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Deleting Competitive Lobby

Steven
over 10 years

First off, for those of you that do not know me, I am a player from the competitive lobby. I am posting this here because I already know what the competitive players will say, and I think the only way lucid or the mods will do anything is if they see the approval of training lobby because as it is you guys are indeed the ground that EpicMafia stands on.

Even though I say I am from Competitive, I really do think that by saying that it is like poison, because the current train of thought in training lobby is that all or most players there are rude jerks that are mean to everyone in and out of game, and I'm sure that you all have tested that theory already and seen it be true with your own eyes. I won't be arguing whether or not you're right; however, while I do think we have our share of nice and mean people it doesn't feel that much more than other lobbies. Rather, it's more like training lobby players feel it's more because they're looking out for it. Or maybe I'm just used to it. Regardless, that's not what this is about.

This will be a /really big thread/. You have been warned.

You might have noticed that the admins want to return training lobby to what it was meant to be: a "transition" lobby that trained players for competitive play. Back in EM 2.0, when there was only one lobby, competitive play dominated the site. There were barely any ranked games at all, it was competitive and unranked. Ranked games were only used to test setups, as far as I remember. When multiple lobbies were introduced, there were 3 "competitive" lobbies and sandbox, and people just moved up in points trying to get up to the "better" lobbies. After a while we realized the site didn't have enough people for this so we simplified it to two lobbies: competitive and training.

Now we are here and it is very clear that training has evolved into something completely different. It is. Quite simply, a place to play ranked games, and rather than be full of new players, it has it's own vets and all. It has become very independent from the other lobbies. This isn't a bad thing in itself, as if that's what the site wants and it gets more traffic to the site in the future, then there's nothing wrong with that. Training, or rather, red hearts, have gained popularity now and are something lots of players enjoy in simple setups where there is not that much need to concentrate on scumhunting. Simply put: there's a lot of players that have opted out for a middle ground between unranked games and competitive play, playing "relaxed" games that don't have the chaos from unranked but that don't need to be invested in with time/effort. And sure, that's great! I enjoy playing red heart games ever so often too, and in comp lobby we even made "gallis hunter" legal in weekends, which is actually a rather fun setup.

The problem however is that the only way for people to get to competitive lobby is through points and therefore training. There is no shortage of players in competitive yet, but the lobby is not growing as it should and maybe in 5 years it will die out by itself, who knows. Lots of competitive players are upset because training's attitude towards competitive lobby will inherently deter the newer players from joining. After all, if the people they play with hate competitive so much, it is only natural to be scared of competitive play. I'm not saying everyone should like to play competitively: there are many of you, I'm sure, who decided not to join the training competition, or at least not play a lot of gold heart games. At the same time, there are a few who must have tried it out and maybe some who enjoyed it, and yet you remained in training lobby because that is the community you like and associate with.

I just think that this us vs them between comp and training lobbies really needs to be put a stop to, and there seems to be no way to do so. Because training is the lobby you start in, this will definitely mean that competitive will always be "dying out" (in quotes because I really doubt it will actually die any time soon, but the feeling that new players aren't coming will remain), which is why competitive is so concerned.

And the solution to this is to completely kill competitive lobby. I really mean it: outright delete it. To compensate, the training competition would be brought back (I don't think any of you would have a problem with that since it was fine before) and, if possible, a point requirement would be placed for joining the competition instead.

You might be thinking: isn't that the same as having two lobbies, just that, well, in the same one, since competitive players will migrate to the training competition most likely? Well, yes and no. It is true that most competitive players will move to training afterwards (which would likely be renamed into main lobby or something) but they are indeed a small number compared to training players, so training would vastly outnumber competitive. Furthermore, the competition would have players from both lobbies, basically meaning that it would eliminate the us vs them attitude because it would no longer be two communities but just one. People would play gold hearts if they want to, or they could just stick to playing red hearts. But the focus wouldn't be in either one, it would be more or less balanced.

There's some of you that outright just do not want players from competitive playing in your games because of many reasons, whether it be gold or red, but trust me, you don't have to pass a mean test to get to comp, most of us do not care at all, just like you, in red hearts and unranked games. The only reason we care is for our so very precious trophies (lol, quite silly right) but it's because man, it's literally 10 straight days of playing epicmafia for hours to play all your 5 hearts. If something happens after investing so much time it's natural to get frustrated. But you guys didn't have a problem with your own competition, and it would be under the same circumstances. I think a few moderators have reported there's actually more harassment reports in training, it's just that since those people are from your community you've learned to deal with them while you naturally prefer to stay out of trouble with us, which I guess is understandable.

