FM Moving Forward

[Cryptonic]

This has been a super fun time guys!!! Real blast the last 24 hours, I'm sure everyone can agree.

Anyway, let's move forward together, and work through this together.


It's evident that the FM section is in need of some sweet sweet love, as it's been left without proper oversight since the departure a section head.


So, my question to you is:
What is YOUR FM utopia as a host?




I'll go first. Over my years as FM player, host, FM mod, and admin of the section, there were many things that I found just didn't work at all. Mainly, the queue.
When I first joined the site, there was no queue. It was chaotic, but it had an ease to it. At times it was highly disorganized, and eventually hosts spoke up about fair hosting practices.
The queue was then created to give everyone a fair chance at hosting. However, this also had repercussions. Long wait times for hosts, and long lines of games no one wanted to play. Sure, it was civil, but FM became monotonous on the site.

After experiencing both of these systems (and some rogue systems that we won't talk about shh), I came to envision MY perfect system as an FM host:
Capitalism. Sweet, ruthless capitalism.

My idea was that anyone with experience hosting would be allowed to post signups for ANY approved game (even if it's not your setup). If your sign ups fill because members wanted to play the game, or because you're a kick ass host... the signups would fill up, and the host can start their game.
Members wanting new setups approved would create a setup as usual, and one of the (hopefully several) FM mods/FM community liaisons would look them over and review them. Once everything looked good, there would be another approved setup on the books! If the game runs and proves to be incredibly imbalanced, it would be unapproved after the game.

So, whenever I've hinted at this idea, I have heard things like "omg crypt, what is someone spends a lot of time on a setup and no one plays it?". And my answer to that question is, "have you ever known me to have feelies?" This is where I compare it to capitalism; if members don't want to buy your product, then your setup will not move forward.


Obviously, there would need to be FM mod oversight in this process. Rules, such as:
1- only signing for X number of games at time.
2- signups can only be up for X number of days before being archived and needed to be posted again.
3- probably lots of other shit i'm over looking.


Anyway, that's MY Utopia. What's yours?

[Damus_Graves]

A watehouse of approved setups that have been ran and successfully competed. Open to the public for replayability. Hosts can pick a setup they like and put up signups after confirming with FMmod that they are good to go
Think Librarian style operations here.

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A workshop where hosts and players can theorycraft new setups, mechanics, roles as they please. A FMmod would check a suggest setup/role to ensure it meets a criteria that had been preestablished. Rolecards being clear and precise, feeeback listed, cycles and their times explained, expected codes of conduct within the game as examples of the criteria needed.

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I am hopeful for multiple games to be able to run ran at the same time. There is a problem with overlapping games but I believe that this issue is something that the hosts themselves need to be responsible for

[Kenny]

I believe Damus, Slaol and MM are unfit for a communist leadership. As Damus has realized for himself already, they are not people with a superior understanding of FM balancing. Hosts should be free to engineer their product the way they themselves desire.
My vote goes for capitalism.

[Gyrlander]

I believe capitalism is a great idea. There have been instances in which I didn't like the current setup and just had to wait for it to be over. With capitalism, I could choose from a variety of setups and wouldn't have to wait. UNLESS we don't have a enough big playerbase. That would be one of the issues.

We need more people if we choose capitalism.

[Voss]

Less restrictions (if there are) on what mechanics, roles, etc are in a game. But on the flip side, some way to indicate that this setup is experimental, and some way for FMods to indicate how balanced they think a particular setup will turn out. Maybe engaging in that pregame meta will help with balance.

(Don't take my opinion here too heavily. I only play the wildest and biggest of games).

[Auckmid]

So to reiterate the issues with the current FM system, the main problem that I have is that only one FM is getting hosted at a time and the order that the FMs are being hosted in essentially ends up being a first-in-first-out queue. This results in the following...


1) If a player dies early in an FM, they still have to wait for the conclusion of that FM before they can join another FM.
2) If a player doesn't like the setup which is next in the queue, they are either forced to sign up anyway or wait for the next FM which can take a couple of weeks. This gets even worse if there are multiple setups in a row in the queue that players do not like.
3) If a player has high activity and could easily participate in multiple FMs, they are still forced to only participate in one.


While I do also recognize/remember the issues that came from a lack of mod oversight, this would be what I see as the ideal changes to the system...


