Policy Discussion: Newbie Games

[Mr. Flay]

I'm with Patrick. Normally 4-3, 5-2 when we start to get backed up. I could live with 5-2 if the backlog is more-or-less permanent now, since town hardly ever lynches IC and NKs IC right off the bat.

If we went to 7-0, which I think is perfectly acceptable, we'd probably

have

to revamp the C9 design. We get too many Lynch-or-lose scenarios on D2 as it is, and way too many games end quickly because a townie votes another townie and scum hammer. Maybe C9 with two more townies? But then we're back to the other discussion...

I think we're okay for the most part. People got bogged down with replacements and other games when the site choked in October, and I think that's finally smoothed out. The other thing that would help would be if it were somehow easier for mods to pick up their games; with all the replacements and what not, it's sometimes risky to try to grab your own game anymore, as someone's been replaced into somewhere else and the newbie doesn't always know to say 'hey wait, I'm already here...'

[Mr. Flay]

Could the moderator serve as that experienced advisor, or is it better to have someone who doesn't even subconsciously know the roles? I agree that the advisor shouldn't try to solve the game for the newbies, and I personally generally forget who is what in games I running until I check my notes at lynch, but maybe it's an idea. Of course, if we free up all the ICs who are currently playing, there'd be plenty of advisors, so I may be barking up the wrong tree entirely.

Also, I was surprised to discover just now that in the last three weeks we've averaged over 1,000 posts/day on MafiaScum!

Not only are we recovered from the October 2006 crash, but we're growing again in great bursts... that, or IM

D

M is working better than expected.

[Mr. Flay]

As a mod I try to give the players 12-24 hours before I start answering procedural/definitional questions; I don't want them relying on me too much, and there's a fairly big risk of the moderator giving away hints by what they do/don't answer.
(okay so I changed my answer from before, but I just had lunch and am more awake/aware now).

I say we run a game or two as 7 Newbie games. If they blow up, they blow up, but some of the "newbies" coming to the site are experienced elsewhere or in real life (two newbies just largely won 296 for the Town against myself and JDodge.). I also think we should encourage them when we think they're ready to move on, not to keep cycling through C9 newbie games 5x. Some of them may not

know

that they can jump straight out, or after just one game.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, but the ratio isn't as important as the total number of ICs needed, and you've effectively doubled that. Most of our ICs are already doubled-up on games, and I wouldn't want to advise in more than two games.

4/3, 5/2, or 7/0 all seem fine to me. The rest seems like overkill.

[Mr. Flay]

Alright, so it's a 33% increase in IC requirements, while also adding the burden of PMs from their advisee, watching a thread they cannot post in, trying to help the newbie with the game without solving it for them,

and

(and this is most important to me) it's a totally artificial setup which goes against one of our

core

rules for the site, which is that you don't talk about ongoing games with people who aren't playing.

I think that's much more dangerous than a 7-0 game with some players who've played 1-4 games before on MafiaScum. You haven't established the danger of 7-0 to me, IH.

[Mr. Flay]

I would hate to have had an IC adviser, and I think it would stifle my growth, not help it.

Pooky, I think you're underestimating the way rules get internalized by new players. Out-of-game advisers will increase the tendency to PM about other games as well. The more Newbie Games resemble other games, the better for the site; one of the objections to the old Newbie Setup was that it was artificially static, unlike almost every other game on the site at the time.

[Mr. Flay]

And yet, mafiascum, GL, and a dozen other sites have all had all-newbie games work out just fine. I wonder that we're being too elitist here; as mith said, some ICs are worse than having no advisor at all.

IF we go to an advisory system, I'd want them to be vetted, not just anyone who wants to sign up. And that means we will, in fact, have a greater shortage of ICs.

[Mr. Flay]

Say in a given month you've got 28 newbies coming in.

1-on-1 advisor requires 4 games, with 28 ICs to cater to them (assuming ICs only advise one)
3:4 setup requires 7 games, with 21 ICs to fill up the IC slots.

Another thing about 7-0: 4 games would mean having to find 3 less mods. THOSE actually seem to be the limiting factor right now, with MeMe running at least 9 on the front page of TRTR currently, I've run 6, Stoofer has run 4, and a bunch of others have run two or three.

