Changes to Normal Games (update September 2022)

[northsidegal]

I mean, some of these changes are for the better, but I dislike the standardized role pms and standardized rulesets changes although I kinda understand the latter.

I agree with this.

Was requiring standardized role PMs and rules a change that really needed to be made? I mean, should votecounts also be completely standardized?

I always saw it as a way to introduce just a little bit of your own personal touch as a mod into a normal game.

Complete removal of graylist is also really, really, really disappointing. (Hider and novice not even whitelisted?)

[northsidegal]

What personal touches could you introduce in role pms? Is it possible that those can still be introduced? (I don't know how the new formatting will be, but if you just quoted the standardized version for instance, you could presumably still include more text?)

I mean it's not like there's a

huge

amount of personalization that could go into them (at least not on the level of, say, a theme game), but i still think it's a way to make things unique for your game specifically.

Basically I don't see the need for standardization in the first place, so even if it's only a minor loss of personal touch, it's still a loss that doesn't seem to have much reason behind it, to me.

Its my understanding that the whitelisted roles are always evolving, so those not being white listed now is likely not an unfixable issue, in hiders case though, I think lack of standard behaviour is likely the issue? (I don't even know what a novice is)

It's not an unfixable issue but it's still an issue that's being created (and one that, looking at historical trends, seems unlikely to be fixed in any sort of expedient manner).

It's not even just "these roles aren't whitelisted that I want to be whitelisted" (although that is still an issue) - I think the removal of the graylist is another step against having any sort of interesting or unique aspect to normal games.



Like, I don't understand why these changes are being made. Even if you argue that the losses aren't so bad, they're still losses that I don't understand the reason behind.

[northsidegal]

I personally don't see them as losses. normal games shouldn't be unique. The experience can be unique because of the players, the setup should be somewhat standard.

And they said why they were making the changes, to streamline the review process.

You and I seem to have very different philosophies.

I think all games should be unique or put something interesting forward in some way. Having a "standard" setup doesn't mean that it can't be unique, or that it has to be uninteresting or anything. Most graylist roles are some sort of combination of existing whitelisted roles anyways - I can think of very few examples of a game deviating in any serious fashion from

entirely

basically normal.

Like, in the strict sense of the word it is a loss.



Did non-standard role PMs and rulesets really add a significant amount of time to the review process? If so, I guess I'll stop talking on that point, but it doesn't seem likely to me.

[northsidegal]

It's worth noting that these changes are not actually a strict loss in terms of setup design space: you can now have multiple of the roles that are now whitelisted in a game, whereas previously you'd be restricted to just one as they were all greylisted. But beyond this, I believe the expanded whitelist will lead to a greater variation of setups that we see in the normal queue while still having those setups confidently be within the bounds of what people come to expect from a queue that is called the normal queue.

The expansion of the whitelist didn't necessitate the removal of the graylist. Yes, we have gained more whitelisted roles, but that doesn't mean that the graylisted roles

needed

to go.

You're saying that it's not all bad because design space has both expanded even while it's been limited, but it didn't need to be limited in the first place.

---

Yes, they do; they often add multiple additional iterations to reviews, and each additional iteration can often lead to several additional days of latency.

Here's a great example - I literally clicked on a random mini review in the completed reviews subforum, and you can see there was very significant burden on both sides due to both rule clarifications and role PM clarifications, with many several-day gaps caused by each iteration despite the proposed setup needing almost no work to be within the realm that the reviewers accepted as balanced.

I didn't want to be overly confrontational so I hadn't brought this up before, but it seems to me that the main problem there wasn't just the ruleset, but the fourteen day gap between posts.

It seems like the actual

reviewing

of the ruleset took no time at all – reviewers noticed the mistakes and pointed them out on what looks like the very first day of looking at the setup.

[northsidegal]

Iambic Tetramafia, a very unique setup and one that I think most would still consider standard within the context of a normal game, would not be possible under these guidelines.

[northsidegal]

While I agree that within the context of the new rules PT Cop should be whitelisted, I don't think the solution to people bringing up successful and/or popular graylist roles is to keep adding them to the whitelist. The graylist had a purpose to it. It allowed mods to experiment and test out new roles, and the 1-graylist role limit always made sure that it was an experiment done in relation to pre-existing roles. Without allowing experimentation, how will new roles be introduced, tested to make sure they're good, and added to the whitelist in the first place?

[northsidegal]

Why don’t we see how it goes rather than tearing it down before it starts?

The thing is, instead of the loss of the graylist role being something people can visibly see as a loss, it'll be an invisible

lack

of graylist roles and interesting setups. Hard to visibly notice just a lack of something.

(Not to imply that graylist roles are

necessary

for interesting setups, but most graylist setups have lead to having an interesting setup, from what I've seen.)

[northsidegal]

If people are taking too long for making their own changes to move forward, isn't that their problem and not the NRG's?

[northsidegal]

I don't think I should be forced to run an otherwise normal game in the theme queue if I want to use just one of some kind of slight variant role.

[northsidegal]

Non-standardized role PMs and rules aren't "needed", but I enjoy them, I think other people enjoy them, and I don't see how it's "needed" for them to be standardized. It's just restriction of something for what I really have a hard time seeing as any sort of benefit.

I feel like this discussion has real life parallels.