BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Helpline => Topic started by: Peri on May 09, 2011, 09:58:02 PM
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If I may object a little on the project, that I think it's great and deserves praise, I would stress that it should be strictly moderated.
As far as my game experience goes, battlemaster has always been deliberately bad at informing people what button does and similar things. I thought Tom rejected more than one feature request because he likes the troubles that experiencing things can create, and I believe it's a great feature of the game.
A very thorough and comprehensive tutorial on almost all the portion of the game would have the double effect of 1) cutting down the mistakes done by people trying the new stuff. I am aware it's VERY annoying when it happens, but it makes the game more interesting. 2) It cuts down interaction between players. If the Marshal or the new Lord as soon as he gets the position reads the potentially huge post that is on the forum, he will lose all the interesting interactions with the General or Duke (for instance) that teach him the ropes of the new position. And yes, of course one can do both, but I don't think anyone would lose much if a "guide on how to be a lord" would be absent. That's what duke rulers and mentors are there for.
On the other hand the huge amount of unknown options can discourage new players, and some kind of good tutorial is needed.
My personal conclusion is that it should be very welcome a tutorial that covers aspects of a newcomer's turns, such as the one about gaining influence, but that very advanced tutorials should be either very vague or at most exploring scarcely the various options. Something too complete would cut down interactions too much, and that's a true pity for this game.
Just a trivial example to clarify (sorry vessol for using your food tutorial again, but it's just the only one present now): a Lord gets appointed by a duke because of his loyalty and, perhaps, naiveness. I have personally more than once rewarded newcomers that proved to be devout and a bit clueless over long standing and reliable people, as youngsters can be shaped exactly in the way you want to. He puts his hands on this mysterious entity called food, and asks the duke or the banker informations about it. They can lie to him as much as they want, as he sees just a tiny bit of the huge trade network going on around him. Fair? certainly not. But I think it's nice and fun, and pushes people to mentor if you allow them to explain the things how they want them to seem. With a tutorial about food such as the one made by Vessol with 2 clicks the guy would know the duke is fooling him. It's ooc, but he would need very little time to ask the right questions and get the right answers IC, driven by ooc knowledge, and wipe out all the interest of the duke in training him.
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Personally, I'd rather have more players that know the tricks of the game.
When I play a boardgame, I get no enjoyment from exploiting the new guy's lack of knowledge. I think of the game Diplomacy, which I love. Playing with new people is fun because of their excitement, but lame because I always win, and I win, not because I'm smarter, but because I've played it so much I know the best moves, and I can calculate supports, moves, support cuts, convoys, etc in my head. New people who are less experienced and don't know the rules can't do so, and they lose.
But when I play with a group of experienced players, it's more fun. We don't have to re-explain every rule, we don't have disputes about fairness and unknown rules, and it's more up-in-the-air about who will win.
BM, obviously, has no winner, so it's a bit different, but the point still stands. I would rather play with people who know what they're doing.
And when that new player doesn't send food even after I've tried explaining it, and finally I get the judge to fine/ban him, and he complains about "Oh, there was this one thing I didn't understand," it simultaneously makes me feel like a jerk and takes away his fun.
This way, I've written a guide so that the learning curve is reduced. Higher-level play involving food politics is much more accessible to new players. I'd rather appoint a new player as lord and have him immediately negotiating competitively than boringly set up an automatic transfer. More chances for RP.
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Okay, so, what would people like to see? Requests make it easier, as directed thinking is always easier for me than global thinking :D
Being an Elder of a Religion/Guild?
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Ok perhaps I put it a bit to much as if I was an evil mastermind that leads and army of brainless minions. What I really think would ruin the game is the lack of interaction. And asking is a great way to create interaction. And one of the best achievement of the game is, in my opinion, have someone friendly and loyal to one of your chars because you taught him everything. From how to move to how to sell food. The necessary condition for this to be realized is the lack of information on the student's side.
But when I play with a group of experienced players, it's more fun. We don't have to re-explain every rule, we don't have disputes about fairness and unknown rules, and it's more up-in-the-air about who will win.
BM, obviously, has no winner, so it's a bit different, but the point still stands. I would rather play with people who know what they're doing.
You have those already. Your enemies, other dukes etc. Information is power, and that's just one more thing to keep in mind. Dukes who spend much time teaching and involving lesser nobles gain an advantage over other dukes, regardless of the number the game gives them under the form of gold or food.
And when that new player doesn't send food even after I've tried explaining it, and finally I get the judge to fine/ban him, and he complains about "Oh, there was this one thing I didn't understand," it simultaneously makes me feel like a jerk and takes away his fun.
This example is a bit extremal. He could have asked, and if he's a newcomer one can always make an ooc exception and revoke a ban for the sake of good play.
This way, I've written a guide so that the learning curve is reduced. Higher-level play involving food politics is much more accessible to new players. I'd rather appoint a new player as lord and have him immediately negotiating competitively than boringly set up an automatic transfer. More chances for RP.
Your char is free to teach them how to negotiate competitively if that's what you wish. Someone else may prefer a more cohese realm to achieve greater things. Let's face it: a realm with everyone that knows everything is doomed to fail. The steep learning curve of bm justifies the imposing hierarchy it has. One noble is usually a noble not just because he is the last to have joined the game, but also because of the knowledge he lacks. That gives an IC justification to the ooc possible frustration coming from the less fun one lower class noble has.
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I'm tired of seeing people fail because they don't know things that their characters would know. I'm tired of seeing established players having a huge edge because of all the little quirks in the game that don't make sense or aren't stated.
Our characters would have advisors that could tell them things. Our characters would have families and tutors that could and would teach them.
I really don't think this is going to reduce interactions. I think this is going to reduce misinformation, increase understanding of game mechanics, and provide a more level playing field. I want to win wars because I am more politically savvy and better at organizing my realm, not because the other side doesn't know the quirks of the diplomacy system as well as I do, and not because the ally trying to stab me in the back didn't know he could only lower relations once per day.
Rob (Indirik) is trying to get a Newbie Corner set up to handle the basics and tutorials, but I want the Advanced Mentoring to handle all the things that nobles would be educated about, all the intricate tutoring that we don't have the time or inclination to simulate any other way.
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Advanced Mentoring should be advanced, otherwise why would any mildly established players (> a few months) read them? They can use the in game mentoring or simply helpline to ask specific questions, or the Newbie Corner that Rob's setting up.
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I'm tired of seeing people fail because they don't know things that their characters would know. I'm tired of seeing established players having a huge edge because of all the little quirks in the game that don't make sense or aren't stated.
Ask ask ask! Someone thinks that clicking a nice button without asking what it does is smart? Then face the consequences! Seriously, I don't understand why one would defend people attempting to click random buttons without even trying to get to know what they do.
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Ask ask ask! Someone thinks that clicking a nice button without asking what it does is smart? Then face the consequences! Seriously, I don't understand why one would defend people attempting to click random buttons without even trying to get to know what they do.
No one does, and if you think that's what we're talking about, please reread because you're missing the point entirely.
Did you know that secessions cause riots and fighting because of the culture clash between the new realm and the old? Do you know that you can hold court and draft recruits in the same turn, but only if you do it in the correct order? Do you know that colonies start their diplomacy neutral to everyone so you have to make sure your troops are all on defensive or make sure both Rulers sign a peace treaty before the next turn after it succeeds? Do you know that if you make a Stronghold your capital it gets a bank? Do you know to what percentage of damage you can repair your equipment in a Stronghold? How about a Townsland?
These are all things that are so game-mechanic-y as to be pretty much completely OOC or are things our characters would know but the game doesn't tell you the information beforehand. I don't want to win a war because Matthew has played the game since '06 and obsessively checked the wiki and IRC and such and knows all these little bits and quirks and the Ruler of an opposing realm doesn't. I want to win because Jenred or Malcolm or Koli or whomever is a conniving bastard IC. You say "Ask ask ask", I say "How the hell would you know to ask in the first place, who would you ask, and how would you trust that they knew what they were talking about?"
The whole point of these threads is to provide information such that someone can go "Hm, what crazy little things are there about being a General, or what about founding a new realm?" and find out without having to have OOC contacts with lots of game experience.
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Wait, I think we should distinguish a bit.
First of all I do not really believe you can actually claim that knowing technicalities such as how much you can repair in a stronghold let you win a war. Come on. And anyway, I would not oppose a tutorial that explains or lists such details. I just think this mentoring shouldn't be exactly totally exhaustive and too deep.
As I had replied in the first tutorial by Vellos, if someone writes down how the game uses the food, then maybe the formulae to understand how much the harvests are reduced during the seasons and list the speed and incidents happening to caravans, explain how the offers work, then that would be quite ok. Those are kind of informations one newcomer could understand quickly just by trying a bit and wouldn't really hurt anyone listing them somewhere.