1) While FM mods give appropriate feedback to setups, as long as the setup is complete, they always approve the setup, even though they can delay signups if there are already multiple ongoing games/signups. This feeds into the "capitalism" idea that it is ultimately the players (buyers) who determine what gets hosted, not the mods (government).
2) Two FMs can be hosted simultaneously. This doubles the potential number of FMs that can be hosted at a time, while not completely scrapping the queue and creating issues where there are too many FMs being hosted at a single time.
3) Once a setup goes into the signup phase, if it does not get an appropriate number of signers within a given amount of time, it is removed from signups and replaced by the next FM in queue (again, the players are determining what ultimately gets hosted).
4) While hosts are encouraged to increase the length of their day/night cycles if they have players playing in multiple simultaneous FMs to give those players more time to fully participate in both FMs, it is ultimately the decision of the host on how long/short they want their days/nights to be (within reason).
5) Likewise, if multiple FMs are going simultaneously, some effort is made to stagger them so that when one of the games is in night phase, the other is in day phase.
6) Mods reserve the right to have only one active FM for a period of time, such as if a major FM is getting hosted where maximum community participation is encouraged.
7) If a major FM/event is going to be hosted, multiple people are allowed to give setups for that FM/event. If multiple setups are given, a community poll is created for which one will be hosted.


I think these are my major points, but I'll add to this if I think I missed something.

[Cryptonic]

I'm actually surprised people agree Last time I said something like this, it wasn't received very well lol.
@Firebringer sparked the idea a long time ago rip fb


I also want to add that, as a player, I wish something could be done about number of posts in games lol. I am definitely guilty for posting a lot myself, but now that i'm busier in life I have come to realize that behavior definitely has a negative effect on a game lol. I'll wake up to like 600 posts and it's like shit there is no way i have time to read all of this lol. I think it would be a lot better there were fewer, but more extensive, posts.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly can be done to reduce quantity & increase quality of posts. Does anyone else experience this, or am I in the minority? lol

Some things I've considered are like....
- prevent double posting via a plugin. Issue with this is that someone can make 2 quality posts in a row, so this is more like a band-aid.
- set minimum character count to like X characters (maybe 3 sentences or so). This idea I do actually like.. However, if you forget to vote or you misspell your vote, then you can't follow up with just a vote. (Unless we got a new vote system, too).

Or, maybe there is no problem lol It's hard being old

[Auckmid]

I'm actually surprised people agree Last time I said something like this, it wasn't received very well lol.
@Firebringer sparked the idea a long time ago rip fb


I also want to add that, as a player, I wish something could be done about number of posts in games lol. I am definitely guilty for posting a lot myself, but now that i'm busier in life I have come to realize that behavior definitely has a negative effect on a game lol. I'll wake up to like 600 posts and it's like shit there is no way i have time to read all of this lol. I think it would be a lot better there were fewer, but more extensive, posts.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly can be done to reduce quantity & increase quality of posts. Does anyone else experience this, or am I in the minority? lol

Some things I've considered are like....
- prevent double posting via a plugin. Issue with this is that someone can make 2 quality posts in a row, so this is more like a band-aid.
- set minimum post count to like X characters (maybe 3 sentences or so). This idea I do actually like.. However, if you forget to vote or you misspell your vote, then you can't follow up with just a vote. (Unless we got a new vote system, too).

Or, maybe there is no problem lol It's hard being old

I agree that some players spam harder then they should in FMs and that a focus on higher post quality over post count would be good for FMs. However, you can't really force players to make high quality posts, you can only encourage.

I'm not sure I agree if with disabling the ability to post twice in a row. Sometimes you make a post and realize that you missed something important which needs to be amended. Also, if players are ever in a final 3 situation, only being able to make 1 post before having to wait for another player to post can suck. I think hosts just have to more heavily enforce anti-spam rules if they don't want players making 15 consecutive posts on day 1 ( @Slaol @Mike ).

If you really wanted to force a change in posting styles in FMs, the solution I see would be to set a maximum number of posts players can make in a 24 hour period, then increase the length of days to compensate the decrease in post count. This isn't to say that forcing this change SHOULD become standard, just that I believe this to be the best way if there is a desire to do so.

[Gerik]

I'm actually surprised people agree Last time I said something like this, it wasn't received very well lol.
@Firebringer sparked the idea a long time ago rip fb


I also want to add that, as a player, I wish something could be done about number of posts in games lol. I am definitely guilty for posting a lot myself, but now that i'm busier in life I have come to realize that behavior definitely has a negative effect on a game lol. I'll wake up to like 600 posts and it's like shit there is no way i have time to read all of this lol. I think it would be a lot better there were fewer, but more extensive, posts.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly can be done to reduce quantity & increase quality of posts. Does anyone else experience this, or am I in the minority? lol

Some things I've considered are like....
- prevent double posting via a plugin. Issue with this is that someone can make 2 quality posts in a row, so this is more like a band-aid.
- set minimum character count to like X characters (maybe 3 sentences or so). This idea I do actually like.. However, if you forget to vote or you misspell your vote, then you can't follow up with just a vote. (Unless we got a new vote system, too).

