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Training Lobby Change Proposals

Bumpers
over 10 years

Hi training lobby. I haven’t properly introduced myself here but you’ll know TheBrontosaurus well as your lobby owner. One of the things we want to improve on EpicMafia considerably is the harmony and synergy of other lobbies, and give players old and new many different ventures on the site.

One of the stumbling blocks that we have is finding a way to keep training running the way it is, whilst also not making it exploited by point farming with new users who wish to play the game.

I’ve made a thread in competitive which I hope you take time to look at too which has more ideas that can make their way to this lobby, it can be found here.

https://epicmafia.com/topic/63209

So what are the ideas that we have for training?

1) Lobby rename

One issue that’s easy to notice with training is that it has lost its meaning for most of the players in this lobby. We don’t wish to splinter another lobby for new players only, but would like to rename it to something more appropriate. At the moment the leading name is Casual, but I realize that there is an online stigma behind this. If you can think of better names, please let us know.

2) 10K points cap

One of the problems with training is users using it to farm up points. There’s been a lot of aggressive suggestions on how to fix this, one method we had very long ago was forcing people to join comp lobby once they reached a certain threshold. We do not want that to happen again, but we also do not want point farming by playing with newer users.

What does this mean if implemented? It means that once you reach 10000 points in Training/New name pending, you won’t earn more points for future wins you have. We think this is a generous amount to deter point-farming, but you are still fully free to play in the lobby unrestricted if you wish. Stats and other achievements will still be viable and tracked.

3) Greater input with moderators

One bias we notice is how most new moderators are picked from competitive. We realize that most mods have been picked from the comp lobby in the past, however we certainly want to embrace new variation when we look for new moderators in the certain future. If you’re ever interested in being one, feel free to PM an application for it to be reviewed.

Finishing notes

I realize this might look like a forced attempt to boost competitive player numbers. Partially, it is, but I hope you check out the comp thread too if you would like to see more information.There are news ideas in that thread that will be added to training too. Please give any feedback you have, thanks again.

CharlesMark
over 10 years
a really big point requirement. 5k or more so you cant farm a new account into comp in 3 days
CharlesMark
over 10 years
just delete comp

and rename training to MAIN

then add a comp to main with a point requirement
CharlesMark
over 10 years
hey guys lets force people to take a party game seriously?
CharlesMark
over 10 years
lobby rename: YES training has nothing to do with training new players, its the main lobby of the site

point cap: NO if you make a point cap you might as well keep the name... and this will do nothing but force training players to delete accounts

mod representation: this used to be a problem but i dont know why you are bringing it up now. most of the mods now are seen in training alot, or came straight from maining training lobby
deletedover 10 years
how to solve this problem at the core:

delete epicmafia.com - problem solved
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years

Trepur349 says

You want training players to want to play in comp? You'll have to make comp more like training, not training more like comp.



HelloYesThisIsDog says

If you start altering with training lobby, a lobby that ISN'T broken, a lobby that has an active community, a lobby with the bigger of the two player bases, then more problems are just going to arise than are going to be solved.


Shots fired.
deletedover 10 years
AKA stop catering to competitive lobby. This social experiment - the division of the player bases - has given us an answer. Casual gaming has won out over competitive.
deletedover 10 years

thebrontosaurus says


I guess the argument is "What really is important to the survival of the site?"

Trying to get people to try different avenues of the site isn't necessarily a bad thing.


If the real question is what is better for the survival of the site, than look to which lobby has the bigger player base and is more active. The answer is quite obvious: Training lobby has more players than competitive lobby, otherwise comp. wouldn't be so inactive and having the discussion of "how to get players interested."

Training has the bigger player base; so instead of making changes that favor the interest of the smaller lobby, there needs to make changes that favor the interest of the bigger lobby.

If you start altering with training lobby, a lobby that ISN'T broken, a lobby that has an active community, a lobby with the bigger of the two player bases, then more problems are just going to arise than are going to be solved.
Ash0wns
over 10 years

Trepur349 says

You want training players to want to play in comp? You'll have to make comp more like training, not training more like comp.


Great quote imo.
Trepur349
over 10 years
Nothing is going to convince me to like the competitive more then training, especially when the policy changes being proposed are aimed at catering to the wants and needs of comp players, not catering to the wants and needs of training players.

