Open Queue is dying Help

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Post Post #25 (ISO) » Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:51 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Semiserious
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #26 (ISO) » Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:40 pm

Post by MaryJoLisa »

In post 25, popsofctown wrote:Semiserious
That was a very polite was of saying sarcastic. :P
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Post Post #27 (ISO) » Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:44 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I'm thinking of modding for the first time in a month or two but I'm not committing that it's going to be a semiopen
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #28 (ISO) » Mon Jun 17, 2019 3:27 am

Post by Irrelephant11 »

I have a few thoughts:

-yes, opens should have more flavor than they currently do. Even this game's rainbow text made it more interesting than some open games with nothing happening flavor-wise.
-opens focus more on dayplay than nightplay, and dayplay is less exciting/popular. This might just be an axiomatic truth.
-it could be an easy and good idea for people who want to mod an open game to post in some central open game thread "which of these three should I run??" and gauge interest before /inning to mod.
-the micro and theme queues definitely steal some games that perhaps belong in the open queue. I don't know if this is a problem to be fixed (by, say, having the listmods tell game mods "move your game to the open queue pls thx") or something that would go away with more awareness or something that's just a fluke of 2019.
-It makes sense, though, that these mods want to get into the queue with the shortest modding line, and some open games clog up the open queue by being uninteresting. So maybe this is a sign our system works well? When one queue gets clogged, other queues still fire games, and players can still find games they like.

-Personally, I like the open queue, and have had some of my favorite games there. Recently, though, the open queue has just seemed less... exciting than the games in other queues. It's hard to pick "predictable setup that will only be fun with the right playerlist" over "unpredictable setup that I bet will be a blast even if I hate everybody there [not that this happens], because yay flavor/nightplay/awesome mod/fun setup surprises!!"
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Post Post #29 (ISO) » Mon Jun 17, 2019 3:35 am

Post by MaryJoLisa »

Maybe the open queue was moving slow because signups were paused for 14 weeks when a few games simply didn't attract enough players.
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Post Post #30 (ISO) » Mon Jun 17, 2019 3:41 am

Post by FakeGod »

Games fill because mods actively advertise and do things in order to fill their games.

It has very little to do with which queue the games are run in.
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Post Post #31 (ISO) » Mon Jun 17, 2019 7:11 pm

Post by mastina »

In post 13, Creature wrote:Can we design open games with mafia-aligned killing roles (other than factional kill)?
Pick Your Power X/Y is an example of a popular game that allows for exactly that.
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Post Post #32 (ISO) » Tue Jun 18, 2019 1:06 am

Post by Persivul »

I love opens and used to love the open queue. Anymore though it seems that when I check, there's a bad combination of games to choose from - a nightless and a multiball for example. Then those games take forever to fill, and so I quit even checking the queue.

My suggestion would be to always have one of the fun games with lots of roles going, like
Pick Your Power X/Y, C9++
(not the multiball one, that sucked), or
Diffusion of Power
(my all-time favorite setup). The other game can be one of the experimental or day-play kind for the people who like those.
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Post Post #33 (ISO) » Tue Jun 18, 2019 1:12 am

Post by Persivul »

And FFS either keep post 3 (games currently in signups) updated or blank it out. It's really confusing and frustrating to look into a setup, then go to sign up for it but it filled weeks ago.
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Post Post #34 (ISO) » Tue Jun 18, 2019 4:30 am

Post by callforjudgement »

The "symmetrical Open" is a genre that's fairly well developed (i.e. no power roles, with some town-sided core mechanic added in order to balance the fact that the game is entirely vanilla). The thing about that genre, though, is that 10:3 vanilla is massively scumsided and 7:2 vanilla is mildly scumsided, so these symmetrical opens nearly always end up at 7:2 and then get run in the Micro queue rather than the Open queue.

