In post 146, Debonair Danny DiPietro wrote:I just don't know what the problem we're supposed to be fixing here is; which makes a solution rather hard to find. I mean Mr. Flay started this thread with an assumption of change being needed but why?
More balanced Newbie Games.
Except the numbers that were posted in the latest update shows that the balance (win %) was pretty good; certainly within allowable tolerances and having the list mod hand out setups would solve the issue of imbalanced setup selection.
Now fun is a legitimate issue, but besides it being incredibly subjective if that's the issue where are/were the complaints coming from? Clearly we don't have a shortage of SEs and looking at the list it doesn't appear we have a shortage of ICs either so it seems that most consider the setup acceptable enough not to drive them away from the queue.
The only true statistic I care about with newbie games is the conversation statistic. In other words, how many players who play in a newbie game are here 6 months later actively playing the game?
Fun, balance, etc. all indirectly affect that, I think. So that's why those are important.
In post 153, SleepyKrew wrote:3D, the overall percentage was good, but the actual setups themselves were the problem.
Except the only setup that was significantly different from a .5 win perecentage was Doc/VT and even that wasn't as bad as you'd expect because if town wins the next Doc/VT game it wouldn't meet the typical threshold for statistical significance any more either (that's not to say it's balanced but that it's still a small sample size with a fair amount of volitility).
In post 152, zoraster wrote:The only true statistic I care about with newbie games is the conversation statistic. In other words, how many players who play in a newbie game are here 6 months later actively playing the game?
Fun, balance, etc. all indirectly affect that, I think. So that's why those are important.
If this is the prime mover than I think the biggest issue is the delay between sign-ups and games starting due to games being batch started as momentum seems to be particularly important for new players and not anything related to the games themselves.
The reason to have a balanced setup is that playing in an unbalanced setup isn't as fun (especially if it's won by the side it's unbalanced in favour of, which mathematically most of the time it will be).
In post 154, Debonair Danny DiPietro wrote:If this is the prime mover than I think the biggest issue is the delay between sign-ups and games starting due to games being batch started as momentum seems to be particularly important for new players and not anything related to the games themselves.
newbie games started in batches? the most important thing for newbie games is to get them going ASAP. A normal player will wait around, but newbies are momentum driven.
In post 154, Debonair Danny DiPietro wrote:Except the only setup that was significantly different from a .5 win perecentage was Doc/VT and even that wasn't as bad as you'd expect because if town wins the next Doc/VT game it wouldn't meet the typical threshold for statistical significance any more either (that's not to say it's balanced but that it's still a small sample size with a fair amount of volitility).
If it's statistically significant and it matches what is kind of an obvious conclusion to begin with, then small sample size is not big that an issue.
I think giving the townies as little power as Doc/VT to work with some proportion of the time is suboptimal for a whole host of reasons but the other issue with 2of4 is that the Doc/JK set-up occasionally turns awkward. I've played in 2of4s with 0 kills over 4 Nights and 1 kill over 6 Nights (with scum fake claiming doc instead of there being one in the latter) and that's not really a thing we want in Newbies.
Scumchat is awesome. Yarr!
~"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind."~
I enjoyed the town loss that happened when I played in a doc/vt setup, probably not so much had the mafia remembered to submit their kill night 2, but figuring out the scum there was good.
Though the only other two newbie slots that weren't replaced were lynched on the first two days, so I don't know what their enjoyment levels were. (and part way though the game I technically became am SE)
Holder of the Longest Continuous Weekly Mafiascum Post Record. 1 July 2012 - 16 Feb 2023
*It may be held by someone else if you discount the major downtime in 2012 and 2014, I'm not doing the research.
As a newbie, would my opinion be at all valuable here? I just completed first mafia game on this site a few days back, and have only played maybe 3-4 mafia games on other sites, so a newbie in every sense. I quite like the semi-open format - the mafia games I used to play prior to this site were open format and just tended to devolve into role claims and a competition of "who can more credibly pretend to be the cop"; it wasn't very fun. The main thing I dislike about the current format is the pace. I was used to 2/3 day Days - going to 3 week days seemed nuts, it just drags on. The other thing was why are Newbie games done in batches? You can end up waiting almost 2 weeks? That's enough time to lose a lot of people. And a final point is, the more power roles the better. People are smarter than they get given credit for, and they can usually work out the optimal or at least half decent play for their role fairly quickly, plus it gives them incentive to play. Nobody wants to be Vanilla Townie if they can help it.
Anyway. Probably an entirely unwanted opinion, but my £0.02.
2 Town PRs in a 9 player game is a fairly representative, I think, so that's not something we'd be aiming to change. Pace is fairly variable although 2/3 day Days is not really something we go for; this does stress the importance of avoiding set-ups like Doc/JK that can get bogged down in PR interactions.
Scumchat is awesome. Yarr!
~"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind."~
In post 161, Hume wrote:As a newbie, would my opinion be at all valuable here? I just completed first mafia game on this site a few days back, and have only played maybe 3-4 mafia games on other sites, so a newbie in every sense. I quite like the semi-open format - the mafia games I used to play prior to this site were open format and just tended to devolve into role claims and a competition of "who can more credibly pretend to be the cop"; it wasn't very fun. The main thing I dislike about the current format is the pace. I was used to 2/3 day Days - going to 3 week days seemed nuts, it just drags on. The other thing was why are Newbie games done in batches? You can end up waiting almost 2 weeks? That's enough time to lose a lot of people. And a final point is, the more power roles the better. People are smarter than they get given credit for, and they can usually work out the optimal or at least half decent play for their role fairly quickly, plus it gives them incentive to play. Nobody wants to be Vanilla Townie if they can help it.
Anyway. Probably an entirely unwanted opinion, but my £0.02.
Some thoughts for you -
1) Semi-Open is cool! Cooler than Opens, anyway.
2) Pace - Newbie games are, bar none, the slowest games on the site. If you know how to play Mafia, I legitimately suggest you move to a different queue.
3) Power roles aplenty - Actually, there are a fair few people who
want
to be V.Townie. It's also tougher to balance games when they turn into power-role fests; it's not so much a function of people not using their role properly.
Everything you say and do matters. People will respond in ways you may never see. May those responses be what you intend.
3 week days are a lot alright. The batch question is interesting. Is it just ease for the listmod? It seems like it's always been like that, it just seems weird.
are you thinking of me when you're with somebody else?
I did batches as NGLM because signups were that fast, or I wouldn't get to the thread before more than one game was full. I have no idea why singer is batching them at the current pace.
The way the newbie queue works is that if a newbie doesn't pick up a role PM at the start of the game, the mod automatically pulls the next newbie on the list. That's what I was referring to.
Hmm. Did not know that was a rule. New policy for Xalxe yay!
"I, too, would prefer to know the Xalxe of my demise." - Felissan, 2022
- On this day in history: mundanity, and terror, and food, and love, and trees -
My academy.
