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On September 07 2010 12:26 citi.zen wrote:Dropping bad santa should be fine. An alternative might be to reduced the list to 3 people: works the same in mafia hands but when in town hands you could at most have 2 confirmed players when someone gets killed. Killing the bad santa would be less appealing. Bad santa aside, I think this game was balanced OK. The mafia did effectively have another player in the traitor + there were some good pro-mafia roles that could have given the mafia extra KP but were not picked (still find it odd there wasn't a GF, even with the buff it got). The SK death/killing a red was twice lucky for town. Chaoser's list was another huge bit of luck: I would have pushed really hard to lynch Opz in it's absence; as it turned out, both me and Opz were on it AND there were also no other red on it AND Radfield had just been killed that night. Show nested quote +I actually liked the hit on JeeJee. The scum knew there was a medic/jack out there and they had it narrowed down to one of a few players. I don't think this is why they killed him, but I could be wrong. The mafia killed JeeJee to make lynching Fishball less attractive. This is the same reason FB claimed he was roleblocked the following night and went from 90% to 99% red in my eyes. I sort of checked out the past few days, glad Sin was there to finish this strong!
Just to elaborate a bit here, I didn't really want to claim to be Role Blocked.
I actually put in "orders" to hit myself and call it a day (plus I knew I would be busy during this long weekend), but Rastaban changed it to JeeJee. Me asking to die in the thread was actually sincere.
This was on Friday night, where I knew the game was already lost. For the record, I did not hit Chaoser, and I still don't know why the guys did it...
Anyways, after that long post from Rastaban on Divenek, I thought it wouldn't be too nice to put his efforts to "waste", so I just played along, despite the inevitable.
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On September 07 2010 04:28 Qatol wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2010 20:37 Ace wrote:
As you can see vx70GTOJudgexv was originally on the Scum team. He had to bow out so I randomly selected a Townie to replace him which was jspazz. Unfortunately for Scum jspazz went afk and luckily Subversion was around to replace in.
There were a lot of unlucky breaks for Scum + some strong Town players which got them caught. The first night zeks was actually going to shoot Fishball, but switched to Subversion. Either way he was hitting Scum.
Scum not using all their roles on players 2,3, and 5 was weird. They only shot at zeks and left the other 2 alone.
Southwarea did the right thing ringing the bell about a traitor in the top ranks, but did the wrong thing and accused Hessmyrr out of no where. Still no idea how anyone thought that was a good lynch.
Scum in the latter half of the game kept hitting unconfirmed townies tightening the noose on themselves. If the last 2 days are anything to go by some of the town still didn't have a clue. Should have shot everyone on chaoser's list except ~Opz~ and kept it going.
Townies lying (hi ~Opz~!) but citi.zen waited before outing him and chaoser's list saved the town from a very bad situation. Then again Scum shot chaoser (???) and confirmed 5 players. If this didn't happen and chaoser lived there would have been lots of leeway to make trouble.
A word about roles: For some reason there is a fixation on CV being the best role. That really depends on what else is being picked but if I had confidence in my team to escape lynches I wouldn't worry about the CV. If it's being controlled by the town then that means you probably won't get shot till it's too late. As Scum and town there are way better roles. The way the game was set up was that there were multiple options between 3 sets : Protective, Investigative, and Killing. You don't need CV and in fact no matter what side you're on if you get one of the upper tier slots it's usually in your best interest to pick whatever you want. Submitting yourselves to other people's authority isn't exactly a good thing early in the game. That said Scum is far more dangerous picking a doctor, roleblocker, role cop, Day vigi combination than having a CV. An extra kill isn't better than the ability to stop yourself from getting NK'd and stopping town roles. Take your role cop and find investigative roles and let your Day Vigi shoot the scummiest Townie. Let the town worry about whether or not the CV is legit, if he aims for one of you just RB him or med prot the target.
Lastly the Scum pretty much let the town get too comfortable with each other. After Radfield died, citi.zen and Pandain just rolled over everyone in the game and started putting pieces together. There was no strong Scum intervention aside from Fishball and it was just a matter of time. No one had a solid read on him in the mid-game but he was going to die soon from process of elimination. This game shows that no matter what happens if the town is very active and putting things together someone has to step up and shut it down. So many opportunities to cause havoc but I'm not sure if anyone was active enough to read the thread.
