Planned Changes: Newbie Game Deadlines

[ruru]

I prefer shorter deadlines (at most 10 days) in general, but I think newbie games in particular would benefit from them

I feel like newbie games specifically are more prone to certain factors making them less fun. Two examples from personal experience are having a really flaky playerlist (which seems to happen like every other newbie game) and rolling scum without having played town before

Making them shorter would probably help a lot of new players go next faster rather than just being stuck in a really long game and deciding mafia isn't fun

I honestly don't think it's a bad thing that people who are too busy to play 7 day deadlines can't play, like if you're too busy for 7 day deadlines, chances are you're tilting half the playerlist in 14 day deadlines

[ruru]

mafiascum is, to my knowledge, the only site which caters to the crowd of individuals with those particular habits: having real-life obligations such as full-time jobs, families to look after, finances to take care of, etc.; not being able to read too much content in a limited timeframe. (I know that, personally, I have an endurance limit of 20 pages/24 hours. If a game produces more than that amount, I simply can't keep up with it and my performance suffers as a result.)

These players are not, inherently, by definition the same as Geriatric players, but there IS a fair amount of overlap in that this is a service only mafiascum has to offer--'younger' players, so to speak, can find shorter games anywhere.

I still kinda read this as "Everyone else should have less fun so that I can play"

Like everyone I've talked to so far in {2018 newbies, open queue players} doesn't like 2 week deadlines

Constantly being AFK for days at a time is
a) much less skill-intensive for scum as there's less realtime interaction to mess up
b) super annoying to the other players when the walls of "catchup" show up, makes people not want to read the game

So I don't really see how encouraging it improves "standard of play" either?

Why not have separate geriatric newbie games that run simultaneously to regular newbie games, assuming the demographic you're talking about exists? The minority shouldn't get to arbitrarily enforce deadlines that the majority find unfun.

[ruru]

One, the quality of play in newbies is likely to drop--if not from newbies themselves, then from veteran players who need/are used to the extra time. Many ICs are going to find themselves suddenly having it be ten times harder to do their job. Even SEs who have been around long enough are going to struggle; with this change, their play is going to be notably lower than it should be given the game type. (In a newbie, we are meant to show off the best of mafiascum play, and the best of mafiascum play does not work well on a tight budget.)

That, not going into how some people who would otherwise gladly IC/SE, with this change, will instead of going in and performing poorly, opt to simply not IC/SE at all because they know the above would happen if they did. (Such as myself.) Leading to less ICs/SEs signing up.

Also like in my newbie game the IC barely posted anything, got voted to L1 while he was AFK, remained AFK while the wagon dissolved, and then got policy lynched at the deadline (which was actually even more than 14 days due to an extension)

So lol

[ruru]

If you're looking to cater to them you might as well just go all the way to blitz deadlines.

lol

[ruru]

Another benefit of shorter games is faster queues, assuming players play the same number of games simultaneously

[ruru]

Another benefit of shorter games is faster queues, assuming players play the same number of games simultaneously

I don’t think I understand this.
a Newbie cannot play more then 1 newbie game at a time if they are in their first newbie game.
I mean, it might fire faster if those newbies come back for more sure, but more games isn’t really an upgrade or a downgrade? Keep in mind its the same people playing the same game.

Without loss of generality, assume everyone plays exactly 1 game at a time

The queue will pop with frequency proportional to

N/L

where

N

is the number of users and

L

is the average length of a game

It's an upgrade because people are less likely to get bored waiting a week for queue to pop and then flake

[ruru]

I'm not really looking to be punitive to replace outs. The SE/IC queue is dry enough as is unless I put up the signal (aside: I do find it awesome that we have a player base that will step up quickly when that happens). That said, I am always open to feedback/thoughts/ideas if it will improve the queue and the site. That includes things that may sway me from my current opinion.

In my opinion replacements (and the information they leak) are the worst thing ever and generally ruin games in multiple ways

In a competition between two teams it's just not fun to be playing with/against different teams than originally signed up to play, it makes winning way less satisfying

This is probably an unpopular opinion but I would pretty much prefer modkill to replacement in all situations and like if a player can't commit to playing the game I don't think they should sign, period

In my first game the IC was policy lynched for complete lack of activity and one of the SEs had to replace out because he was too busy. I don't think having an SE/IC in a game who replaces out d1 is nearly as positive for new player experience as having a 7th newbie who is actually committed to playing the game so no I don't think having SE/ICs should ever be valued over punishing excessive replacement.

This is strictly from a newbie experience perspective and obviously there are other benefits to teaching newbies, like them not ruining their 2nd game for the more experienced players or whatever else

[ruru]

(and the information they leak)

Examples of how bad this is

• If a player who loves/hates playing scum and has >rand reads replaces in, the slot is that much more likely to be scum/town
  
• A newbie replacing out is significantly more likely to be scum
  
• A replace-out considered "bannable" for a scum slot is town-indicative assuming most people don't want to get banned

etc.

Modkills would be way more punitive to the remaining players than a replacement.

Well yes

I think if you commit to playing a team game and don't play, you deserve high loss equity, you deserve to get flamed by the remaining players, and if you do it a non-negligible portion of the time you should also not be allowed in future games

I think this comes from a difference in "competitive"/"for fun" mindset. My mindset is highly competitive and like I said I don't expect most people to agree with me on it. (Also modkilling AFKs probably isn't practical in newbie queue in particular because of how many newbies flake and I realize that too)

But I think the rest of my post still applies anyway because replacements are pretty objectively bad whether or not modkills are subjectively better

[ruru]

*shrug*

It's just my personal opinion. I wasn't trying to propose modkilling AFKs anyway

I mentioned it to demonstrate how I feel about replacements by comparison

[ruru]

Mm, interesting

I guess I would probably only want to do it if there was a large enough subculture that agreed that it was a good idea? Because like how mafia games are played in my ideal universe has nothing to do with modding a game that other people enjoy given certain cultural expectations

It's more like I would want to be a player in a game with no replacing

[ruru]

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

[ruru]

I modded a non-newbie game where I used 7 days and 36 hour prods (with two strikes -> force replace). I also had the experimental policy of ignoring inactivity until another player asked in the thread for a prod. Several players were technically due for a prod but evaded it and posted later that same day, which I think was a good outcome in context. The prods that

were

given also seemed warranted to me.

My reasons for handling prods like this were:
1. If the players don't think someone needs to post, they probably don't need to post, the two strikes policy is pretty severe, and force-replacing someone who shouldn't be getting force-replaced is bad. Giving players more control over whether they think someone else is playing the game in good faith should lead to games that the players enjoy more.
2. There could otherwise be moderator bias in the form of whether or not I personally think someone is proddable (which is inherently biased by my knowledge of their role), prompting me to check the activity list, and then prodding them, but not noticing for other players.

I think it worked well

I've been experimenting with a policy where I'll end the night phase early if all players PM me.

I use this as well and enjoy playing games that use it