New Player Feedback Methodology

For large social games such as Survivor where the primary mechanic is social interaction.
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Post Post #75 (ISO) » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:18 pm

Post by pablito »

In post 74, racefan12 wrote:I personally am not really good at providing unsolicited feedback during a game because I'm not really sure what you're looking for... Well that, and because I'm using all my time and energy on actually playing the game.

But if you give me specific questions to answer, I'll be happy to answer them. I liked the format of Medevac where we got like 5-10 questions per round to answer.
If you have issues with a game or certain players, do you feel comfortable giving that feedback to game mods or LSG mods?
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Post Post #76 (ISO) » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:54 pm

Post by grumpy »

^^^^ agreed

I thought pabs was looking for like general constructive feedback but that also works
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Post Post #77 (ISO) » Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:03 pm

Post by pablito »

All of the above
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Post Post #78 (ISO) » Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:59 pm

Post by Haschel Cedricson »

Here are some comments sent to me from mv_gimmick:
Ned's was very different from my first experience because Civ 1.0 was something that looked more as a collaborative experience and combined both social and challenge mixes roughly equally. I think the reason was that Civ 1.0 had so many more "newbies" that we could essentially break traditions, write new paradigms, and do what we felt was interesting and fun. So there was just fun and interests all around.

Ned's was a baptism. It was rather difficult because simply going against the norm was a means of ostracization. Because any deviation from "accepted practice" made you grounds for elimination, regardless of what may happen. While I admit that I made mistakes and had to learn from my game, there was a subconscious culture that underlied the current of the game and made the social parameters so much of a bigger weight than anything else in the game. Essentially, the last five or six games on MS I've seen, given a roughly 70-20-10 split on social mechanics vs challenge performance and miscellaneous factors that I find a bit off-putting.

I get that the game is based on Survivor so that there's a lot of alleviations made in order to adapt it for a forum game, but I think the prevailing mood and a high hurdle for beginners is extremely difficult.

For example, I get that there are idols, but for those unfamiliar to forum culture wouldn't know that there are places that you would look generally to find clues and hints and eventually, to the game itself. Many players suggest that its part of the baptism that new players will come to understand in general, but it's one of the predominant ways to weed out newcomers to begin with. Starting from Ned's moving forward, I think that roughly 40% of newcomers in a game get weeded out within the first three votes.

And I get people play games to win and play to have fun. It's especially difficult because of the emotions vested and the manners used in order to get in the game. One thing I would appreciate is for people to feel the semblance of an equal footing. In the tv show, people are dropped in a place without prior knowledge, experiences, and limited frame of references to make their mark for engaging entertainment. It would be nice if we could carry that over to these series as well, but that's a bit difficult if the demography isn't more flexible in their mindsets.
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Post Post #79 (ISO) » Fri Sep 29, 2017 4:35 am

Post by grumpy »

^^^^^^ this
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Post Post #80 (ISO) » Fri Sep 29, 2017 8:52 am

Post by Shadoweh »

About the last paragraph, the equal footing is true and we still don't have a For Newbie experience. It's the difference between our regular social games and when games like This happen. I've been
harrassing
demanding
politely suggesting
that these more casual but larger forum based social games should be being posted in the LSG forum so people looking for a casual Social Game experience to dip into know where to look. Having a 12 player casual que that launches every time there's 12 new players or something could happen? (like really, Everyone is SK is one player short of being an LSG and Battle of the Jury Threats was two short, but they're a bit lost in the sea of more common mish mash games for people to know casual games like this happen.)
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Post Post #81 (ISO) » Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:01 am

Post by OhGodMyLife »

Hooray people remember Bob's Nobag Not Blog
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Post Post #82 (ISO) » Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:15 am

Post by D3f3nd3r »

@Shadow look in the upcoming games thread ayyy
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Post Post #83 (ISO) » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:34 am

Post by grumpy »

In post 81, OhGodMyLife wrote:Hooray people remember Bob's Nobag Not Blog
How can people forget?!
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Post Post #84 (ISO) » Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:27 pm

Post by DrumBeats »

Late to the party, but I don't have too much to add to this conversation. The two biggest things I didn't realize when I was playing were a lot of the site mechanics of zetaboards and how exactly to operate the confessionals.

