Werewolf Post Game Feedback Thread

Baggly

Necro wrote: »

Thing with Werewolf is we don't utilise the weekends as much as we maybe should in some cases.

Especially with lockdowns etc there's scope for a two day or even just one nighter game from Friday eve to Sunday.

It might suit some people better to play a short game at the weekend as opposed to during the week when the main games are ran

I think how we schedule and decide on game types might be contributing to this. If anyone has info on how this is done on other sites that would be interesting. I can't imagine other sites use a first come first serve approach to managing game schedules and type.

Necro

Baggly wrote: »

I think how we schedule and decide on game types might be contributing to this. If anyone has info on how this is done on other sites that would be interesting. I can't imagine other sites use a first come first serve approach to managing game schedules and type.

It's difficult, because I've only played here, on MU (which is a dedicated WW site) and on another Irish forum (well Facebook too but that doesn't count).

I don't think using MU as a comparison is fair to anyone here because that site's sole intention is to provide games of Mafia/Werewolf.

Baggly

Necro wrote: »

It's difficult, because I've only played here, on MU (which is a dedicated WW site) and on another Irish forum (well Facebook too but that doesn't count).

I don't think using MU as a comparison is fair to anyone here because that site's sole intention is to provide games of Mafia/Werewolf.

I'm not sure I understand though. The sub forums sole function is WW.... And we can do things whatever way we want to.

If it's more games per month, we can do that; if it's slots for smaller gwmes; we can do that. If its more structure around scheduling a game as skeith mentioned thats fine too. If its basically a free for all and no advance scheduling we can try that too.

We previously discussed the issue of games getting too complicated and yet Mods wanting to do a complex game because they are waiting so long. We kinda left it there because there didn't seem to be a solution that wouldn't unfairly impact on game Mods, but I'd wonder do we now need to try something / anything to make the game a little easier to pick up and join in on.

Necro

Ok, fair point.

There are two schedules on MU - one is more in line with our own current schedule, they run big games twice a month with 'vetted' runners (basically you or I could not just show up and run a game over there, we would have to run a number of mini games first)

The second is for shorter games. It's not a schedule as such, people can just start one and it starts when sign ups fill. Similar to the smaller games sKeith and later Neowise was running earlier in the year.


The main issue is player base imo. Shorter games are a great idea but they can impact the main schedule as players feel a bit of 'burn out' from playing both. Because our games are mainly going to drag from the same pool of players for both, it could cause that issue rather than resolve it..

I don't really have an answer tbh, mainly what we need is more players, starting there would be a good launch point

Neowise

The issue i see with free for all is people subscribing to multiple games and only committing to one of them and leaving other games with zombies. Some people are well able to multi table though, so i would be against a ban on multi gaming.

Baggly

Fwiw I don't have a definite answer myself and I think this is an important discussion, so I'm going to send out some pms to game Mods from the schedule to try and get their 2c as well (since any decisions that get made will likely impact them)

Necro

Baggly wrote: »

Fwiw I don't have a definite answer myself and I think this is an important discussion, so I'm going to send out some pms to game Mods from the schedule to try and get their 2c as well (since any decisions that get made will likely impact them)

Yep, that's really important. It's not a case of Baggly or Necro throwing a few ideas around and solving it or even just the forum mods here sitting down and having a discussion.

It's a wider community issue in all honesty. And we are all coming from the same place, trying to make the games better and more enjoyable for everyone.

I don't even think there are that many issues around our own schedule tbh - but it's the fact the player pool is dwindling a little and how we start to try to build that back up again.

So the more feedback the better.

Baggly

I think there is a link though. All the games are largely complicated, they are complicated because people have to wait so long to run them, because they are complicated the barriers to joining in are higher. Anyway I've put in my 2c. Appreciate all the feedback so far. Please keep it coming.

Trigger

Personally, I read all the werewolf games but just do not have the time to invest at present. I think to entice a few more people and make it more active would be to have a few smaller games or one dayers/nighters going on in between the big games.

