[Let's Scrutinize Games] Idol hunts

[Gypyx]

Bootleg version of Haschel's threads

so, basically, now that 3 houses is over, here's the thread i promised to make : what does everyone think about idol hunts?

i'm asking that because personally, i always felt like they were a weird part of survivor, both from a newbie pov, and a somewhat experienced guy pov

For a Newbie : generally, idol hunts are very unituitive, like, i'm not even sure that the beginner's guides we've got mention them, and another thing is that it's hard to know where to look, while experienced players, who have encountered many idol have a significant headstart on the search in my eyes

But, for Non-newbies, i gotta say that i find them a bit unintuitive too, like, most of the time, searching an idol is a shot in the dark, you don't know if there's one that you can get, you don't know if you've already been beaten to the idol, and, if you *don't* wanna be late, you have to basically give up a good fraction of the early chatting, which is an interesting risk reward mechanic but at the same time does anyone really excite themselves over "boy oh boy i can't wait to search links / missing letters in the rule post / just click everywhere hoping that i land correctly"

so yeah, idol hunts, i ain't a fan but what do you all think ? Are they actually good and i'm an idiot? Can we fix them? (i got ideas but i'd like to see a bit of discussion first)

[Cheery Dog]

Are they mentioned in the newbie guide? I can't remember as I'm fairly sure I've only skim read that.
I do like it when games tell us outright that idols exist in games, and how to get them, so I believe it can be fixed using the examples we have of them.

These games I can remember having public ways to obtain at least one of the idols available in them:
DBZ, LoL, MLS, SotF, Parthenon. (And more, those are just the ones I can recall off the top of my head)

Many others are just sadistic challenges put together for fun by the mods, where they just have the fun of people suffering trying to solve them.
For example in this category we have any game that had an unfound idol.
Quiet a fair few of the ones that have been found probably also fit this categor including ones like Hyrule where you got a real idol if you used the mutiny idol.

And then we have the complete troll links and fake hunts.
BvW comes to mind here.

[Awoo]

I mean I would say that idol hunts give newbies no chance but also ambic exists.

[Shadoweh]

Bootleg version of Haschel's threads
But, for Non-newbies, i gotta say that i find them a bit unintuitive too, like, most of the time, searching an idol is a shot in the dark, you don't know if there's one that you can get, you don't know if you've already been beaten to the idol, and, if you *don't* wanna be late, you have to basically give up a good fraction of the early chatting, which is an interesting risk reward mechanic but at the same time does anyone really excite themselves over "boy oh boy i can't wait to search links / missing letters in the rule post / just click everywhere hoping that i land correctly"

>.> y-yeah who would do that

the Steel Blade idol was really good in terms of both tribes knowing it existed and a clear way to get it
Anna's Shop idol would have been better if more then one person got instructions, like the first person from CoS/FEA imo. 'everyone' would prob be too many.
Does the guide not say 'start the game looking for an idol there's usually one on game start'

[VashtaNeurotic]

I mean in general I like the idol hints being very obvious there's something to look for and be in places people should be reading anyway. Like for pantheon we put ours in conspicuous places, changing an icon everyone would see, using the rules and just a password blocked forum work well. Since it's clear SOMETHING is different even if it isn't clear it's an idol. I think the hardest thing to balance is just making sure the same people don't just get them every time without them also not just being rng (aside from the literal random chance idol we gave out.....)

What were all the idols that were in 3 Houses, Anna's Shop, Steele Blade, Dancer and what else?

[Awoo]

Sword of the creator, which was the one at the start of the game. missing letters in the rules spell RELEASE DATE, release date of 3 houses on the calendar says something about the immovable, imgur link on the profile of the immovable links to puzzles.

[DeathNote]

For 3 houses specifically, I appreciated the Dancer idol and Steel Blade idol. I'm not a detective and personally won't be good at getting idols from hunts or riddles but at least I know the idol exists and everyone is on the same page on how to acquire it.

I've never really enjoyed the ones that require deep dives into the games rules to find secret tricks because only a small portion of the player base will ever be able to accomplish that. It's just a way to give idols to the same players over and over. In DBZ, I only had one idol available the entire game which relied on very specific instructions everyone knew about. I'd be fine playing a game with no idols but understand that they are fun parts of the game and can prevent complete domination from strong alliances.

The issue is that when the idols are so difficult to acquire, then the strong alliance is more likely to find the freaking idol anyways.

I would like to see games balance a way for everyone to have an equal opportunity to acquire the idol and the steel blade idol was the closest I've seen to that in recent memory.

[Malkon05]

So when I made the transition to go from mafiascum player to facebook ORGs I was overwhelmed with the fact that everyone else seemed to know how to idol hunt and use coding in ways mafiascum people don't. So while not exactly the same, I very much feel like this is a fantastic topic to discuss. I know the feeling of going into a game feeling like I'm literally stupid to the point where I don't understand something basic that everyone else seems to just inherently understand.

When I designed Flash Mob with Haschel, we recognized we wanted a very basic game that allowed for people of any level to be able to comprehend and work together. As a result, we created the probably only interesting thing about that game which was the Protection Racket (or better called the Hot Potato Idol) it was very clear in the rules how to obtain the idol in a very public way and what would happen to the idol if someone was outperformed.