What is not ok, in my opinion, is giving a huge explanation of all the complicate aspects of a position's activities and advanced tactics, because that's the kind of things one can learn from the game. I am perfectly aware that it sucks that the fresh 19 years old general played by someone playing bm since 5 years is insanely more experienced than the 30 years old veteran played by someone who created the account since an year, but I doubt very much you would wash away this with a written tutorial so much. Furthermore, it pushes realms to take in consideration training. In several realms I've been into periods of relative peace or easy war were exploited to assign armies to promising but inexperienced marshals to train them, whereas when it's really important to win perhaps an old retired marshal would take command to avoid the catastrophe. I think gives more deepness to the game.
Just to give a concrete example different from food: writing something such as "dig in requires x hours, where x depends on the size of your men. you can't dig in in vanguard settings. if you are not defending, dig in is useless. dig in is cancelled after a battle, but not a skirmish. units dug in behave in a weird way,if they are not defensive they will leave the camp fortifications very soon in the battle" is fine. Writing "never dig in your men cause often ends up splitting your lines and delivering you defeat" is not ok. That's something you learn with experience and there will certainly be more experienced nobles in your army that will perhaps point it out once you order the dig in, or you may ask the general first if it's a good idea. You can even understand that thinking about it a bit without the need of a tutorial. Things such as military councils work exactly in that way: unexperienced marshals propose orders and ask for input from more experienced people, that commend and provide insight. After a couple months like that he knows more or less everything he could know from the tutorial, but without skipping the interaction part.
Involving newcomers, training them and building a bulk of reliable people that know what they are doing are all, in my opinion, relevant parts of running a realm - running a duchy - running an army. If a realm/duchy/army lacks experienced people because it did not run any kind of proper training program then it's an ic lack that rightfully leads to defeat. It's more complicate than just saying "you won a war because your general plays since longer than mine".
edit: you said a perfect sentence. If you plan on giving people a list of facts on what their chars are likely supposed to know but don't because they game doesn't have a good built in help page, then we definitely agree. But for that reason I believe these tutorials should be moderated and kept essential to explain JUST that. Of course I'm not saying every post giving strategies on the forum should be censored, by the hell no. But if we want some "authorized - sticked - underlined" tutorials, those should be a bit essential. It would make them way more readable than huge essays on how that time general x defeated general y with misdirections.
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I think that having such a steep learning curve discourages new players. I think that it would be perfectly reasonable to seek guidance in game but this does not always pan out. Most importantly, as I understand it, BattleMaster is intended to be a game in which the guy who spends 20 minutes a day playing is not extremely disadvantaged when competing against a guy who spends 8 hours a day logged in, pouring over the wkik, searching through archived mailing lists, lurking in IRC and so on. It is meant to be a light game that one can succeed at with just a few minutes a turn.
Asking a new player to wait three years before he has finally amassed the knowledge necessary to do something cool is not motivating. Asking a new player to depend upon the support other players with selfish motives to learn stuff their in game character should already know is demotivating. Especially since all of these long standing players are usually pretty busy maneuvering their five characters and spare little time communicating the nuances of the game to a new player who may never stick around.
While I love the depth and layers provided in BattleMaster it can be a huge turn off for new players. When a new player looks through family records and sees that it took years before most players finally managed to secure that one position the new player really wanted, it would make anyone wonder if they really wanted to put around that long. Anything that makes the game more engaging for new players is a great thing in my opinion.
These guides are awesome. Keep them coming!
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I think that having such a steep learning curve discourages new players. I think that it would be perfectly reasonable to seek guidance in game but this does not always pan out. Most importantly, as I understand it, BattleMaster is intended to be a game in which the guy who spends 20 minutes a day playing is not extremely disadvantaged when competing against a guy who spends 8 hours a day logged in, pouring over the wkik, searching through archived mailing lists, lurking in IRC and so on. It is meant to be a light game that one can succeed at with just a few minutes a turn.
It is intended that someone can play the game, and enjoy it as a guy who follows orders and maybe eventually gets a minor lordship, in 20 minutes/day.
It is not expected that you can learn to be an expert at the game in 20 minutes/day, nor that you can get to be actively running realms or making huge complex plans.
If you want to get more out of it, you have to put more into it.
(Note: if this sub-discussion is to be continued, it should be broken out into a separate thread.)
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Sorry but I fail to see how "guide on how to be duke" or "guide on how to be ruler" qualifies as to helping newcomers.
I am totally for helping newcomers, as ooc as possible if necessary, but someone that is a general or a banker wouldn't qualify for the "newcomer" adjective anymore. Just Marshals and Lords can still be somewhat useful for those who joined the game since little time.
Furthermore, the position-specific guides as they have been made up to now are meant for people that are already in some position, I don't understand how knowing how being general works would help you becoming general more early. Yes perhaps you can say one thing or two that shows knowledge of the military affairs, but is that really what people looks at when picking a new general?
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Funny. I swore that I read somewhere when signing up on how Tom once ran a country on a few minutes a day and this was presented as a "This game is cool because you can do so much while having a real life" advertisement. I think I will seek that out now. If BattleMaster is meant to be as Anaris describes then please say so clearly and up front so new players know what they are getting themselves into. As it stands most people coming into the game are likely to have what, from your responses indicate, a very wrong impression of how much time they will have to dedicate to the game to accomplish something beyond blindly following orders...
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Sorry but I fail to see how "guide on how to be duke" or "guide on how to be ruler" qualifies as to helping newcomers.
There are a LOT of people in those positions, or trying to gain those positions, who haven't been in the game as long as us.
You're a "newcomer" to me, Peri, and so's Bedwyr.
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Funny. I swore that I read somewhere when signing up on how Tom once ran a country on a few minutes a day and this was presented as a "This game is cool because you can do so much while having a real life" advertisement. I think I will seek that out now. If BattleMaster is meant to be as Anaris describes then please say so clearly and up front so new players know what they are getting themselves into. As it stands most people coming into the game are likely to have what, from your responses indicate, a very wrong impression of how much time they will have to dedicate to the game to accomplish something beyond blindly following orders...
First of all, when Tom did that, it was about 9 years ago. The game was different back then; I don't even know offhand what all the differences are, because a lot of them are cultural, not in the code. Could he do the same now? I don't know. Maybe he's just smarter than me (he did build this game mostly by himself, after all!). Or maybe he'd find that it doesn't work that way anymore.
Second of all, yes, it is possible to be a successful ruler in a few minutes a day. I've done it myself for significant stretches of time.
However, there are problems with it.
- It's hard to remain ruler if you're not following up on lots of things, and making sure people see how effective you are (especially in a Republic or Democracy).
- If you're not putting in the time to make the big plans and communicate them to the realm, someone else has to be doing so.
- Closely related to #1, it's hard to become a ruler if you're just logging in once a day for 20 minutes or so.
So basically, someone's got to keep the people in the realm moving in the right direction, and if it's not you, you're likely to be replaced by the person who it is.
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There are a LOT of people in those positions, or trying to gain those positions, who haven't been in the game as long as us.
You're a "newcomer" to me, Peri, and so's Bedwyr.
I really doubt there are so many people running for said positions that are considered newcomers whose retention depends on the steep learning curve. We can call them in another way, let's say "insecure newcomers", but I hope you see my point beyond the definition.
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"BattleMaster is a light-weight game that can be played alongside your other activities. Although you can delve deeply into it and spend more time on it, about 15 minutes per day are enough for regular play, and 5 will do if you are in a hurry."
"In BattleMaster, we made that first inalienable right for a very good reason. The game is designed so that constant activity is not a requirement and the amount of good it does to be online all the time, or always right there at the turn or even every day is not as big as lots of people make it. In fact, Tom himself has successfully played in almost every position in the game, including as ruler, with days and weekends in between where he didn't log in at all, and many days with just one login of a few minutes. "
I guess that I misunderstood all of this. I am cool with the game as is. I love this game in fact. I simply feel we should either be helping new players to overcome the learning curve, adjusting a new players initial expectations, or dealing with a lot of disappointed new players that leave due to frustration.
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I guess that we may have differing opinions. When I joined BattleMaster I was thinking, "Cool. Lightwieght game. DO not have to be over run by obsessed people with no jobs. I could even be abaron or a General. 15 minutes a day for normal play? This is awesome"
I was NOT thinking, "Cool. 15 minutes a day for normal play. Foll0wing order blindly? I am so in on this!"
I can not imagine that my thoughts were so far off from most casual gamers trying BattleMaster out specifically because it is advertised as a casual game...
I think I am reaching a point where I am simply being defensive and not very helpful though. Sorry about that!
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It is nearly impossible to design a game such that those with more time to devote to it gain no benefit over those who do.
Unless, that is, you enjoy playing ProgressQuest (http://progressquest.com/).
BattleMaster is designed so that you can enjoy it while putting in very little time. Human nature being what it is, people who talk more (subject to the caveats I mentioned in the "how to gain influence" section) will get thought of more highly. That means they will get more positions.
There is nothing we, or anyone, can do about that.