As for Bad Santa I'll probably remove it next game. Chaoser got very lucky picking 5 townies, but then Scum shot him so that made it even worse. LSB played a hell of a Traitor this game, surviving way
longer than I though he would. citi.zen and Radfield were most likely the town MVPs this game. I was honestly hoping you would put in an extra mafia member this game. Both in this game and the last I felt the town didn't play very well, killed a bunch of townies, and still managed to win over a mafia team who played better. I guess the traitor fills this void a little, but I still would have liked to see 1 more mafia member. I thought the mafia should have 100% just left the top of the list alone entirely other than Fishball's Bullet Bill ability. The town had devoted most of that part of the list to denying roles from the mafia, so the mafia weren't killing off any super dangerous roles for them (except Bad Santa due to some really bad luck for the mafia). On top of that, south started a witch hunt which set the town in motion killing all of the people in the top of the list, hunting for a player who might not even be mafia. They were looking for 1 player out of 2-6, so a 1 in 5 chance of hitting mafia. They actually would have had a better chance of getting a mafia/traitor by just lynching players randomly (1 in 4). I actually liked the hit on JeeJee. The scum knew there was a medic/jack out there and they had it narrowed down to one of a few players. Other than that, I agree. The hit on Chaoser was probably the worst hit of the game. The mafia should have known that they would be confirming a bunch of players. That hit should have been put on someone on the list. I don't think it's that CV is the best role overall. It definitely isn't from the town's point of view. However, the mafia is MUCH stronger if they get 2 KP. They just have a problem ending the game as it stands right now. So there is a lot of value for the town in denying the mafia the use of that role. More roles that had the potential to kill more than 1 player would help things a bit I think, but they might be hard to balance. A common theme in almost every mafia game is that the town will learn more as the game goes along. It is almost impossible for a mafia to keep the town from confirming a few players as most likely innocent. And that is a big deal as the game starts to wind down. However, it hasn't helped that the mafia had the top pick this game and the #2 pick last game, both slots assigned the CV. That is basically just a wasted role for the mafia. They don't want to be seen as going against the town, but with that role, they will only be able to go against the town consensus 1 time. It is just a hard position to be in. I agree that the mafia didn't incite enough suspicion. In particular, I think that Fishball should have stirred something up earlier in the game. The town was definitely going down the wrong path early, but they managed to get a few lucky breaks and suddenly they're going in the right direction and the mafia has no foundation set up to lead them in the wrong direction.
I actually did stir thing up early on, just a bit more subtle. I know I'm quoting your post, but I'll just use this post to list some events and run down of things.
- Before the game actually starts, Radfield posted his plan; I see it and talked to the guys, saying that he is definitely one of the smarter players, and needs to be taken down whenever we have the chance.
- Me drafting Bullet Bill was a genuine mistake. Like I mentioned in the thread, I didn't have time to adjust for the 3rd list change Ace made.
- Subversion was a 3rd replacement, and never had time to communicate with us at all for the draft. Also his time zone is Korea...
- DTA picked CopyCat; His own choice, which is fine, but Divinek shooting BM got him Mason, rendering his role useless the entire game. Regardless of the outcome, Divinek will always be a hero to me. Good job!
- SR claims there is a Traitor in the top. Immediately, I planned to have this dragged out as long as possible, "stirring things up". I never planned to pick up the Traitor at all, but to use this situation to grab the town's attention instead. It worked out for the most part, until the guys shot Chaoser, one day ahead of schedule.
- Rastaban and me were the only active ones at first. Like mentioned above, Subversion is in Korea and rarely posts. Eventually he was killed off Night 1 by the SK. DTA was pretty much playing SC2 most of the time, drawing a lot of unnecessary suspicion to himself since the beginning, and there was nothing we could do about it. Later on, Rastaban was busy with work and was pretty much unavailable most of the time during the day for like an entire week. I was left alone.
- After the SK was lynched, I knew our chance of winning just dropped dramatically; Three Mafia with one KP, against the entire Town after Night 1. Great.
- Biggest turn around in the game for us: Bad Santa list with all five innocents. If we proceed with the "plan", as in dragging out the Traitor situation with lynches and proceed to hit the "confirmed" targets on the list, we still have a chance. This all ended when Chaoser was hit instead, and the citizen hit was saved. The game was officially over at this point, statistically wise.
