In post 29, Klick wrote:That's the problem - different players view their connections using different metrics and what you're looking for in part is a method of standardising those connections. An optimal solution would probably have some sort of spectrum for how close players/alliances are to each other.
I think there are three (easily quantifiable) dimensions to relationships in LSG's.
(a) Do I like this person? (Do they like me?)
1. Yes
0. Neutral
-1 No
(b) Do I think this person is threatening, or weak? (Do they think I am threatening or weak?)
1. This person is threatening
0. Neither
-1 This person is weak
(c) Based on the two previous questions (or not), do I plan on keeping this person in the game? (do they plan on keeping me in the game?)
1 I would fight against a vote on this person
0 I would not fight against a vote on this person
-1 I would be enthusiastic about a vote on this person
These dimensions go both ways, so they can all be either mutual or non-mutual.
(X) --- celi I love you ---> (Y)
(X) <--- regi u suck ----- (Y)
would be
(X) ==[1] => (Y)
(X) <=[-1]== (Y)
On (a), I don't even want to get into trying to chart how much someone "trusts" someone else. In my experience, that is incredibly subjective and changes on a dime. I feel like you have far better odds just recording how much people say they like each other, since players tend to say that they like people that they trust and vice versa. So in this sense, (a) is a bit of a fuzzy mix of {social compatibility, game compatibility, trust} and all the other hidden factors in the human heart that make someone worth liking or not. People also tend to post who they like and dislike in their confessionals, so you can get away without relying on spec questions for this one (unless the cast really sucks)
(b) is a game related question, and helps specs understand the "perception is reality" that's happening in the game. Players tend to answer this unprompted, and in a way that is consistent with the way that they end up acting.
(c) So here's the problem from a spec POV, it's easy to get the answer to question (a), because people post that all the time in their confessionals, and if they don't you could post targeted questions. It's easy to get the answer to (b) for the same reasons as (a). But it's not possible to get the answer to (c), because LSG's are complex and sometimes the players themselves don't really know what they want. Sometimes they will say they want to do something the whole game, and intend to do something the whole game, and then never actually do it (read: every single one of my confessionals). Plus, people's plans change based on complex forces that don't nicely fit into data points.
Ultimately, the information that we want to chart is (c), but it's not possible to get a perfect representation of that. So our options are we try to guess at the answer to (c), or we can just stick to charting what we know in (a) and/or (b). Personally I am inclined towards the latter, since some of the fun of being a spec is looking at the gamestate and guessing what will happen next. Or at the very least, having a decent understanding of the gamestate so you can formulate your own hot takes.
To get back to Klick, I believe that ideally you would have some sort of spectrum where you could read everybody's mind better than they can read it themselves and determine exactly how close they are to each individual person in the game on a continuous scale of -1 to 1 or what have you, but I don't think it's practically feasible. At the moment I think the most practical thing to do is get the answers to yes/maybe/no questions and keep track of them that way.