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I am with you. I guess that the point I was and am trying to make is that anything that helps make the game more enjoyable for new and growing players is a good thing in my eyes.
A lot of the stuff the Vellos has written about in his Trade thread are things that, in my opinion, a character born to a noble family would know and think of. Granting the player this information is a good thing in my eyes. Reading that thread has opened my eyes to all kinds of possibilities. Things I want to explore and do. It has better armed me. It has, however, done nothing to make me good at it. I am certain that if I attempted to use any of those tactics against Vellos or other experienced players I would suffer for it.
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I guess that we may have differing opinions. When I joined BattleMaster I was thinking, "Cool. Lightwieght game. DO not have to be over run by obsessed people with no jobs. I could even be abaron or a General. 15 minutes a day for normal play? This is awesome"
I was NOT thinking, "Cool. 15 minutes a day for normal play. Foll0wing order blindly? I am so in on this!"
I can not imagine that my thoughts were so far off from most casual gamers trying BattleMaster out specifically because it is advertised as a casual game...
This.
During the school year, I log about 20-40 minutes a day. On weekends probably a bit more. Every few weeks I'll put in a longer session of a few hours, but that's kind of just dependent on how homework and my primary social life look for scheduling.
I really doubt there are so many people running for said positions that are considered newcomers whose retention depends on the steep learning curve. We can call them in another way, let's say "insecure newcomers", but I hope you see my point beyond the definition.
Peri, I do not want to be offensive, or to sound like I am trying to insult you in any way. That is not my intention at all. However, what I am about to say I cannot think of a way to say without being rather confrontational and potentially offensive about it. For that, I apologize.
You seem bent on the idea that you don't want other players to know advanced strategies. They should learn "by experience," which presumably means currying favor with older players: not older characters, mind you, older players. My experience with BM has taught me that we are a criminally nepotistic bunch without strong character/player distinctions when it comes to awarding positions.
As such, because even very good BM players struggle to distinguish between players and characters, we need to make the playing field more level for players so that their characters can distinguish themselves based on the merit of the character rather than of the player.
As I hear it, you are arguing that your superior skill as a player actually ought to affect the game. The fact that older players such as Tim, you, myself, or many others are more skilled players, you seem to be saying as I hear it, should realize itself in their characters doing better.
And to that, I say, bull!@#$. I want to rob older players of their advantage and redistribute it to newer players. There's no reason a newer player should have to ask another player how these things work. They should be able to look it up. We're offering strategies we have used historically: there are other strategies out there. Since posting my article on trade, I've thought of several major strategies I could have included that I did not.
My position is that, though this is idealistic and ultimately unattainable, the skill of the player should not matter. It is the performance of the character that actually ought to matter. This is obviously not attainable, but we can still do things reasonably within our power to lower learning curves. This is one way that "less skilled" players can be supplied some skills so that their characters can more reasonably compete with the characters of more experienced players.
Again, I'm sorry if that came across as hostile. That is not my intention. I just wanted to clearly phrase what I see as a major distinction and my own personal reasoning behind the articles I'll be writing.
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Peri, I do not want to be offensive, or to sound like I am trying to insult you in any way. That is not my intention at all. However, what I am about to say I cannot think of a way to say without being rather confrontational and potentially offensive about it. For that, I apologize.
Don't worry. If things remain polite I have no problem to discuss a bit. I really failed to see my point awkwardly if you come up with such an answer, especially since I really share the ideas you have. At this point can't do much else than bring up my game experience in the hope you can understand what I want to say more than I can really explain.
This would have likely been my "better achievement in bm" if I had answered that thread (or whatever was the title). I have the firm belief, ic and ooc, that every char should be a mentor for those below him in hierarchy: marshal for those in his army, lord for knights, duke for everyone in his duchy and government members for everyone that needed an answer. I always tried to play all my "main" chars with this philosophy as far as time allowed me to. One of them had the mentor class but not all as I tried to play other subclasses as well. Now, this mentor-approach gave me a lot of occasion to discuss with students (not only proper ones, also just people asking let me call them generally students) and teach them things. Clearly one can teach them a lot of strictly IC things such as history and politics of the realm etc. But the real achievement comes from teaching them game mechanics.
With teaching game mechanics I do not intend just the ropes, but really becoming like a constant figure whom to ask whenever needed, through their entire career. It happened me at least a couple of times to run in this way into characters (but I should perhaps say players) with the right mix of commitment, curiosity and humility as to really ask a LOT of things, again mainly mechanics but still in a good-rp way and to see them grow experienced in time. My chars opened basically every door they could to these characters, and I can state they had a remarkably quicker ascension to important places of power as compared to the average. To summarize, through mentor interaction my chars built very tight IC bonds with several people around them, and in some particular cases the student's behaviour really influenced the beginning of their game. A bit egocentrically I would say it might have even helped them in the decision whether to spend time on bm or not.
As you can see the necessary condition for this to take place is the ignorance of the character that seeks my counsel. As I said one can certainly ask to his superiors strictly IC things, but you won't be as attached to anyone else than your first real mentor that told you how the game works. I have a firm belief that this is a great game experience for both parties involved and, if you allow the term, also some kind of strategy. Many people are concerned about loyalty of their subjects: if you're the one that has an answer for everyone that's an outstanding way to gain their trust.
Ok now let's try to comment this thing from an ooc point of view. First: this is all very nice, but holds just for the very first char. In fact these teachings are basically aimed to the player: his next chars will likely no longer be asking explanations around, so it's a one shot opportunity and depends completely on how long has the player been playing. Second, as I've said, finding nice and interested students whose game experience is considerably improved by their mentor in return of their interest is absolutely (as far as I've seen) the exception and not the average. I also really have the feeling this helps in creating the right attitude in players: if they had as starting game experience a deep interaction with some of his superiors, I hope they will be just as available in the future to grow up the new generations. And if you allow me a bit of a detour, again attitude is everything for my chars. You can say what you want but in my opinion if you're arrogant in this game you'll have a hard time getting anywhere.
All these things are unlikely completely destroyed by posting some advanced tutorials for sure, but I am afraid they may be diminished, as more people will gather informations from the wiki and the forum rather than ask, and diminish the already very thin mentor-student (again, in a generalized sense) interaction between players.
Speaking now about your arguments, however, I find them quite convincing. I truly agree that - to use your words- we are a criminally nepotistic bunch, and that generalized knowledge is likely to help in the direction of broadening the influence sphere to include more players than the usual ones, making everything potentially more challenging and fun. I still believe one has the in game tools to do so, but it's a matter of numbers. You are likely going to reach many more people with the tutorials than mentors will lose students because of it. However, what I really don't like, is the potential change in attitude that having almost the entire game under your eyes in tutorials can create: there is nothing that I can think of worse than starting to build a legion of self-learned full-of-themselves average players, who are likely not bothering being kind to their neighbour as they can just point him to the forum. And so I ask, if the aim of bm is not winning, is an unexperienced general that gives a good game experience to those around him better or worse to have than a general that knows way more things through the forum but does not really care about those around him? The cut is not clear, the mere reading of a tutorial will not turn you into a bear, but it's just a slow decay of interactions that I would like to avoid. People won't ask, people in higher power won't bother to explain as they didn't really get through the social-learning process where vocality is so important, and the silence will kill the game, even if your realm wins the war. Rarely I found the same enthusiasm and genuine commitment to the game as I found in clueless newcomers, excited to get into new things. Older players are professionals, so to say, and they tend to be moved way less. I really realized how less involving I am to the people around me when I hold the same position for a long time, getting used to it by knowing it in full details.
Now, in this insanely huge wall of text for the writing of which I apologize deeply with the hard drive that stores it, I didn't really make up my mind which between your argument or my argument - or to rephrase pro and contras about the tutorials - convinced me. I am just throwing here this huge reflection in the hope someone may elaborate the points here and conclude whether there could be a better way to shape these advanced mentoring tutorials as to avoid colliding with the points I raised.
edit: I forgot to explicitly mention it, but I hope it's clear that the concept of player retention is something I'm quite concerned about. We can argue forever whether the steep learning curve is truly the barrier, but I would like to throw in my opinion that interaction with a cool mentor is definitely a good way to retain players. And to interact with a mentor the new player must ask something he can't find anywhere else.
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Hm, it is unfortunately unavoidable that player skill acts as a limiter to character skill. While it is true that the maximum ability of the player does not necessarily correspond to the actual ability of the character, a character cannot be any better than the player. Really, you can imagine yourself to be as awesome as you want, but in the end, if you do not possess enough knowledge or skills as a player, your attempts to project such in your characters would result at best in your characters being less credible, and at worst, making you as a player look like a charlatan.
There is a reason why in competitive games the best teams don't share their secrets. We're not that hardcore, I hope, and we could give some tips. But what I would not like to see is a formulaic process of gaining power. Object as you will, but what will very likely happen if we get too detailed about our guides is a shift in the new players' perspectives that assume our guides are the model way to get whatever positions they want. And they will follow it, sometimes very well in fact. But what would we have then? We might as well call it the actual Recipe for Position X in BM: The ABC Steps To Gain Any Position!
