Mafiascum.net

In general I'd prefer to not have to replace an active player if I can help it, as that tends to disrupt games much more than a player disappearing for a bit then coming back (unless they do it too often, obviously).

Strongly disagree with 7 days, that needs to be a site level meta change, newbie games should reflect the rest of mafiascum and 7 day deadlines don't do that. 10 Days is reasonable, but it's still not what the rest of the site uses

I think this discussion has raised awareness that there is a demand for games with deadlines in the 4-7 day range. There's already one game in the Micro queue being advertised as having 7 day deadlines. Give moderators some time to adapt to this newfound demand and I think you'll start to see a larger variety of deadlines being used. Site meta seemed to respond pretty well to the differing opinions about non-hydra games and I can't see why this would be any different.

The first newbie game with deadline/prod changes has been assigned.

In post 2, PenguinPower wrote:Deadlines have been updated to 10 days for Day 1, and 7 days for all further Day phases. Prodding now occurs after 30 hours of inactivity. (7/2/2018)

I will be watching winrate and replacement stats comparing old and new systems.

I think 30 hours is a little harsh considering the rest of the site uses 48 hour deadlines... why should we be more strict about replacing newbies when they probably came to the site for the longer deadlines?

In post 153, Toomai wrote:The first newbie game with deadline/prod changes has been assigned.

In post 2, PenguinPower wrote:Deadlines have been updated to 10 days for Day 1, and 7 days for all further Day phases. Prodding now occurs after 30 hours of inactivity. (7/2/2018)

I will be watching winrate and replacement stats comparing old and new systems.

Much excite.

In post 153, Toomai wrote:The first newbie game with deadline/prod changes has been assigned.

In post 2, PenguinPower wrote:Deadlines have been updated to 10 days for Day 1, and 7 days for all further Day phases. Prodding now occurs after 30 hours of inactivity. (7/2/2018)

I will be watching winrate and replacement stats comparing old and new systems.

This looks solid to me. I've signed up to IC a game and give the new system a whirl.

In post 154, Dunnstral wrote:I think 30 hours is a little harsh considering the rest of the site uses 48 hour deadlines... why should we be more strict about replacing newbies when they probably came to the site for the longer deadlines?

It's somewhat of a necessary evil. If we shorten deadlines but keep prods unchanged, that's actually kind of worse in terms of trying to counter game stagnation.

• 14-day dayphase (old), 48-hour prods (old): each prod is 1/7 of a phase (14.3%)
  
• 10-day dayphase (new day 1), 48-hour prods (unchanged): each prod is 1/5 of a phase (20.0%)
  
• 7-day dayphase (new days 2+), 48-hour prods (unchanged): each prod is 2/7 of a phase (28.6%)
  
• 10-day dayphase (new day 1), 30-hour prods (new): each prod is 1/8 of a phase (12.5%)
  
• 7-day dayphase (new days 2+), 30-hour prods (new): each prod is 5/28 of a phase (17.9%)

Math is fun.

The math is sound in theory but where it fails is that it replaces out newbies who would otherwise enjoy 48 hour prod timers, while the whole idea was player retention, I think?

In post 159, Dunnstral wrote:The math is sound in theory but where it fails is that it replaces out newbies who would otherwise enjoy 48 hour prod timers, while the whole idea was player retention, I think?

Given that this change was spurred by survey and anecdotal feedback, can I ask where you are getting your feedback for opposition?

This is not a hard set change, but something that is being done based on the playerbase. I am always open to change for the better. I prefer for it to have some data behind it.

Dunn you don’t even play newbies

In post 160, PenguinPower wrote:

In post 159, Dunnstral wrote:The math is sound in theory but where it fails is that it replaces out newbies who would otherwise enjoy 48 hour prod timers, while the whole idea was player retention, I think?

Given that this change was spurred by survey and anecdotal feedback, can I ask where you are getting your feedback for opposition?

This is not a hard set change, but something that is being done based on the playerbase. I am always open to change for the better. I prefer for it to have some data behind it.

Where is this survey of new players/prod timers or what were the results?

Newer players are surveyed after every completed Newbie game, as stated in my original post. For the question, "how satisfied were you with the length of day phases" the average rating (from 1-5) is currently 2.4 from 39 ratings; median is 2 (14 out of 39). For comparison, the next lowest average rating is "How satisfied were you with your game IC" with a rating of 3.6.

In addition, I have received several PMs from Newbies supporting the changes, but they don't want to post here as they don't want to get caught up in the debate.

Penguin, those PMs were all from my alts.

I need to do a better job screening the newbies...

Penguin I’m pretty sure I PMed you once or twice as well

Yeah I play 4 times a week and love ICing. This will make me unlikely to be able to keep doing this.

In post 167, Espeonage wrote:Yeah I play 4 times a week and love ICing. This will make me unlikely to be able to keep doing this.

I thought it was that players simply get earlier, but are still 2-3 days? If so you should not be affected.

Did this change get installed yet?