Or, maybe there is no problem lol It's hard being old

I agree that some players spam harder then they should in FMs and that a focus on higher post quality over post count would be good for FMs. However, you can't really force players to make high quality posts, you can only encourage.

I'm not sure I agree if with disabling the ability to post twice in a row. Sometimes you make a post and realize that you missed something important which needs to be amended. Also, if players are ever in a final 3 situation, only being able to make 1 post before having to wait for another player to post can suck. I think hosts just have to more heavily enforce anti-spam rules if they don't want players making 15 consecutive posts on day 1 ( @Slaol @Mike ).

If you really wanted to force a change in posting styles in FMs, the solution I see would be to set a maximum number of posts players can make in a 24 hour period, then increase the length of days to compensate the decrease in post count. This isn't to say that forcing this change SHOULD become standard, just that I believe this to be the best way if there is a desire to do so.

I have actually been telling Slaol recently about how I was thinking about hosting a game with a posting restriction in an effort to combat this issue. I haven't landed on the exact restriction yet. I was thinking along the lines of 'X posts per 24-hour period', but I'm open to other ideas.

[Cryptonic]

I can only find a plugin for that which works up to 4.2.2, and we 4.2.5 :'(

[Cryptonic]

I can only find a plugin for that which works up to 4.2.2, and we 4.2.5 :'(

nvm found one https://vbulletin-mods.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2026

edit: nvm x2, looks like it works opposite what you're suggesting lol

[Voss]

I'd definitely get behind a post count limit. Maybe per 24 hours. Maybe per hour. I'd sign up for one of these if that was the main advertisement. Or maybe I'll just host it myself.

[Voss]

Not that I want all hosts to implement this. I'd just personally prefer it.

[blinkskater]

I'm all for players hosting games however they want to host games. They want to have a post count limit sure... you want to have a a word count per post limit sure.... incorporate that into your setup. If a player doesn't want to be restricted by post count or Limited 2 posting in a certain way then they don't have to sign for the game. Personally I think that a player should be able to play however he likes to play if he likes to type short sentences very frequently then he should be able to do that if it's within the rules of the setup. Because it's up to the other players to read said player at that point. So all in all if you want to host a set up in a certain way. Then do it if people don't sign for your game don't throw a fit and cry about it. Sorry if this comes off a bit harsh but it's just my thoughts on the matter.

[Voss]

Lol no one should be forced to play games. Which would lend itself to Crypt's capitalism idea.

[blinkskater]

Yep thats the way to go imo make your setup how u want. If nobody signs sorry mate try again next turn

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Capitalism is a good idea for large playerbases, and if we get to that, it's great. The playerbase we have is not large, though, so the result of this would be literally the site's death, because some people would say "No I dont want to play that one, I prefer the other!", and none of the two games would fill (assuming it's just two, with the proposed system it could be more). If the playerbase just grows, the system will naturally change to capitalism. It's good, but if you force it, it's bad.

I think that there should be a bank of approved setups, all together in a setup workshop subsection. Those would be easily hostable, and it could get old games that were fun yet forgotten out of the workshop's grave. It would also give inspiration to people, and improve the setups' quality, and the plays themselves (since some old classic setups are pretty good for "educational" purposes).

[Auckmid]

I'm all for players hosting games however they want to host games. They want to have a post count limit sure... you want to have a a word count per post limit sure.... incorporate that into your setup. If a player doesn't want to be restricted by post count or Limited 2 posting in a certain way then they don't have to sign for the game. Personally I think that a player should be able to play however he likes to play if he likes to type short sentences very frequently then he should be able to do that if it's within the rules of the setup. Because it's up to the other players to read said player at that point. So all in all if you want to host a set up in a certain way. Then do it if people don't sign for your game don't throw a fit and cry about it. Sorry if this comes off a bit harsh but it's just my thoughts on the matter.

Setting a maximum post restriction isn't really that different then setting a minimum post restriction. Both restrict playstyles in an attempt to combat ways of playing that can be potentially unfun for the other participants. The only difference is that minimum post restrictions aim to reduce lurking while maximum post restrictions aim to reduce spamming. If you truly believed that players should be allowed to play how they like, you would not have a minimum post restriction in your own FM.