You want training players to want to play in comp? You'll have to make comp more like training, not training more like comp.
Trepur349
over 10 years

thebrontosaurus says

A lot of the reason people don't join comp is because they pick up poorer habits in training and don't get to play better setups because they don't fill in Training normally.


No, we don't join comp because comp is an inferior lobby:
I don't have the time to play 5 games a day for two straight weeks, so rounds are meaningless to me.

I don't have any interest in playing over complicated set ups with a bazillion roles, so both sandbox and comp set ups are meaningless to me.

I don't have any interest in having unranked games never start, so I can never practice/test set ups that look interesting. So competitive lobby is meaningless to me.

I don't have any interest in having people spam to chat asking to lynch me because I didn't talk enough on day 1, and when I flip town getting reported for ISP. So ranked competitive games are meaningless to me.

I don't have any interest in playing with the pompous ***holes that plague the competitive lobby. So playing with the competitive lobby players is meaningless to me.

I play in training; not because the set ups are easier; not because the players, being less experienced, are easier to scumread and convince (they're certainly not easier to scumread); and not because I like playing set ups like FP or Cocos that are so townsided they're almost point farms (I don't like those set ups, I only play FP when I'm bored and don't want to think/scumread, and I've never played Cocos ranked); I play in training because its the lobby that best represents my interests and goals when playing mafia.
deletedover 10 years

thebrontosaurus says


A lot of the reason people don't join comp is because they pick up poorer habits in training and don't get to play better setups because they don't fill in Training normally.



I disagree. I don't think the set ups that comp has are "better" than the ones that training have simply because they require more scum hunting or have more roles or whatever. A lot of people in training play the games for fun, and like wise play set ups that are the most fun. It's almost a form of evolution; the more enjoyable set ups become more popular and win out over set ups that aren't as fun. This is the way of a casual gaming lobby. It's not an odd thing that set ups that require players to be intensely focused aren't being played as much in a casual training lobby.
TheVigil
over 10 years

Reverend says

i think its because comp isn't really getting newer players to transfer in from training


Maybe, It's because they don't want to transfer and forcing them is the wrong idea. Maybe we don't want your precious gold heart games.
KinkajusRevenge
over 10 years
I couldn't care less about points. I just think that comp needs more players cuz it always takes 15 min or more to get a game going without a party.
deletedover 10 years
i think its because comp isn't really getting newer players to transfer in from training
TheVigil
over 10 years
How are two different lobbies effecting the survival of the site.
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years
You realize the system we have now was created so that the two lobbies cooperated, right? As it stands right now, they're treated as two separate entities and are mislabeled.

A lot of the reason people don't join comp is because they pick up poorer habits in training and don't get to play better setups because they don't fill in Training normally.

I guess the argument is "What really is important to the survival of the site?"

Trying to get people to try different avenues of the site isn't necessarily a bad thing.
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years
Things admin should be asking themselves:

"Why aren't people joining comp lobby?"
"How can we make comp lobby more appealing to players?"
"Why is comp lobby spammed with Gallis weekend instead of other, more inviting setups?"
"Do players in training even WANT to move to comp lobby?"
"If no, why not"?

Not:
"How can we force players into comp?"
"How can we make training lobby more like comp lobby?"
"Is there a way of forcing the two lobbies to co-operate?"
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years

Smorlicious says

So now the mods are trying to ruin training lobby in an attempt to make comp more appealing, which is unfair to training players and stupid for the future of the site. Especially having a 10k cap.


Shots fired.

The proposal is to screw up training lobby for the betterment of comp lobby. If comp lobby has issues with the amount of games/players in it, why is it being made training lobby's problem? That's a lobby issue, not a site issue. Instead of thinking of ways to change training (which mostly works fine as it is), it might be a wiser use of admin time to consider changes to comp to improve that lobby.
deletedover 10 years

MafiaGod says

]The reason why the Comp lobby won't survive in the long run, is the same reason the Reverse lobby won't survive in the long run. You don't have the base of players you need to fill games. If you screw up the training lobby, i.e. take away Reverse Mafia setups or anything else that is that drastically KEEPING players here, then you screw up everything else. Yes, your training players were bodies helping fill the comp lobby. And you screwed a lot of them over. Hence bodies left. I like Steven's idea about just merging the two lobbies. More Gold heart games will fill.