- I talked to Ace that same night, and told him that I'll just use our Mafia hit to kill myself. I was already too tired at this point, and I pretty much wasn't enjoying the "game" at all. Ace suggested we concede, but I said no, as I wanted to see things unfold; Curious to see how much longer it would take for the Town to figure things out.
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Oops... I guess I shouldn't have pushed the zeks kill?
I was assuming that zeks would be considerably anti mafia (especially since he killed a mafia already, and he would be a SK rolecop and rolecop = bad)
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On September 07 2010 13:26 Fishball wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2010 12:26 citi.zen wrote:Dropping bad santa should be fine. An alternative might be to reduced the list to 3 people: works the same in mafia hands but when in town hands you could at most have 2 confirmed players when someone gets killed. Killing the bad santa would be less appealing. Bad santa aside, I think this game was balanced OK. The mafia did effectively have another player in the traitor + there were some good pro-mafia roles that could have given the mafia extra KP but were not picked (still find it odd there wasn't a GF, even with the buff it got). The SK death/killing a red was twice lucky for town. Chaoser's list was another huge bit of luck: I would have pushed really hard to lynch Opz in it's absence; as it turned out, both me and Opz were on it AND there were also no other red on it AND Radfield had just been killed that night. I actually liked the hit on JeeJee. The scum knew there was a medic/jack out there and they had it narrowed down to one of a few players. I don't think this is why they killed him, but I could be wrong. The mafia killed JeeJee to make lynching Fishball less attractive. This is the same reason FB claimed he was roleblocked the following night and went from 90% to 99% red in my eyes. I sort of checked out the past few days, glad Sin was there to finish this strong! Just to elaborate a bit here, I didn't really want to claim to be Role Blocked. I actually put in "orders" to hit myself and call it a day (plus I knew I would be busy during this long weekend), but Rastaban changed it to JeeJee. Me asking to die in the thread was actually sincere. This was on Friday night, where I knew the game was already lost. For the record, I did not hit Chaoser, and I still don't know why the guys did it... Anyways, after that long post from Rastaban on Divenek, I thought it wouldn't be too nice to put his efforts to "waste", so I just played along, despite the inevitable.
see now everytime rasta comes out of no where with an end game analysis on someone, im going to push for his lynch soooooooooooo hard. I was hoping he was being mindlessly consistent like before, and indeed he was.
I mean i knew i was town, and the way he posted i felt like he knew too lol.
wait what in the world. Why would you guys ever hit chaoser?(er those guys i suppose since you didnt) lol if you know none of you are on the list and it confirms all those people....im so confused.
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On September 07 2010 14:23 LSB wrote:
Oops... I guess I shouldn't have pushed the zeks kill?
I was assuming that zeks would be considerably anti mafia (especially since he killed a mafia already, and he would be a SK rolecop and rolecop = bad)
Mafia needs the extra kills in a game like this. There are too many townies in the game for the mafia to off the SK early.
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On September 07 2010 12:51 Qatol wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2010 12:37 Ace wrote:On September 07 2010 11:06 SiNiquity wrote:On September 07 2010 09:03 Ace wrote:On September 07 2010 08:21 SiNiquity wrote:
Yes, and get rid of the 2nd number bit for the draft. Using it as a tie-breaker is moot, as then what if the 2nd numbers tie? Eventually you need a method of choosing independent of the chosen numbers (i.e. dice roll in this game), so why bother with even having more than 1 tie breaker.