[blinkskater]

to me posting less than 5 times means you're not even engaged in the game nor giving any effort to try and win the game no matter what faction you are on. Someone who posts a lot is easier to read because they just have more content for you to go over. If they are scum more chance to slip up. If they are town more chances for them to convince you that they are town. Which in my opinion makes higher posters easier to read. I do agree that players should be able to play the game however they want, but to me posting less than 5 times isn't even playing the game.

[Cryptonic]

Capitalism is a good idea for large playerbases, and if we get to that, it's great. The playerbase we have is not large, though, so the result of this would be literally the site's death, because some people would say "No I dont want to play that one, I prefer the other!", and none of the two games would fill (assuming it's just two, with the proposed system it could be more). If the playerbase just grows, the system will naturally change to capitalism. It's good, but if you force it, it's bad.

I think that there should be a bank of approved setups, all together in a setup workshop subsection. Those would be easily hostable, and it could get old games that were fun yet forgotten out of the workshop's grave. It would also give inspiration to people, and improve the setups' quality, and the plays themselves (since some old classic setups are pretty good for "educational" purposes).

Well im curious as to what your ideal system is! Dont just put other ideas without offering your own, that wont help us here!

[Gyrlander]

Capitalism is a good idea for large playerbases, and if we get to that, it's great. The playerbase we have is not large, though, so the result of this would be literally the site's death, because some people would say "No I dont want to play that one, I prefer the other!", and none of the two games would fill (assuming it's just two, with the proposed system it could be more). If the playerbase just grows, the system will naturally change to capitalism. It's good, but if you force it, it's bad.

I think that there should be a bank of approved setups, all together in a setup workshop subsection. Those would be easily hostable, and it could get old games that were fun yet forgotten out of the workshop's grave. It would also give inspiration to people, and improve the setups' quality, and the plays themselves (since some old classic setups are pretty good for "educational" purposes).

I believe making some a/some thread(s) with a bunch of S-FMs classified as "noob-friendly" or other things would be interesting.

[Cryptonic]

Keep discussing ideas and ill lay something out based on tbe most popular ideas. Then people can discuss what rhey think and then we can clean it up further then implement it.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

This is my take on things, and I cannot claim to know the goals of every person who has created an hosting system, of course. However, this is a good place to start.


What are the aims of every single hosting system, and more specifically, what did they want to be?

- A system that only brings quality games, and encourages improvement of the site's meta, with minimal encroachment on both host's and player's freedom.
- A system that organizes setups, which means that the setups need to be put in correct time (not two 20 players games at once if the playerbase is 25, this kind of stuff). It also means that setups need to be approved, and a contact must be made with moderation in order to have signups going.
- As a continuation of the first aim, a system that rewards good hosts, good plays, and involvement in the community.

In other words: a system that keeps games going (quantity), and that improves the game experience over time.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Utopia.

This is how setups are managed, in this great kingdom. From the creation of the setups to the completion of games.


- Someone posts a setup in the Setup Workshop. The thread is open, and since the description of the Workshop encourages people to give their input, saying how it is useful for the both hosts and players to have more input for fun games, people comment on the thread and give ideas.

- The setup is ready for review by FM Staff! On a sticky thread in the Workshop, the author of the setup posts a message, optionally with a mention to staff members, saying that the setup is ready for review, since the author feels it is fun and balanced: finished.

- An FM staff member reviews the setup, discussing the adjustments that need to be done, just like the current system. The thread is still open to discussion, and everyone can still contribute to the setup.

- The setup is approved, and the author of the setup contacts the staff to know when they may post signups.

- Signups are posted, fill, and the game starts.

- Once the game ends, if it has been successful (no major balance issue discovered while playing the game, or similar things), the setup will go in a subsection of the Workshop: the Approved S-FMs. They will they be free to be rehosted, and the only requirement is to contact staff to know when signups can be posted.


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There is a Ladder, that lasts for a determined amount of games (10-12). The point attribution system is strongly inspired by the recent talks about this matter, I just reworded ideas because I found them really good.

- Hosts will gain 2 points, without restriction on the number of times this can be applied.
- Losers will gain 1 point.
- Winners of each game will receive points equal to the amount of players divided by the amount of winners.
- At the end of the season (when the game slot of the season is filled, and that the game is played and over), each player will earn a bonus based on their win percentage. A 100% win rate will result in a 100% point bonus, a 50% win rate will result in a 50% point bonus, etc.


The Ladder is a way to encourage serious, competitive, and sports-like play. Hosts may opt out of the Ladder if they wish to have a more casual game; FM Staff may also choose to approve a game for non-ladder only if it is deemed playable for fun, but not suitable for ladder.
This goes in the mindset of the first aim.