I can see from other posters that the big games can be mentally draining especially if you last towards the end of the game. Maybe having a short fun game can re-energise them for the next one. As you can also see that the really do love the game

Rikand

Baggly wrote: »

I think how we schedule and decide on game types might be contributing to this. If anyone has info on how this is done on other sites that would be interesting. I can't imagine other sites use a first come first serve approach to managing game schedules and type.

When 2+2 was in its prime for hosting games, their schedule looked something like this ::

Date | Game Type | Number of Players| Mod
Monday 1st of January | Mish-Mash | 40+ | John
Thursday 4th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 8th of January | Vanilla + | 20 | Timmy
Thursday 11th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 15th of January | Mish-Mash | 60+ | Ray
Thursday 18th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 22nd of January | Vanilla | 13 | Kev
Thursday 25th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 29th of January | Mish-Mash | 50+ | Dave

A mish-mash every 2 weeks with vanilla's starting on Thursday's or the monday in the middle for people who were killed in the mish-mash early. 2+2 lost a lot of players when MU was created and a forum which was dedicated to running werewolf was better than using a website where werewolf was a 2nd class citizen. Of course, then there were others (like myself) who just disappeared through burnout.


problems with running werewolf on boards.ie in the same fashion


We obviously dont have the playerbase yet to embark on an ambitious schedule like that. At 2+2's peak, there were 150 active players. We also dont have the forum tools to drag more people in. 2+2 in fairness to them accommodated werewolf as much as they could such as giving player accounts special privileges to their accounts to create threads, being able to lock and unlock the threads they created as necessary. I had a few accounts I used for modding games. However, we still encountered issues in that we could only make 1 post every 1 minute, so no possibility of rapid exchanges. You had to wait! Boards.ie wins there :cool:



The way boards.ie is currently ran is very unaccommodating towards running werewolf such as only being able to send a PM to one person at a time, only able to send one once every minute and only able to send 5 PMs in a 10 minute period. Which all might seem like small things, but in any game with more than 10 people makes it a touch inconvenient unless you are going to have a forum mod assist you. The vote counter script i got JMurder from 2+2 to create for us could have been one such tool that might have made the games more enticing but that has some problems too with the way in which boards.ie is coded. I still use it in its current form because I would miss votes otherwise




And of course, the people who run boards.ie should be able to run boards.ie how they choose. Werewolf is a very tiny population on boards.ie so no reason why they should accommodate us, but it is just another thing that might not be helping us. The security of their site is paramount.


For me, I'm delighted to be able to play games here and to run games here. One of those reasons I can run them on a European schedule. 2+2 was a US based forum, so if I tried to run Euro-Friendly games, it was tough. A lot of the time I had to run games 1pm to 1am Irish time to suit the Americans who were signing up to my games. Which was **** when I had a real job to do too lol


A schedule that could work for us to get started could be like this ::


Date | Game Type | Number of Players| Mod
Monday 1st of January | Mish-Mash/Vanilla+ | 20+ | John
Monday 15th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Ray
Monday 22nd of January | Vanilla | 13 | Kev
Monday 29th of January | Mish-Mash/Vanilla+ | 20+ | Dave

A weeks break after the larger games to give people time to recharge and then a couple of vanillas in between to keep people fresh and keep them in and for new people to join up and try out werewolf

beakerjoe

Baggly wrote: »

I think there is a link though. All the games are largely complicated, they are complicated because people have to wait so long to run them, because they are complicated the barriers to joining in are higher. Anyway I've put in my 2c. Appreciate all the feedback so far. Please keep it coming.

For me, when I was new, what attracted me to WW was the mystery. I love the sleuthing and solving what is happening.

Complexity wasnt an issue. I dropped into the Simpsons game and while I had failed misserably, the level of complexity was just right to suck me in and learn how to play it. I loved figuring out the roles and mechanics.