It's not that unreasonable for people to do it either. If it has a high probability of working, and you want to succeed, then why risk going into uncharted territory? Go mimic successful models.
Now, you may say that you'll give more examples or advise people not to follow the examples to the letter, but, we probably all have experienced firsthand the contrary reactions. First of all, there are as many methods as there are players, and still many more to spare. Even the ones likely to lead to success, and the simple ones, are still fairly numerous. Are you really prepared to write all of them down? That would in turn invite some other typical human behavior, which is: "going down the list until one of them works".
It's a fine line I think. With the many new links for several positions and classes, we could use some way to help our future in-game leaders. But I think that giving too explicit of a guide would only encourage uncreative mimicry, and if I ever saw that in my realm I'd be ready to subvert it in an instant.
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Responding to several things...
1. If Battlemaster were a real world, there would be books, nobles with military bents would be introduced to leaders at a young age and apprentice with them, famous wars and battles would be studied. The Middle Ages didn't force anyone to reinvent the wheel, and many nobles spent years of training in command and rule. Now, we could write all these things IC, but the problem is that a lot of the stuff is so wound up in game mechanics that doing so is difficult at best and impossible in some cases, and it still wouldn't solve the problem of potentially reducing character-character interaction.
2. If you can get good people to mentor you, it makes a world of difference. I was lucky enough to get Armitage III as my Mentor, who has likely forgotten more about the game than I have ever known, and several others in Abington (Xuanye, Grand Poopah, hell the entire Advanced Military College of Abington) spent a lot of time helping my first character learn the ropes. And if we could guarantee that everyone had that opportunity, then this would be unnecessary. Unfortunately, that's just not the case, and I know of a lot of people who get frustrated with the game because of the lack of assistance they get at the beginning. I managed to help a few, a lot more quit.
3. The situation as it currently stands is that my teenage characters are trusted to be far more competent and skilled than the forty year old characters of someone who started last year. This is not, mind, hyperbole or exaggeration but something I've experienced a few times. The reasons why are that House Bedwyr has a reasonably good rep for not going off the walls with rebellions and the like out of the blue, and people know from one character or another that Matthew is competent (because I can't bring myself to play an incompetent character, though I tried very hard to make my newer characters less competent). And people know that inexperienced players don't know as much about the game, and so critical positions are far more frequently going to experienced players. Like Vellos said, I want to level the playing field as much as possible.
4. Player skill acting as a limiter to character skill isn't a problem. Player skill being weighted far more than character skill is.
5. Yes, knowing how much you can repair in a stronghold won't win you a war. But an accumulation of little things adds up, and there are a few giant, huge things that make an enormous difference. I've seen two colonies that should have succeeded completely fail because the people in charge of the efforts didn't know about some part of the code that makes little sense. Both of those failures completely changed the power dynamics of an entire continent. I've seen wars won because one side knew that if you could draft a militia unit onto the walls between battles you got the walls back (unless a takeover is started, which also changed the outcome of a fairly significant battle in another instance).
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Player skill limiting character skill is in fact a problem to what you have planned. I will now sound very mean, but in truth, some people simply suck at this game. They don't necessarily have to be unintelligent in anything else, and really, sucking at BM probably ranks among the lowest of concerns one should ever have (This goes for all games).
But, if you really think that you can make everyone have an even shot at greatness, that's never going to happen. In addition, sometimes, much as we don't want to admit it, we can tell which players are good, and which are total scrubs, and we act on that because, seriously, this isn't some game where we run a nice equitable system so that everyone gets the same amount of goodies.
I will say, however, that I do support giving players a standard base of knowledge. But beyond the very standard basics of mechanics, everything else is up to the player to show interest in pursuing. My philosophy, and that of just about every one of my professors, has been that there is no point in wasting time trying to teach someone who doesn't want to learn. There is also not much point in trying to teach someone who can't master the material, but there might be some moral responsibility depending on your ethical views.
So this means, great that we are attempting to give a thorough investigation on mechanics. I think that was long overdue, and I know I had some very interesting moments on the route towards better understanding of the ins and outs of quite a few links. Teaching people what links do, and when to use them, that's very good. Teaching people how to get what they want? Not so good I think. I'd rather see us invest a lot of time into detailing and explaining the various pages, and the options that exist on each one. But I think that's about all that we need be responsible for, possibly even less.
Everyone deserves to play the game, and should not be limited by their lack of understanding of the options available. Not everyone deserves to get positions though. That has always been my stance, and I probably won't change it as nothing compelling has come out thusfar saying why. In fact, the most compelling reason why we should bother teaching people how to gain influence, gain positions, etc, is purely pragmatic. If we don't, then eventually we'll lose all the old players someday and mediocrity will permeate. But I think that BM itself would probably end before that actually happened.
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You misunderstand me: I said it wasn't a problem because player skill limiting character skill is as it should be. There's no way to fix that, and we shouldn't try to. I'm quite content mopping the floor with people because I'm a better player than they are (and being used as a mop in turn by those better than I). I just don't want to mop the floor with them because everyone gives me positions at the drop of a hat or because I have a more encyclopedic knowledge of the game.
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It's undeniable that there aren't enough mentors, official or otherwise, spread throughout the game to teach everyone who wants to learn everything they want to learn. So in that sense, I think having information available for the people who can't get it otherwise is a good thing.
What I don't want this mentoring forum to become is a replacement for IC interaction. Not ever. I don't want to see "Welcome to RealmA, if you have any questions, check out this link." Ever. Ever ever ever. I don't want new players to study the forums for a week and then go through the motions of playing to get positions. I want them to actually play.
On a related note, there's a lot of talk about the problem of the new character/older player getting positions before the older character/new player. Have the older players considered not taking these positions when they're offered? If you think it has a negative impact on the game, then why accept the position at all?
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I often wonder whether the older characters/newer players actually go for the position. Sure, sometimes the newer characters/older players get offered without asking, but come on, be proactive here. It's sometimes an uphill battle, and sometimes it's a perpetually uphill battle, but if you're going to give up, you deserve every lack of position you receive.
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On a related note, there's a lot of talk about the problem of the new character/older player getting positions before the older character/new player. Have the older players considered not taking these positions when they're offered? If you think it has a negative impact on the game, then why accept the position at all?
Yes. Not to pick on a specific realm... but it's the worst I've yet seen about this...
I was offered the treasurer's post in Riombara twice with my new character Cyrilos, who is an unlikeable, weird, religious fanatic with hardly a republican bone in his body... hardly an ideal fit for Riombara. And even IC, I was explicitly told (by experienced players) that it was because of my relation to Hireshmont: who Cyrilos is only distantly related to, and regards somewhat negatively. I turned down the post, and only eventually ran for a lordship after I had sent some messages to the realm, built up my reputation slightly, etc. Within the same realm I've seen at least two or three times characters be given posts explicitly because of "family ties," i.e. OOC friendships. Again, I'm not trying to say Riombara is especially bad: it's just one of the few large, long-term realms with which I've had significant experience.
You misunderstand me: I said it wasn't a problem because player skill limiting character skill is as it should be. There's no way to fix that, and we shouldn't try to. I'm quite content mopping the floor with people because I'm a better player than they are (and being used as a mop in turn by those better than I). I just don't want to mop the floor with them because everyone gives me positions at the drop of a hat or because I have a more encyclopedic knowledge of the game.
And there I disagree with you, Bedwyr. Or maybe it's just semantic. I don't want to "win" because I'm a better player than the other person (i.e. possessing a fundamentally stronger game skillset). Insofar as I want to "win" at all, it's because my characters chose strategies more suitable to their conflicts: strategies which other players also knew about and had available, but failed to choose. Maybe it's just semantics?
Artemesia: can I summarize your argument correctly as "We have no responsibility and I think it is a waste of time to offer this advanced mentoring"? If so, fine, nice opinion. Irrelevant. You don't think we have a responsibility to do it, so don't ignore it. Your post count is high enough you can safely ignore a few threads and not suffer. ;) Joking, of course. You think it's a waste of time: that's nice, but it's not your time it's wasting. Ignore it.
Unless an argument can be made that advanced mentoring is destructive to the game, it's irrelevant.
Which brings me to Peri's points:
Peri, I think you and I have had a similar experience. I had a few excellent mentors in Oligarch who I credit with my early interest in BM. I have tried to carry that on, and actively try to encourage the promotion of new players. Look up Terran and you will find a disproportionate number of new players getting their first positions in Terran (though marshalships don't show up in family history). That's not entirely my doing, but it is at least partly. I spend lots of time investing in new players and new characters. In that I agree with you.