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In the same mindset, awards are given to people who have accomplished something special. For example, very liked hosts, people who continously give good setup suggestions (not sure how that would work, those are just suggestions), or people who write approved game theory (outside of games, in the FM discussion). The award system already has a Recommend Award thing, and it already exists! It's a great way to motivate people to do things, whatever those things are.


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I hope that you appreciated your travel to the Kingdom of Utopia! Feel free to leave feedback on this.

[Auckmid]

@Marshmallow Marshall

I don't have a huge interest in the ladder personally because I don't think that you will get an accurate correlation between win rate and player skill until you have an extremely large number of FMs to sample from (larger then what would be realistic for a season) and I see it more of such a fun little side thing. As such, feel free to implement it however you think that the community will most enjoy it.

Having said that, this is not my first time seeing the proposed point attribution system (Slaol talked about it before his untimely departure) and I have the following issues with it...

1) There is a massive emphasis on games played, far more so then any performance-rating system that would ever be used for anything at all competitive. If player 1 and player 2 have identical records after 6 games, then player 1 stops playing and player 2 plays another 6 games with the exact same record, player 2 will end up with double the points of player 1. This is fine if you want the emphasis on games played being this large, but terrible from a competitive standpoint.

2) I understand the desire to heavily reward players who win as neutral killers where the odds are stacked against you. However, the proposed winner reward system being based off of the total number of winners is terrible. It can be assumed that for any given "normal" setup where the main scum faction is a single mafia, the mafia should have an expected win chance equal to that of the town (if this isn't the case, there is a high chance that the game was poorly balanced). Under the proposed system however, a mafia winner would get double to triple the points of a town winner. As such, players who roll mafia quite a lot will over time end up with a massive advantage in point potential, despite not having any disadvantage in theoretical win rate.


Issue 1 makes the system non-competitive, but is still fine if you want to heavily reward people for participating in every single FM. Issue 2 compromises the entire concept of a fair ladder.


Proposed alternate system

The formula for this is going to be a bit more complex, but it does fix the issues mentioned above.

(1-(C/(C+GP)))*(WR/ExpectedWR)

C = A constant. Raising it increases the emphasis on games played, lowering decreases. I'll suggest that the value is 2, but this can be modified.

GP = Number of games played/hosted

WR = Win rate

ExpectedWR = Average expected win rate for a player based off of all their roles. This would take a bit of work to standardize win rates. However, if for example it was determined that in a standard townVmafiaVneutralkilling, town and mafia should each have a 45% chance of winning and that neutral killing has a 10% chance of winning, if a player played three games, one as town one as mafia one as NK, their value for this would be (.45 + .45 + .1)/3 = 1/3.

Then also to illustrate the values for (1-(C/(C+GP))) if C = 2;

If GP = 1, this equals .33
If GP = 2, this equals .5
If GP = 4, this equals .67
If GP = 6, this equals .75
If GP = 8, this equals .8
etc.

This creates a middle ground where playing games is rewarded while also not making GP the centerpiece of earning points. If you do want GP to be a major centerpiece, you can make C = 1 and it will still be better then the previously proposed system.


I know that I put quite a lot of effort towards something that I just said I didn't care that much about. However, as I said, Slaol showed me the formula before this and it triggered me quite a bit that he, or anyone else, considered it competitive.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

@Auckmid

It's indeed very difficult to have an accurate correlation without having things like 100 games per season, which is, obviously, impossible. However, having a Ladder does not hurt anyone, and some people (a good bunch of people) enjoy having a ladder. So, I think it's best to have one, and I think everyone will agree with me on that point, or at least just not care.

Now, onto the system: I'm definetly open to changes and suggestions on this, since the system is not perfect. It is, however, much better than the old system, which was only rewarding activity (+1 when you lose, +2 when you win with a team, +3 when you solo win, and +2 when you host, max 2x per season). But I'm not saying that this system was bad! It did have its effects, and those were positive. Activity was encouraged, and a bit of healthy competitivity (winning games is still better than losing them, obviously) is good for the site's health, too.

Your system: ExpectedWR is very hard to make. Setups have different expected winrates for each faction. The Mafiascum stats for each setup that was hosted, which I cannot find, illustrates this very well. I think it would lead to a lot of work and debate to try to attain something that's not attainable simply because it does not exist as a general factor for all setups. And forcing people to adopt a setup model would kill the diversity of the site (or at least, hurt it), and would not follow the first aim: ...with minimal encroachment on both host's and player's freedom.
There's also something that will make me look like an asshole... This system is complicated, lol. It's very understandable, logical, makes sense, but the Ladder's use is to encourage people to get points, in a direct way. If they have to try to understand the system too much, I feel like its effect is weaker. Not that it's not a good idea, don't get me wrong lol.

