Advanced Mentoring Concerns

[Peri]

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.

[cjnodell]

"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.

[cjnodell]

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!

[Anaris]

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.

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.

[cjnodell]

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.

[Vellos]

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.

[Peri]

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.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

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.

[Bedwyr]

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).

[songqu88@gmail.com]

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.

[Bedwyr]

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.

[Hyral]

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?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

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.

[Vellos]

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.

[Bedwyr]

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.