Sanderson Elimination: Questions & Answers and Game Meta Discussion

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

51 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

A quick fix to this is using ctrl + b to change to bold. At least on computer. It is a little annoying on mobile, but a little annoyance would be better for everyone if it saves the GMs headaches.

I agree. My main argument is that it already has better visibility at the bottom, and doing something else is slightly unnecessary. For my own games I would ask that you vote at the bottom, but bold is unnecessary in my opinion. If other GMs think differently, that's fine for them.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

On 5/2/2022 at 7:12 PM, The Unknown Novel said:

I agree. My main argument is that it already has better visibility at the bottom, and doing something else is slightly unnecessary. For my own games I would ask that you vote at the bottom, but bold is unnecessary in my opinion. If other GMs think differently, that's fine for them.

I find it really difficult to find votes if I'm running behind and trying to skim through the thread to look for them if they're not bolded. I don't really care where in the post they are, because if they're bold they stand out anywhere in the post.

[Mat he/him]

In light of the recent slowness of SE, in player counts and game threads alike, I think a good step to take would be to design and plan to run rulesets that can work with a smaller player count. Something like 6-8, but also games that work with a more traditional group of around 15. I'm not about to let SE die as we wait for more people to sign up for games, and I'd much prefer an extended period of small-scale games to waiting for large scale ones that may never happen.

But really, I've only been around here for two years. What do the rest of you think? Have low-activity periods such as this plagued the subforum in the past? Will this resolve itself naturally? I don't want to force anyone to play when they feel they don't have the time or desire to, but I do want to allow those who do have the time and desire to play (such as myself) to do so.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

54 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

In light of the recent slowness of SE, in player counts and game threads alike, I think a good step to take would be to design and plan to run rulesets that can work with a smaller player count. Something like 6-8, but also games that work with a more traditional group of around 15. I'm not about to let SE die as we wait for more people to sign up for games, and I'd much prefer an extended period of small-scale games to waiting for large scale ones that may never happen.

But really, I've only been around here for two years. What do the rest of you think? Have low-activity periods such as this plagued the subforum in the past? Will this resolve itself naturally? I don't want to force anyone to play when they feel they don't have the time or desire to, but I do want to allow those who do have the time and desire to play (such as myself) to do so.

We've had lower activity in the past, and I think at least a part of what's going on now is end-of-semester stuff, which might pick up once we get more into the summer.

But I'd agree that we probably should have a protocol for when a GM can't get enough players for their ruleset, and for just in general with lower player counts.

One complicating issue is how long the waitlist is for LGs, so it would feel bad to force someone to give up their slot they've waited a year or more to run. Perhaps another signup list for GMs willing to run a smallish game somewhat on the spot when a pending GM can't get the players they want. This also might be a good place for games with a bit more of an RP focus to happen, if that's something people are interested in.

[Straw he/him]

On 4/30/2022 at 6:55 PM, Archer said:

I've got a proposal for a new rule/best practice.
-To improve accessibility for the colourblind, all vote retractions are put in brackets.
-To make votes easier to find, all votes are put at the end of posts. Ideally on a separate line from other text.
I know we already (are supposed to) bold votes to improve their visibility, but I think we're less likely to miss votes if they're always in the same spot. For GMs, it means the difference between having to scan entire posts versus just checking the end of them. It might not be a huge time savings, but it'd probably improve their peace of mind once full implementation is achieved.
I actually think putting votes at the start of posts would make them easier to locate, but it's less intuitive for people who decide who they're voting for as they write. This also allows you to continue embedding your votes organically in a paragraph, since precedent says the last vote listed counts, so so long as you repeat the votes at the end of the post, there won't be any confusion.
Thoughts on a more efficient strategy or whether this is worth the effort?
Example (Retraction)

I don't think putting votes at the bottom is necessary as a rule, but I think that it's a decent idea if people want to do it as a visibility thing. Personally, I haven't had any issues spotting votes as long as they're bolded, since bold text is pretty easy to pick out.

On 5/10/2022 at 3:44 PM, Araris Valerian said:

We've had lower activity in the past, and I think at least a part of what's going on now is end-of-semester stuff, which might pick up once we get more into the summer.

Yeah, agreed that most of the inactivity drop has been due to end-of-semester stuff. I know that I've been pretty busy with my final exams.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Yeah, I know that my drop off the face of the earth has been because of just being really strung out from the past couple weeks. I'm done with school right now, but I still don't know if I could manage a game. Either running or playing.

[Kasimir he/him]

I could ask this in a non-specific dead doc, but I kind of want to get input from more people than this.

RPers of SE unite! We only have our lives to lose!

Okay, but seriously: what determines whether you RP or not? Do you find yourself returning to a few persistent characters or do you go the permadeath route and retire a character for good if they die in a game? 

Am curious about your style as I know in the single-digit LG days, permadeath seemed more the rule than exception, but now it's all over the place.