However, not everyone has that. Most people don't, actually. I would argue that you and I and Bedwyr are freaks. Most of us on this forum are abnormalities. What is not at all abnormal in BM is joining for a few weeks and leaving because there's nothing to do. Maybe, just maybe, if we were able to show people some options, demonstrate to them that the game "gets better as you go," it might help. The Advanced Mentoring will never become standard: it's too arcane, too long, and too wonkish to appeal to "the masses." It will never become a good replacement for the interaction you and I both value so highly. Why? Very simple.
Note in my Trade Systems article that I assume the existence of power struggles. These are strategies available for fighting out a feud of some kind. That assumes a feud exists. That assumes some type of interaction occurred.
Advanced Mentoring can be a useful supplement. It will never be able to replace what you and I use so effectively, Peri: good old fashion patronage. No amount of knowledge of these strategies will matter if a person can't attain the rank in the first place. I guess you believe that other people having this strategic knowledge will undermine ability of patronage to function. I find that preposterous: I even, in the trade article, identified mechanics through which patronage could occur.
I think you over-emphasize the usefulness of teaching game mechanics as a means of gaining political capital. There are many other ways.
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And there I disagree with you, Bedwyr. Or maybe it's just semantic. I don't want to "win" because I'm a better player than the other person (i.e. possessing a fundamentally stronger game skillset). Insofar as I want to "win" at all, it's because my characters chose strategies more suitable to their conflicts: strategies which other players also knew about and had available, but failed to choose. Maybe it's just semantics?
It's just semantics. You and I want to succeed because we played the right odds, motivated the right people, out-thought our opponents, etc. We don't want to succeed because we know more about Battlemaster.
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I think this advanced mentoring can indeed lead to a destruction of the spirit of discovery that I seem to recall being said even by Tom in the past. Certain things should be found by those willing to seek it out.
The extent of my warm-heartedness stops at telling people what each link does. I think that is what every gamer needs to know to have a fair chance. You don't hide the controls from people. You don't stick someone in a Street Fighter tournament without letting him have access to the combos (Although that was the case even in the 1990s when strategy guides and...Gamefaqs...weren't that common). You don't pit someone up against a Korean Starcraft progamer without letting him know there are such things as hotkeys and what they do. You don't make someone get embarrassed at DDR without first telling him that those arrows under their feet correspond to the flashing arrows that scroll up, and you have to step on the right ones when they pass through the shiny line at the top.
That, I believe, is the end-all for equity in gameplay. You don't ask Valle to give instructions about how he wins SF tournaments, what combos he uses, what counters to use and how to game your opponent into giving you openings. You don't ask Flash about the specific timings he uses in his OSL and MSL matches, or his openings and responses to initial scoutings. You don't...well, is there a strategy for DDR other than step on the right arrows and move your feet like crazy?
The point is, if we really want to do it, then go ahead. That's really going above and beyond true fairness though, as such things beyond mechanics are not equally applicable to all players. If you're going to spoon-feed them, then you may as well throw some mud in the faces of those players who actually made an earnest effort to learn through IC means, and through trial and error.
And I think some people also have trouble understanding what I'm saying. Very clearly, I care for fairness, but to me that means allowing everyone to have the explanations of all publicly accessible game options, meaning those that all normal player characters can have. That is something that all players must use, and always will use. But something that deals with specific strategy, like how to gain influence, how to become a ruler, how to act as a duke: Those I think should be taken very cautiously.
To make an analogy that hopefully makes this all clearer: We can teach an aspiring chess player what moves each piece can make, and how the timing works during tournaments. We should be careful what strategies we teach though, as it is far more educational for the player to actually play matches and try to figure out his own style and from their refine strategies, to make him the optimal player he will be.
That is something I think we haven't really touched on. Mechanics is fairly objective. The options are what they are. They don't look different, nor do they do different things, for anyone. But the playstyles, the strategies, the goals, all are optimized for each player. Giving a guide about that can be as helpful as it is harmful. I think it is far better for those who have a good grasp of mechanics to search for themselves the more complex aspects of BM. And I think that is a good thing too. We don't want to give everything away. Isn't that exactly what the Manual even says?
From the wiki main page:
Official Manual
All pages in this section have been written by contributors and are occasionally reviewed for accuracy. The manual is intentionally incomplete in some details and does not reveal everything, simply because it makes for a more interesting game to discover some stuff on your own.
So with what we're suggesting here, what exactly are we leaving for people to figure out? Their own hearts and souls? Tch, come on...
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I agree with the advanced mentoring thing, as I have tried over the years to get several of my friends to play, and almost all of them quit after saying the game was boring and too hard to figure out. It is a serious problem, and won't be fixed with the status quo "let them ask somebody". I myself had no help whatsoever finding out what everything did, and so had to do it by experimentation. That isn't very fun, especially when you do something that gets you scolded, even if you didn't know what would happen.
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Artemesia,
Saying that people should "find out for themselves" is nonsense.
Both Peri, myself, and Bedwyr agree that players shouldn't have to find out by themselves about these higher-level things. We just disagree about if they should find out about it from exclusively a mentor IG, or a mentor IG and this guide we're writing.
I think you will find few people who think players should have to try out each button to see what it does rather than just having people help them along and explain it.
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Artemesia,
Saying that people should "find out for themselves" is nonsense.
Both Peri, myself, and Bedwyr agree that players shouldn't have to find out by themselves about these higher-level things. We just disagree about if they should find out about it from exclusively a mentor IG, or a mentor IG and this guide we're writing.
I think you will find few people who think players should have to try out each button to see what it does rather than just having people help them along and explain it.
I think that Artemesia is trying to say that players should know the controls and basic usage but they should develop their own way of using all the controls and power at their disposal in more meaningful ways.
I believe, from what I read, that Peri and Matt (Bedwyr) have expressed that players shouldn't have to find out by themselves the controls and what specific things mean/do, not these higher level things that you allude to. Matt talked about learning from the military academy in his realm, but I think the existence of such an academy should benefit his realm as they are more proactive in helping, teaching, and communicating with their players.
Explaining the buttons is fine and everyone agrees, what we are arguing about is whether advanced ways of using the tools should be considered the same way.
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I think Artemesia was all about explaining what the buttons do, just not so hot about laying out stratagems on how to most effectively use those buttons... Just my take on her post though...
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To make an analogy that hopefully makes this all clearer: We can teach an aspiring chess player what moves each piece can make, and how the timing works during tournaments. We should be careful what strategies we teach though, as it is far more educational for the player to actually play matches and try to figure out his own style and from their refine strategies, to make him the optimal player he will be.
I would like to say that I like the illustrations that Artemesia used very much, and these can certainly be used to help us express our thoughts/opinions more concisely and thoroughly.
Please tell me what you think of the following modified simile from Artemesia:
I believe it should be easy to see the parallels.
- BattleMaster is like a boardgame, where friends are playing together for good fun
- The rules of the boardgame should be known to all, so should implications of most basic actions or combination of actions
- Standard etiquette should be taught to all players to encourage an enjoyable environment
- Basic strategies should be discussed to encourage further thought and explain interesting aspects of the rules or consequences of actions
If we accept these basic generalizations, we can discuss whether Advanced strategies should also be thoroughly discussed in an open forum for all to access, which is what I believe most are talking about here.
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I tend to agree that strategies beyond the basic implications of buttons should not be posted unless the game mechanics don't make logical IC sense and so the strategies are determined by OOC matters. As a for instance, the drafting and holding court on the same day thing. Your regionlord's advisors would certainly tell you when you informed them of your plans for the day that you needed to draft before holding court, so we should too. Similarly, we should let everyone know about the fact that militia units below a certain size tend to disappear in fairly short order and the like.
If all nobles would know something, we should post it. If it has an OOC component, we should post it.
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I agree with the advanced mentoring thing, as I have tried over the years to get several of my friends to play, and almost all of them quit after saying the game was boring and too hard to figure out. It is a serious problem, and won't be fixed with the status quo "let them ask somebody".
I definitely agree, but we are speaking about another thing here. As I said, if someone leaves battlemaster because the game is too hard, I don't think that a guide on how to be a good duke will modify his attitude so much. The post on how to gain influence is the perfect example of a tutorial I completely agree on, and should be developed more. This unless we want to involve ooc people by showing how the end game looks like and potentially hoping they say "ok now it sucks but look at how cool will be when I become a duke!", or hoping that reading guides will shed some light on the stuff people around them say and that leaves them so confused. Perhaps it may work, I don't know.
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- BattleMaster is like a boardgame, where friends are playing together for good fun
- The rules of the boardgame should be known to all, so should implications of most basic actions or combination of actions
- Standard etiquette should be taught to all players to encourage an enjoyable environment
- Basic strategies should be discussed to encourage further thought and explain interesting aspects of the rules or consequences of actions
I think I agree here, but there is a big question mark incoming, that has been also mentioned by Gustav. Tom said in several places that he likes the idea that you can make a lot of mistakes by experimenting buttons, and that the game is purposely vague to make these kind of things happen. Many of us stated that this is a source of frustration for newcomers especially because quite often they don't face a forgiving neighborhood that will pat their back and tell them to try again.