[Mr. Flay]

I could argue for firmer deadlines in Newbie Games. I wonder if there's some sort of standard we can come to; I think two weeks is enough time, so long as everyone is participating, to evaluate a Day One. It's not "realistic" in the same sense that most games won't call Day after 2-3 weeks, but Newbie Games that drag on for 2-3 months aren't much fun for people either in my experience, and maybe it would cut down on the dropouts.

But if one of our points is to show people the slow, methodical pace of games on MafiaScum, then this suggestion has no merit. Unless we want to speed up that pace sitewide...

[Mr. Flay]

Clarification: I think 7-0 when all seven are complete newbies to the game is a bad idea, but I don't see a problem with games in which 3-4 are first-timers and the rest have played a completed game on MafiaScum. I think we vastly overrate the importance of ICs when compared to the Moderator, Wiki, and people's

actual experience

, which may have come on other sites or in RL games!

And yet,

mafiascum

, GL, and a dozen other sites have all had all-newbie games work out just fine. I wonder that we're being too elitist here; as mith said, some ICs are worse than having no advisor at all.

.... We're Mafiascum <.<

Correct. And we started out without Newbie Games at all, much less IC "helpers" or advisors, or even a wiki! And somehow, we managed, by and large.

So 326 ended in a Quick Lynch. So what?

It's one game.

I've seen it done numerous times with 4-3 as well (especially if one of those ICs is one of your scum on D2), MeMe, IH, and EmpTyger all pointed it out after the game, and none of those players is likely to make the same mistake again. Lesson learned, right? We take this place way too seriously, sometimes...

[Mr. Flay]

I'd be willing to bet that any C9 game is going to have at least one newbie who has either played before or read games/the wiki, and knows that not lynching on D1 is a bad idea. I've never seen more than one player support it in any given game, actually.

I would never want to

forbid

ICs from playing Newbie Games, for the record. I actually enjoy them, at least one at a time (if I play more than one, my attention wanders and I'm not as good an experienced hand).

[Mr. Flay]

A Newbie Game is by far the most likely place for a raw newbie to show up for their first game in MafiaScum.net. Many will jump into Mini Games or Theme Games if they've heard about the game from a friend or something, but our first-timers seem to do a remarkably good job of finding the NG Queue.

If the moderator screws up that game, it's likely that the player will leave the "premier place for playing online Mafia" and never come back. Contrast this with an individual player screwing up (346 comes to mind most recently), where the mod and other players could show that it was a one-off screwup by an equally new player. Much less damage done in that case, so no, I don't think we'll be lowering the requirements. One Mini game and one Open Game is not too much to ask, I don't think, and doesn't take much longer than just one game, if run concurrently.

[Mr. Flay]

Open Games are a mod queue open to new players as well, Raffles. And as Stoofer says, it's not about the simplicity of the games in TRTR (although even still, people can't seem to get the randomization right on Cop/Doc distribution).

[Mr. Flay]

More food for thought:

Is there any way of giving priority in this queue to say newbies who will be playing their first game? I'm seeing some newbies who die, and immediately sign up for another one.

Technically speaking, it wouldn't be much more difficult than how things are run now. On the one hand, yes it would get our new-newbies into a game somewhat sooner (maybe as much as 50%). On the other hand, some of our players have done "one game that ended quickly/badly, or they got lynched D1" and barely have any more experience than the fresh meat. I wouldn't want to discourage them either.

What do other people think? Any other thoughts on this thread? Sometime this week I hope to have a graph of the rate of NG starts... they're closing up on 400 games soon.

[Mr. Flay]

FYI: Norinel replied to the question and said that while he did implement a system like this for a time, it was more trouble than benefit overall.

So I probably won't be doing this, unless things get much worse than they have been, at which point we'll probably be looking at revamping how Newbie Games are handled anyway.

[Mr. Flay]

I give any player an option to PM me and explicitly

tell me

they are lurking when I prod them. While it's bad town play, I disagree with Yos; it's valid scum playstyle and it's

not my job

as moderator to catch lurkers, only those who have vanished. However if a player picks up more than one prod in a row without responding in thread or by PM, then I usually replace them after about a week. If I get too many lurkers, that's a deadline criterion.

I have a sneaking suspicion there's some sort of error wherein people

receive

the PM because they sign in by clicking 'Log in to view your private messages', and then never read it, but I can't prove it yet.

[Mr. Flay]

I prod after 72 hours (roughly) in Newbies and Minis, 4 days or so in Large Games. If they don't pick it up in 48-72 hours after that, I'm looking for a replacement.