I try to stick to permadeath where possible. I feel it makes me more invested in the characters, and getting to kill Duncan Kerr for good in LG73 was a great part of my SE experience, though admittedly I have no idea what to really do with Koren and Araris gave him a fantastic send-off anyway. I do have a couple of ascended/recurring characters that are very closely associated with me in the heads of long-term SE-ers (IDK, I'm guessing here!) that I probably wouldn't permadeath but I don't put them out in games anyway.

I guess I would also say it feels satisfying, almost as much as finding Elims, when you get to close out the arc of your character just so and finish it the way it should be done.

For that matter, which RP run are you proudest of?

Edited November 6, 2022 by Kasimir

[Alvron]

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

what determines whether you RP or not?

Time.  Do I have the time to invest into this character? is my first question after signing up for a game.  How much time can I invest into this character? How often can I get online? Questions like that.  If the stars align then I like to try and RP.
Other times it's what mood I'm in, what head space am I in?  Do I want to invest the time and effort to RP? Am I feeling inspired at the moment?  For Zunn the Mad, I had been playing Shadow of Mordor and was feeling like being a troll for a bit so I brought one of my favorite characters from that game into SE to see how long he would live.
If I'm lucky the game's setting is similar to another or a rerun/prequel to one I've RPed in before, in which case I might have a predetermined character ready to go.
Very rarely I might have a character in the back of my mind I hadn't had the chance to use before and the timing felt right so I have a jumpstart with them.
 

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Do you find yourself returning to a few persistent characters or do you go the permadeath route and retire a character for good if they die in a game? 

Am curious about your style as I know in the single-digit LG days, permadeath seemed more the rule than exception, but now it's all over the place.

This depends greatly on the character.  Almost all my characters are created for one game but if I feel a real connection with them then they might survive. Ratel and Alv survive because of such a connection.  Ratel was my first time being evil and Alv was one of my most fun times being evil so they tend to have a soft spot in my heart/mind so they will never permanently die.
A couple, like Izzy Dedyet, are created to be in several games regardless of if they survive or not.  In Izzy's case, the more often she dies, the better she can 'live' up to her name.
Early in my SE career I sat down and plotted out several characters that I wanted to play at some point and created backstories for them.  Most have been played while others were scrapped due to various reasons.  I do have a couple waiting in the wings for their time to shine so hopefully I can find the right time/game to bring them into the light.
 

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I do have a couple of ascended/recurring characters that are very closely associated with me in the heads of long-term SE-ers (IDK, I'm guessing here!) that I probably wouldn't permadeath but I don't put them out in games anyway.

Khas will always live on in Alv's mind.
 

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I guess I would also say it feels satisfying, almost as much as finding Elims, when you get to close out the arc of your character just so and finish it the way it should be done.

Asterion is one such character for me.  I had intended for them to join the Collective but his character arc and death felt perfect so I decided that he needed to remain dead even though it kinda hurt to part with a character I had invested so much into.
Edaan is another.  Probably my most well-known character from my mid SE career.  His character arc lasted several games and interlinked with several other characters from other players before eventually be given a fitting send off.
 

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

For that matter, which RP run are you proudest of?

Easy. Rolav in MR1. I'm not entirely sure how it happened but Rolav ended up in a RP story/duel with Lyla played by FeatherWriter. Almost my entire waking hours were spent scribbling down RP ideas.  While working I was writing RP fragments, I dreamed RP storylines. I wanted to keep up the amazing RP that Feather was doing that I paid almost no attention to what was happening in the game itself and just worked on my RP. It was both scary and exhilarating to be RPing against Feather so I poured everything I had into my RP. It's nowhere near my best work but it was the most fun I ever had RPing.

[Kasimir he/him]

10 hours ago, Alvron said:

Time.  Do I have the time to invest into this character? is my first question after signing up for a game.  How much time can I invest into this character? How often can I get online? Questions like that.  If the stars align then I like to try and RP.
Other times it's what mood I'm in, what head space am I in?  Do I want to invest the time and effort to RP? Am I feeling inspired at the moment? 

Similar to me, though for me it's the other way around - mood and inspiration are my primary drivers. Getting too engaged with solving a game as Village can negatively affect my ability to RP, which is unfortunate. But if inspiration is strong, then I usually still do some RP/keep it up anyway. Time definitely plays a role as well.

10 hours ago, Alvron said:

Alv was one of my most fun times being evil so they tend to have a soft spot in my heart/mind so they will never permanently die.

10 hours ago, Alvron said:

Khas will always live on in Alv's mind.

Spoiler

Khas is my iconic (probably more so than Kaddar) character for this reason. I don't know if I would say most fun, because my memories of the game are badly swamped by the turning point on N4, but I really enjoyed the amount of scheming and plotting we were doing. And it's still my first SE game and my first Evil game, so the memory is strong. Partly as well because of his ties to Wurum, Wyrm's own iconic, I suppose.

10 hours ago, Alvron said:

Edaan is another.  Probably my most well-known character from my mid SE career.  His character arc lasted several games and interlinked with several other characters from other players before eventually be given a fitting send off.

I remember Edaan, yeah. Didn't know he died, but I definitely knew you didn't play him anymore.

10 hours ago, Alvron said:

Almost all my characters are created for one game but if I feel a real connection with them then they might survive.