Since it seems everyone agrees that we can split tutorial roughly in two parts: how game mechanics/button work, and advanced strategies, we should understand which of the two we deem as appropriate to be put on a forum. Do we assume the noble IC should know what things do, to a certain extent, and explain buttons going against what was perhaps Tom's idea? Or do we rather not explain mechanics but just strategies, in the hope that showing how cool end game is people would get involved, but need to go through mentors and questions to understand how to translate buttons into strategies? I have no answers to these questions, but teaching advanced strategies without going through the basics is a bit weird at least.
Just to present one more question following Vellos' argument: he seem to suggest that avanced mentoring will be too advanced for newcomers to really understand it and become the bm instructions book. So do you think that perhaps having good tutorials to give people insightful and deep instructions on the first steps and then have high end almost impossible to understand tutorials to let them feel how cool would be the end game could help player retention and, at the same time, save the need for interaction to get from "a newcomer that knows his whereabouts" to a "rather new player in a place of power that applies what he read on the tutorial and is thus better than average" status?
edit: just one additional random idea. Whatever tutorial is going to be made, I think it could be interesting to add some kind of "glossary". I don't know if that's a commonly experienced trouble, but I can easily imagine a newcomer not understanding half of the messages that go around because he just doesn't know what word mean. Again, he should ask, but since it's very rare to see this happening, maybe it would help player retention.
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Just my two cents:
I think that the mentoring threads should tell you how to do things that a noble would realistically know. How do you post an order to buy food? How do you set up a recurring automated caravan to go buy food from a rural region? How do I found an army, appoint a marshal, and set up a banner for it? What does the "foo" link do?
These are things that a player should know, or that a character would reasonably know how to do, without having to risk clicking the wrong button because the description for it is not clear or the procedure too complex.
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- BattleMaster is like a boardgame, where friends are playing together for good fun
- The rules of the boardgame should be known to all, so should implications of most basic actions or combination of actions
- Standard etiquette should be taught to all players to encourage an enjoyable environment
- Basic strategies should be discussed to encourage further thought and explain interesting aspects of the rules or consequences of actions
No.
1. BM is not like a boardgame. BM does not end, and you do not win. You don't get to try out strategies, fail, finish the game, and come back again. When you fail because you didn't grasp the political magnitude of a rebellion or of being too chatty and annoying in a realm, and you get banned, it's on your family's record forever. When you succeed and get a post, it's on your family record forever, and players will bias against or for your characters based on that.
2. I agree with two, especially "implications of most basic actions." Except one thing. I don't believe there are more or less basic actions. I have been playing this game for years, and I still don't understand line settings at all. When I've played general characters, I defer line settings to marshals, vice marshals, military councils, etc. I still don't get the intricacies of planning coordinated moves, delaying, field camping, etc. I consider those to be pretty advanced for me, whereas I see the trade system as very basic and intuitive. Many players disagree. If, however, you mean basic as "actions available to all characters," you still don't solve your problem: different classes have widely diverging actions available. Moreover, perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I generally don't think tutorials should stop at a lordship. I can and have played many council posts on 20 minutes a day. That is normal. I will venture a guess that well over half of the current BM players have held a post at some point. Holding positions is normal, it is not holding positions that is abnormal for a player.
3. Standard etiquette? What on earth does that mean? I consider it standard etiquette to teach other people how to play the game.
4. I don't just teach basic strategies. When I play Diplomacy with friends, I talk about past games. I explain interesting tactics that have been used in the past. I discuss stalemate lines, common diplomatic arrangements, opening moves, etc. Frankly, I'm not great at chess. I don't enjoy playing against a champion chess player. I am good at Diplomacy, so I like playing it against tournament players, because I understand what is happening. Because we can recognize strategies and see not only that we were defeated but also how we were defeated.
However, I return to my first point: using a boardgame analogy is fundamentally flawed. The goal of a boardgame is, usually, to win and finish the game. You cannot win Battlemaster. You play. And you keep playing. And you keep playing. And it's boring to play alongside people who don't know what they're doing.
Again, I do not understand why anyone thinks we should hide from other players that there are strategies like the ones I listed in the trade systems article. Why should this be secret knowledge?
Ya'll say people should find out for themselves: so, what, not even IG mentors? That's lunacy! I absolutely do not want somebody to find out how secessions work by seceding from a realm I'm in! No, people have to tell them. And I get no satisfaction from politically outmaneuvering a character because the player behind it didn't realize that his automatic trade offer could be exploited for arbitrage with a neighboring city. I'd like him to at least know that such a thing is possible, and understand how such a thing might be done. If he still fails to defend himself or miscalculates which strategy to use, cool, my character outwitted the other character.
But this idea that it's fair play for us to deploy strategies the existence of which is unknown to other players does not strike me as suitable for a game we think of as playing with friends.
And, frankly, just explaining game mechanics is not enough. I can explain pricing mechanics for trade all day long and still not have anyone recognize the political strategies therein, especially when overbearing dukes and bankers just tell them "Set it up automatic and do what I say." Game mechanics teaching becomes a means of political control wherein lords never learn to manage their own food supplies to their advantage because older players find it inconvenient for their underlings to realize they have any power.
This is not hypothetical, by the way. I've had to re-teach two players in Terran how to manage food because, in their previous realms, their bankers had told them to just set up automatic sales, and everything would be handled for them. They were told that sending out caravans is for dukes, and never really necessary for lords.
If that was an IC thing, that'd be fine. But it's not. That's an IC political deployment of OOC knowledge that those players should have been taught. But they weren't. Because teaching players strategies by which they can undermine the teacher is rarely advantageous.
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In truth I am even hesitant to teach players all the mechanics. But I would compromise if it makes for a better playerbase in the future.
But where I will not compromise is the apparent naivety regarding teaching players all the subtle tricks of the trade. What do you think will happen when you teach people how to gain influence and how to become a duke/council member?
I will tell you what will happen: Gradually the newer playerbase will become more accustomed to such "easy answers", and simply go ahead and follow some forum steps to success. When that happens this game becomes some sort of hollow sequence of follow the steps to your goals.
I do not mean that there will be absolutely no creativity involved. But when you wave an easy solution in front of someone, it is very tempting. Almost all of us have been students at some point. How many of us peeked at the answer sheets when doing homework if they were available? On practice exams that had the answers following each question, how many of us looked ahead if we got a little stuck or unsure about how to proceed?
The point is that if we provide the "solution" too clearly and too easily, then people will just get even lazier than they already are. If they are so interested in gaining some position, let them ask people who have those positions how they got them. Let them work for a change, rather than make us do all the work. If some existing lords/dukes/council members are tight-lipped about how, then go to another realm that's more generous. If no one does it, then I'm sorry, but tough break there. That, however, is most likely not the case.
Now I think we are going on about what exactly teaching people how to play the game means. That might turn into a long discussion.
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Almost all of us have been students at some point. How many of us peeked at the answer sheets when doing homework if they were available? On practice exams that had the answers following each question, how many of us looked ahead if we got a little stuck or unsure about how to proceed?
And when I took a higher-level calc class that did not provide the homework answers, I dropped it after a week.
And when I took a stats class that did not provide the homework answers, I attempted to drop it, until I realized it was necessary for my major.
The reason answers are put in the back is because teachers have realized over time that without them, students don't learn as well, and they fail.
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And that's where we find the difference between students worth teaching and those who we might advise into other areas of interest.
Vellos, you should really make up your mind about what sort of game you consider BM. On one hand you discounted Foundation's board game analogy, when the actual point of that was to illustrate BM as a friendly non-competitive game. Rather, you thought it was more competitive. Which one is the correct view isn't my point to argue here.
Now, if we're going by competitive terms, it is fair to provide the rules that apply to everyone, yes. But is it fair to provide everyone with the things that some people must put in a lot more effort to achieve? Are you saying, basically, that by analogy we should be teaching everyone in a post-undergraduate school medicine? That's simply crazy. For one, we know for a fact that some people just aren't cut out for it. Now, granted, real life is a lot more serious, but in BM still shouldn't be a peachy happy world by default.
It is no secret that some, perhaps even a majority, are not cut out for being lords, dukes, council members. Providing too much information leads us to allow too many fakers to pretend more effectively, while in the end being just as incompetent. Only danger here is that sometimes the stupidity realization comes too late.
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I am not sure what the problem is if someone manages to secure a position of power and then be unsuccessful... Why is this a bad thing? Sure it can be inconvenient, or even disastrous for the realm or certain characters but this is a game and I am not sure if such failings would be much more than flavor. The medieval world was full of lords and dukes and kings that both totally rocked and really sucked. A lot of times those above did not have a lot of say as to whether their vessels were competent or not. Of course they would seek to have them replaced or even find a way rid themselves of the fool and collect all the resources for himself, but that sounds like a fun situation to me, not something to be avoided.