For asymmetrical Opens and Semi-Opens (i.e. when town has power roles but also VTs), you reach the problem that the setup is almost certainly breakable. That doesn't necessarily mean it's
townsided
; rather, it means that the players have to, from the start of the game, understand what optimal claiming strategy is in that setup in particular, in order to avoid being at a large disadvantage. Unsurprisingly, that's fairly unpopular on what's a mostly dayplay-focused site. You can normally work around this problem by using a Semi-Open where some subsetups are much more townsided or scumsided than others (e.g. F11), but then players tend to dislike it due to the possible lack of balance.

The correct middle-ground, therefore, may be to find a setup which is low on power roles and where the correct claiming strategy is obvious. Vigilante + 6 VT versus 2 Goons, for example, is fairly balanced and it's also obvious how to play it claim-wise (the Goons fakeclaim VT, the Vigilante claims only when run up for a lynch). Again, that setup's been run more often in the Micro queue than the Open queue, but I can't see any particular reason why it shouldn't be in the Open rotation.

All that said, I suspect that the Open queue's real problem, besides the large overlap with the Micro queue, is that the rotation simply doesn't match what players are looking for. It may be worth gathering information about what specific setups people are interested in and what more general setup types people are interested in, and removing things that are unlikely to fill from rotation. (It's also almost certainly worth ensuring that we don't have high barriers to adding setups to rotation; "it's been run once and seems to work" is likely enough, we can always remove the setup again if it seems to be broken.)
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Post Post #35 (ISO) » Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:25 am

Post by TemporalLich »

We need an Open Setup Committee to review setups for the approved setup rotation. The approved setups seem kinda stale tbh. Themier setups should be encouraged to be put in the Open Queue, and some themier setups need to be approved open setups.

Since there are some very boring open setups (and it pretty much is playing Mafia on easy mode), listmods need to pull opens faster than normal if they don't reach a threshold.

The Open Setup Committee should also encourage new moderators to run easy to run but interesting setups.

As for getting players into the Open queue, we need new setups and themier setups to be approved open setups.

And we need more semi-opens.
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Post Post #36 (ISO) » Tue Jun 18, 2019 11:25 pm

Post by chennisden »

Multiball imo should NOT count towards the queue

lets talk about THAT multiball for a second

i used my 1 shot cop on roster and reversed momentum in favour of town

now from my pov i literally needed to get lucky in a 50 50 with no scum assocs. would that have been fair if i got an inno because foster was scum?

also i think we should avoid the "randomly generate letters" sort of thing. if half the players cant easily digest the setup its a problem

like we CAN understand it if we TRY but personally it just gets to a point where you just want to treat it as a closed setup.

also many opens may be stale but nomination mafia is very great and unique, easy to understand central mechanic so pls in when our game gets into signups :)

There are many setups that haven't been experimented with enough and need the day of light.
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Post Post #37 (ISO) » Wed Jun 19, 2019 3:24 am

Post by skitter30 »

maybe there should be a separate sub-queue in the open-queue for multiball games - that way multiball won't clog up the regular queue, but they're still around for people who enjoy that thing
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Post Post #38 (ISO) » Wed Jun 19, 2019 3:26 am

Post by MaryJoLisa »

In post 35, TemporalLich wrote:As for getting players into the Open queue, we need new setups and themier setups to be approved open setups.

And we need more semi-opens.
This right here. 1000%.

What's wrong with themeier Opens? Currently, themed games must be restricted to one or two queues (can't remember if it's coney island and theme park or just theme park), and those games seem to never contain open or semi-open setups.

Part of the objective of a forum like this is to attract and maintain new players to keep things fresh. So while open or semi-open games may feel like mafia on easy mode for some people, they may be the right speed for others.