With the zeta board interface as a whole, I was lost, and though I began to figure it out a bit as I went, there were some huge missteps. I remember specifically trying every bbcode reference that existed in that table of them in the post thing to see if there was an idol in any of them. I also accidentally changed my profile picture looking for idols and had to quickly figure out a way to change it back. I just think a mechanical guide to important features of the board and some examples of frequent idol hiding mechanics would help new players navigate that.

Then for confessionals, I'd just suggest linking some good ones in the new player guide. The big thing I noticed when reading the spectator stuff on me was that people were much more high on me when I was getting promoted with detailed questions because they led to detailed answers. I had no idea going into this game how much people were using them, so I went with what I thought seemed sufficient and mostly waited for questions.
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Post Post #85 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:47 am

Post by BROseidon »

+1 to making people read confessionals. All new players should be encouraged to read my commentary on Pobol y Cwm.
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Post Post #86 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:47 am

Post by BROseidon »

(It's actually a good idea though)
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Post Post #87 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 9:16 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

In post 25, Aurathebirb wrote:I don't think a hydra game with newbies and veterans would be all that great personally. Not a lot of newbies are going to be crazy about having someone walk them through the game, especially given how long they can go on for. Would probably end up with a lot of veterans just controlling the hydra, which wouldn't be very beneficial. Newbie BvW sounds more interesting, but singling out the newbies like that is something I could see going wrong.
This is a potential problem. I would love to find a creative way to circumvent this... something like BvW could work, or even just having a partial spec who is allowed to talk you through things in your forum.
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Post Post #88 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:32 pm

Post by hiplop »

bvw = good way to have the newbies get crushed
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Post Post #89 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:42 pm

Post by xRECKONERx »

ehhh? i mean maybe. honestly the duo mechanic from Eon & LoL would work well pairing vets&newbies
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Post Post #90 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:49 pm

Post by Cephrir »

You could do a "hydra" where the vet doesn't actually play but can see everything and offer actual opinions without restriction.
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Post Post #91 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:50 pm

Post by Cephrir »

Think a newbie tribe is just not going to ever work for reasons I'm pretty sure are already in this thread.
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Post Post #92 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:51 pm

Post by hiplop »

i dont think vets are necessarily better players

basic things like finding idols/challenge ability/etc are going to benefit vets but thats kinda it
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Post Post #93 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:53 pm

Post by xRECKONERx »

In post 92, hiplop wrote:i dont think vets are necessarily better players

basic things like finding idols/challenge ability/etc are going to benefit vets but thats kinda it
im thinking just being able to answer questions or be like "you need to do this instead of that" like in terms of communication styles/etc
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Post Post #94 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:53 pm

Post by zoraster »

Speaking as someone who has only played a couple of games (really only one, the first was poorly timed and I was out of town).

Let me be honest: If you made me play a game as a newbie WITH another person I would flatly refuse and never touch this site ever, ever, ever. We play games to play them, not be led individually around while someone else does. It's a good way to decrease new player buy-in which is essential to gaining repeat customers. And it's a terrible way to "learn" how to play a game.

It is difficult as a new player, particularly in a game that very much has unspoken but changing standards. That's a lot for a new player to figure out very, very quickly (because, and correct me if I'm wrong, the early day... heck HOURS of the game are incredibly important).

I think games geared more toward new players would be ones that gave more advantages to keeping people on your tribe who are good at challenges. This gives more structure to a game which can help newbies figure out the other "softer" parts more easily and at a slower pace.
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Post Post #95 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:56 pm

Post by zoraster »

Oh, and games geared toward newbies should not be opaque with their mechanics, including timings of merges, etc.
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Post Post #96 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:05 pm

Post by Cephrir »

Yeah I wouldn't make any of these suggestions mandatory. It could be there for those who want it, though it's probably true that would be a minority
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Post Post #97 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:45 pm

Post by Snakes »

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but one idea would be to do what BB14 did: a solid amount of new players and a smaller number of veteran "coaches" with each coach being assigned to multiple new players. The only difference would be that the coaches wouldn't enter the game halfway through as players.
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Post Post #98 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:59 pm

Post by Cephrir »

That could be fun
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Post Post #99 (ISO) » Fri Oct 06, 2017 2:06 pm

Post by xRECKONERx »

That's a cool idea. I think the problem is how do you divide up the tribes with coaches without it immediately becoming "coach team A vs coach team B".
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