Besides, being taught or having access to guides on advanced topics does not make one good at the material. Years ago, when I was studying for my CCNA, I worked with a variety of people. We were all given good materials and excellent instruction on what I would consider to be advanced topics. Simple fact was that despite this some did well and others flopped. Not only that, in the end even those who mastered the material presented were left seeking more and realized that there was so much more that was not covered in the canned package delivered to us.
The idea that having a tutorial like the one Vellos pot together on trade would unbalance the game does not add up to me. Some will greatly benefit, others will not get it at all and still more will think they get it but won't.
The idea that tutorials on advanced topics and strategies will lessen in game communication also fails to make sense to me. Since reading Vellos' tutorial on trade I have had a lot of questions pop up. It has made me want to find Character in the game that could expound on this and teach me more. It has not made me want to clam up and cease to seek help in game.
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You may be an exception then. The more common response will probably be that the player goes to the forum to find his answers. Failing that, he will then finally be compelled to post in the forums: "Help me! How does X work!" And then, depending on who responds, the answer might be "Go ask that in-game", or "This is how it works". In the latter case, there, it's done, you just turned the forum into the primary means of gaining anything in the game. In the former case, the reactions to that can be among two major categories: 1. Anger 2. Compliance
The first is pretty natural among people nowadays in an online environment. They don't get their instant gratification, they get angry. Such reactions might be "Why are you such a purist?" "What are you, the IC police?" "If you're not gonna tell me then stfu!", etc.
The second is the preferred reaction, in that the player actually does go ask in-game about it. But you gotta admit, it's far more likely to have a good and prompt response on the forum than in-game. This is because the forums are mostly populated by the active and experienced players, whereas activity is unpredictable at best in-game. Guess what most people would prefer.
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Artemesia, that already happens in the continent forums and elsewhere.
If that's your concern, that isn't specific to advanced mentoring. That's the entire forum. People already ask those questions on the forum. Heck, I've already linked people to forum articles for OOC explanations. I see no problem with that.
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So far it's been nothing far beyond simple mechanics. There has yet to be something about "Teach me how to become a ruler" or something like that. It's been "How come this happened?" Which is strictly mechanics, and exactly the area that I'd like to see the shroud lifted.
It's the "How do I become this?" Type of questions that won't be any good in this game.
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And when I took a higher-level calc class that did not provide the homework answers, I dropped it after a week.
And when I took a stats class that did not provide the homework answers, I attempted to drop it, until I realized it was necessary for my major.
The reason answers are put in the back is because teachers have realized over time that without them, students don't learn as well, and they fail.
Vellos, that is looking at it in the wrong way. Never are all the answers provided. Do you get answers for your final exam? Do you even get it back? Why is that?
The only reason some answers are provided at the back is because teachers have realized that students need more examples before starting to solve problems themselves. What you are suggesting makes it seem like the norm is that all the answers in life should be freely available to all, and that is most definitely NOT the case. I don't want to read all the answers to questions, I want to learn and be able to solve not just this problem right now but all kinds of problems in the future.
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Vellos, your arguments are valid, but I have to say that I really don't like your latest posts. It feels like you do not consider what the other person is trying to say, merely looking for bits and pieces for you to build a counter argument for your point around. I am trying to communicate, and I don't want to do point arguments since I don't think they lead anywhere. We could sit here and argue back and forth all day and get nowhere.
You are as familiar as I on the social contract (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Social_Contract), so you know why it is appropriate to compare BattleMaster to a board game where the goal is to have fun with friends. When I play a board game with friends, yes, I try to win, but more importantly it's to enjoy the time and make it an enjoyable experience for my friends as well. I am ultra-competitive, but I try my best to remember that it is in the end just a game. I agree with you, BM is not like a board game where there is an end state, but neither is there usually an end for a well played diplomacy game where everyone is reasonably equally skilled. I am trying to draw the parallel in the atmosphere of BM and a board game, and even the competitive nature presents some parallels as well.
Standard etiquette is just that, ways to interact with other players that does not end in flame wars or huge OOC debates or banning new players trying out stuff. If you don't want new players trying out hazardous stuff randomly, tell them the consequences.
I agree that when I play diplomacy, I teach/tell those who are not as familiar about the same things, those are basic strategies. I see stalemate lines in a variety of tutorials/strategy guides, and these are fairly common occurrences in good games, even not at the highest levels. But do you tell your friends exactly what you plan on doing in every single situation? Do you teach them what to do in each exact circumstance? I don't, since unless they actually play and have fun, they will not be able to get better and be able to react to any situation successfully. Learning should not be limited to a question and answer session.
I do not want to see cookie cutter bankers, rulers, marshals, dukes, just as you do not want to see someone seceding just to learn how it works. When I first read your trade system stuff, I felt they were indeed basic strategies that most should know, but are simply derivatives of understanding the underlying mechanics. I enjoyed reading the articles as I stated in the other thread, and I don't even disagree with most of your points, just please, actually consider the other side, that's all I'm asking.
Again, I am not trying to argue, so please don't treat it like an argument that you must win to have your point understood.
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But do you tell your friends exactly what you plan on doing in every single situation?
Actually.. I've been the subject of one or more Vellos to your face, "I will destroy you. Constantinople is mine, I will take it from you now." in a game of Diplomacy....
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This is how I'd like them to work:
Here's how banishments work...Bear in mind that if you ask them to leave they can still arrange a secession and rebellion, and even if you ban them outright they don't go rogue for three turns. If you can't ban someone you can try exiling them, but here are some problems with exile, including the big one that you can't ban someone who's been exiled. Here are all the ways someone can prevent themselves from being banished. Be aware that banning someone popular can prove dangerous because of a protest backlash.
I don't hold with this idea about people becoming cookie-cutter Council members from these guides. There isn't a one right way to do anything in this game, and people are going to present different options, and every situation is so different that anyone who just goes off these guides will either fail or get the ideas behind them. And if players get the ideas behind the guides...How is that a problem? I direct you to xkcd.
http://xkcd.com/810/
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I actually would like to see posts similar to the ones in Trade that Vellos posted a while ago. They were very interesting, a few of the ideas I had thought of before but never really organized in such a concise and informative way.
What I would not like to see are players taking those ideas and blindly applying them in every circumstance, not trying to either explore different ways of playing the game nor interacting much in the way of improvements, directing new players to these thread and telling them that these are the ways to do things.
I want there to be a separation of "strategy articles" and "mechanics explained". Mechanics have their one true nature while there should be an arbitrary number of strategies to accomplish any single goal. This difference must be clearly explained. I think only one of these deserve to be in AM threads, eventually ported to the wiki, and I believe that strategy articles deserve this spot.
Now I'm done, for the first time talking about my thoughts, as I was simply trying to organize thoughts presented on both sides in previous posts and play Devil's Advocate for some of them.
The banishment paragraph seems great! It has the mechanics and basic consequences explained. Another article can talk about using banishments in interesting ways, but the two must be separated.
Regarding failing or understanding the logic behind strategies, I believe that believing in "one true strategy" will not necessary only result in failure, it may meet mild success at first (since the strategy obviously has merit) and eventually make the playing field a boring one if more adopt such thinking.
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Here's how banishments work...Bear in mind that if you ask them to leave they can still arrange a secession and rebellion, and even if you ban them outright they don't go rogue for three turns. If you can't ban someone you can try exiling them, but here are some problems with exile, including the big one that you can't ban someone who's been exiled. Here are all the ways someone can prevent themselves from being banished. Be aware that banning someone popular can prove dangerous because of a protest backlash.
And that is not basic strategy. The complexities of multiple different judicial options and the interplay between them is not basic.
Foundation, I apologize that I have come across that way. I'm abrasive. Never gonna change. There's a reason I have my description as "Stodgy Old Man in Training." However, I have not intentionally harped on any minor points. I have addressed what I see to be the primary points, and I see most people repeating the same idea over and over: that teaching people the game is bad. I disagree. I think teaching people the game is good. In any way, through any means, it is an unmitigated good.
However, if someone could tell me exactly where my article "crossed the line," that could be helpful. How is driving up the price for food specially complex? Are there dukes who don't realize they can change their price? Well, yes, and that's a cryin' shame. We should fix that. Does someone object to my pointing out that dukes can gain power through serving as liaisons between lords and foreigners? What's wrong with saying that? Or is it just that it was in an article called "Advanced Mentoring"? If we called it, "Vellos' Advice" you'd be fine with it, maybe? That seems silly to me. Does someone object to my discussion of feudal premiums? All I did was explain in mechanics terms how you could manage two different prices for food at the same time, and give reasons why that might be useful. I explained mechanics.
Perhaps people object to the section about withholding for lords. What part? Why? What about giving that advice is so bad? If I see someone being silent, I would prefer it if that was a strategy they chose. If they respond, I would prefer it if that was a strategy they chose: not just what they thought the only option was because they haven't played the game long enough to realize there are advantages to silence. Perhaps someone objects to my note for judges: that note was primarily mechanics-based. Does someone object to the undercutting section? That's primarily a discussion of mechanics concerning regional productivity, and then a fairly simple scenario arising from that as an example (in fact, an extremely simple scenario that could never really work IG). Or perhaps inverse bribes? Someone objects to reminding lords that they can exercise a price control?