What would help old players return? May I suggest PMing players that havent played in 6 months plus to provide feedback as to what would encourage them to return?

Rikand

Trigger wrote: »

Personally, I read all the werewolf games but just do not have the time to invest at present. I think to entice a few more people and make it more active would be to have a few smaller games or one dayers/nighters going on in between the big games.

I can see from other posters that the big games can be mentally draining especially if you last towards the end of the game. Maybe having a short fun game can re-energise them for the next one. As you can also see that the really do love the game

We could run turbos

These are games that happen on one night. Day phase is 20 minutes long, night phase is 10 minutes long. 9 player games work best. 9 players = 6 villagers, 2 wolves, 1 seer.

Sign up thread is created and PM's sent out quickly. Tell the 2 wolves they can communicate however they wish (pm's, discord, skype, whatever... )

Games last no more than 2 hours normally but great for people that only have a day or night to commit and cant commit to a full game

Baggly

beakerjoe wrote:

What would help old players return? May I suggest PMing players that havent played in 6 months plus to provide feedback as to what would encourage them to return?

Yeah I can do that.

Baggly

Rikand I won't quote the full post nor can address all the points right now but forum mod support is available to send out PMs in bulk. If I'm playing we can always arrange something else with one of the others Mods.

Necro

There's a good few of us that are mods in some shape or form now in the group. If I'm not playing I'm also quite happy to make myself available to issue PMs rapidly.*

*Though I'll mostly be playing :pac:

Mollyb60

Ok so I haven't played much games at all this year and I think the main reason for it was burnout and complexity. I always find the evenings too hectic especially if I've been busy in work during the day and am expected to catch up on 20 pages of dicussion in a 2 hour window before a lynch. And if I don't get involved or have perfect reasons for voting for someone I get attacked on the thread. Closing the thread overnight would be a big plus for me personally.

Also games with very complex roles and rules just takes too long for me to get my head around which I just don't like. The most fun I've had in games are where it's just a pretty simple game with a few roles thrown in for flavour. And I'm just gonna say it now, i HATE hidden roles and it's mostly what put me off the games this year. I just don't think it's fair to villagers when they already start on a back foot to be throwing in unexpected roles at the last minute. It just annoys me because it throws the village further into dissarray. But I do understand why they have become popular in games and why people like them.

I like the suggestion of having a vanilla game in between bigger games. Is burnout for other players a real thing though? Would a schedule of one big game every 6 weeks/2 months be too long between games? With a smaller vanilla game in between?

As for getting new players in, the most common comment from new players in the complex games is panic and confusion about what they're supposed to do. So I don't think complex games are ever gonna get new players in. Only the most dedicated and interested are gonna play in those. New players who are unsure of the format or unsure whether they even want to play would surely be put off by a 40 person game with 10 million roles and island switches and hidden characters and serial killers and minions?

Rikand

Baggly wrote: »

Rikand I won't quote the full post nor can address all the points right now but forum mod support is available to send out PMs in bulk. If I'm playing we can always arrange something else with one of the others Mods.

BUt what if all forum mods wanted to play ? Or what if there were no forum mods around ?

It's only a minor thing really. I do know that support is available as quicky helped us out before

Baggly

Rikand wrote:

BUt what if all forum mods wanted to play ? Or what if there were no forum mods around ?

The FG Mods have an arrangement in place that not all of us can play a game. Not specifically for sending out PMs but for other admin reasons. So one of us should be free.

But yeah any boards.ie mod can do it, as its a tool of being a site mod that the restrictions are lifted.

Baggly

And, perhaps worryingly, I'm always around.

Loughc

beakerjoe wrote: »

What would help old players return? May I suggest PMing players that havent played in 6 months plus to provide feedback as to what would encourage them to return?

While I can’t speak for other players not returning I stopped playing as the last 2 games I played in I felt I was over the top verbally abused. Players were going completely over the top with insults to the point in one game the person apologised for going over the top the following day as he really just wanted to win.