A Merge is a great idea. But lucid is actively against the idea, and so the idea of merging is simply not an option. Steven is not the first to suggest a merge. A lot of people already have and lucid has said no. So now the mods are trying to ruin training lobby in an attempt to make comp more appealing, which is unfair to training players and stupid for the future of the site. Especially having a 10k cap.
MafiaGod
over 10 years
The reason why the Comp lobby won't survive in the long run, is the same reason the Reverse lobby won't survive in the long run. You don't have the base of players you need to fill games. If you screw up the training lobby, i.e. take away Reverse Mafia setups or anything else that is that drastically KEEPING players here, then you screw up everything else. Yes, your training players were bodies helping fill the comp lobby. And you screwed a lot of them over. Hence bodies left. I like Steven's idea about just merging the two lobbies. More Gold heart games will fill.

------

OR make it so everyone who comes to this site has to first see a viewable list of the lobbies and based on how many people are currently in a lobby; or the lobby description they can decide to join it or another one. This isn't rocket science this is 1998 pongo.com logic. That was one of the first game sites for cards and it worked really well. *** I just dated myself.
Steven
over 10 years
Ultimately what most people want (at least except the few that hold grudges against the other lobby) is harmony and unity, and if deleting competitive lobby seems to be the way to go at it, there's no reason not to do it.

Why I still asked for the point requirement for gold hearts, by the way, is to stop people from creating GT alts rather than noobs from joining, which is already a big enough problem IMO, and I rather not make it bigger. Another benefit to deleting comp is a unified forum, because the forums are actually a great reason why comp and training are so divided IMO.


TLDR: delete competitive lobby
Steven
over 10 years
Okay, here's the thing:

When multiple lobbies were created, the intention was for there to be two communities, the casual "sandbox" community, who would not get any boosts in stats, and the more serious community which would get points and trophies, which would be further divided into stepping stones.

Training and Competitive were never meant to be as they are now where it's basically as if one lobby declared a war against the other. You were supposed to go up the lobbies as you improved, and if you wanted relaxed no-pressure games you would go to sandbox.

HOWEVER, both communities separated for various reasons (one which is mentioned a lot being the apparent rudeness in competitive games) and now treating training as anything but an independent lobby would just be completely wrong.

Out of the two lobbies, training has already had it's own competitions and whatnot and (correct me if I'm wrong) not that many training players were upset over it. It is also the bigger lobby between the two.

What I will suggest now is the first time I have said this seriously but it might actually be the simplest and best solution for everyone: delete competitive lobby, and being back training lobby competition with a point requirement to join it. Then you are free to rename training to Standard or whatever.

What this will do is that red heart games will contain people from both lobbies (and this is good because comp players aren't aggressive in these but it will allow people to mingle and decrease the hate), and gold hearts will contain everyone from training competition and comp (which will create a much bigger competition in general, but will eliminate all of the lobby based insults etc).

If this clutters the lobby too much, you can add in a red heart/unranked/gold filter with it.
deletedover 10 years

NessaMaria says

Not letting me play in training won't make me migrate to comp. it will help me migrate away from this site lol. Comp players are to serious. No thanks. This site is burning into a bunch of *** rules. And yalls hard on for comp lobby is ridiculous. Is it that serious.

deletedover 10 years
The main issue I have with the proposed changes is that it's creating a system where you try to gradually get training lobby players to transition into competitive lobby and gold hearts. The main reason why people continue to play in training lobby is because you can you play quick and casual games but still get rewards. Most people, (including myself) just enjoy playing the simple game of mafia without it being too serious. Right now, even though it has some issues, training lobby is fulfilling this. So this proposed system of encouraging the training lobby players to gradually join comp doesn't seem like a system that's going to benefit the Training lobby players, but only the competitive lobby players, who in reality represent the smallest population out of all three lobbies - Training, Comp. and Sandbox. Training should not be changed for the sake of saving Comp. lobby. The people who want to part take in competitions are already there. If Competitive lobby is the one that needs players, then competitive lobby should come to training, not the other way around. The point cap system is not going to encourage me to leave training: it's going to encourage me to leave the site.

tl;dr version: If comp lobby is dying, don't change training for the sake of saving comp. Don't force players to play games they don't want to.