The last game, Trouble in Terror Town, was a nightmare of a game to run, to mod, and I imagine, to play in.

This wasn't due to bad playing - more, the complete and utter lack of people playing at all. The amount of people going inactive and having to be replaced were ridiculously high, and by the end of the game only a few people were contributing - even if I had been here to look for replacements, I wouldn't have been able to find them for the sheer number of people who gave up.

 

This isn't by any stretch of the imagination a new problem - replacements have recently become really quite high - in my games at least - and whilst you can always expect a few people to have to leave, not this many by any stretch of the imagination.

 

So, BEFORE A NEW GAME IS STARTED, I'd like the good mafia-playing folk of IRON to come together and discuss how we can solve this problem, lest our games continue to fall into inactivity and darkness and despair.

 

So, what's the solution?

• Shorter days? (Thanks KevinH)
  
• Only allow active players into the game? (Thanks Theo)
  
• Punish flaking more severely? For instance, ban them from the next game?
  

 

I could use a hand with this, people.

Bumping this so it can be seen from the main forum page.

If you have any suggests, please post 'em - it doesn't have to be one of those I posted.

Just to brainstorm ...

 

• 
   
  
• Make it mandatory to post every 48 hours or post a known absence
  
• Put more roles into place (if there's nothing to discuss, it's hard to discuss)
  
• Give in-game prizes for post-counts (player with most posts in a day gets a one-time special ability)
  
• Have automatic prods go out to inactive players -- perhaps let players do it rather than burden the moderator
  

Just to brainstorm ...

 

• 
   
  
• Put more roles into place (if there's nothing to discuss, it's hard to discuss)
  
• Give in-game prizes for post-counts (player with most posts in a day gets a one-time special ability)
  

 

those are the two things i was thinking of mainly. give the players a reason to post. make posting beneficial to them. now posting already is beneficial...but the benefits are more indirect rather then direct. they come as a result of forcing mafia to talk and make mistakes. and when they make mistakes the town, even regular townies with no powers, can catch them.

 

anyway i have some things to do today but i'll brainstorm a bit...

I've never thought about the in-game reward thing. The problem is, it might encourage spamming and splitting things down into several posts, which means people will drop out because they don't have the time to read everything.

 

Good idea in principle though. Maybe (at the mod's discretion) pick the most contributive player and let them protect someone (not themselves) for the night?

I've never thought about the in-game reward thing. The problem is, it might encourage spamming and splitting things down into several posts, which means people will drop out because they don't have the time to read everything.

 

Good idea in principle though. Maybe (at the mod's discretion) pick the most contributive player and let them protect someone (not themselves) for the night?

I also like the idea of rewarding activity, but I don't think that giving powers based on post counts would be the exact route to go. As you pointed out, it may lead to spamming and that is something that turns me off in a mafia game. I just don't like spam in general, so that may have something to do with it, but it also distracts from the discussion the players should be having. Moreover, it's really annoying to have to reread a thread filled with spam.

 

 

Now, as I said, I do like the idea of giving players an incentive to post. But it should be based on the quality of the posting, not the amount. That leads to two more questions: What should the reward be and who gets to decide who was the best player. As for the first, I think it would be better if we, at least initially, tried to stay away from giving those players ingame powers. First of all, it will give the mafia even more incentive to kill off the player contributing the most to the game. Not only may the player that contributes the most be able to uncover the mafia, but he is now also more likely to have a power that night. There are also some balancing issues to consider. If we hand out a power to the most valuable player each night, then we have basically created an unkillable pro town power role. If the mafia would also qualify for the role, the games would become incredibly swingy. Now both these issues could somewhat be prevented by making the power relatively weak, but I still believe there may be better ways.

 

One thing we could try instead, would be to simply have it as an honours. The player who contributes the most gets a special mention in the topic and perhaps we could even make a MVP standings thread, just like the wins/losses thread. If you want to extend it further, you could even have a MVP each day and an overal MVP. Now, this may not solve all issues. Some, especially new, players may feel like they have no chance of winning the MVP anyway, so they may still not try.