I feel like a broken record here.
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Post Post #39 (ISO) » Wed Jun 19, 2019 4:29 am

Post by callforjudgement »

Three queues allow themed games (Micro, Mini Theme, Large Theme). I've seen themed Opens run in all of them, but they're typically one-off setups rather than setups within rotation.
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Post Post #40 (ISO) » Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:50 am

Post by Jingle »

In post 35, TemporalLich wrote:We need an Open Setup Committee to review setups for the approved setup rotation. The approved setups seem kinda stale tbh. Themier setups should be encouraged to be put in the Open Queue, and some themier setups need to be approved open setups.

Since there are some very boring open setups (and it pretty much is playing Mafia on easy mode), listmods need to pull opens faster than normal if they don't reach a threshold.

The Open Setup Committee should also encourage new moderators to run easy to run but interesting setups.

As for getting players into the Open queue, we need new setups and themier setups to be approved open setups.

And we need more semi-opens.
Tbone is aware of and actively encouraging people to address the need for new open setups.

Mods who have experience are allowed to put any open they want into the open queue, regardless of whether it’s balanced or favorably reviewed. (Please don’t clog queues with shitty setups people don’t want to play)

The two issues with the queue as I see it are linked: one is that the mod queue is ridiculously long, meaning to an experienced mod it’s just faster to go through the theme or micro queues. The other is that getting enough plays of a setup to decided it’s sound for the open rotation takes a lot of time, which is largely why we had the last two marathon weekends.

Personally I think a good answer to the queue length is to encourage newbie mods to look to the prepared normals as a real option. Skipping the tired setups we have in the open queue should make the queue faster. We could also force a 1 experienced one non experienced split in the open queue, but I think that’s likely to slow things down. As far as getting new setups improved, if anyone knows of setups that have been run several times or should be to add to the rotation: speak up. I’ve been meaning to collect the setup data on the marathons for a while, but I think that both marked for death and 8-ball are promising enough that they should be added to the rotation.
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Post Post #41 (ISO) » Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:00 am

Post by Jingle »

In post 38, MaryJoLisa wrote:What's wrong with themeier Opens? Currently, themed games must be restricted to one or two queues (can't remember if it's coney island and theme park or just theme park), and those games seem to never contain open or semi-open setups.
Nothing, really.

The sole criteria that makes an open an open is that all possible role PMs are public knowledge. Similarly to Newbies and Normals, you can have a themed open very easily. You just have to make all of the flavor elements public, such as in VCs.

As far as why we don't have hidden flavor opens: Flavor gaming is a real balance concern that is already hard to deal with in a lot of well designed theme games.
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Post Post #42 (ISO) » Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:07 pm

Post by chennisden »

In post 37, skitter30 wrote:maybe there should be a separate sub-queue in the open-queue for multiball games - that way multiball won't clog up the regular queue, but they're still around for people who enjoy that thing
or a separate queue on its own
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Post Post #43 (ISO) » Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:27 pm

Post by Ircher »

We don't need yet another queue.
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Post Post #44 (ISO) » Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:28 am

Post by ruru »

In post 37, skitter30 wrote:maybe there should be a separate sub-queue in the open-queue for multiball games - that way multiball won't clog up the regular queue, but they're still around for people who enjoy that thing
this
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Post Post #45 (ISO) » Thu Jun 20, 2019 2:58 am

Post by Bicephalous Bob »

In post 35, TemporalLich wrote:We need an Open Setup Committee to review setups for the approved setup rotation. The approved setups seem kinda stale tbh. Themier setups should be encouraged to be put in the Open Queue, and some themier setups need to be approved open setups.
I have suggested this before. People are basically doing this work already in the open setup ideas subforum. If you give the experienced reviewers the power to get a setup run, then they'll probably use it. Maybe require two reviewers to agree on the merits of a setup and you've got something that functions like a committee.
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Post Post #46 (ISO) » Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:14 am

Post by Something_Smart »