I also like the idea of the most unique number (higher being better naturally). nah I need the second number because without it everyone will pick low numbers and pray for a good role. Picking 2 different numbers is easier than picking 1 different number. From now on I'll make sure that in the case of ties it's broken by uniqueness before order. So in this example: [7][3] [7][7] [5][7] [5][6] [5][6] Even though both sets have ties (7 and 5) I'll push 7 ahead in the draft order since that is more unique than 5. Then the 7s get resolved the normal way (3 before 7) and the 5s go through another unique tie break. In this case [5][7] is more unique than [5][6] so it goes before both of them. Then the two [5][6] players are resolved by dice roll. Thoughts? ProblemYour system is not designed with a player's goal in mind. Your justification for keeping the 2 number system is that it's easier to pick 2 unique numbers instead of 1 unique number. But that's not the player's goal. The goal is to optimize one's position in the list, which hinges on picking the highest unique number. There is little strategy involved with choosing the second number, and it is not justified in the additional complexity. ProofHere's the strategy for choosing the second number. For N > 0, suppose you anticipate overlapping with N players. Then you should choose a number between N (safest, assuming minimal overlap, RNG with the last guy for 2nd to last place) and (N+1)/2 rounded up (riskiest, assuming maximal overlap). This holds both in the current system and in the proposed uniqueness-first system (except the safest bet is N+1 instead of N for N > 1). In the case of N = 1 (arguably the most common case), the optimal answer is always 1 (giving you a 50% chance at the top spot, compared to a 0% chance for any other number choice). Furthermore, the penalty for overlapping in the second column is negligible when compared to overlapping in the first column, and as a result you'll see riskier play here. This mostly explains the distribution of the second column: 35% (7) of the players chose [*][1] and 15% chose [*][2], and those that chose various numbers such as 9, 20, etc. just didn't take the time to analyze the problem (or perhaps misunderstood it). SolutionHowever, since you seem interested in keeping the second column, then I suggest the following: all overlappers are thrown into a single pool, completely disregarding their initial choice, and ordered entirely based on their second number. Overlaps here would follow the current system (edit: with the addition of uniqueness taking priority), with overlaps being bumped to the bottom and RNG'ing within their subgroup for order. In the current system, your first number choice is shooting either for a low number and hope it's not overlapping (e.g. BrownBear's 20), or for a high number but running under the assumption it will probably overlap (e.g. 75% of players choosing numbers 10 or less). In the new system, your first number choice is first and foremost a unique number, as its rank is meaningless if it's not unique. The second number then will play much like the current first number, albeit on a slightly smaller scale (as the pool size will be smaller, yet just how much smaller will not be known from the outset - an interesting twist IMO). This gets you closer to your stated goal: players choosing 2 unique numbers. Hope you take this into consideration Ace. Your solution is actually the old way I did it. If you for example had 3 people pick [8][N] then I slotted you based on N. If you had the same N I RNG'd you. Also, you don't mean this by pooling ALL players do you? : [8][*] [8][*] [12][*] [12][*] [12][*] And now all 5 players are in the same pool, organized by * ? However I may be misunderstanding what's different about your proposal so you'll have to give me some examples to show me. I think what he's proposing is something like this: [8][1] [8][3] [5][2] [5][5] [5][7] All of these conflict with another pick on the first number. The final list would look like this: [8][1] [5][2] [8][3] [5][5] [5][7] I guess picks of the same second numbers + a clash on the first number would be resolved randomly?
Divinek's Qatol's got it, where clashes in the second pool get resolved randomly (within their subgroup).
So for example:
[3][4]
[4][5]
- End unique 1st col
[2][3]
[6][6]
[1][7]
- End unique 2nd col
[6][2]*
[1][2]*
[2][1]**
[5][1]**
[5][1]**
Where */** RNG's within their subgroup
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On September 07 2010 04:35 bumatlarge wrote:
Yeah every time darth is mafia, its like an aura of sillyness. Lets kill such and such and make it easier for town. First yellow and now chaoser. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN!?
zzz I had nothing to do with that hit ^^. I was pretty AWOL this entire game. With the Judge/jspazz/Subversion shenanigans, I thought we were going to gg after some lulzy stuff on day 1, and then we decided to try... but SC2 was just so much better than this =P.
If we had really been silly, I woulda gone something like Day Vig, shoot someone day 1, etc. =D.
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I don't understand why everyone thinks mafia hit chaoser. We hit citizen that night and were blocked.
I CompViged Chaoser because I was pretty much locked into following what the town requested for hits. This was probably an error on the CV part as I didn't have time to think the hit through as i was getting home just before the deadlines every night.
As mafia we never would have went for him and that is also why the kill was never talked about. I was trying to play the role of an obedient townie, and wanted to sway the votes for comp vig more but sadly my training schedule was forced to move so I ended up being absent a large part of the week as Fish mentioned.
Knowing what I do now the Roleblocker is a very strong mafia role. I had thought it kind of week when we were picking. If we had taken it then we would have RBed the SK night 1, while he would not have died subversion would have lived.
We could also hit methman etc by roleblocking and then hitting them. It would have given us someone to fish around the top roles with to pickup the traitor so I wouldn't shoot and convert them.
