How many games at once can you typically handle?

[kuribo]

If I placed my own limitations id say playing one game is stupid

You n00bs. Thinking you have time to play a game

[OkaPoka]

ive gone up to five i believe and after that i got burned out and quit mafia for 3 months.

playing more games made me a shittier than my shitty playstyle and i kept getting lynched day 1 as town as the sheer amount of flaws i was causing.

Yeah now i just play one and focus on that one game to the best of my ability.

And sometimes I can't even handle that.

[T S O]

To be fair, in the summer, I have fucking tons of spare time. I would say I could play up to 10 games pretty easily because I have so many free hours. During school is a very different story. You have less time and you're more tired when you do get on and you have more to catch up on.

[OkaPoka]

i have a fuckton of sparetime but i still cant handle more than one. q_q

[Ankamius]

I can handle like 4 if I'm fully invested in all of them.

If I'm not fully invested in all of them, then it depends entirely on how fast it moves. If it's generally moving at less than 5 pages a day, I can generally manage unless nothing at all is going on.

[Postie]

I'm still in my first game, but I'm probably going to continue taking things one game at a time.

Because, see, while I'd like to think my brain would be able to organise all that information into two neat little boxes



I have a feeling that it wouldn't quite work out like that and everything would be more like



and thus the standard of my game-play would be lowered.

[Elbirn]

I don't know who you are but you're my new favorite person

[Ankamius]

A+

[T S O]

There have been a bunch of really great posts recently.

[Firebringer]

Well I am currently in over 10+
I could probably go up to 20, if I really wanted too.
That would probably cause headaches above that though. I would start confusing games and then post stuff in wrong thread, etc.

It really depends on how dedicated you are too a particular game. I read the threads of games I am in on a daily basis, some need more paying attention too than others. Some games are way more active than others, it also depends on how deep of analysis you do on players and how much you rechecking you do on that, rereading, etc.

[popsofctown]

I think if everyone was banned from playing more than one game at a time, night phases would suck, and some people would be unhappy at first, but the quality of people's play in their games would be so much better that everyone would be happier in the long run. Good participation has a snowball effect. I play 2-3 games all the time, I'm not insisting that something is perfect because it happens to be my personal choice.

It's kinda like people playing multiple games makes it hard not to play multiple games. Like you question someone in thread on Monday, on Tuesday they are posting in their other games, you don't get a reply until Wednesday. What you end up doing on Tuesday is joining another mafia game. Then someone asks you a question in that game on Thursday, and they don't hear from you until Saturday... I know it's an exaggeration but it's kinda truish.

[Alchemist21]

I don't think a player's play quality really drops until they try to go past their own limit. The people who can play 2-3 games are probably doing just as well in all of them as they would if they were in just 1 game.

I feel like a 1 game limit would make lynching lurkers more popular since they would be slowing the pace of the game and holding people back.

I also think it would encourage more of the high-volume posting that already plagues a lot of games. If a player who has enough time to play many games gets reduced to just 1, they might feel more inclined to just post more frequently, especially if they're the type to interact directly with other players to form their reads.

It would definitely slow the pace of all the queues across the site. It looks like most players on-site play multiple games. Reducing their ability to join games would make the new games fill a lot slower.

[Firebringer]

I think if everyone was banned from playing more than one game at a time, night phases would suck, and some people would be unhappy at first, but the quality of people's play in their games would be so much better that everyone would be happier in the long run. Good participation has a snowball effect. I play 2-3 games all the time, I'm not insisting that something is perfect because it happens to be my personal choice.

It's kinda like people playing multiple games makes it hard not to play multiple games. Like you question someone in thread on Monday, on Tuesday they are posting in their other games, you don't get a reply until Wednesday. What you end up doing on Tuesday is joining another mafia game. Then someone asks you a question in that game on Thursday, and they don't hear from you until Saturday... I know it's an exaggeration but it's kinda truish.

Queues for modding would take forever in your situation.
There was interesting formula in wiki that basically said that on average something like 80% want to mod a game at any time.
Since a game requires on average above 10 players, it would take everyone playing 10 games at once to make queue run really fast. Which of course wouldn't happen.

Also, I would see it as players getting bored more quickly and having less reason to keep checking in. If you are only playing 1 game, well you could leave for a few days and catch up within maybe half hour reading at most. It would promote lurking in my eyes more so.

[SilverWolf]

Well, I agree with the sentiment that it depends on your own personal limit. I was doing 4-5 at a time and that was too much. It was actually stressful because I don't lurk games and I try to put my best effort in every time. It had a bad affect on my quality of play and my emotions in the games as well. So I cut that down and feel like I can for sure do 2 and maybe 3 absolute max depending on what type of games they are, what my role is, etc.

But that doesn't mean someone else can't stick to 1 or maybe two and not handle anymore or another person can't do 8 or 9 and be fine. I think the one thing that should be monitored and I think it is, is if someone signs up for excessive games and flakes or trolls and hurts the game for everyone else. Besides WotC, the mods should be reporting those folks to the List Mods if they don't already so they can be restricted,

[pieguyn]

it depends on my free time

when i have a lot, i usually can go up to 4-5 games. the most i ever did was 7 including 2 offsite games and that's where i ran into problems. currently, i can hardly do 2 games

i'm in a weird position where i usually have more free time during school than i do during summer, etc., but recently i still haven't had any free time :<

[popsofctown]

2 might be a better, less draconian restriction for one, but I'm going to keep arguing for one because why not:

I don't think a player's play quality really drops until they try to go past their own limit. The people who can play 2-3 games are probably doing just as well in all of them as they would if they were in just 1 game.