 

As for the way to decide who becomes MVP, there are a few options. What if we gave the decision to the players that get killed. Every pro town player that gets lynched/NKed get to vote who he believes is the MVP. Then in the end the player with the most votes wins. Perhaps this is not all that great, as they will consider the lynch results. (For example, townie A was very active and made a good case against townie B and got him lynched. Townie A now would probably not be voted MVP, simply because he caused a townie to be lynched. But he did contribute to the game, just not to the town). So instead it would probably be better if the mod made the decision. He should be able to decide who contributed the most to keep the game going.

 

I'm less enthousiastic about increasing the number of powerroles. My main concern is that this does not address the issue at hand. Creating more powerroles may even lead to less active games. Some players tend to lay low if they have a powerrole. Besides, I'm not sure if the games will improve if the increased discussion is simply because more players come out claiming information from having a power role. This wouldn't be so much discussion, as just following the information obtained from night actions. On top of this, it would also lead to more swingy games. If the power roles happen to get lucky the game could be over very quickly.

 

As for other ideas. I've modded one game where I simply mod killed any player who did not contribute. But that turned out to be a bad idea. Or at least the way it was implemented sucked, I certainly learned that a rigid set of modkilling rules regarding this issue is not desirable. I ended up mod killing one of the more active players, simply because he violated one of the activity laws. (In this case, he didn't vote for two consecutive lynches). I think I like the idea of banning players from future games better. If you, as a mod, feel like player A is not contributing enough, you can make a post warning him that if he does not pick up his activity he will be banned from future games. That should get those players who do really want to play more active. Alternatively, you could also send him a PM if you do not want to influence the game.

 

So in the end, I believe we should find a way to reward activity (or punish inactivit) without having a (considerable) impact on the game balance.

i think one thing that really encourages activity is a different mechanic or theme built into the game. take Mole's Plane Crash II for example. the first couple days were really active as people tried to figure out the mechanics and how best to manipulate them to their advantage. Bastille's games were very well themed imo and made for a fun and interesting game. they may have had very general set ups, but the flavour, and i think perhaps more importantly the activity of the mod in the game, made for more active games.

 

hmm...i may have an idea regarding giving posting more meaning in a game...let me think on it...

Martino - Thanks, that was a good read, definitely something to take into account.

 

Narsis - I agree that mechanics do help a game along, but again, it can make it too difficult for normal players - and it detracts from the whole point of mafia. It turns into 'outguess-the-mod' rather than 'find-the-scum', if you know what I mean.

The guys in the TTT thread have proposed a shorter-day game where days would last 5 days, from Monday-Friday, and Nights would last 2 days over the weekend.

 

What does everyone think about that?

I'm not sure. Personally, I will post if I have something to add. That doesn't really depend on the deadline. On the other hand, shorter deadlines may force people to vote early, which could result in more discussion. But then five days may be a little short if there is a good discussion. So I would be more in favor of 5 days + extension if the mod feels there is a enough discussion. That should still give the urgency to post early on, but it could allow for a longer discussion to develop as well.

I don't think an extended day would bother anyone too much (for example: 5 + 3 day ext + 2 is still only 10 days).

 

Not too sure about adding to the roles more would help. Perhaps a punitive measure of not being able to participate in a number of future games would be the best stimulus to participate more.

I agree with the 5+2 day/night set-up.

I would like for anybody that wants to play to post at least once a day.

I'm not normally active on the weekends but I can possibly log in to post a one liner or two.

 

That will at least ensure that everyone is willing to commit to the game.

 

In the end...it's about committment to the game and setting aside a bit of time to post.

I'm not sure. Personally, I will post if I have something to add. That doesn't really depend on the deadline. On the other hand, shorter deadlines may force people to vote early, which could result in more discussion. But then five days may be a little short if there is a good discussion. So I would be more in favor of 5 days + extension if the mod feels there is a enough discussion. That should still give the urgency to post early on, but it could allow for a longer discussion to develop as well.