[Cryptonic]

1) There is a massive emphasis on games played, far more so then any performance-rating system that would ever be used for anything at all competitive. If player 1 and player 2 have identical records after 6 games, then player 1 stops playing and player 2 plays another 6 games with the exact same record, player 2 will end up with double the points of player 1. This is fine if you want the emphasis on games played being this large, but terrible from a competitive standpoint.

Yea, when I first put in the ladder the entire intention was to encourage players to play more games so we could get games to fill up faster lol people like the competitiveness. So, you're spot on with the basis of it lol.
It would be very nice to be able to have a ladder that was based more so on skill, but the creative meta on the site makes it near impossible to know what the win rate would be of any of these games. I would love to see a ladder that is based around setups that have a proven win rate. I really enjoy all the standard setups, but I notice people get tired of them really fast here.

We even have a Tournament/Ladder add-on in place on the site, but nothing really seemed to be able to work for FM. I should take another look, though.. While it might not work for a ladder, it probably would work for a small vanilla FM Tournament..

[Firebringer]

I'm actually surprised people agree Last time I said something like this, it wasn't received very well lol.
@Firebringer sparked the idea a long time ago rip fb


I also want to add that, as a player, I wish something could be done about number of posts in games lol. I am definitely guilty for posting a lot myself, but now that i'm busier in life I have come to realize that behavior definitely has a negative effect on a game lol. I'll wake up to like 600 posts and it's like shit there is no way i have time to read all of this lol. I think it would be a lot better there were fewer, but more extensive, posts.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly can be done to reduce quantity & increase quality of posts. Does anyone else experience this, or am I in the minority? lol

Some things I've considered are like....
- prevent double posting via a plugin. Issue with this is that someone can make 2 quality posts in a row, so this is more like a band-aid.
- set minimum character count to like X characters (maybe 3 sentences or so). This idea I do actually like.. However, if you forget to vote or you misspell your vote, then you can't follow up with just a vote. (Unless we got a new vote system, too).

Or, maybe there is no problem lol It's hard being old

I have been vindicated by history

[PowersThatBe]

Happy New Year to all. Hope everyone is well.

I was lurking and saw this post. An idea flourished in my brain, and I felt like sharing. Perhaps one way to better manage the “queue” or set ups is to have thing nature of the beast changed.

The Idea:

Three to five hosts submit their set up to a section mod. The mod sets up a poll. Whichever set up is voted most popular will have sign ups open immediately.

The mod may then choose to either have 2nd and 3rd place set ups placed in the queue as the next on deck set ups. Or those two simply stay for the next round of voting and either the community votes between the two moving forward or you add 1 to 3 more set ups and the process begins again. Thus, only the setups the community is interested in playing are the options available.
Should the community grow, perhaps the poll could work differently if multiple games are able to be played at once.

The frequency of voting could be every other Friday or every X day of the week or something to always stay a head so there isn't a lull between games.

Back to my leave of absence now. Ciao.

[Cryptonic]

Happy New Year to all. Hope everyone is well.

I was lurking and saw this post. An idea flourished in my brain, and I felt like sharing. Perhaps one way to better manage the “queue” or set ups is to have thing nature of the beast changed.

The Idea:

Three to five hosts submit their set up to a section mod. The mod sets up a poll. Whichever set up is voted most popular will have sign ups open immediately.

The mod may then choose to either have 2nd and 3rd place set ups placed in the queue as the next on deck set ups. Or those two simply stay for the next round of voting and either the community votes between the two moving forward or you add 1 to 3 more set ups and the process begins again. Thus, only the setups the community is interested in playing are the options available.
Should the community grow, perhaps the poll could work differently if multiple games are able to be played at once.

The frequency of voting could be every other Friday or every X day of the week or something to always stay a head so there isn't a lull between games.

Back to my leave of absence now. Ciao.

Yea, that's not bad either. Could even just have a constantly open poll that is frequently updated to remove hosted games & add new games. Then doesn't have to adhere to a strict timeline, just setup with next votes for next. hmm

[Yayap]

I also want to add that, as a player, I wish something could be done about number of posts in games lol. I am definitely guilty for posting a lot myself, but now that i'm busier in life I have come to realize that behavior definitely has a negative effect on a game lol. I'll wake up to like 600 posts and it's like shit there is no way i have time to read all of this lol. I think it would be a lot better there were fewer, but more extensive, posts.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly can be done to reduce quantity & increase quality of posts. Does anyone else experience this, or am I in the minority? lol

Some things I've considered are like....
- prevent double posting via a plugin. Issue with this is that someone can make 2 quality posts in a row, so this is more like a band-aid.
- set minimum character count to like X characters (maybe 3 sentences or so). This idea I do actually like.. However, if you forget to vote or you misspell your vote, then you can't follow up with just a vote. (Unless we got a new vote system, too).