However, once again even that idol had its limits. Anyone who was inherently good at flash games would have a leg up on that type of challenge, however that's why we made it super fucking obvious when we advertised the game that it was going to be a game entirely about flash games, play at your own risk. There are ways to make idols findable without making it an impossible way to obtain, so it's just a matter of how mods design.

If there are more advanced or complex games, it might be a good idea to explain in descriptions of those that it will be more likely that hidden immunity idols will likely not have obvious clues and paying attention to things and being detail oriented would help.

It might also be nice to show some examples of idols that have been hidden in the past and how they were found.

[Gypyx]

It might also be nice to show some examples of idols that have been hidden in the past and how they were found.

that would be a briliant update to our beginner guides now that you mention it yeah

Bootleg version of Haschel's threads
But, for Non-newbies, i gotta say that i find them a bit unintuitive too, like, most of the time, searching an idol is a shot in the dark, you don't know if there's one that you can get, you don't know if you've already been beaten to the idol, and, if you *don't* wanna be late, you have to basically give up a good fraction of the early chatting, which is an interesting risk reward mechanic but at the same time does anyone really excite themselves over "boy oh boy i can't wait to search links / missing letters in the rule post / just click everywhere hoping that i land correctly"

>.> y-yeah who would do that

the Steel Blade idol was really good in terms of both tribes knowing it existed and a clear way to get it
Anna's Shop idol would have been better if more then one person got instructions, like the first person from CoS/FEA imo. 'everyone' would prob be too many.
Does the guide not say 'start the game looking for an idol there's usually one on game start'

haha lol, glad to see that didn't go unnoticed, but yeah, point still stands imo that like, the fact that way more than half the game willingly / unwillingly didn't interact with the mechanic is a bit sad

[Dannflor]

I enjoyed the (Fox’s Tail?) idol from Wes Anderson. It was an opportunity available to everyone with a healthy amount of risk/reward. Obviously, people better at that specific type of counting challenge benefited, but it felt like the most fair way to hand out an idol.

[ambic]

I fail to see the problem. I just thought to myself, what would I do If I were running this, and looked there. I found the Launchdate puzzle, solved it late. Got given an idol, and solved the sword one. Go figure. It's down to the enthusiasm of the player.

[ambic]

The spelling mistakes were immediately obviously something.

My only issue is I thought the spelling mistakes were a separate idol from the link in the player profiles, which I found independently.

[kdowns]

Let's take Three House as an example for this one. THere was a distinct advantage if you knew even a little lore about Fire Emblem games, like the Release date idol, or the sword idol. While yes, it's a bit advantageous to the person who is able to find it. I like the White Heron Cup idol where the person who received it had to give it away when they got it so that they couldn't personally use it on themself.

If we are talking about the PD Idol that was hidden behind the person who could get the best score in Donkey Kong. I didn't really like that idea either, as it clearly put a target on the back of the person who was the best at flash games. There is just not a good balance when it comes to the idols. I do like the idols though that have to be hidden behind a block forum, which people know that it's there.

[Haschel Cedricson]

If we are talking about the PD Idol that was hidden behind the person who could get the best score in Donkey Kong. I didn't really like that idea either, as it clearly put a target on the back of the person who was the best at flash games.

That's a bad example because the entire game was designed to put a target on the back of people good at Flash games and it was advertised that way from the get-go.

Anyway, there are two different concepts here that are related but are ultimately not the same. First of all there's the mechanic of *hiding* the idol. Then separate from that is the mechanic of *grabbing* the idol. There's a lot of room to play with in both of those.

[ambic]

Let's take Three House as an example for this one. THere was a distinct advantage if you knew even a little lore about Fire Emblem games, like the Release date idol, or the sword idol. While yes, it's a bit advantageous to the person who is able to find it. I like the White Heron Cup idol where the person who received it had to give it away when they got it so that they couldn't personally use it on themself.

If we are talking about the PD Idol that was hidden behind the person who could get the best score in Donkey Kong. I didn't really like that idea either, as it clearly put a target on the back of the person who was the best at flash games. There is just not a good balance when it comes to the idols. I do like the idols though that have to be hidden behind a block forum, which people know that it's there.

I disagree here. I was able to google what I needed in seconds. While seconds might count, they also might have counted in the quiz challenge, the kung fu chess challenge, or any number of other challenges. I literally had never heard of the game, but the design mostly didn’t require it, and where it did, it was easily findable with a very small amount of effort. If a puzzle was to involve american state abbreviations, id be at a disadvantage not being american and yet, id still have no problem with solving such a thing, because knowing what to do with the information is the real trick, not whether or not know you know something intrinsically - and Im saying this as a first time player.

[ambic]

I will add, i bought an ally in, to help me with a puzzle Id solved what to do. I was solving at 530 am my time and my brain was not fully functioning. By bringing an ally in, I engendered trust. If you cant solve something one way, use it as collateral to gain friends. There is no reason you can’t benefit still from something you can’t get on your own, as long as you choose wisely. Relationships outrank game powers in the long term.