I didn’t bother reporting the abuse at the time as I know one of the rules was don’t take it personally but the fact it was 2 games back to back killed the joy of playing it for me.

I don’t know if it is still a trend but at the time aggressive abuse play became a running trend which for me wasn’t what the game was built on.

Baggly

I'm not sure of the timing loughc but each game has an abuse rule and procedure in it for dealing with such instances. There have been a few times it has been needed or a forum mod might have to send a PM, but they are the exception rather than the rule. If you did want to give it another shot, I would hope you wouldn't be disappointed.

JohnGreenFan

Personally I would love to take part in a couple of vanilla games - just to try and improve my own werewolf skills. I had to sub out of Rikands game due to some personal issues at home that I hadn't expected when I signed up, and while I did intend on getting involved on day 2 I just couldn't commit the time to it, particularly when I was so lost after not playing day 1, when everyone seemed to be roled and I just couldn't catch up.

I love the idea of the 2 hour games - everyone knows what they're signing up for and would hopefully eliminate the low posters or waiting for someone to come back online so the game can progress.

The burnout from games is definitely real - particularly I think when you're new, you're else likely to be targeted by wolves because you don't really know what's going on, and then you end up in end game with no clue and all the experienced wolves are left playing you!! It can be tough to deal with it if it continuosly happens and you don't fee like you're improving at all.

Clarabel

I have very strong views on policy lynching low posting new players.

Leave then alone let them find their feet or paws

Clarabel

Ectoplasm wrote: »

Regarding the comment on time commitments it is one that hits me...I can really only play around school holidays.

I did play a game with closed nights that was much easier to manage...some modification of that schedule for an evening only, vanilla game might be a good introduction to Werewolf. I'd be happy to mod one (though I'd need help with game balance). It might help out some more experienced players who struggle for time too.

Personally I love the complex themed games but I've also enjoyed the really basic short games.

I think this is a great idea. I also struggle with keeping up for the games during the week.

Clarabel

Trigger wrote: »

Personally, I read all the werewolf games but just do not have the time to invest at present. I think to entice a few more people and make it more active would be to have a few smaller games or one dayers/nighters going on in between the big games.

I can see from other posters that the big games can be mentally draining especially if you last towards the end of the game. Maybe having a short fun game can re-energise them for the next one. As you can also see that the really do love the game

Lady John Tuskabel needs another outing.

I love modding and playing the short games too. They can be great fun. I'll happily put my hand up to help out with those

beakerjoe

With the feedback here in mind, please provide input for the Jan Game.

All games will be new player friendly.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058146105

MrsFlushdraw

Rikand wrote: »

When 2+2 was in its prime for hosting games, their schedule looked something like this ::

Date | Game Type | Number of Players| Mod
Monday 1st of January | Mish-Mash | 40+ | John
Thursday 4th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 8th of January | Vanilla + | 20 | Timmy
Thursday 11th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 15th of January | Mish-Mash | 60+ | Ray
Thursday 18th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 22nd of January | Vanilla | 13 | Kev
Thursday 25th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Sean
Monday 29th of January | Mish-Mash | 50+ | Dave

A mish-mash every 2 weeks with vanilla's starting on Thursday's or the monday in the middle for people who were killed in the mish-mash early. 2+2 lost a lot of players when MU was created and a forum which was dedicated to running werewolf was better than using a website where werewolf was a 2nd class citizen. Of course, then there were others (like myself) who just disappeared through burnout.


problems with running werewolf on boards.ie in the same fashion


We obviously dont have the playerbase yet to embark on an ambitious schedule like that. At 2+2's peak, there were 150 active players. We also dont have the forum tools to drag more people in. 2+2 in fairness to them accommodated werewolf as much as they could such as giving player accounts special privileges to their accounts to create threads, being able to lock and unlock the threads they created as necessary. I had a few accounts I used for modding games. However, we still encountered issues in that we could only make 1 post every 1 minute, so no possibility of rapid exchanges. You had to wait! Boards.ie wins there :cool:



The way boards.ie is currently ran is very unaccommodating towards running werewolf such as only being able to send a PM to one person at a time, only able to send one once every minute and only able to send 5 PMs in a 10 minute period. Which all might seem like small things, but in any game with more than 10 people makes it a touch inconvenient unless you are going to have a forum mod assist you. The vote counter script i got JMurder from 2+2 to create for us could have been one such tool that might have made the games more enticing but that has some problems too with the way in which boards.ie is coded. I still use it in its current form because I would miss votes otherwise




And of course, the people who run boards.ie should be able to run boards.ie how they choose. Werewolf is a very tiny population on boards.ie so no reason why they should accommodate us, but it is just another thing that might not be helping us. The security of their site is paramount.


For me, I'm delighted to be able to play games here and to run games here. One of those reasons I can run them on a European schedule. 2+2 was a US based forum, so if I tried to run Euro-Friendly games, it was tough. A lot of the time I had to run games 1pm to 1am Irish time to suit the Americans who were signing up to my games. Which was **** when I had a real job to do too lol


A schedule that could work for us to get started could be like this ::


Date | Game Type | Number of Players| Mod
Monday 1st of January | Mish-Mash/Vanilla+ | 20+ | John
Monday 15th of January | Vanilla | 13 | Ray
Monday 22nd of January | Vanilla | 13 | Kev
Monday 29th of January | Mish-Mash/Vanilla+ | 20+ | Dave

A weeks break after the larger games to give people time to recharge and then a couple of vanillas in between to keep people fresh and keep them in and for new people to join up and try out werewolf

I forgot about the games on 2+2. A few of us from Irishpokerboards used to play there in between games years ago

MrsFlushdraw

My thoughts on the games.

I started playing WW in 2010 I think it was. I played over in IPB. I was here from the first game and have mostly enjoyed the experience.
I stopped playing on IPB because they thought it was really funny to kill me on day one. It got on my nerves and ruined it. So I stopped and played here instead.

I like having both vanilla and complex, I understand that people go for complex when they have waited a while to showcase their mod/game skills. But we need to have more vanilla than the fancy in the mix. I think that I would have been put off by games here if I was new.

I also hate DISCORD. This is an other thing that puts me off playing here. I loved back in 2017 I think it was, when we had COP just for the back rooms and the game was then discussed here afterwards or in the dead room.

I also think that in a complex game, we should have a day/night schedule. And a Mod could maybe lock the thread between certain hours? I know we did in IPB, and it made it easier to keep on top. Nothing worse that waking up to 32413 posts! you then speed read, make a fark up as you did and everyone thinks you are a wolf!

I think we need to do a bit of advertising. I did on FB years ago, no idea if anyone signed up because of it.

With the high interest in Among Us, now may be the time to strike. It might be a COOL game to play instead of a nerdy one.

And Happy New Year folks

beakerjoe

MrsFlushdraw wrote: »

My thoughts on the games.

I started playing WW in 2010 I think it was. I played over in IPB. I was here from the first game and have mostly enjoyed the experience.
I stopped playing on IPB because they thought it was really funny to kill me on day one. It got on my nerves and ruined it. So I stopped and played here instead.

I like having both vanilla and complex, I understand that people go for complex when they have waited a while to showcase their mod/game skills. But we need to have more vanilla than the fancy in the mix. I think that I would have been put off by games here if I was new.

I also hate DISCORD. This is an other thing that puts me off playing here. I loved back in 2017 I think it was, when we had COP just for the back rooms and the game was then discussed here afterwards or in the dead room.

I also think that in a complex game, we should have a day/night schedule. And a Mod could maybe lock the thread between certain hours? I know we did in IPB, and it made it easier to keep on top. Nothing worse that waking up to 32413 posts! you then speed read, make a fark up as you did and everyone thinks you are a wolf!