In the current system, replacement can only be searched after 3 days of inactivity. If this is too slow, wouldn't a possible solution be to send out prod PM and replacement advert simultaneously (at the 48 hour mark)? If the inactive player responds to the prod, then just turn down all replacement requests received. If not, then the inactive player can be replaced 24 hours faster.

And the Newbie Queue, sorry for being blunt, needs a revamp. Most people who come here have some sense of what mafia is, coming from EpicMafia or Kira Online or whatever. The main thing to be learnt in the first game is the mafiascum meta, and do the ICs do a great job in teaching it? Most people who can be good ICs don't want to be IC and those who want to do it generally are not good enough. And if the newbies are not satisfied with the meta, what will they do? They will simply go back to EpicMafia. They will think that nothing of value is lost.

A genuine question (I really don't know the answer): Why do the people here don't want to play newbie games? Is that because they don't want to play with any newbie at all, or because they don't want to play a game with a majority of newbies?

While I can't discount that it may have to do with newbies for some, I think the game setup used and the replace out rate have more to do with it for most, Pulsaris.

I'm just speculating though, because the newbie queue is my favorite.

A lot of people here enjoy playing in newbie games. I enjoy it myself. In fact the usual barrier to newbie games starting sooner is... well, newbies. There are always more than enough SEs and usually at least a couple of ICs in the queue.

I would probably queue up for even more newbie games if there were more variety in the setups (instead of using the same variable-open setup all the time). But convincing non-newbies to sign up for more newbie games is not something the site should be doing, really.

In post 169, Pulsaris wrote:Why do the people here don't want to play newbie games? Is that because they don't want to play with any newbie at all, or because they don't want to play a game with a majority of newbies?

Neither, and this assumption is a terrible one to make. People don't avoid things out of hatred (...); they avoid things out of other reasons.
I love playing newbies.
But I self-enforce sets of standards for myself.

Even as just a SE, even not as a proper IC, I am a widely-established site member--while I don't intentionally give off the impression, whether I want to or not, I have a way of representing establishment at mafiascum. (Now, I'd be the first to argue I shouldn't, so if you think that I shouldn't...you won't hear me argue; I agree! But it's not something I control.)

As such, when people see me play a game, all the disclaimers in the world do no good. I can tell them "I'm not a typical player", "I'm quirky", that I'm unique, and so on and so forth endlessly--but ultimately, in spite of all my messages to them that I'm not the norm, I'm still treated as if I were the norm.

So if I am treated as the norm in a newbie game no matter how much I protest, then I need to be held to the standard of the norm. I need to be able to present a certain level of skill--something incredibly difficult to consistently do. I do it...but it requires the attention level of, as a rough estimate, three games. (Which is about the level of investment I rate modding as being.)

Since my game limit is fairly low. If I am playing in a newbie game, I can't also be modding and I can't also be in like five, eight different games. I have to be in just the newbie game and maybe one or two others, tops. Because playing a newbie game is a commitment. If I played one right now, I wouldn't be able to give it that commitment.

For the record,

In post 171, Umlaut wrote:I would probably queue up for even more newbie games if there were more variety in the setups (instead of using the same variable-open setup all the time).

I've been a long-time advocate of this, but it's a difficult change to implement.

The first obstacle is over the moral debate on whether we should, because there an argument to be had to the benefits of uniformity, that a universal setup is something which allows newbies to learn the same across all games. Which is a valid argument!

Personally, I feel the value in variety to setups would outweigh the value in uniformity, because there are benefits to variety in setups (just different ones), ranging from increasing interest in them so we have more SEs/ICs, making newbie players not be bored as easily by monotony, and serving as a much better representative of site culture allowing for newbies to be able to handle multiple different types of scenarios once leaving the queue rather than just the one they were trained for. (More or less.) Among many others.

But even if you agree with that, that variety is better than monotony...actually it is...
...Challenging, to say the least.

Each and every setup run needs to be about the same level of balanced.
Most setups if not all of them should be variable semi-opens. Which take time to design, and even longer to verify the balance of. (Especially when you have a divided community on what constitutes balanced.)
Endless number of setups have been made, but run in only small quantities; we lack the amount of hard data on them to make conclusions on whether they're firmly balanced.
Every past newbie setup has stopped being used due to HAVING the hard data...telling us the setup was imbalanced.
Even if we get to the point where we have the data necessary to call it balanced...some setups which may be balanced outside of the newbie queue may be imbalanced inside of it for whatever reason.

This isn't even nearly a complete list of the obstacles we'd face in implementing variety in setups.

So, the idea is one I'd love to have be reality, I just don't actually know how we'd manage the feat.

In post 169, Pulsaris wrote:A genuine question (I really don't know the answer): Why do the people here don't want to play newbie games? Is that because they don't want to play with any newbie at all, or because they don't want to play a game with a majority of newbies?

In order of importance the reasons I haven't signed newbies since my first game are

1. I enjoy playing with players I know
2. Replace-out rate
3. Too many investigatives in general, some cells in particular seem very town-sided
4. I enjoy playing with strong players