I'd agree with this. Kaddar became an ascended secondary iconic for me because of how many kills he tanked in MR4 and still kept on living. I kind of respected that and felt as though that needed acknowledgement. Sometimes I bring back characters I feel I didn't really do sufficient justice to, like LG20 Karnan. But I've very seldom recycled unless it's a GM character I will be using to GM a few more games, like Karsten Heron.

10 hours ago, Alvron said:

Easy. Rolav in MR1. I'm not entirely sure how it happened but Rolav ended up in a RP story/duel with Lyla played by FeatherWriter. Almost my entire waking hours were spent scribbling down RP ideas.  While working I was writing RP fragments, I dreamed RP storylines. I wanted to keep up the amazing RP that Feather was doing that I paid almost no attention to what was happening in the game itself and just worked on my RP. It was both scary and exhilarating to be RPing against Feather so I poured everything I had into my RP. It's nowhere near my best work but it was the most fun I ever had RPing.

I remember this RP off! Jain and Wyrm and I were messing around too

Probably a tie between AG2's Kassien and LG73's Duncan Kerr. Duncan tied up quite a few loose ends from MR3 for me, and was a nice reference to that game, which was probably one of my slightly less disastrous Elim runs, but one I got to work on a team with Wyrm. I liked the way I got to explore what it must've been like, on that doomed platoon, led into greater disaster by Wyrm, with Kas backing him to the hilt. Duncan's ending felt right. It felt like catharsis and I loved it for that.

With Kassien, it was just getting to do standard Tyrian RP and to bounce off El. She decided to sign up as my apprentice and we spent a decent chunk of the game while I was alive collaborating on our RPs in order to make things work. At points, it was more interesting to me than solving!  

My permanent regret is I never ran Kamsil. In AG3, Wyrm and I agreed to do 'paired RP' as well. This wasn't just collaboration, or rather, it was going to be more difficult. He would run Wyl Sharpe, a noir private eye. I was going to run Kamsil, a blind swordsman. Our characters would be good friends, but Wyrm was going to be writing everything noir-style, and I would take that and translate that into wuxia-style. We'd synched up and prepared our introduction posts, with Wyl talking about how Kamsil was an old friend of his from his days in Luthadel (I think?) and Kamsil talking about how Wyl was the only man to beat him in a brawl which was why they'd become friends in the first place. The two genres are quite different so we expected it to be wild, good fun, and also a challenge.

I backed out of AG3 for life reasons and SE stuff I don't wanna talk too much about. But in all fairness, I don't expect to have lived long in that game. Wyrm would've had to kill me sooner or later, so I guess nothing much was lost.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Kasimir

[Alvron]

20 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Khas is my iconic (probably more so than Kaddar) character for this reason. I don't know if I would say most fun, because my memories of the game are badly swamped by the turning point on N4, but I really enjoyed the amount of scheming and plotting we were doing. And it's still my first SE game and my first Evil game, so the memory is strong. Partly as well because of his ties to Wurum, Wyrm's own iconic, I suppose.

I remember Edaan, yeah. Didn't know he died, but I definitely knew you didn't play him anymore.

We may have been butchered but before then we had a blast scheming, plotting and conspiring.  Infinite Shardplate, The Vanishing Spanreed and The Spanreed Incident were all fantastic to discuss.  Plus that game did lead to a wonderful friendship that is Kasyrm. Dying sucks but it never removes any enjoyment I get from these games.

Edaan didn't die.  He retired and is living out his life with Kiireon safely away from any drama.

[Kasimir he/him]

15 minutes ago, Alvron said:

Edaan didn't die.  He retired and is living out his life with Kiireon safely away from any drama.

Ah, good  Earned a happy ending.

Tbf, that's more or less Khas right now. Just followed Wurum out of the game and retired for good. Probably badgers Wurum every once in a while when he gets restless  

15 minutes ago, Alvron said:

We may have been butchered but before then we had a blast scheming, plotting and conspiring.  Infinite Shardplate, The Vanishing Spanreed and The Spanreed Incident were all fantastic to discuss.  Plus that game did lead to a wonderful friendship that is Kasyrm. Dying sucks but it never removes any enjoyment I get from these games.

Less the dying. The sudden pivot of an entire game that had been called for us within a single cycle. Still haunts me, I suppose. But that's not really RP-related, but yeah I'll agree we did have a blast scheming, plotting, and conspiring and Vanishing Spanreed was a stroke of genius

...For contractual reasons, I am required to note Village is still best alignment. You and Araris may be steeped in Evil but my soul is still Village and I will die a Villager >>

Kasyrm was more a product of MR1 IMO. Wyrm and I barely interacted in LG5. You could make the case that we wouldn't have talked so much in the darkeyes doc if not for LG5, but a lot of it was independent of that. Team Kasyrm though...

[Araris Valerian he/him]

On 11/6/2022 at 0:26 PM, Kasimir said:

I could ask this in a non-specific dead doc, but I kind of want to get input from more people than this.

RPers of SE unite! We only have our lives to lose!

Okay, but seriously: what determines whether you RP or not? Do you find yourself returning to a few persistent characters or do you go the permadeath route and retire a character for good if they die in a game? 