Or, maybe there is no problem lol It's hard being old

As someone who likes to double check and cross reference peoples posts (especially since quotes disappear when quoting a post with a quote). The thousand post days are a turn off for me when its 50% spam. There are sites who do enforce a max posts per day so this limits how much spam a player can post if he wants to be able to contribute at a critical time.

As for setups - I find that the fm mod approval system is the main reason I'm not making any setups right now as anyone who would be evaluating my setups would automatically be banned from playing said setups due to new roles/hidden mechanics. And from what I can see, no mods are commenting on balance of setups, just the completeness of them. Can't tell you how many setups I see run on a huge risk of being 100% unwinnable for a faction based on a night 1 flip.

As for the queue system, I'm waiting for better games before I sign up for anything... might be a long wait.

[Cryptonic]

As someone who likes to double check and cross reference peoples posts (especially since quotes disappear when quoting a post with a quote). The thousand post days are a turn off for me when its 50% spam. There are sites who do enforce a max posts per day so this limits how much spam a player can post if he wants to be able to contribute at a critical time.

As for setups - I find that the fm mod approval system is the main reason I'm not making any setups right now as anyone who would be evaluating my setups would automatically be banned from playing said setups due to new roles/hidden mechanics. And from what I can see, no mods are commenting on balance of setups, just the completeness of them. Can't tell you how many setups I see run on a huge risk of being 100% unwinnable for a faction based on a night 1 flip.

As for the queue system, I'm waiting for better games before I sign up for anything... might be a long wait.

What would it take for you to host something?

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I am 100% against a general post count limit or anything similar to it. Making games that restrict post count numbers, as an exercise? Sure. But restricting everything is, once again, going against the player's rights. It is up to the Host and its players to put a post count limit if they want to.

[Yayap]

What would it take for you to host something?

One of my setups? Or someone else's?


For my setups, it would take a change in average player skill - I'm not willing to waste a setup on people open wolfing using the "I'm too scummy to be scum" mentality and not be executed for it. And would need a competent cohost since I'm restricted on availability.

For someone else's setup - it would take the player base to sign up for more basic kind of games and not go afk.

[Yayap]

It is up to the Host and its players to put a post count limit if they want to.

Yes, it is host / setup specific when there is a post limit. Not a general rule on the site.

[Damus_Graves]

I am 100% against a general post count limit or anything similar to it. Making games that restrict post count numbers, as an exercise? Sure. But restricting everything is, once again, going against the player's rights. It is up to the Host and its players to put a post count limit if they want to.

Although. There is a point in favor against spamming a game thread.

[Firebringer]

One of my setups? Or someone else's?


For my setups, it would take a change in average player skill - I'm not willing to waste a setup on people open wolfing using the "I'm too scummy to be scum" mentality and not be executed for it. And would need a competent cohost since I'm restricted on availability.

For someone else's setup - it would take the player base to sign up for more basic kind of games and not go afk.

The idea of a setup being wasted is really weird.


I guess I remember making a setup with a time reversal mechanic and being disappointed it never happened.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Although. There is a point in favor against spamming a game thread.

It can be encouraged by staff and hosts, yes.

But what would be gained, in the case of a site-wide rule, is very inferior to what would be lost.

[DJarJar]

So people with mod powers can post after the day is over by accident (due to ability to post in locked threads). This seems to happen at least once a game.

For some reason the standard response to this is that either that same mod or someone else swoops in and deletes the post. Why? Once it’s been posted, at least some of the players will have read it before you delete it and certainly all the mods can still see the post even after it’s deleted. Meanwhile, some of the players will never get to see it. To me, deleting these posts is like violating the no editing rule. Just leave them there!

[Damus_Graves]

The solution is to not post after day is locked

[Unknown1234]

There is a reason the “someone has posted” message comes up before you send. Occasionally it happens where both posts are sent at the same time, but usually it is avoidable.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

You just don't post. And some people who were very very done with spam clicking "sumbit reply" because of the post storms have turned the "Check for New Replies" setting off. The only persons who can do that are mods. Mods have the responsibility to check if the thread is closed or not once they posted; I do it everytime I post.

Since only mods can do it, they can just delete it. There are two options: you either soft delete it and trust that other mods won't open it and cheat.... or you physically remove it, I guess. It's the same thing with the invis mode, though: mods can see people who are invis. It's your responsibility not to abuse your powers.


