Right, so I just played my first two anonymous games (a little late, I know), and can I just say: People are evil in anonymous mode.
I should say that, on the forums, I'm the guy who always says, "Being stabbed in the back is part of the game! Just shake it off!"
Well, anonymous mode is in a category of its own. It was more than just being stabbed in the back. It was a player spitefully extending the game to kill me, even though I'd been friendly and trustworthy the entire time we'd been allies, and only mildly annoyed when he stabbed me in the back.
Maybe this is an oddity, an outlier, or something, but I think that people become something terrible when they're anonymous. For the first time, though, I strongly considered quitting Subterfuge. It gives me more sympathy for the people who complain about being stabbed in the back.
I get that a lot of people enjoy anonymous mode, but the reason I'm writing this is that I don't think it's healthy for the game as a whole. If I, one of the biggest fans of the game and a veteran who has been backstabbed a lot, consider quitting after an anonymous game, how much more will the average player want to quit? I have 30 games of experience to judge off of, but what about someone with only 10? 5? These are people who might love the game without anonymous hell.
And if you love anonymous mode, and play in it exclusively, I have a request for you: Please remember that these are people you're playing with, not AI. Treat them with the same respect you would if you knew their name.

I agree. Not only does anonymous mode encourage more backstabbing, it brings about more rude and immature behavior like taunting, insults, etc. It's not fun sometimes.

Oh, I also just had an idea:
See, the problem with mobile games is that you can't throw the board. I think the devs should institute a paid feature where one player can "flip the board," and then drillers, specialists, etc. go flying! They could even follow it up with a mini game where the remaining players try to remember who had what specialists and where they were!

I'd pay $10 to flip the board on some players c:

I like anonymous mode and have played quite a few anonymous games. I haven't been backstabbed once (knock on wood), though I did have one player that was lying to me -- I did a video recap of that one. So you may have just had some bad luck there.

I would say that, in the anonymous games I have played, reputation still "gets around" and diplomacy is still very important. It's just a little different.

Finally, I will say that anonymous mode isn't completely anonymous. For example in our forum reg game, I was able to deduce most of the players identities through chat styles, but then I was able to confirm that by looking back at login time stamps. At high ranking anonymous games this is also done.

I've played a few anonymous games, and I haven't experienced any more betrayal than normal. Both times I was betrayed I was expecting it because I was a rather easy target for my much larger titan ally. I haven't seen much rudeness in the games I've played. I'd say I've seen more rude people in normal games actually.

roadkiehl wrote:If I, one of the biggest fans of the game and a veteran who has been backstabbed a lot, consider quitting after an anonymous game, how much more will the average player want to quit?

You know, I absolutely love this game too. But over the last few weeks, I've been extremely busy and have only been playing one game at a time compared to my standard 3. As such, I haven't put much effort into them, checking them maybe 2-3 times a day. Unfortunately, the inactivity has caused me to not be very competitive, but It's been very freeing. - Especially the sleeping through the night part.

My sentiments exactly to the OP. I have played about 6 anon games and out of those 6 I have been screwed over 5 times. people get much more vicious in anon games, seriously, I don't know what gets into people but it is horrible, I almost feel like there are more friends getting together in anon games than in public ones, I try to stay away from anon games now, its not worth the stress.

If you can't handle backstabbing this isn't the game for you.

The anonymous games I have played in have been surprisingly pleasant. There was some backstabbing but nothing especially noteworthy. They were all 1400+ min rating, so maybe that had something to do with it (everyone in the game took it fairly seriously, is what I mean by that.) At the end of my fist one we all even agreed to reveal our identities and had a great chat.