Seriously, which part was it that people are objecting to?
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I am ultra-competitive, but I try my best to remember that it is in the end just a game. I agree with you, BM is not like a board game where there is an end state, but neither is there usually an end for a well played diplomacy game where everyone is reasonably equally skilled. I am trying to draw the parallel in the atmosphere of BM and a board game, and even the competitive nature presents some parallels as well.
...
I agree that when I play diplomacy, I teach/tell those who are not as familiar about the same things, those are basic strategies. I see stalemate lines in a variety of tutorials/strategy guides, and these are fairly common occurrences in good games, even not at the highest levels. But do you tell your friends exactly what you plan on doing in every single situation? Do you teach them what to do in each exact circumstance? I don't, since unless they actually play and have fun, they will not be able to get better and be able to react to any situation successfully.
And as Perth noted, yes, I do exactly that. I tell my enemies my strategies, and sometimes help them plan counter-moves. I'm even more involved with my allies. Recently played a game where I was the only experienced player and, before playing, systematically went through the entire rule book, every example, before playing. I don't want to use a strategy against a friend that my friend didn't realize existed, because he may feel (often does feel) cheated by such unfair play. I want to play with an equal.
I'm not very competitive at all. I don't want to win. I want to play for as long as possible. And that's the difference here. I see the criticisms of this advanced mentoring as predominantly coming from a place of "This will reduce the competitive advantage of long-term players." And that is totally unacceptable IMHO. If it reduces the competitive advantage of long-term players, it is good.
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I shall wait until you respond to my immediate previous post before commenting, since I think that answers many of the issues you raised regarding what I'm opposing, Vellos. :)
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Or is it just that it was in an article called "Advanced Mentoring"? If we called it, "Vellos' Advice" you'd be fine with it, maybe? That seems silly to me.
Actually, yes, I would prefer that. I see nothing wrong with exposing these strategies on the forum, but they are clearly not the only ones there are.
The problem, as I see it, is that "Advanced Tutorial" can very well be read as "Manual: How to be a Lord/Duke". And, well, a manual should limit itself to "You can do this, and this, and this.", which is your Basic Mechanics post, and not "You should do this", which, in my view is what your "Political Dynamics" post is.
Again, I see nothing wrong with it being posted on the forum, but I see the concern if it is seen as a manual.
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And that is not basic strategy. The complexities of multiple different judicial options and the interplay between them is not basic.
... I see most people repeating the same idea over and over: that teaching people the game is bad. I disagree. I think teaching people the game is good. In any way, through any means, it is an unmitigated good.
...Seriously, which part was it that people are objecting to?
It is basic with respect to simple actions and simple consequences.
No one is saying teaching people the game is bad. They're saying that teaching people the game the wrong way is bad. I do not believe that "any way" of teaching is okay, it is not an unmitigated good depending on the way things are taught. If taught the wrong way, it is easy to close off the mind of the student or turn them away from an idea or stop creative thinking. That is most definitely not good.
From what I gather, people (this time including me) are objecting to presenting the ideas in the way it has been done. There is a difference between "here's how this works" and "here's some interesting things you can do with it". The former has only one true way, while the latter has multiple interpretations.
Edit: By the way, thanks for telling me that you're naturally abrasive. Makes it easier to understand some of the harsher tones. 8)
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I'm not sure what in this post you specifically wanted me to reply to, but I'll try.
What I would not like to see are players taking those ideas and blindly applying them in every circumstance, not trying to either explore different ways of playing the game nor interacting much in the way of improvements, directing new players to these thread and telling them that these are the ways to do things.
And you have what reason to believe this is what will happen?
I want there to be a separation of "strategy articles" and "mechanics explained". Mechanics have their one true nature while there should be an arbitrary number of strategies to accomplish any single goal. This difference must be clearly explained. I think only one of these deserve to be in AM threads, eventually ported to the wiki, and I believe that strategy articles deserve this spot.
I find your grammar ambiguous in the final sentence. You believe the strategy articles should be ported to the wiki? Does "this" refer to the Wiki, or to "this spot," that is, the forum?
I'm not sure what the focus on specific articles is supposed to accomplish. For example, I clearly separated the more mechanical components of trade from the political-strategic components. And I didn't even include at least a half dozen other strategies (such as starving regions with enemy armies in them) that probably should be included. Would it be better if it were structured as two forum posts: "Advanced Mentoring: Trade Systems and Food- Basic Mechanics" and "Advanced Mentoring: Trade Systems and Food- Political Strategies"? I already have it clearly separated into distinct units.
I am aware that you have said you like my trade systems article. Okay. But it has received direct complaint, and is the longest extant article in the Advanced Mentoring section. That is why I am using it as an example.
The banishment paragraph seems great! It has the mechanics and basic consequences explained. Another article can talk about using banishments in interesting ways, but the two must be separated.
Why not just a second post in the same article, but one that clearly identifies itself as not being directly mechanical? What's so wrong about that? It certainly makes more logical sense rather than splitting the same topic into separate threads.
Regarding failing or understanding the logic behind strategies, I believe that believing in "one true strategy" will not necessary only result in failure, it may meet mild success at first (since the strategy obviously has merit) and eventually make the playing field a boring one if more adopt such thinking.
And, again, has any part of the Advanced Mentoring yet advocated for a "one true strategy"? My article certainly identifies multiple divergent strategies (the note about judges and fines comes to mind particularly). And if somebody else disagrees, or sees the strategy as working differently, it's a forum, they can post a response. Don't like how I explained withholding? Write a reply! Nothing could make me happier. Well, actually, lots of things could make me happier, but it certainly wouldn't make me sad.
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Actually, yes, I would prefer that. I see nothing wrong with exposing these strategies on the forum, but they are clearly not the only ones there are.
The problem, as I see it, is that "Advanced Tutorial" can very well be read as "Manual: How to be a Lord/Duke". And, well, a manual should limit itself to "You can do this, and this, and this.", which is your Basic Mechanics post, and not "You should do this", which, in my view is what your "Political Dynamics" post is.
Again, I see nothing wrong with it being posted on the forum, but I see the concern if it is seen as a manual.
But it's not called Advanced Tutorial.
It's called Advanced Mentoring. A mentor. A student. It is not a manual. It is not a tutorial. It is a mentoring tool. If you dislike how I explained part of it, I'm totally fine with that. Add to it. Nobody said only I can contribute to the Trade article; others already have. Add your own take. It's here to benefit those players that would be curious about such things, who I don't anticipate as being a huge audience.
I think the problem here is that people are assuming it's supposed to be a tutorial or a guide that provides one answer. It's not. I'd love nothing better than to have someone write a high-quality article on trade and food that fills in the gaps I left, and provides alternate, diverging accounts of political dynamics around food.
Everybody here seems agreed that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. So, I've offered one strategy, and written it up. Somebody else offer another one. We all believe other strategies exist: so write'em! Because unless you intend to try and have all these posts deleted, they're already here, and will be here for the forseeable future, whether we continue with this project or not. Hop on, write your own diverging strategies. Mentor. It's not a tutorial. It's long-term players with experience in the game offering their "accumulated wisdom."
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Oh, I don't want to delete your post! Sorry if that's how it came across. I am really discussing what should be part of the manual; as a forum post it's great.
I am under the impression that the goal of these threads is to write a manual, that would eventually be ported to the wiki (see "Wiki vs Forum" thread).
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At some point we should put these on the wiki, yes, but it's going to be under the Advanced Mentoring moniker rather than any kind of manual. There may be links on help pages but I'm not entirely convinced that's a good idea.
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And you have what reason to believe this is what will happen?
Take a look at our current state of matters. How many realms are trying innovative things and how many are sticking to inferior strategies of tradition. I do not want to feed that by replacing the inferior strategies with slightly better strategies. I want to motivate the realm to try different strategies to become better.
Why not just a second post in the same article, but one that clearly identifies itself as not being directly mechanical? What's so wrong about that? It certainly makes more logical sense rather than splitting the same topic into separate threads.
As these articles will eventually be ported to the wiki, I believe that every "strategy article" post should have its own page. Mechanics must be on a different page. I would even venture so far as to say mechanics shouldn't even be in the same thread as strategy articles as they are inherently different. Strategy articles assume that you know the mechanics and present various ways to utilize those. Mechanics explanations should be concise and specific, one explanation for one mechanic. That is what I meant if my wording was not clear.
This separation is very important to ensure that strategy articles remain just that, discussions on strategy. Mixing the two presents "strategies being mapped one to one with mechanics", which is definitely undesirable. Read my previous post for more detail, so it's the post between this one and the one you responded to.
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I do not want us to teach people how to play BattleMaster, I want us to inform people about some ways BattleMaster can be played. There is a key difference that must be acknowledged and expressed explicitly here.