Am curious about your style as I know in the single-digit LG days, permadeath seemed more the rule than exception, but now it's all over the place.

I try to stick to permadeath where possible. I feel it makes me more invested in the characters, and getting to kill Duncan Kerr for good in LG73 was a great part of my SE experience, though admittedly I have no idea what to really do with Koren and Araris gave him a fantastic send-off anyway. I do have a couple of ascended/recurring characters that are very closely associated with me in the heads of long-term SE-ers (IDK, I'm guessing here!) that I probably wouldn't permadeath but I don't put them out in games anyway.

I guess I would also say it feels satisfying, almost as much as finding Elims, when you get to close out the arc of your character just so and finish it the way it should be done.

For that matter, which RP run are you proudest of?

I’d say the largest factors in whether I RP are the establishment of the setting by the GM and how much time I have. I think another factor is how much other people are doing it.

To elaborate, for example, the Shard LG games are somewhat abstract, and since they happen on multiple planets, doing RP requires a lot more effort to create a setting for my character to do stuff in. In contrast, games set in towns or villages provide a concrete environment to interact with, and one in which it’s easy to create an occupation or role for my character to fill.

When I started playing SE, I tended to reuse characters regardless of whether they died. I’ve made a few characters that I like the personality of and it doesn’t take much to have them show up again. I feel like it’s built into Tyrian that it’s caught in some kind of time loop, where the Koloss attack again and again, so it’s fun to run the same character multiple times there.

Nowadays, I think as a combination of my own confidence in my writing being a bit higher, and the community being a bit different, I tend to write new characters whenever I RP.

Aralis (specifically in AG 1) is easily my favorite character, and he’ll continue to pop up now and then whenever a game needs some grouchiness. But I feel like players being strongly associated with certain characters is a bit of a relic from the early days of SE and the prevalence of RP.

[Kasimir he/him]

8 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Aralis (specifically in AG 1) is easily my favorite character, and he’ll continue to pop up now and then whenever a game needs some grouchiness. But I feel like players being strongly associated with certain characters is a bit of a relic from the early days of SE and the prevalence of RP.

I feel there's some LG7 and Heirs bleedthrough for you: you tend to use Hadrian Penrod a lot for Scadrial settings, or a Penrod. But in all fairness, I use the Herons a lot because after RPing so much lore for them in Heirs, and with the powerful SE/Heirs demographic overlap, it feels very natural to cross the streams.

9 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I’d say the largest factors in whether I RP are the establishment of the setting by the GM and how much time I have. I think another factor is how much other people are doing it.

To elaborate, for example, the Shard LG games are somewhat abstract, and since they happen on multiple planets, doing RP requires a lot more effort to create a setting for my character to do stuff in. In contrast, games set in towns or villages provide a concrete environment to interact with, and one in which it’s easy to create an occupation or role for my character to fill.

Huh, surprising, but makes sense. Guess the more setting-heavy (as opposed to minimalistic) games would encourage this as well.

Feels like the implication here is a Shard game that spent time in establishing each world setting might make RP a bit easier. Maybe run it like a spy movie sort of different locale thing.

10 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

that I like the personality of

Grouchy Old Porch Dudes?  

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

I feel there's some LG7 and Heirs bleedthrough for you: you tend to use Hadrian Penrod a lot for Scadrial settings, or a Penrod.

Yeah, I’ve claimed House Penrod as my own largely due to those choices. They aren’t one of the great houses, which gives me some leeway with them, and makes it less likely to overlap with another person’s chosen house.

Of course, I am the heir to House Heron in at least one alternate reality as well .

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Araris Valerian said:

Of course, I am the heir to House Heron in at least one alternate reality as well .

Hello, brother.

I suppose I should stab you in the back sometime in good ol' Heron tradition then 

[Kasimir he/him]

Posted on the SE Discord in response to a question from @Shqueeves and a response from @Fifth Scholar but figured it was worth sharing in meta.

The disclaimer: I did this sleep-deprived, grouchy, and fighting a cold while waiting for my DL epochs to finish running. So this isn't as clean/good as I'd like it to be. Shqueeves asked about current Village win rates, but it's really difficult to offer an assessment of Village win rates without - as always - putting the data into context. So here we go.

Methodology

This dataset was culled from the SE dataset here. This is a crowd-sourced dataset maintained by the community, though I believe earlier years were primarily captured by @little wilson and @Elbereth, with the original ur-dataset having come from an off-the-cuff project by @Wyrmhero somewhere between the LG5/MR1/LG6 boundary.

Now, clearly to address Shqueeve's question, we need several things:

• A sense of how many games are run each year. If a year has fewer games, then even if the Village wins all the games that year (yeah, no, and that indicates something has gone very badly wrong!), we'll get the wrong impression that the Village is doing more poorly. This is not a good confusion to have.
   
• How many relevant (e.g. V/E, CON) games there are a year. Simply put, FFA and Faction* games are unlikely to have Village or Evil victories. As such, we should discard such data points as irrelevant to our question.
   