I'd be a lot more draconian about lurking if I didn't HATE replacements so much. They ruin players' read on the game IMO and help to destroy commitment when half the players are not the folks you started arguing with. At least with lurkers, I can opt to lynch them out of frustration, and stand a decent chance of hitting scum. With replacements, I'm starting over on analysis all the time. We give replacements WAY too much benefit of the doubt, but I don't know what the other solution is.

[Mr. Flay]

voidy, if you're prodding people every 48 hours, I'm gonna be a LOT less lenient the next time you don't post for a week in my games...

[Mr. Flay]

It might be possible to modify the 'Title' code to display based on (List?) Moderator promotion, rather than the strict post count it does now (up to 101 posts/Title Fairy intervention, anyway). That's a lot more work for mods, but it's probably more useful than the currently unhelpful 'Goon'/'Townsperson'/'Mafia Scum' titles. JEEP will have to explain how complex such an idea is.

I don't like the idea of Mandatory Newbie Games, though. Some players DO have a lot of experience elsewhere (or are quick studies) and can catch on and play other types of games early or right off the bat. I think we'd lose more players that way, rather than gain a real increase in demonstrated skills. Most new players who stick around seem to play 2-4 Newbie Games anyway, before they move on (or some then become ICs and teach the next generation).

[Mr. Flay]

I have a proposal that might alleviate some of the crunch on finding replacements for newbie games:

• Semi-experienced players (those with one completed game on-site) may

  replace

  into one additional Newbie Game, for a total of two running at any given time.

Wording probably could use some work, but my point is that the rule for not joining more than one Newbie Game is to avoid a backlog/avoid players flaking out of multiple games at once. Most players either flake in their first game or not at all (until disaster strikes, etc). Most newbies who stick with the site want to play more games, and this would give them a chance to get their experience up faster.

Thoughts?

[Mr. Flay]

Is this now the official rule, or are we just talking it over? (I think it's a damn fine idea if we are, still a bit of a stop-gap, but that's OK)

It's just an idea I'm throwing out there. I want mith to at least have the chance to shout me down before I implement it, though if someone else can find flaws with the idea, I'm all ears.

It will make things slightly more complicated, but I think the net gain will be smoother games. New players can already play in Minis or any other game along with one Newbie Game, so it's not like we're restricting the damage potential

all

that much right now...

[Mr. Flay]

Total newbies can "replace" into a game if one of the original seven players doesn't pick up their role PM, for example. Yes, technically they replaced somebody, but really they're in since the beginning, so they get the full experience of a game.

I generally ask for the "one game completed" folks if a game is in Day Two, or Lynch-or-Lose, or has been really weird/long for some reason. I don't think it's fair to pull a total newbie into a late game and expect them to get anything out of it/get a sense for whether they'll like the site's way of playing Forum Mafia.

[Mr. Flay]

Thanks Cubs, helpful as always...

[Mr. Flay]

Hmm... I thought there was an actual crunch on ICs.

I would think that most ICs would not be replaced in their games, so eventually, it would be the Newbies who would need to be replaced.

What this rule would do is increase the Non IC players to IC players ratio in the newbie games.

(snip)

Right?

Not exactly. When a Moderator for a Newbie Game asks for a replacement, they generally specify if they are replacing an IC or a newbie. If it's an IC, only an IC (or at worst, someone who is almost an IC) generally takes the spot. If it's a newbie that needs replacing, anyone can take the spot, but 9 times out of 10, it's another newbie/non-IC that takes it.

It's a little like the two queues for ICs and newbies, if that helps it make more sense.

[Mr. Flay]

It might be possible to modify the 'Title' code to display based on (List?) Moderator promotion, rather than the strict post count it does now (up to 101 posts/Title Fairy intervention,

I'm trying to read this on my phone and it's not quite clicking. Someone ping me about this on Tuesday.

-JEEP

For clarity, I'll rephrase what I'm asking:

Right now, someone starts off on the site with "Townsperson" as their title until some number (20? 42?) of in-game posts, at which point the software automatically promotes them to "Goon". After 100 posts, they get promoted to "Mafia Scum".

I'm asking if it would make sense for the initial title (whatever it is, Townsperson or New Citizen or whatever) to stay put until someone with Moderator/List Moderator powers 'promotes' them. Post counts become irrelevant; it would require making a new interface somewhere where you can grant them the new title, after some successful number of games completed (for example). Downgrading someone would not be allowed, except by Site Mods or maybe List Mods, when someone becomes a total and utter flake.

