Classic Game Mode -- Ruleset Creation

[nkmlombardi]

I'd like to enumerate the rules regarding the vanilla gametype that we'll run beta tests with on whatever we develop (IRC Bot, Ionic App, etc). Reply with suggested amendments to the rule set.

Player Count: 10 players Round Length: Remaining players * 10 seconds Voting: Open for entire round duration, view-able to all players. Players cannot see who voted for who, but can see how many votes another player has. Player votes default to themselves forcing them to vote for someone else. Naming: Players are given a randomly picked name from an array of colors (Red, Blue, Green, Cyan, etc) Tiebreakers: All players who tie for highest votes lose, if all players in the game tie for highest votes, then all those players win and split the jackpot. Chat Channels: Public & Private Private Chat Limitations: Players can send ((players remaining / 2) rounded up) private messages per round. Sender can send one message at a time to only one recipient, at a time. Sender cannot send one message to two recipients at the same time. Public Chat Limitations: None Round Intermission Length: 10 Seconds

Updated with latest suggestions -- Thursday 8:33 PM

Reasoning

• 10 Players seems like a nice place to start, and will be manageable for beta tests.
• All timing choices (timeout, intermission) just seemed like decent values to start with.
• Making voting available throughout the round might add suspense and be a nice element. It also removes worrying about locking and unlocking the voting module throughout the game. Instead a new voting object can be created at the beginning of each round.
• I think it's best to assign users colors as usernames in the MVP so we don't have to deal with name conflicts, or deal with taking username input at the beginning of rounds (further simplifying the MVP).

[Suhmedoh]

I think 5 minutes is too long; the game will require people to be on their phone basically the entire time, and having 5 minute rounds adds up if only 1 gets eliminated each round, you're looking at 40 minutes someone would need to dedicate on a MOBILE PHONE, not a pc; most pc players would t care because if they're at their pc they probably aren't going anywhere, but your be hard pressed to find 10 people willing to stare at the app on their phone for 40 minutes straight, especially if we don't log chat. You have to think about user battery life too, and what happens if someone misses a vote. You could set it to auto vote for yourself, then the user would be forced to change it to someone else or get eliminated.

Having all players tie and win encourages everyone to tie and come out ahead as far as getting goes, there will always be a point in the game where it's in everyone's best interest to try to tie, although I guess there's also the risk that someone will screw that up so it's not a huge deal;

Intermission seems unnecessary, just 30 seconds of no talking? What's the point? Of you can talk, then just make it part of the next round.

Rather than limited how many messages you can send at once, limit the total amount of private messages you can send per round, so you have the make them count, and when you run out you can only use public chat.

[nkmlombardi]

I agree with most points made. And also like the idea of round lengths dependent on amount of players remaining. Self voting seems like an incentive to participate and not afk.

Round Length = remaining players * 10 seconds Default = vote for self Intermission = 10 seconds, because rounds are now dependent on remaining players, there should be a slight breather in between rounds regardless of round length to let the events of last round settle in. I don't want the game being too fast paced, otherwise the luck aspect overtakes the skill aspect. Gotta give players time to maneuver. Private Message Limit = I like the idea of limited messages, and I think it should be dependent on amount of players in the game. Something like you can send ((players remaining / 2) rounded up) private messages. That way if there are three people left in the game, you can send one message to each player.

[kmanc]

I like the idea of being able to see voting to a point, but it might be interesting to hide the vote counts for the last 5-10 seconds of any given round. I send private message to Nick saying "look I'm gonna vote for Josh". Nick sees Josh's number increase and assumes it was me. But then the votes disappear and I can change my vote without looking suspicious.

[nkmlombardi]

That's an interesting idea but let's wait to see how the current vote publicity works. We can't really simulate this concept in tonight's test.

[Suhmedoh]

I was thinking about it on the car ride to class today, and I think having votes carry over rounds would involve more strategy, especially if we go for a token based voting/ message system.

For example, round 1 there's 10 people, 2 there's 9, etc. So at round 9 there are 2 people left. If we give each player one token per round and allow people to abstain from voting, it give the dynamic of trying to manipulate people to vote others off for you; so if you wait till the 5th round to start voting, you'll have 5 votes to slam someone with, but by not voting or talking, you might make yourself a target and get picked off early before you can do anything; we could give one token for a vote and one for a on in a round, you could save your tokens first round, then on two people second round to try and team up, etc.