• % of Village wins: As suggested by the foregoing, having a % of Village wins makes a bit more sense. Raw numbers aren't helpful: we want them to be contextualised as a fraction/proportion of all relevant games. Making it a % makes it easier to display the results graphically.
   
• % of Evil wins: Sometimes, a game ends in a draw, or with a third party win. It is good to therefore also track % of Evil wins as a comparator, just for the sake of completeness.

While the number of relevant/eligible games fluctuates each year, it is well within range. As such, a % is not so likely to be wildly misleading.

Then, the SE dataset doesn't count years. As a result, I stipulated that a SE year is defined (with the reasonable exception of LG1) as the duration from the AG (or LG1) to the penultimate game of the year, i.e. the one right before the AG. Although the AG traditionally has sign-ups go up in late December, the bulk of AGs are typically played in January. As a result, I feel alright about taking the AG-pre-AG gap to be a SE year by definition.

Challenges

There are several problems when attempting to enrich this dataset:

• Inconsistency: While Wilson and El are probably the most consistent with applying the criteria for classifying a game as V/E, FAC, CON, EE, etcetera, it becomes very tricky when the criteria is being used by separate community members filling in the game. Simply put, it's important to note this is typical of a dataset that is being populated by multiple analysts at once. Having played some of the games in question personally, I have noticed V/E games misclassified as FAC games. In those cases, I have rectified the classification schema in my own enriched dataset. However:
   
• Size: The most number of games ever held in an SE year is 33. More often than not, there are at least 20 games. This isn't an especially small number, but it's not big either. This means inconsistencies in classification, i.e. dirty data, can really mess with the conclusions you want to draw.
   
• Missing Data: The years between AG5 to AG7 were particularly egregious in this regard, but AG4 also suffered from a number of incomplete classifications. As I was not very active in SE in this period and have been short on time, I brute-force imputed missing values in those years by assuming V or E wins indicated a game that is relevant to our interests. However, it is very possible that such games might (for structural reasons) be properly disregarded. 2019 was especially egregious with nearly 50% of classifications missing!
   
• Inactivity: As several SE players, including myself, have alluded to, SE has had periods of high inactivity alluded to as inactivity blights. During the Blights, some games have been declared a win or loss purely on the basis of the players who remained active. It is possible that inactivity blights might significantly skew the data within that period.

Data Visualisations

aka the actual stuff you're here for. Note that the 2022 data excludes QF64. I don't regard this to be a significant challenge as it is unlikely to significantly alter the overall %s for 2022.

Percentage of Village Wins:

In general, keeping in mind the caveat about 2017 to 2019 data, we can see that there has been minor fluctuations between 2014 and 2016. 2020 represents a very significant drop in Village win %s, which may as @Ashbringer and @Ooklil' the Wei suggest, be attributable to the COVID-driven influx of new SE players. If I have time subsequently, I can do a turnover visualisation on win proportions, but I have an exam tomorrow and this is a bit too much data preparation work for me now. I'll bring this up again later.

This matches with anecdotal perceptions: between 2020 to 2021, @Araris Valerian commented on the need for a mechanic that might help the Village out by offering them a single Elim flip. This was later implemented as the Dragon's Fang mechanic of MR57.

By 2022, the perception was that the Village was sufficiently holding its own, and Elim-side advantages may be required. It is worth noting that while we are currently on an upwards trend, the Village win % at the moment is 40.9% which is still not that great. The perception of the Village now being overly advantaged may be slightly inaccurate: in context, the Village is still underperforming.

Percentage of Elim Wins:

The perception that the Village is underperforming is confirmed here. In 2022, the Elims still outperform the Village. It is possible that this could be due to the prevalence of broken games (another factor to look at eventually) but by and large, it is clear there doesn't seem to be an especial 'Village advantage', but rather, Elim advantage is shrinking over time. Suggestions that games should be Village-skewed instead therefore seem premature.

Interestingly, Elim win %s remain generally stable between 2014 to 2017, with a somewhat dip in 2018, which is dwarfed on this chart by the immense jump between 2019 and 2020. The picture is beginning to stabilise by this point and we are arguably seeing a return to normal.

Comparing Elim Win % to Village Win %:

Part of the point is to do a comparative picture, and on a comparative, we can see something very interesting: between 2014-2016, Elim win % and Village win % were exactly equal. That is to say, the Village and the Elims performed equally well. I think we can consider that an overall positive: ideally, we want there to be such a community state as the Village and the Elims performing equally well, or having equal win %s. This suggests that there is, on the whole, some form of meta-balance state prevailing.

From 2017 onwards, we see divergence, with Elim performance remaining stable in 2017, but the Village vastly underperforming. This might be due to some corrupted data in that year, or the Village losing ground to third parties and other factions. Worth looking at, one way or another.

Overall semi-parity is achieved in 2018 (Village skew) and 2019, but the situation is not great either.

We have a significant divergence in 2020, with 2021 and 2022 representing slow/eventual convergence again, potentially as the community having absorbed new players begins to stabilise and develop a level of skill again.

That being said, I don't think it is possible to make a strong comment here: recall that nearly 50% of 2019 data was unlabelled! I do expect that even with that uncertainty resolved, we will see Elims outperforming the Village in 2020, but it might not be as drastic.