Anyway, basically what the proposed change would do is:

Red hearts are exactly the same, with the rare comp player (who can already play with you guys if he wanted) maybe playing more often in those red hearts with you, but not having the pressure of the competition and therefore be like a completely different person at all (trust me, we /really/ don't care about red hearts nearly as much, probably we take them even less seriously than you). Basically, at worst, nothing happens differently . At best, you get to meet some new friends you otherwise might have not.

The competition is back. Woo. Now with a point requirement, however. You guys don't have to join it and can ignore the gold hearts. Maybe it's a worse competition than before because of us (really wouldn't be so IMO) but this isn't a valid complain because there's no competition in training now so nothing would be ruined. I guess the gold heart games could clutter the lobby, but this could be fixed with a filter for gold/red as an option. So at best you get a fun new competition, at worst you have to ignore a few games in the lobby

Those are for the current players: however, for the new players it would be like this: They are automatically exposed to players from "both lobbies" via the red hearts, so there will be people who like gold hearts and who don't playing with them, and they might learn some nice strategies from them even before they move to gold heart setups. In fact, it could be quite common for people that play in competitions to help new players out. At best, it would completely eliminate the community split and fix the influx of players back to normal and help in teaching the newbies the ropes. At worst, all players would still dislike gold heart games even in training lobby and the competition will eventually die off (which isn't really a problem for you guys anyway).

All this talk about point caps to force players into comp won't change anything at all but make them quit. Why would the 10k players from training be forced to play in a lobby they don't want with a lot of people they don't know? Comp lobby should be deleted instead so it is comp that has to migrate to training, because most comp lobby players not only are already familiar with training so the transition is easier, but the lobby is smaller so it is the way it should happen. Bringing back the competition is the smoothest way for this to happen nicely, with minimal possible damage. I don't think I missed anything that could go wrong but if any of you think I did feel free to post it in this thread. Really though, at worst this would be the same for you bad for us, at best good for everyone, so I don't see why training would be that much opposed to it. I sincerely believe that if we all work together you'll see that some of us (sadly not all, but surely a lot) aren't that bad. Hey, unless they really are super old, they were training before too!

I don't think anyone will read all of that sadly but it's a good way to organize my thoughts at least

deletedover 10 years
guns shouldn't be banned. how many of you have had FoS on someone but nobody else agreed, and that person flipped mafia? even as a clear, sometimes people wont follow you. in lylo this is(maybe) GT, but with a ML people might not sheep you.

pranay for instance, might actually FoS the hooker once in a while(i know, i know), nobody sheeps him. him having the gun means he can eliminate that person.

most logic from you guys is that it's too OP, cuz u can throw against someone easily. hey, why do you even care? it makes it MORE obvious and easier for mods to do reports if someone hipfires. if someone will throw against someone or throw in general, a gun or not won't change a thing. it just makes dealing with the report easier. you don't see people saying to remove orc because they can reveal who they're throwing against, who happens to be obvious town. that sounds stupid doesn't it?

most hipfired games that are thrown get refunded, mods are mods because they have to do their job. one of their jobs is doing reports, such as people hipfiring which if it causes a loss, will likely be refunded
Clair
over 10 years
imo just keep the guns banned
deletedover 10 years
I just joined the site earlier this month and I've never been to competitive lobby, but I think that it makes a lot of sense to put two communities in one place.

I've sat in some tables that hardly ever filled and it'd be nice if more people were around. If this will improve activity and get more people in one place to play ranked games then I am all for it.
Steven
over 10 years
In regards to hipfiring, I disagree with the hip firing=automatic GT idea because some mods don't know how to differentiate between a hipfire and firing without claims, the latter clearly being a legal move. Hipfiring is firing your gun automatically without reads, not firing at the person who had such a scummy opening statement in the day that you are convinced he is scum.

Anyway, there are already a more relaxed rules on training than comp, so there should probably be a difference between gold hearts and red hearts if this happens, with red being obviously more relaxed. What I would say is that allow people to hipfire as long as they are not grudge hipfiring or something like that and simply "playing the odds" at least in red heart games. It is very little different than vigilante shooting n1 anyway
deletedover 10 years
training players who want to be decent at comp should have 1.5k score(at least, which a ton of them do have) + play in sandbox lightly, to know extra mechanics that training doesn't have. possibly a mentor. that's all. its not a big deal, anyone who thinks it is will learn that its not after a while.
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years
Which is why we'd make a 1500 point requirement to enter the comp at all. No one is forced into anything, but it's all laid out for you.
deletedover 10 years
no dude. stop. if they don't want to play competitive they don't have to play competitive. this is why we have mentors, and training lobby is for training. when people get better, they move to comp. the only players who *** talk comp are "good" training lobby players who are bad in competitive, they only do this because they know they're good in training and only there.