I would expect that there is a nonzero number of "false positives", players that would be restricted from playing a second game even though they could handle a second game just fine. I'm just taking a Utilitarian-ethics approach to the impact instead of rights-based approach. The negative impact on that individual is both marginal and localized, it only affects 1 person, and the loss is the difference between mafia and whatever their second favorite activity is when they have to do that instead of mafia with the extra time. The negative impact of failing to restrict them from going beyond their limit - if it happens they can't really handle a second game - is broad. Every other player may be enjoying the game less if their play suffers. It's not implausible that having an stretched-thin player in your mafia game dials the game quality down to the level of your second favorite activity. In a 12 player game that's eleven times the impact. So even if the restriction is only necessary for 2 players out of every 12 man list, it would still be good.

I feel like a 1 game limit would make lynching lurkers more popular since they would be slowing the pace of the game and holding people back.

Well I am glad you support me at least on one front.

I also think it would encourage more of the high-volume posting that already plagues a lot of games. If a player who has enough time to play many games gets reduced to just 1, they might feel more inclined to just post more frequently, especially if they're the type to interact directly with other players to form their reads.

I don't think extra time is something that will cause walls in mafia games. The difference between the games that get flooded and the games that don't is the nature of the dayplay of that game itself. I don't think I've ever gone to a thread and said "hey, there's this thought I want to put into the thread, or an extra paragraph I want to add to this post, but I have 2 other mafia games to post in today and only plan to spend X hours on mafia today so I'll skip it." When I have lots of stuff I want to post in a particular game, I will -make- time to post it. It doesn't matter how many games I'm in. And I'm one of those problem children.

Mods have experimented with wordcount and other restrictions, and they have seemed pretty effective when I've seen them. It encourages you to distill your thoughts down to the most important elements, which is probably optimal town play (and thus also optimial fake town play) anyway. That distillation process often takes EXTRA time.

It would definitely slow the pace of all the queues across the site. It looks like most players on-site play multiple games. Reducing their ability to join games would make the new games fill a lot slower.

So I guess your victim here is the mods that want to mod games; I hope "the mini queue fired 117 times this year" is not a measure of success for anyone. It sucks that if everyone played 1 game there would be more people wanting to mod games than players to play under the mods. It sucks that right now, already, there are more people wanting to mod games than players to play under the mods. But ultimately I don't care about Mafiascum creating a great modding experience. Mafiascum can't possibly die because the player experience became too awesome yet the modding experience became too awful or too dificult to get. Disneyworld can't possibly go bankrupt because too many people are waiting in line to ride in the little teacups, the people who form the long line are always paying customers. The success of the game of mafia will always depend on having lots of players and having those players be good, and pinging off of eachother well enough they want to do it again. The idea of causing even an infiinetesimally worse player experience just so there are more games to mod seems more awful to me than any other argument about game join limits. I think it's cool that people enjoy modding games, and I want them to have a good time doing that. I've made a point of never modding a single game onsite because I know the demand outweighs the supply, and I want to let someone else have the shot. But mod-centric policy is a really bad idea.

[Alchemist21]

My last point was in defense of players rather than mods. If people can't join multiple games, then the people in a game aren't available to join other games in-queue, and the people that do join the queue would be waiting longer than they already do for games to start.

[Ankamius]

If there's an enforced game limit at all, it should be 3. It wouldn't severely restrict games from taking off while still allowing people to be in enough games that it's very unlikely for all of them to go into night at the same time.

The biggest problem with a 1-game-at-a-time limit is that people would probably just eventually get fed up and leave the mafia portion of the site if they were forced to just sit there as a VT for three days waiting. I know I would, anyway.

[popsofctown]

If there's an enforced game limit at all, it should be 3. It wouldn't severely restrict games from taking off while still allowing people to be in enough games that it's very unlikely for all of them to go into night at the same time.

The biggest problem with a 1-game-at-a-time limit is that people would probably just eventually get fed up and leave the mafia portion of the site if they were forced to just sit there as a VT for three days waiting. I know I would, anyway.

This is a good argument

[Cheery Dog]

There's currently a mini game cap of 4. I don't know if that means anything

[fferyllt]

I used to need to keep track of that cap!

[Firebringer]

Arguments for capping games of players at 3 is just bad.
Its a arbitrary number.

If you subsequently replace out/inactive in games, you will be limited to games anyways.

[SilverWolf]

Cap it at 5. Anyone who plays more than that, can't possibly be playing their best in any of the games they are in. It just isn't possible. Find something else to do. Don't ruin others enjoyment of the game by joining a ton of games and then play like shit in all of them because that'a exactly what will happen. If you are a mod, if someone sings up who is in 5 games (total, doesn't matter type)-decline the in. If you are the exception to this and you can play well in all of them, well sorry but that's just the way it is. There is a ton of lurking in games right now and a ton of shitty, anti-town play and considering all games have at least 7 and up to 20+ people in them, then there are more people to think of besides yourself.

[Killthestory]

Cap is 2-3.

I've played a ton of mafia games over the past year and a half, but I've never been able to play above 3 games. When I play a game, I'm consistently PbPA every players posts for anything scummy or even close to it.

I play a lot of reaction tests and gambits, but never pull them off unless I'm completely focused.

For me to play my best, it's 1 game. It allows me to think about it even if I'm not currently on any technology. I can think of variables, scummy players, pro-town players, transparency in posts, reactions, etc.

That's just my general experience though.

[Fluminator]

Cap for me is 1 or maaaaaybe 2.