Avenues for Further Exploration:

• As indicated, we could try to look at the % of balanced V/E or CON games won. The difficulty with that is that we need a common enriched understanding of brokenness and overall balance. It is probably less problematic than I'm suggesting, but it will be an asterisk on any such analysis performed.
   
• We could superimpose the Elim/Village win % charts on new player influx per year. I do suspect we will see a spike in 2020 to match the Elim win spike, but it's good to actually refer back to the data to validate hypotheses.
   
• We could do something about player turnover: beyond new player influx, we have older players going inactive (e.g. on mission.) A turnover rate might better represent the changing community demographics and the impact on win rates.
   
• Inactivity can be compared to win rates, to see if there is any overall effect, particularly keeping in mind the inactivity blights. This would need further data enrichment.
   
• A problem with the theory that inexperience was a major factor in the 75-25 skew is that 2014 is a case study of a period in SE where by definition, everyone was a new player! A naive response or expectation is that an influx of new players distributes evenly: they may struggle with Village play but should also struggle with Evil play and thus be more catchable. While the opposite theory might be that it is easier for a new player to be Evil than Village, it's worth comparing 2014 and 2020 more closely to see what's going on, because 2014 defies this theory.

Enjoy data  

Edited December 15, 2022 by Kasimir

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

A problem with the theory that inexperience was a major factor in the 75-25 skew is that 2014 is a case study of a period in SE where by definition, everyone was a new player! A naive response or expectation is that an influx of new players distributes evenly: they may struggle with Village play but should also struggle with Evil play and thus be more catchable. While the opposite theory might be that it is easier for a new player to be Evil than Village, it's worth comparing 2014 and 2020 more closely to see what's going on, because 2014 defies this theory.

New players in 2014 were probably more active than new players in 2020. Inactivity favors elims.

[Kasimir he/him]

4 minutes ago, Ookla the Omniscient said:

New players in 2014 were probably more active than new players in 2020. Inactivity favors elims.

That's something that has to be checked, IMO. We did have inactivity in 2014 - made worse with fewer pinch-hitters and the fact games didn't always have filters. There's also the question of inactive new player Elims. There's a reason inactive Elim play used to be more rewarding too, strictly in terms of incentives. Arguably, though this is closer to 2015, AGs have been lost on inactivity, even.

Not saying this is wrong out of hand but that I think it's worth doing a deeper dive into those two years as a comparator anyway!  Sort of just see what the data says.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

5 hours ago, Kasimir said:

A problem with the theory that inexperience was a major factor in the 75-25 skew is that 2014 is a case study of a period in SE where by definition, everyone was a new player! A naive response or expectation is that an influx of new players distributes evenly: they may struggle with Village play but should also struggle with Evil play and thus be more catchable. While the opposite theory might be that it is easier for a new player to be Evil than Village, it's worth comparing 2014 and 2020 more closely to see what's going on, because 2014 defies this theory.

Well, I think new players are less likely to be placed on an elim team, but when they are, the new player buffer and general assumption of innocence gives them the edge. The same considerations when a new player is village would just seem like they are equivalent with a particularly obvious (cough, Kas, cough) village player.

[Illwei]

I'm gonna interrupt Kas's train of thought and move this here

I have a few parts to this but I'll try to stay concise.

@Ookla the Paragrapher @Araris Valerian

THE BENEFITS OF NIGHTS
I heavily disagree with the statements about no nights. if you want to play a MR then play or run an MR or QF, but nights give everyone time to accomplish things that shouldn't be done when the day is still happening.

Elims:
 - Strategizing on what to do the next day
 - Talk about who to kill that night

Villagers:
 - Taking a break from constantly posting, as posting during the night isn't as essential. Taking a day off from the game to have time irl for whatever reason.
 - Reading over thread and re-evaluating based on how the day played out (actions, voting, inconsistencies)

And for everyone it's time you can use to make better planned Night Actions based on how the day played out.

Nights exist as they do so that the game can be better informed. In a MR or QF? night actions, night kills- they're both made without the full info of what went down that day. not only that but if a large MR is running that is weeks of a game without any sort of a break for the people who survive. LGs simply aren't LGs anymore if you go that way.

ARCHER'S PROPOSED SOLUTION
"LG nights should be gone after the first Elim flip" is a bad fix for the problem of "people don't have enough time to play through a LG, because it's

1) a debuff to the Elims right when they don't need it- they lose one of their members, and then the consequence of that isn't just that they have one less member.
 - it's that their NKs now are less informed
 - they lose a whole day of strategizing time each cycle.

2) Nights give players time to take a break from posting or reading so much, and gives players with not as much time per day a chance to catch up on the previous day

3) Nights allow everyone to make more informed Night Actions and Plays during the game, which leads to an overall more enjoyable game

I also want to mention that even though you can run a test game, it won't show you the full effect until you can run like 20 and compare it.

ALTERNATIVES
I was thinking about this after LG91, when the GM asked publicly in thread if we wished to shorten the day.