Then, after five completed games (or whatever our new criteria for IC is), a List Mod can promote them to Mafia Scum (or whatever we decide the "standard, full Scummer" title is). From that point on, they probably only gain new/custom titles the way we do now, through the Title Fairy. Again, no downgrading except in extreme circumstances.

Make more sense now? It would mesh neatly with a decentralized way of deciding who is an IC, and make it much easier for me to see what classification someone falls under. And if other mods want to apply a "no New Citizen" standard to a Theme Game or something, it makes their life easier, too.

mith:

Thanks, I'll probably figure out how to write this up later this evening. I think it'll alleviate some of the current bottleneck of replacing missing newbies.

[Mr. Flay]

*bump* Also, adding another data point:

With the long list of Newbies waiting for enough ICs to fill their games, there's been quite a bit of confusion on why people are being "missed" when people who sign up after them get into games (these are the needed ICs). Might be better if there was just one list for that reason, too...

I get the impression that virtually no level of incentive would be sufficient to secure THAT many additional IC players in Newbie Games, based on the general lack of comment here. Either people are already playing Newbies because they feel like it/love them, or they don't play and nothing seems inclined to change that. We've been sitting at about 4-5 games waiting for several weeks, and that's before the fall semester starts back up at school. So maybe it's time to try one of mith's 7-newbies games, or something with a mix of raw newbies and the new "semi-experienced" classification. Right now, SE players are at about 6 of 22 folks in the Queue...

[Mr. Flay]

(20 points)

How does it solve the glut?

Show your work.

Also, C9s have a certain symmetry, in that the town can win by lynching right twice, or lose by lynching wrong twice. I think that makes them valuable as teaching tools.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, Mods is the other thing we have a broad shortage of, but it's not so importance since (like Open Games) any other Mod can pick up a dropped game by having the players send their roles in.

Zindy: I value symmetry and speed over balance in

teaching

games, yes. You're correct that Newbie games have a very low win percentage (for town), but a LOT of that has to do with people not knowing how to correctly handle lynch-or-lose. They vote too fast, get riled up, or flip out, and *boom* town loses. I think it's valuable to learn that lesson before you get to the endgame of

Super Complicated Theme Mafia with a Twist

after nine months.

You're right that we'd utilize 40% more newbies per game with nine players, but enlarging the # of players means on average another Day in length, too, which translates to another month playing that first game, at times. Seven discrete pieces of information is about as many as most people can handle easily, which appeals to me.

I probably won't be making any decisions on this until next week at the earliest (when I can do some number crunching during my time off), but I'm leaning towards SPAG/mith's idea of trying an IC-less game as an experiment.

[Mr. Flay]

I'm not talking about Speed Mafia, and you're misreading me to say otherwise. I'm talking about games in which a Day lasts 3-4 weeks, on average. With two-three Days max, that means a two-three month commitment, most of the time. Those 3-4 page screw-ups are still the exception, not the rule, but they do teach something.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, my primary concern with the no-ICs scenario is that I've heard time and time again how people on other sites see their games stall out because no one (raw newbies) knows how to push for a lynch. I'd want at least some SE/one-timers in any game lacking proper ICs, but I suspect the 5-games requirement may be a bit steep for our actual

needs

. I'd rather look at performance, which

is

one of the proposals somewhere buried in this thread... But that's harder.

I honestly only think that one IC is necessary, although I'm not sure why...

Say I'm the sole ic. I'm scum. Guess what happens.

(Of course, I've modded games with both ic scum, and unless the remainder are not complete newbies, the game tends to be completely one-sided.)

Yeah, one of the good things about the old 4-3 split was that you were guaranteed at least

one

pro-town IC, which kept the others on their toes even if they were scum. Even still, it's like a 2% chance of both ICs being scum, so that's a fairly small risk. Having just one IC bumps the chance of them being scum up to 28.5%.

[Mr. Flay]

They aren't open by definition.

Others have correctly stated that Open Games can include "chance of role" so long as they describe fully what the chance is (0-1, 0 or 2, etc). I know at least one C9 7-player was run in Little Italy as a non-newbie game with pretty good results.

