This website is far past the point where having ranked and unranked games in main lobby makes sense.
Both sandbox and main lobby suffer from this weird choice. Unranked games should go in sandbox, which will boost the ever slowing population of 12 person closed setups, and ranked games should go in main lobby.
Without the influx of unranked games being made, competitive games will not be second paged so fast, and thus fill more often, allowing more than 2 setups to be played each round.
I can't really give this a proper response right now, I'll have a think about it over the next few days and see if I can find some sort of solution. But right now I have to deal with that other thing.
deletedover 8 years
I think he'd do it if you all brought it to him, and made it your number one priority. He is more receptive to such things than you might imagine.
It is how we got a variety of things implemented, including separate hearts for the competition and red hearts.
You could make it happen if you really wanted to, he can be convinced to do it. It's not like it would take a lot of coding.
I think a variety of things need to happen to really foster competitive play. Your elo idea is a great one. So is a complete and total overhaul of the mentor system.
But this is the necessary first step. Without this step, this website can NEVER move in that direction.
If you don't want to support it, I'm not going to hold it against you. I'm disappointed, but okay. You could make it happen though if everyone was on board.
i don't see why moving all unranked games from main to sandbox would cause social constrictions. the people who play those games would continue to play them and the people who play 12 man sandbox games would play those. maybe some people would mingle and get to know eachother. do the people who play unranked in main even use the chatbox or the forums?
plus it's not like this would be the first time sandbox's userbase changed. when it was created everyone who played there was from 4chan.
The problem with a one week trial is that it would require lucid's attention to implement, as we don't have the option to blacklist specifically unranked games from the lobby. We either remove all mafia, no mafia, or the competition.
Unless Philly wants to take a load of time out and change a bunch of things on the website, then there's not much I can do to help.
I think the only way you could really encourage people to get better at mafia is if you had a reputable ELO system, rather than having a competition. If people were judged more for their overall longitudinal rating than how well they can play for 7-10 days, then people would be more inclined to treat their play more delicately. Even the former-serious-players-turned-trolls would be more inclined to feel some signs of rejuvenation towards their mentality regarding mafia if they noticed themselves dropping too low.
deletedover 8 years
If you don't do it, dude, who is going to? If it were me in your position I'd make it happen or go down trying.
deletedover 8 years
There isn't another solution. At least not one I can think of.
Would you consider supporting a one week trial period of moving the unranked games? Sandbox has about a game going at a time. I honestly think it would benefit.
Sandbox is terminal.
I think this website is still more than capable of growing. I just think poor decisions have been made for a long time.
I even think this website would be more profitable with a focus on competitive mafia.
The sad thing is, I've been in your position numerous times over the past few years trying to argue the same points as you, but any ideas like this have never really seen the surface as far as execution is concerned.
I really can't stress enough how much moving people into Sandbox would cause social constrictions though. The only real alternative would be to have it like we had Competitive Lobby and Training Lobby, except for what you want to work, you'd need to have Competitive Lobby as the default, but that's just one big impracticality. What you are suggesting is that we take wolves and place them in a chicken battery. People from Sandbox have their own cliques, and I think they would be upset if we imposed upon that to serve our own agenda.
Unfortunately, the real issue behind all of this is simply that this website never got the advertising that it deserved. And even if it did have the advertising, if it weren't for my friend showing me what was happening in the game, I probably would have just quit after my first game.
If you can come up with a better solution than moving them into Sandbox then I'd be up for considering it.
deletedover 8 years
First of all, I appreciate the detailed response. That's dope as heck, whether you end up supporting this or not.
I loved competitive lobby play to, but the fact of the matter is that this website cannot sustain it. Not yet. Ideally, you would build up the playerbase via the "ranked only" lobby first.
I watched the video, and that's exactly my point. This dude is an IDIOT. He has no idea what mafia is. This guy is never going to get into competitive mafia any damn way. SCREW that guy.
Mafia is one of the most popular games of all time. There are websites and forums and IRC chatrooms all over the internet dedicated to it. This website is the ONLY place you can play competitively though. A lot of people who use this website don't even understand that.
Demand for competitive mafia exists. There are people who are trying to be lawyers or detectives who are into this sort of sh.it big time.
We just need to attract those people who want to play competitively. I've evidence they exist in unranked games, I've been playing with them.
They are driven away by the current format.
Separating ranked unranked games is the necessary first step to doing that. Otherwise, this website can never grow.
Neither sandbox or main lobby unranked games would suffer.
In fact, I'd wager they'd intermingle better than main lobby ranked and unranked players do, and experience their games filling faster than ever before.
I really do think absolutely everyone would benefit from moving the unranked games to sandbox, and secondarily removing the requirement to play unranked games before ranked ones.
This has been suggested and brought to lucid's attention in the past, but it's never been implemented. Also, more to the arguments made by Saiyan in this thread, he is talking about how new players are unfamiliar that there is even a ranked system. If you add a toggle, it only serves to benefit those who are already interested. What Saiyan wants is for the website to encourage that people teeter more towards the competitive nature of the game, rather than playing unranked/Fancy Pants, etc.
There was talk of 25 games being displayed in Main Lobby. I think the problem with this is that people might not even know the lobby wall exists, because it would be too far below the box, and it would make the page look quite cluttered. I think simply because of how long ago the site was designed, a lot of the aesthetic features that we'd like to implement are going to take too much work on Phil's behalf to do them in a way that doesn't mess up the interface. I mean, I like the idea on the surface, but for some people EpicMafia is a social community rather than a game. I understand how frustrating this can be if your main prerogative is to come here and just hop into a game and hope for some next level ranked play.
I know that you're not looking to make a lobby specifically for ranked play, but just for arguments sake let's talk Competitive Lobby. The thing is, the lobby in itself aroused the best mafia I've ever played on this site. Wifom was far more possible, interpersonal meta was able to be established in a way that wasn't frowned upon or distasteful, having the ability to one-up people you deem to be solid players was ubiquitous by nature, etc. Since the lobbies merged, I certainly felt it was a big loss as the games became way too linear, and you would be perceived as mafia if you did anything outside of the box, unless you were playing on a table with serious, established players. Obviously, I would love to see that return, but the only way it worked was with a lobby specifically designed to draw competitively inclined participants. This in itself was catalytic to its own demise as we simply didn't have a big enough playerbase.
To expand on the playerbase issues, well, I'll show you what the problem is in this video:
If you can take the time to watch that, Saiyan, then it will explain why this site has such little staying power for many people, and why much of what we both want is impractical.
As per your request, Saiyan, I read as far as page 6, and skimmed over some of this page.
The problem with pushing the unranked mafia players into Sandbox isn't that the idea is bad (as far as mafia is concerned), it's more the fact that the Sandbox community is inherently its own entity. People who spend their time in Sandbox typically have a different mentality and personality type than people who would typically frequent in the Main Lobby. This in itself would ostracise individuals within the separate communities if they were to feel too uncomfortable by the change. This is enough reason alone to discourage me from bringing the idea to Phil's attention.
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deletedover 8 years
I think I've addressed those points dude. I'm willing to have a conversation with you, but you need to read what I already wrote, which is a lot.