Shortening Days
I think that LGs should allow a private vote every day after day 4 (in the GMPMs) where they can choose to vote to shorten cycles to 24/24 for the rest of the game.
Allowing this in thread can be bad, as it's outside of the game in a way and how you vote will show your alignment based on how the game has played out. (this has been okay in games so far because it's offered as an option when the game is basically won but needs to be played out, even though I think in some cases when the GM offers it and it isn't played out, which i have seen happen, it spews the last elim as an elim simply because the GM offers the option)

If your comeback to this is "isn't that an MR too" then I'd say no, and that you're simply saying that to be combative. the main point of an MR or a QF is that it's nightless, with very few being run as 24/24s.

This is my most direct alternative fix to archer's solution. It keeps the days while still shortening the total time played in the game.

Limit Nighttime Communication
Mostly what comes to mind is PMs. Keeping nights open for talking is a SE culture thing and I don't want to see that changed. What I do think however is that giving people a 2/1 on/off routine for a game allows them to get caught up irl after those 2 days of being stuck to their computers. adding more things on during the night cycle means that it's no longer a 2/1, but practically a 72 hour cycle. This leads to burnout in the game, and more days that they're going to have to be inactive in the future to make up for it.

This is a partial fix for burnout, and although it doesn't shorten the total time of the game, it does limit the amount of time players are expected to play per week.

Try Longer Cycles
I know this one might seem counter-intuitive, but assume you get the same amount of activity in a 72/24 that you get in a 48/24, then it gives people more time within the days where they don't need to be there. Instead of having to be present for 3 weeks in a row (for the longest living) it turns into you only need to be there between 2 and 3 days every 4 days. Yes, the total time of the game will be longer, but the time players have to spend in the game for it to function will be less per week.

This is a partial fix, and although it doesn't shorten the total time of the game, it does drastically limit the amount of time players are expected to play per week, meaning they can easily leave for 2 days in a row at any point and still be able to participate and not take away from the game as much as if it was a 48/24.

--

In the end it comes down to Information. The whole game is about information, and nights are a time for people to collect the information and make informed decisions that affect the next day, however that be done for them.

Nights make games more enjoyable long term, and if people have an issue with playing with them we always have MRs or QFs that they can play, faster games for those with less time, more activity all squished together for people who cant stand the slowness of nights, but also actions that happen during the day and without time to process them.

Changing a game that people like to fit the minority of people who go inactive isn't a good solution. if they are going inactive because of lack of interest, then that's on them to stop signing up for a game format that they don't like. If it's lack of time irl then my proposed solutions provide options we can look into without completely changing the LG format.

EDIT:

Spoiler

We could also always try a 36/12 :3

Edited December 15, 2022 by Ooklil' the Wei

[Archer he/him]

I'll start by saying I'm not married to this idea, but I do think it's a valuable vehicle to drive a discussion about SE player demographics with. 

Quote

In the end it comes down to Information. The whole game is about information, and nights are a time for people to collect the information and make informed decisions that affect the next day, however that be done for them.

For example, some players privilege types of information that are much more straightforward. Counterintuitively, more blood seems to be bled from the stone of vote analysis than gut reads, but in practice, both are used to justify very quick and stable votes. Xino's playstyle is a good example of this, and his success rate indicates it has enough merit he shouldn't be shunned for it. 

Quote

Changing a game that people like to fit the minority of people who go inactive isn't a good solution.

If you lump people who make quick, stable decisions in with those who go inactive due to disinterest, I think the number of people with low activity due to game design is larger than is acknowledged. This frustrates people who thrive on getting more information through discussion. Regardless of your impression of this as a better playstyle (the stats would probably agree with you), enough players don't play like this that it frustrates those who do. They're shouting into the void, essentially. 

Quote

we always have MRs or QFs that they can play

The expectation is that people will play differently in an LG, but I don't think the added time gets used efficiently. If you're going into it with the mindset that Nights downtime is built into the format for resting and refreshing, great. But if you expect people's output to increase proportionally to the extended length of cycles, it can be infuriating. I think we need to clarify what the expectation of activity is - eg. is a silent Night broadly acceptable? I haven't been operating under that assumption, which might be the problem here. 

Quote

I think that LGs should allow a private vote every day after day 4 (in the GMPMs) where they can choose to vote to shorten cycles to 24/24 for the rest of the game.

I considered this, but it's always the suboptimal decision to shorten the rounds as a villager. In theory, you're supposed to use the extra time to reconsider a million times. Why risk quickening the game when it lessens your time to have a game changing epiphany? Or reduces the information you might get from longer discussions. These rarely happen, but smart players should choose to maximize their in game resources, even if it's at the expense of their non tangibles, like enthusiasm. On paper, the right choice is always to ask for more time. 

Which brings me to the diminishing returns of added time. People's reads solidify as the game goes on, and their Night actions become more predictable. The elims have a better idea of who they need to kill, and the villagers with roles have a narrower list of suspects and have had more time to plan their strategy overall. I don't believe players need as much time between exes if the game becomes predictable.

