chamber wrote:I was throwing around the idea of merit based achievements instead of the classical way scummies are handled with someone over aim the other day. The entire process for awarding them atm seems flawed because I think judges are rarely as invested as they'd need to be to make strong choices, and the nomination process requires you actually get nominated for a given award. Examples of achievements being something like winning > x% of your town games, winning > y% of your scum games, never getting mislynched as town, never getting lynched as mafia, being in a game where you were only on scum lynches. I'm sure you guys can think of more. The idea would be objective awards that could be handed out to any number of people.
Issues with this are the current method of display of scummies, and actually tracking it all, but hopefully that would be worked out on the backed of the site by next year (which if I understand correctly is what you are taking suggestions for?)
In post 9, IceGuy wrote:In post 8, chamber wrote:I'm not too worried about negative incentives, people should play mafia to play mafia, the awards should be secondary.
What people should do and what people do are often two different things.
I'd consider such awards borderline to outside game influences, and they're banned for a reason.
In post 11, chamber wrote:Surely these awards are less of an outside influence than the best claim and best gambit awards you were recently championing?
In post 15, chamber wrote:This is a fair enough point, but you could simply apply a rule like awards are only for games you start in.
In post 16, IceGuy wrote:In post 15, chamber wrote:This is a fair enough point, but you could simply apply a rule like awards are only for games you start in.
In this case, people will not play (or play under an alt) if they haven't been lynched.
All in all, I simply see no point in those awards, and a bunch of disadvantages.
In post 17, chamber wrote:The point is to reward good play in an objective way.
Be specific with disadvatages I'll continue to show that you are wrong.