Likewise, it is currently correct that IC requires five completed games that you have been a participant in. One other thing this prevents is someone getting themselves nuked/lynched 5 times in a row and then becoming "technically IC" with practically no experience after twiddling their thumbs for two more months. Another reason I'd like to get away from the strict criteria we currently have... But my vacation for August has been pushed back/compressed, so it'll be a while before I can really make any sweeping changes.

Erg0, I agree that there's a layer of experience between "newbie" and "IC" that many people miss at first. No to mention those who come here with experience from another site, or face-to-face games... that is, if you're talking about "newbies" as players and not as games. trying to add another layer of complexity to the Newbie Game Queue though, seems counterproductive...

[Mr. Flay]

I would play as an IC in multiple newbie games to help out, but I'm not sure if I qualify yet.

As far as I can tell, you've got 4 games completed and another 2-3 in late game right now. As soon as one of those finishes, I'd be happy to take you on as an IC!

[Mr. Flay]

I'm very unlikely to agree to move Newbie Games into 9-player territory; they don't have to be perfectly balanced to work as instruction.

I'm down with the concept of adding one more potential power role, perhaps, if someone can show how that would help the town's chances sufficiently.

[Mr. Flay]

But I guess I should shut up now.

Please don't. I'm not making a decree from on high, just stating my (strongly held) opinion, in the lack of being convinced otherwise so far.

Another reason I like C9's symmetry, which I may have only implied thus far, is that you learn a lot more from losing than you do from winning. That was one of the things wrong with the old setup; it became reductionist, and people weren't learning anything but Follow-The-Cop. Now, you stand a good chance of seeing Lynch-or-Lose, Speedlynch, Mexican Standoffs, Lurking, False Roleclaims, and Counterclaims, all in two-three game days!

I like that. But I could be biased.

[Mr. Flay]

Original setting was 2M1C1D3T, every time. It broke because the Cop could come out D1, and then the town played Follow-the-Cop while the Mafia played Hunt-the-Doc. If they didn't counterclaim the Cop (50/50% chance) or find the Doc N1 or N2, they were pretty universally screwed. ICs knew about the strategy for a while without actively advocating it, but eventually it became more common knowledge - around game 70 or so?

Hmmm. A modified C9 might be interesting:

• 1 Cop, 1 Doc, 1 Godfather, 1 Goon, 3 Townies (Cop+Doc is still pretty strongly in town's favor)
  
• 1 Cop, 2 Goons, 4 Townies
  
• 1 Doc, 2 Goons, 4 Townies
  
• 1 SK, 2 Goons, 1 Cop, 1 Doc, 2 Townies (this one may be totally broken??)

But I suspect eliminating the 5 Townie setup, even though it favors the scum heavily, makes the setup more broken for counterclaims. As it stands, there's always a 50%/50% chance that the Cop or Doc exists.

If I get my planned time off next month, I definitely want to finish analyzing win rates in C9.

[Mr. Flay]

I think adding an SK screws way too much with the game. It also makes the game almost impossible to win for the town, having to correctly lynch three times in a row. If they're lucky. Even if they lynch a Mafiate on Day 1, they could easily end up in a Prisoner's Dilemma on Day 2.

Now, if you'd make it C9+2...

Mmmm, right, I knew there was something screwy about the SK, but I was just throwing that in off the cuff...

And, you can't really just add the Godfather when there's Cop+Doc, or scum know too much about the setup...crap, back to the drawing board.

[Mr. Flay]

No, a Mason Pair would make endgame very swingy. I don't think a game that size should have them, as it again detracts from the actual point of the game, hunting scummy behavior. Winning through mod confirmation is less fun/educational for anyone.

[Mr. Flay]

C9 is hexadecimal for the different possibilities, if you expressed them in binary: 11 00 10 01 (both, neither, one, the other)

[Mr. Flay]

Get stuck with someone who's halfhearted, it's for 3 gamedays max...

Or not...

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, when I play as an IC

(which is vanishingly rare anymore, it seems)

I'm just another player, unless someone's asking questions about game mechanics/theory/acronyms. I don't expect deference because I'm an IC, and I attack it when I see it proposed by either newbies

or

ICs. I'm able to provide more cogent arguments at times, and I know more strategy that can become useful in the endgame, but otherwise, I'm just like anybody there.

I'm a little curious to see how a game I recently filled out with two players that were -not-quite-ICs turns out. Both had four completed games and several running at that moment, which made me comfortable with bending the rules just a smidge.