*Dongempire Friends & Enemies & Enemies 2/11 - PULLED 3/1 (5p in 18d)
ChibiBear Donner Party 2/11 - 2/23 (12p in 12d)
*ejjinami Nomination 2/26 - 3/2 (11p in 4d)
brassherald Fire and Ice 3/6 - 3/14 (13p in 8d)
Kaiveran Two-Fold C9++ 3/16 - 4/3 (16p in 18d)
mcqueen Hope Plus One 3/16 - 4/10 (13p in 25d)
Jingle Panic Room 4/7 - 4/18 (11p in 11d)
*Clemency Duck Duck Goose 4/8 - PULLED 6/3 (11p in 56d)
schadd_ House Party 4/25 - 5/18 (14p in 23d)
BuJaber Wayward Bullets 6/2 - in signups, unlikely to fill (3p in 18d)
*NotAJumbleOfNumbers Grey Flag Nightless 6/3 - in signups, likely to fill (8p in 17d)

(* = first-time mod)

Assuming Wayward Bullets is pulled and Grey Flag Nightless fills:

Signups per day, FILLED GAMES:
*0.47, 0.52, 0.61, 0.89, 1.00, 1.00, 1.63, *2.75

Signups per day, PULLED GAMES:
0.17, *0.20, *0.28

Proportion of first-time mod games that filled: 2/4
Proportion of non-first-time mod games that filled: 6/7

This is an analysis of only games in the new queue thread. It might be worth it to extend this a while back into the previous thread to get a higher sample size, but I do think this is helpful.

Ideally, what we want is a way to recognize a game that will get pulled without waiting three weeks of it clogging up the queue.

We might be able to say something like "if a game doesn't have at least 4 signups after 10 days, it gets pulled immediately."

Another thing that might help, according to these data, is to revisit how first-time mods work. In my opinion, the setups Dongempire and Clemency were trying to run are both bad, and I'm not surprised they didn't fill. Usually you need either a high-profile mod or an interesting setup to get fast signups, and it's not surprising that the two games with the lowest fill ratios (mcqueen and NotAJumbleOfNumbers) are a first-time mod and someone who hasn't modded in years. Maybe this means first-time mods shouldn't be allowed in the Open Queue at all, or maybe the list of approved setups needs to be shortened to only ones that have been run successfully many times (Friends and Enemies, Fire and Ice, Stack the Deck, C9++, etc.).

My final idea is related to that. We want mods to be running setups that players want to play in, so maybe there should be more player involvement in what setups get run. Could be as extreme as an open game where the players vote for what setup to play after the game fills, or it could just be a monthly poll of what setups players want to play, to be posted for anyone considering modding an open.
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Post Post #47 (ISO) » Thu Jun 20, 2019 7:10 am

Post by nomnomnom »

I think whoever said there should always be more classical setups in the queue is right, honestly.
Maybe there should just be a slot dedicated to those so you always get movement in there, and it would be a good way to see if there is interest for this kind of thing.
Because right now the queue is just stuck with setups that are extremely niche, so it's fairly impossible to guess what people want out of that queue, if anything at all.

That's why I think queues like normal queue and newbie queue have a lot of success by the way, because people know what they're going to get in advance, more or less.
With other queues, it's a mixed bag. Perhaps there'd just be more demand if people knew what to expect and could come back to classic things once in a while!
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Post Post #48 (ISO) » Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:24 am

Post by FakeGod »

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Post Post #49 (ISO) » Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:34 am

Post by Jingle »

In post 46, Something_Smart wrote:My final idea is related to that. We want mods to be running setups that players want to play in, so maybe there should be more player involvement in what setups get run. Could be as extreme as an open game where the players vote for what setup to play after the game fills, or it could just be a monthly poll of what setups players want to play, to be posted for anyone considering modding an open.
Long, long ago, in the before times when I was first learning to mod I crowdsourced my setup options for my first Open game to the sitecat.

I suggest doing this, because honestly what setup you run doesn't matter unless you're super hyped for that setup. If you're super hyped for that setup, hunt down people and bribe/blackmail them into playing your game.
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