Survivor: Civilization - Congratulations Boudica!!!


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Post Post #24 (isolation #0) » Sat Sep 02, 2017 3:27 pm

Post by xRECKONERx »

This was just a bad game for me. Dont mind anythiIf i could go back in time and not play i would and i wont waste time with excuses.

It was fucking bad.

Thats not who i want to be. I am sorry to the mods and players and specs ans anyone else whose experience i made actively worse

I do think this game had design problems but ive aired my greivances with the mods and i dont want to get into it publicly.


That being said... Jess, you are my jryptonite. Bella i wish we vouldve gone to the end. BRO, you fucking blew me away with your game here, youre a true megathreat now

Gonna take a step back and get my head right for a while but i love this community. Even the ones who hate me now ;)

Ps i am not drunk but my tablet doesnt have autoforrect on it and i am lazy
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Post Post #39 (isolation #1) » Sat Sep 02, 2017 6:32 pm

Post by xRECKONERx »

@Mods: You guys dealt with my over the top bullshit with grace and poise. While I stand by some of the points I was
trying
to make, I ripped you guys a new one and crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed. As I told BRO earlier, I was not my best self this game, and you guys naturally wound up on the receiving end of it. That wasn't fair to you, and I apologize.

Without going too much into the weeds on this game specifically, I'd like to speak more broadly to mechanics in Survivor in order to try to foster a better environment for future games.

#1- I don't think we need the 24 hour starter-but-just-kidding period in games anymore. If we're gonna set a start time for games, then start the game at those times, I think. It has gotten to the point where I think it has lost its "surprise" factor and the issue it was trying to correct isn't really prevalent anymore

#2- We really need a better way to classify games. It doesn't have to spell out every twist, sure. But I think there are very distinct levels in Survivor that people should be able to anticipate. In Mafia games, people label their games in various ways. "Bastard" means "oh fuck here I go with some bullshit". "Role madness" means the game will be more focused on role interaction than day deduction. "Normal" means a game that features a set list of mechanics. I'm not saying we have to be so granular, but there was a misunderstanding here between what the game entailed versus what the game ended up being. When I signed up for Arkham City, I knew it would be buckwild and expected it. When I ran #2016, we told people that there would be some wild mechanics regarding delegates. Here, I had no way to anticipate three tribe swaps PLUS returnee twist PLUS 16 items entering the game at merge. I just think it'd be nice for people to know what to expect. It's possible I'm operating in a vacuum and that shit doesn't matter to other people, so I would welcome feedback.

#3- There has to be a better level of game review/design. Two listmods were involved in the review of this game and the fact that the auction passed review was pretty insane. The Ghost challenge? Yeah, I was drunk and rambling about that. I'll concede the latin argument was cartoonish in nature and stupid. I don't think it necessarily takes away from the rest of my complaints about the game's challenges. (And though some people loved the maze challenge, I'll contend that players should always have some sort of descriptor for what they're trying to do. There wasn't anything other than flavor in terms of instruction for that challenge.)

These are the three main points I want to raise. I understand it may be difficult to separate my arguments from the bullshit I spewed during the game, and I hope I'm not doing a disservice to the community by wrapping these points within a layer of toxicity. But I do think there's some meat and potatoes beneath all of this.
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Post Post #61 (isolation #2) » Sun Sep 03, 2017 3:36 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

Maybe have the LSG listmod reviewing it add a point for each individual thing or mechanic (or have a sliding scale;Returnee Twist? 3 points. Hidden idol? 1 point. Tribe swap? 1 point. Second tribe swap? 2 points, etc)

But I honestly think it's pretty involved for something that should be a common sense thing?

PSV would IMO be the best example of a "normal" game in our current site climate. Only twists were tribe swaps. And I think our site has come to expect 3 swaps per game at this point.

Curious what Drench meant by modular
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Post Post #63 (isolation #3) » Sun Sep 03, 2017 3:53 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

Ehh but aren't a handful of items pretty par for the course
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Post Post #122 (isolation #4) » Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:29 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

When they do Redemption Island, players know it exists. And that's the only time the show has players re-enter the game AFAIK.
There are shock swaps ("Drop your buffs! We're switching tribes!" comes to mind) but anything extra is usually announced at the start of the season.

I think Arkham City, at least, warned people "Hey this is gonna be twisty and bastardy!" and it had that reputation so people knew what they were getting into.

The obfuscation of important information just to be able to go "Ooooh gotcha!" later is a bad modding practice that I'm sure I'm guilty of as well, but for this game:
- No warning on returnees, leading to a feeling of "two steps forward and one step back" at merge. All that sweet momentum got destroyed.
- No warning on returnees, leading to a feeling of being blindsided by the mods.
- Coins were awarded in a complete vacuum with no specific information on how to attain them, leading to some head scratching.
- Coins were awarded without context for performance: was 5 good? Or could I have gotten 10? It made trying to guess how many other players had kind of impossible.

When you do stuff like that, I think players being frustrated is kind of an unfortunate side effect.

Furthermore: Blasting 16 items into the game, even if they don't have a ton of effect (which I would argue the ability to tie a vote is very powerful), it adds needless complexity. Now, it's on the players to try to keep up with all the items and who won what and where did they go and how much gold did that person have and etc.

PLUS with 16 items, whether you get one or not winds up being partially dumb luck, as evidenced by Alex's low bids.

PLUS...doing well in challenges already rewards you with immunity. Why are we overvaluing challenge performance even more? Not only do they get to ride through pre-merge safe, and have a better shot at winning later challenges, but now they also get to have an advantage by buying more items?

Here's how you fix this game IMO:

#1) During signups, announce ahead of time there will be some "heavy twists".
#2) Delete the gold mechanic completely.
#3) After the game goes live, establish in a mod post that there will be returnees, either directly stating it or leaving it as vague flavor clues which you then clarify after the first eliminations.
#4) [delete and/or reword the Enlightenment challenge]
#5) Cap the number of items at the number of players at merge and include more joke dud items like the pizza deliver / Doge's Bling from NAH.

There. You now have a solid game of Survivor that would be nearly unassailable.
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Post Post #123 (isolation #5) » Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:32 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

I think the protectionist stance mods have about not wanting to spill the beans too much during signups is fine. It's a natural thing to want your twists to be surprised.

But...once players are "on the island", I don't see a reason to hide information anymore.

And yes, the show doesn't tell people applying what the idea/theme of the season is going to be... but we're not applying to win $1,000,000. We're applying and basically signing away 2-3 months of our free time to play a game for the sake of fun and community. Therefore, I think it's fair on forum games to let people know what they're getting into.
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Post Post #125 (isolation #6) » Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:36 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

Well yeah, and then they burned that twist with fire 14 years ago and never used it again.
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Post Post #155 (isolation #7) » Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:15 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

In post 148, Shadoweh wrote:The game is Outwit, Outplay and Outlast. Which parts of that are more important to each person is debatable, but the hardest part of each game to design is the mechanics and the 16 or so minigames in the form of challenges so they should be important in some way. Honestly, I think the reason no one likes challenge winners is people begin to see them not as people, but as mechanics in the game fucking with them, basically the npc obstacles they have to work around and defeat.
this is a good post

also HEAVY COSIGN whoever said the way to put value on challenge performance is to decrease swaps.
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