I'll try to talk it out with you guys later or this weekend to work out more kinks

[nkmlombardi]

Having a system like that would allow for the game to result in one winner, so I like that part. But it might reward abstaining from voting too much.

Would definitely reward convincing other people to do your bidding, or telling people you'll vote for someone then not voting for them.

[Suhmedoh]

If we did it with unlimited private or public messages, then you can risk abstaining, but just people one person tells you to vote a certain way doesn't mean you will; in fact for the entire first half the people who spend their votes control everyone's fate, it's only advantageous to save your votes to vote the last person off when it's 1v1. It could be possible to get the the final round and win with only 1 extra vote.

Basically, if you save everyvote and somehow make it to final 2, you will win, because that means the other person with you spent at least 1 vote on the 3rd person to get the kicked out, and that person abstained from voting. I think this way will involve a lot more strategy than the current inplementation, allow a single winner, and give players the chance to control their fates; they can risk abstaining to have a better shit of winning in the final around, or they can strategically use their votes to get out the other powerful players saving their votes, so the last few people might only have 1 or 2 votes each.

[kmanc]

Ok so I like that idea of vote tokens, but here are some thoughts

• What if nobody votes in a round? Does it work like The Circle and merc a random person?
• What if the payoff was a top 3 model? Would that make people save votes less (if I can just get to the top 3, I'll make money)
• Is there a way to earn votes? That could be an interesting (though likely complicated) mechanic. For instance, if you use the most votes to "kill" the person who ends up getting knocked out, you get their remaining votes. This is kinda like cards in Risk. Then the question becomes would you be allowed to see how many votes each person has? You could tell who is vote stacking and who is using them.
• Is there a need to have unlimited private chat? I still kinda like the idea of using words wisely, though I'm not sure if that adds any value
• Allowing a no-vote probably increases the chance for ties the way I see it...how are these gonna be handled? If all tied parties lose, the games might go awfully quick and feel less strategic

[nkmlombardi]

Your ideas gave me an idea (not to discredit yours, more to build off of them).

What if we copy what like FanDuel does where you just have to come in the top 50% of the players to win money, with first place winning the most, and the person who breaks 50% gets their money. This alongside the tokens that carry over would create a correlation between spending a lot of tokens to break the 50% for get your money back, and saving tokens (playing more risky) to win the jackpot.

This could be the classic mode, with a more hardcore mode being top 3, or top 5, or top 25% of whatever the game size is.

Example Token Based -- Top Half Win 4 Tokens per round Private Message - 1 Token Vote - 2 Tokens

Tokens carry over to the next round. Example game has 10 players, that's 9 rounds, 36 Tokens (9 * 4).

If you last until the top 5 without spending any tokens, that's 18 Tokens accumulated, and a potential 9 votes. If you send a private message every round, you'll have

Example Game

Players: 10
Rounds: 10
Tokens per Round: 4

Round 10 - (0) + 4 Tokens [10 Players]
Send a private message

Round 9 - (3) + 4 Tokens [9 Players]
Send a private message

Round 8 - (6) + 4 Tokens [8 Players]
Send a private message

Round 7 - (9) + 4 Tokens [7 Players]
Send a private message

Round 6 - (12) + 4 Tokens [6 Players]
Send a private message

Round 5 - (15) + 4 Tokens [5 Players]
---
At this point if you didn't send any messages: 20 Tokens saved
1 Message per round: 15 Tokens saved
1 Vote per round: 10 Tokens saved
1 Vote & 1 Message: 5 Tokens saved
---

[marcaddeo]

Maybe make opening a private conversation with someone cost 1 token, not every message.

Then at the end of each round, your messages are closed.

[nkmlombardi]

Yeah that makes more sense, or once the connection is open they get like 5 or 10 messages between them

[kmanc]

I gotta say I like this direction. Definitely adds a couple of elements of strategy/replayability

[kmanc]

Might be interesting to do a "pay two tokens, see token values for other players" type deal. If I suspect that Nick is hoarding I could spend some tokens to see. Then I could tell people what I saw (or what I claimed to have seen). If Josh doesn't believe me, he could pay up to verify, or he could just message Marc and say "he's lying let's vote for him".

Endless possiblities