like really, just because a ton of people don't trophy run doesn't mean people won't evolve into comp. you could just make thread posts like the one you did for JATW(to bronto) and itll help them get a head start. don't you understand that competitive games are competitive? new players have to train to get the feel of the game. they can't just run before they walk, which is why you need 1500 points and its in a new lobby
deletedover 10 years
id like to see an effort to get people to play setups other than classic mafia
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years
Yep, that's the plan.
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years
Ah okay - well in that case yeah, as you said; add the roles from regularly comped setups to training, raise awareness about the rules surrounding those roles and push for practising with them in unranked before comp. :)
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years
Unfortunately, we can't do it like that, although it's a good idea. I don't want to push too much on Lucid for him to code/change for us at once.
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years
I'd suggest the counter-attack to that would be to make those roles available only in golden heart/comp games (which would have the minimum point requirement that comp does atm) and possibly unranked games (to familiarise players with those roles and allow for practice with them).

Do you think this would work?
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years

jamesthefourth says

there is one problem that I can see and that is in regards to specific roles; gunned roles in particular. gunned roles such as the sheriff, the deputy and the illusionist are banned from the training lobby due to the likelihood of new players hipfiring and unintentionally GT'ing, so how do you expect to tackle this? there's gonna be a phalanx of reports on 'hipfiring' should this proposal go through.


Yeah, comp players hipfire a ton as well. Guns are bad, but we can enable the roles in Training needed for competitive setups. That wouldn't be an issue.

We'd have to build awareness about hipfire = GT. This could be done with an announcement.
Artemisia
over 10 years
That is something I have thought about for some time. Never thought to propose it, still. TY Steven.
deletedover 10 years
there is one problem that I can see and that is in regards to specific roles; gunned roles in particular. gunned roles such as the sheriff, the deputy and the illusionist are banned from the training lobby due to the likelihood of new players hipfiring and unintentionally GT'ing, so how do you expect to tackle this? there's gonna be a phalanx of reports on 'hipfiring' should this proposal go through.
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years

EmmerrLouise says

tl;dr comp comes to us, we don't go to them, and all games are played in one big main lobby with a filter to sort red/gold/unranked games & point requirements for comp.

+ nuke comp after the move.




Bumping this for new readers.
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years
I'd invite anyone who thinks it's not a good idea to come forward and talk about it - I can't see any issues with the proposal, but that doesn't mean there aren't any!
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years
The main difference I see is that Training will get it's comp back (which a lot of people enjoyed), only it won't be competing with Comp's competition.

I linked this to the lobby wall for people to read, hopefully more comments are made.
deletedover 10 years
I don't think training players will be against it, I just think we need to provide both the different suggested solutions, AS WELL AS their consequences.
deletedover 10 years
If there's going to be a poll, then we need to, as simply and quick as we can put it, warn training players of the consequences should it turn out most training players don't want competitive players joining.

What I mean is, we need to warn voters(lol) that if training doesn't want the competition to return and for competitive players to start playing in training, (aka don't want comp players in training lobby) that means the alternative is to change training so it helps flow players into comp. Make sense?

Unless that won't happen at all. :S
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years
Yeah that'd be pretty sweet. Worst case scenario it'll be the same thing as we have now only it takes place in one lobby. Best case scenario is that the communities become closer and the negative stigmas disappear, as well as people getting better at mafia.
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years
Holding hands singing Kumbayah also. ;)
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years
I can't really see how this could end badly. Yes you might get some teething problems to begin with (while the training/comp barriers are still up) but I'd give it a week and we'll all be harmoniously playing together in one big lobby of Mafia.
thebrontosaurus
over 10 years
Yeah, Emmerr, you're pretty much on point - a lot of different ideas have been presented, but Steven's proposition really covers all the bases and doesn't have any negative impacts on Training players. Comp seems to like the idea for the most part too, so it would likely be a welcome change.
EmmerrLouise
over 10 years
As much as I support the OP (and yes Bronto is absolutely right when he mentions HOW something is presented in terms of naysayers' support), 26 signatures may not be enough nor representative of the whole site. I'd suggest a poll, but then you might get people vote for the hell of it without properly considering the OP and opposing arguments.

Mind you, I haven't really seen any opposing arguments? And if there were some, I'm sure they'd have found their way to this thread by now?