 

I don't mind the 5+2 suggestion (my idea) with the possibility of extension (mod determined). The mod can the arrange the following day (ie. D2) to get back on track with the 5 (M-F) + 2 (Sat-Sun).

 

Not sure about added roles.

It didn't seem to stem the problems of inactivity the last few games (ie. mafia, cop night actions).

I don't mind the 5+2 suggestion (my idea) with the possibility of extension (mod determined). The mod can the arrange the following day (ie. D2) to get back on track with the 5 (M-F) + 2 (Sat-Sun).

 

Not sure about added roles.

It didn't seem to stem the problems of inactivity the last few games (ie. mafia, cop night actions).

 

the problem is the following day would then either be short or long...

 

say we use a 3 day extension...so we go from monday and it ends tuesday...then night is two days(so now we are at thursday) so the next day starts friday and lasts for one day? or 7 days? obviously the 7 day would be ideal, but it's still messing with the idea...

 

i was thinking maybe a two day extension over the weekend, but perhaps allow night actions to be sent in during the extension(but only activate after the day finishes). i could see some issues wiht it but it might work...

 

now one thing i was thinking about...what if all power roles need to meet a certain post count or something each day to continue to use their power? either a static number, or i was thinking maybe base it on the average number of posts. they dont necessarily need to meet the average...but it's based on it. so if the average post count is only like 5 posts, they dont need to make 20 posts in order to use their power. on the flip side if the average is like 30 posts, then perhaps it would only be 20 that they would need to hit, but 5 or 10 would be way to low. the idea would be to make an easy enough number to hit that still allows them to blend in with everyone else.

 

Edit: one other thing...i think punishing someone if they dont make a certain post count(ie not allowing them int he next game) could be detrimental. perhaps if they flake then sure dont let them into the next game, but that doesnt mean that we should necessarily punish people for having a more lurking playstyle. i understand that lurking is the reason we are in this mess...but i think positive reinforcement would be more beneficial.

Edited June 2, 201016 yr by Narsis

How about we just don't extend? End of.

That will encourage a lot of activity, and punish the town if they don't.

How about we just don't extend? End of.

That will encourage a lot of activity, and punish the town if they don't.

 

true...but it could also punish the town for taking a bit longer to decide, even though lots of discussion is going on.

For the record: I think the problem is with players not paying attention, as opposed to the game?

Maybe so. But how do you propose to improve that?

Maybe so. But how do you propose to improve that?

 

Nothing comes to mind.

 

Unfortunately this is a game where players have to like playing mafia.

There's no real incentive for a player to keep playing if he lost interest.

 

Personally...playing mafia in IRON is one of the reason I'm still playing CN.

If I wasn't playing mafia...I might have quit CN a long time ago.

How about we just don't extend? End of.

That will encourage a lot of activity, and punish the town if they don't.

 

I'm actually in favour of this.

Nothing comes to mind.

 

Unfortunately this is a game where players have to like playing mafia.

There's no real incentive for a player to keep playing if he lost interest.

 

Personally...playing mafia in IRON is one of the reason I'm still playing CN.

If I wasn't playing mafia...I might have quit CN a long time ago.

 

indeed. things like this help keep the community together and interested in a game as slow as CN.

OK. I think we're at the point where we just have to try this out.

 

Narsis - Do you fancy running one of these 5+2 "speed" games, no extensions? I'm going to be VERY tied up the next few weeks with exams, so I can't guarantee I'll be able to keep things going very well. I would say go for no more than 7 players, just to see if it works, and hopefully get a few replacements /in'ed just in case.

I also think that Mafia keeps up my interest in CN.

 

That said, I'll play any format you want to try.

OK. I think we're at the point where we just have to try this out.

 

Narsis - Do you fancy running one of these 5+2 "speed" games, no extensions? I'm going to be VERY tied up the next few weeks with exams, so I can't guarantee I'll be able to keep things going very well. I would say go for no more than 7 players, just to see if it works, and hopefully get a few replacements /in'ed just in case.

 

sure. we can see how it goes.

Can I be the first one in?