[D3f3nd3r]

If we are talking about the PD Idol that was hidden behind the person who could get the best score in Donkey Kong. I didn't really like that idea either, as it clearly put a target on the back of the person who was the best at flash games.

That's a bad example because the entire game was designed to put a target on the back of people good at Flash games and it was advertised that way from the get-go.

Anyway, there are two different concepts here that are related but are ultimately not the same. First of all there's the mechanic of *hiding* the idol. Then separate from that is the mechanic of *grabbing* the idol. There's a lot of room to play with in both of those.

This is supposed to be Flash Mob, right? Not PD?

[kdowns]

I will add, i bought an ally in, to help me with a puzzle Id solved what to do. I was solving at 530 am my time and my brain was not fully functioning. By bringing an ally in, I engendered trust. If you cant solve something one way, use it as collateral to gain friends. There is no reason you can’t benefit still from something you can’t get on your own, as long as you choose wisely. Relationships outrank game powers in the long term.

I think that is the point that we are trying to make here. It shouldn't really reward the player who is willing to sacrifice sleep or other things just to get the idol. That's kind of why we started to get away from Endurance based challenges.

[ambic]

Well, perhaps sacrificing sleep isn't the right concept. I went to sleep having not solved the puzzle. Somehow when I awoke I knew what to do. I was so excited by the idea I jumped out of bed. Ideas do that to me. WIth or without survivor games. I draw comics as a hobby, usually for my own interest rather than anyone elses, so I dont tend to publish them anywhere. I've been known to draw them at all kinds of weird hours

I do have an idea that might 'solve' the perceived problem here, but it's not something I can share right now, as I'm currently honing it with a well known mod on the site, for the possibility of running something in October 2021 (depending on how busy my job becomes).

[Malkon05]

If we are talking about the PD Idol that was hidden behind the person who could get the best score in Donkey Kong. I didn't really like that idea either, as it clearly put a target on the back of the person who was the best at flash games.

That's a bad example because the entire game was designed to put a target on the back of people good at Flash games and it was advertised that way from the get-go.

Anyway, there are two different concepts here that are related but are ultimately not the same. First of all there's the mechanic of *hiding* the idol. Then separate from that is the mechanic of *grabbing* the idol. There's a lot of room to play with in both of those.

This is supposed to be Flash Mob, right? Not PD?

Yes.

And I didn't mean to say it was the most inventive or best way to hide an idol, but at least it was attainable and gettable for people who don't know what the heck an idol even is pre-game.

[Cephrir]

Let's take Three House as an example for this one. THere was a distinct advantage if you knew even a little lore about Fire Emblem games, like the Release date idol, or the sword idol. While yes, it's a bit advantageous to the person who is able to find it. I like the White Heron Cup idol where the person who received it had to give it away when they got it so that they couldn't personally use it on themself.

If we are talking about the PD Idol that was hidden behind the person who could get the best score in Donkey Kong. I didn't really like that idea either, as it clearly put a target on the back of the person who was the best at flash games. There is just not a good balance when it comes to the idols. I do like the idols though that have to be hidden behind a block forum, which people know that it's there.

I don't think the release date one actually gave much of an advantage. All the relevant info is a pretty easy google away. True of the second one though; I should've given the hint at the start I think.

On the topic of the thread, those idols were all supposed to feel meaningfully different from each other and reward different skills. I'd say this was fairly successful given no one person found two. One had the hint element and involved noticing stuff we'd been posting in front of your faces all game long. TBH, I'm surprised no one thought the swords were suspicious prior to the clue going out. One was a pretty standard find 'n' puzzle. One was just handed to an essentially arbitrary person for challenge performance. And one was meant to be easy to find (after all, we pretty much literally said there would eventually be something hidden in Anna's Shop) but require social finagling to actually get, though my design was thwarted on that one.

I think finding stuff is a meaningful piece of the game. It's a different skill than the social/strategic/challenge elements and some people aren't good at it (myself included) and that's okay, imo.

[Cephrir]

One thing I thought about but didn't do was explicitly telling everyone when there was something to find. I think I did say this in the game start PM, but I didn't end up posting about future hides. Perhaps there's some fun design space to be had there, since people seem to like the Fox's Tail and the idol from flash mob.

[Cephrir]

my design was thwarted on that one.

(ngl i'm a little sad we didn't get to see someone trying to get others to say those words back to them, and also that the undertaker option wasn't picked even though i wouldn't have either. i thought the most obvious path was to choose the vote loss and the vote against you and just pretend to have accidentally selfvoted to cover both tracks, but having options was fun. never in a million years did i think anyone would actually pick the idol nullifier)

[ambic]

"TBH, I'm surprised no one thought the swords were suspicious prior to the clue going out"
I did notice them, I just didn't know what to do with them. I forgot about them after that.

[DeathNote]

I'm blissfully unaware of most things and will not be playing detective in survivor games lol.

That being said, I did successfully find an idol at the first survivormeet. I guess it was just a different feeling rooting around the cabin to find something vs rooting around a computer forum because forums already frustrate the heck out of me.