Side note: This is mostly about games where some elims have flipped, leading to clear suspects and clear village clears. Hence why my suggestion triggers after an elim death. Games where the elims all survive have a much different dynamic. In elim dominated games, pressure builds as they dive towards parity. In village dominated games, pressure releases with every elim flip as the village win probability skyrockets. If it's 10v:1e, no one's on the edge of their seat, but the structure of the game doesn't allow them to hit fast forward on their votes to find the deepwolf. 

I agree that this wouldn't work for games with complex actions and fluid situations and that aligning the NK with the exe rollover is a big disadvantage. I also acknowledge that due to timezones, an elim could get screwed by a 12 hour rollover during their nighttime. So Nights need to be 24 hours to be accommodating. 

Quote

where they can choose to vote to shorten cycles to 24/24 for the rest of the game.

How do you feel about 24/24, but voting that occurs during the Night carries over into the Day? That'd probably be better framed as an MR with an action dump in the middle of the cycle. Either way, it introduces actual pressure during Nights to drive discussion.

It doesn't make sense to me that you're given the same amount of time to find an elim among 20 players as you are an elim among say four suspects with much more information. In the back half of a game, I don't need breaks as frequently, and believe that maintaining them at the same intervals leads to disengagement.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

40 minutes ago, Ookla the Paragrapher said:

I haven't been operating under that assumption, which might be the problem here. 

I have been assuming that there is no expectation of activity at night. I typically make few or even no posts in the night and refrain from doing analysis then.

42 minutes ago, Ookla the Paragrapher said:

Side note: This is mostly about games where some elims have flipped, leading to clear suspects and clear village clears. Hence why my suggestion triggers after an elim death. Games where the elims all survive have a much different dynamic. In elim dominated games, pressure builds as they dive towards parity. In village dominated games, pressure releases with every elim flip as the village win probability skyrockets. If it's 10v:1e, no one's on the edge of their seat, but the structure of the game doesn't allow them to hit fast forward on their votes to find the deepwolf. 

I guess I would say the recent game is a counterpoint; we flipped an elim and still had no idea what was going on. Then we flipped another, and still had no idea. I definitely would have been upset with shorter cycles.

My understanding of the LG format isn't that you do more work since you have more time. It's that you do (roughly) the same amount of work, spread it out a bit, and then have time for some RP and PMing. The LG, in my opinion, should be (and historically has been) the most casual game format.

[Illwei]

I'm only going to address one point of your post Archer, because you don't seem to be talking about the same things I am.

What I, personally, am talking about right now is that taking away nights changes the fact that it's a LG.

As Araris said, the expected effort put into each game by each person should be about the same, which is why you usually see a lot more real-timing and quick conversations in QF threads.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Paragrapher said:

Which brings me to the diminishing returns of added time. People's reads solidify as the game goes on, and their Night actions become more predictable. The elims have a better idea of who they need to kill, and the villagers with roles have a narrower list of suspects and have had more time to plan their strategy overall. I don't believe players need as much time between exes if the game becomes predictable.

I agree with the point here that you need less time between exes. This is why you see some sites who have majority hammer (if maj of people vote the same person after d1 day ends), and some sites day bumps down to 24 hours after day 4. both are solves to the problem of disengagement that have worked.

What you don't see is people taking away the nights. Because yes, time in between exes can be shortened as time goes on with less people alive. but taking away the nights isn't the answer.

Again, sure run a game like that, run a game with whatever setup you want to test things out, but it's not a solution for our inactivity.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Paragrapher said:

How do you feel about 24/24, but voting that occurs during the Night carries over into the Day? That'd probably be better framed as an MR with an action dump in the middle of the cycle. Either way, it introduces actual pressure during Nights to drive discussion.

Personally I wouldn't call this a night, especially because you're missing my point about the nights. They're not there to exist for discussion. Sure, you can talk in them, but they have always existed more as a purely social aspect of it. People drop reads and discuss the kill of course, but then they also do that in the day especially once we have the night kill. they're mostly there for the people to recoup and recover from the day and get ready to head into the next.

as for a 12 hour night cycle, I know most people here are dubious of it, but when it's planted at the right time it's doable, giving people either time to go about their day or sleep through the night depending. it's not my idea for fixing inactivity, but mostly an idea i'd like to try to see how it goes sometime. (same with wanting to run a 16/8 :P)

1 hour ago, Ookla the Paragrapher said:

It doesn't make sense to me that you're given the same amount of time to find an elim among 20 players as you are an elim among say four suspects with much more information. In the back half of a game, I don't need breaks as frequently, and believe that maintaining them at the same intervals leads to disengagement.

Which is exactly the point.

The part of it that you're missing is that we're not trying to create a solve for you specifically getting bored, we're trying to figure out how to limit the amount of inactives we get from things we can control while keeping the formats as they are.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Ooklil' the Wei

[Exotic Almond he/him]

How does someone join a game of Sanderson Elimination?

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

6 minutes ago, ExoticAlmond said:

How does someone join a game of Sanderson Elimination?

^^ This is the current sign-ups for the game that is going to start on saturday. You just say that you're signing up and you can sign up with an RP character which isn't required but it does make it a lot more fun and then the GM can give you a better death if you die