I think we need to do a bit of advertising. I did on FB years ago, no idea if anyone signed up because of it.

With the high interest in Among Us, now may be the time to strike. It might be a COOL game to play instead of a nerdy one.

And Happy New Year folks

What can I do to lure you back for the Jan game?

Drumpot

Thanks for the game Rikand, I actually watched Die hard the night I was lynched and die hard 2 the day after!

I hadn’t played in awhile and to be honest initially feel maybe I won’t play for awhile again. I was really off my game this time around but I have to be honest and say I didn’t enjoy it. (Nothing to do with game mechanics or the theme). I really feel that I need to be full of energy to play WW and as somebody who suffers with sleep and mental health issues I find it very hard to know when the stars will allign for me to be able for a game. Last few times I’ve had to pull out as the game was draining what little energy I had!

The best analogy To explain my stance is 5 aside and tennis. I play for fun, not to win (although winning is nice). I used to be wayyyyy more competitive but have mellowed out in old age. I stopped playing in overly competitive 5 aside games because I get competitive and don’t enjoy my mindset when I’m playing to win.

I really look forward to werewolf games but when they go into over drive I get exhausted trying to keep up. I feel somewhat responsible to make a go of games as I know how much work goes into them. I had planned to have loads of fun in this game but was really thrown when I left such a quiet game to a what felt like A fair few insinuations by the time I returned. On day 1 it doesn’t take much to end up on a lynch so a couple of people targeting you is plenty to get you killed.

I understand the way the game goes and totally accept I talked my way out on night one. But this isn’t sour grapes for my poor play, that started because I was having a laugh earlier in the day, it’s just kind of demoralising when you lose really early for just having some fun. There was practically no posting and I took it as fluff day, I was enjoying how slow it was going and looking forward to getting more into the game. But when I came back with multiple people using my fluff posts I knew the writing was on the wall. I over compensated by defending my corner but it’s really unsatisfying to end up dead because you were trying to have some fun when nothing was going on or had gone on to that point.

But before anybody says “you were caught out suspiciously” I honestly didn’t realise I was effectively an enemy of the village. I was playing as if I was a villager , I thought team neutral meant I didn’t care if my team or village won and was playing as practically a roled villager. That’s my fault as I’m terrible at paying attention to detail but I’ve never been on a neutral team so wasn’t really familiar with it. Also my team mate didn’t show up until I was literally hung so never really had a chance to discuss it with them. Maybe the fact that I can be absent minded in the game (any mistakes I made were genuine mistakes with no insidious intentions behind them).

What I find offputting is how quickly having a laugh can work against you. I suppose one of my weakness is I can’t help but plead my defence when I am being targeted. It’s hard not to take some stuff personally even though you understand the game. I actually prefer it most when I have a NRV role as I don’t feel any responsibility and can enjoy the game more comfortably and don’t mind as much getting killed.

I prefer anon games as I find it distracting and very hard not to pre judge players. Maybe having more then one break during the day could be tried? So thread closed from 10.30 to 8am. Then thread closed from 11.30 to 4.30? Or something like that?! I hate anytime coming back to pages and pages of stuff to catchup on, it actually makes me sweat and curse the game. Would he asking a lot for mods to have a summary post of events each day but it would be great if this was easily done?! I know some people keep savage notes but I find games painful when I start keeping spreadsheets of stuff. Maybe I am just not cut out for the game.

In terms of new players, maybe there could be some mechanic that helps them at least make it to day 2. Maybe some sort of random option for wolves on morning 1 munch that at least protects newbs to give them at least 2 full days. Is there any case for no death until night 1 lynch and a double munch on morning 2? Maybe to get people posting have a vote on say 0 (fluff day) and whoever tops the poll will compete in a 50/50 toss of a coin with whomever tops the vote on day 1? Or maybe some prizes can be won by both teams at random times between start day and first lynch?