That being said, that's a good thing to think about: in the FM section, remove the staff's ability to see invisible people, and to post in closed threads. Is this possible @Cryptonic ?

[Voss]

Cryptonic would know more about it than me, but maybe we should just not allow admins to disable "Check for New Replies".

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Cryptonic would know more about it than me, but maybe we should just not allow admins to disable "Check for New Replies".

Please no. That's not an improvement, but a patch. I'm talking about improving the site by keeping staff ethics higher without even having to enforce anything. Only advantages, no disadvantages.

Also, that would apply to all people who can post in closed threads, which means basically any staff, not only admins.

[DJarJar]

Surprised at the responses considering most of the people here have done it at least once. When it happens it’s an accident, not intentional. My point is - even if you realize right away and delete it fairly quickly - half the players already saw it because they were spam refreshing at EOD. It seems unfair to me that those who were there get to see the message and those who were not don’t.

Yes, these posts are mistakes that we should try to avoid - but IMO that doesn’t mean they should be deleted when they DOOOOOOO happen which is literally at least once a game.

[DJarJar]

And to add to what Marshmallow said - when you’re desperately trying to get a vote in during the last minute before the day ends, you don’t give a shit about “new posts have been posted”.

[Voss]

I don't necessarily agree about it being a patch, but I can see this devolving from the original point of the thread.

### something else more in line###

Here's something new that kind of relates to what Yapyap said, and would get me to play more games here. It's not super refined, so don't shoot me for it.

Have some sort of way for players that want to play here, but don't like something(s) about the current hosted setups. For example (albeit a poor one), in Yapyap's case, maybe somewhere for him/her to post: "Hey, I'd play a game on this site if we there was a max post count." Or (for me) a more personal example, "Id play games if they were anon and had more than 15 players". or "Id play if condorcet voting was used". Or "Id play if some x, y, z, mechanic is used."

I don't have a lot of time in my day for forum mafia myself, but am willing to find the time to sacrifice mafia development if the game is like "15/10 I'd play". But I'd NEVER be a dick about it and post in anyone's signup threads: "Id play if roleblocked people dont get notified" or something.
But who knows. Maybe there are hosts that don't care about certain site hosting metas and would be willing to experiment to get more interest... but dont know what those experimentations are.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I don't necessarily agree about it being a patch, but I can see this devolving from the original point of the thread.

### something else more in line###

Here's something new that kind of relates to what Yapyap said, and would get me to play more games here. It's not super refined, so don't shoot me for it.

Have some sort of way for players that want to play here, but don't like something(s) about the current hosted setups. For example (albeit a poor one), in Yapyap's case, maybe somewhere for him/her to post: "Hey, I'd play a game on this site if we there was a max post count." Or (for me) a more personal example, "Id play games if they were anon and had more than 15 players". or "Id play if condorcet voting was used". Or "Id play if some x, y, z, mechanic is used."

I don't have a lot of time in my day for forum mafia myself, but am willing to find the time to sacrifice mafia development if the game is like "15/10 I'd play". But I'd NEVER be a dick about it and post in anyone's signup threads: "Id play if roleblocked people dont get notified" or something.
But who knows. Maybe there are hosts that don't care about certain site hosting metas and would be willing to experiment to get more interest... but dont know what those experimentations are.

True, it's getting away from the thread's point. But I think it might be worth making a new one for the matter, if people are interested in talking about it.

---------

You can always suggest things to hosts! People underuse the setup workshop. The more you contribute to setups, the better they are, and the games are better because of it. That's part of the reasons for which I say that the Workshop is one of the site's greatest strenghts, if it's not the greatest, compared to other sites.

[Yayap]

Concerning mod power problems, I'm quite sure this can all be resolved with proper settings in the admin cp. When I set my big fms up, I set the forums so that only the fmgm mod class could do anything moderator wise in it. If the current mods keep slippin, then maybe the fm section should disable their powers.

As for seeing people online, this is a huge advantage to anyone who knows how to use it... Doesn't matter if you say it or not, you can't unsee what you see. I don't see any reason any mod needs to see who is invisible. Only the fm hosts need to know if you are lurking or afk. As for the rest of the site, seeing who is invisible is useless. I propose that power be eliminated all together/restricted to top admin.

If things still can't be resolved, a possibility of making alts for mods for only when they need to use their powers can be done, eliminating all these accidents.

[Cryptonic]

ok

[Mike]

Is it possible to add a poll on a save that someone posts in the Setups workshop. Just to see if people are interested in playing or not? It can be viewed by the person making the save and the FM staff to help gauge how players feel about it. Just an idea.