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i wanted to pick of the ppl who would have roles that would out me (ie. JOAT/BB) so i started from the people right below SR.
happens that both 7 and 8 are scum rofl. originally i skipped over subversion and had my kill as fishball, rolecop check OpZ but changed last minute
lsb + SR both picking traitor + hesmyrr lynch made it very difficult for me lol
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On September 07 2010 14:23 LSB wrote:
Oops... I guess I shouldn't have pushed the zeks kill?
I was assuming that zeks would be considerably anti mafia (especially since he killed a mafia already, and he would be a SK rolecop and rolecop = bad)
Well, sort of yes and no.
When bum came out saying there were only 4 visitors , it didn't take long for Town and Mafia to figure out zeks was the SK. He was bound to be lynched. We actually hit zeks too, as we figured he would very likely be the Role Cop, and there shouldn't be any protection.
The entire thing was just unfortunate. The SK needs us as much as we need the SK.
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Radfield
Canada2720 Posts
On September 07 2010 23:26 Fishball wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2010 14:23 LSB wrote:
Oops... I guess I shouldn't have pushed the zeks kill?
I was assuming that zeks would be considerably anti mafia (especially since he killed a mafia already, and he would be a SK rolecop and rolecop = bad) Well, sort of yes and no. When bum came out saying there were only 4 visitors , it didn't take long for Town and Mafia to figure out zeks was the SK. He was bound to be lynched. We actually hit zeks too, as we figured he would very likely be the Role Cop, and there shouldn't be any protection. The entire thing was just unfortunate. The SK needs us as much as we need the SK.
When I was the SK I really felt like the mafia were the biggest threat to me winning, as I felt confident I could avoid lynches. Therefore, I tried to lynch mafia, while cutting down townie numbers at night. The mafia lynches bought me some townie cred during the day, while at night I could eliminate townies and get to endgame as fast as possible(I was Floridian).
I don't think zeks hit in this case was anti-mafia. In fact it was very anti-town given that he was killing those most likely to be investigative roles. In this set-up that was the perfect play for the SK. You just got unlucky zeks that you were pick #5, a very prominent spot particularly in the plan we used.
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Isn't that what I'm saying, or did you meant to quote LSB? ;o
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On September 07 2010 22:50 rastaban wrote:
I don't understand why everyone thinks mafia hit chaoser. We hit citizen that night and were blocked.
I CompViged Chaoser because I was pretty much locked into following what the town requested for hits. This was probably an error on the CV part as I didn't have time to think the hit through as i was getting home just before the deadlines every night.
As mafia we never would have went for him and that is also why the kill was never talked about. I was trying to play the role of an obedient townie, and wanted to sway the votes for comp vig more but sadly my training schedule was forced to move so I ended up being absent a large part of the week as Fish mentioned.
Knowing what I do now the Roleblocker is a very strong mafia role. I had thought it kind of week when we were picking. If we had taken it then we would have RBed the SK night 1, while he would not have died subversion would have lived.
We could also hit methman etc by roleblocking and then hitting them. It would have given us someone to fish around the top roles with to pickup the traitor so I wouldn't shoot and convert them.
Ah, I guess I misunderstood the situation. I think a hit on LSB would have been stronger in that position than a hit on Chaoser (in the hopes that the town doesn't kill Chaoser), but it wasn't as bad of a move as I thought it was.
Yes, I would have picked Roleblocker and Jack over Copy Cat and Role Cop in a heartbeat as mafia, and I think both of them are stronger than Godfather if you only kill the hammer voter. Copy Cat is only a truly scary role if you have a plan set up to exploit the role (something like dayvig on the compulsive vigi day 1). Otherwise, it is generally a wasted pick. I know you had some communication problems early which set you back, but I thought the mafia really hurt themselves with the role picks. It kinda sucks that you had to pick Compulsive Vigilante at #1 and I liked Fishball's pick of Bullet Bill because it is basically an alignment check thanks to the priorities the town put on investigative/ defensive roles (avoiding killing roles almost completely).
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Radfield
Canada2720 Posts
Yup, absolutely meant to quote LSB 
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On September 07 2010 23:26 Fishball wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2010 14:23 LSB wrote:
Oops... I guess I shouldn't have pushed the zeks kill?
I was assuming that zeks would be considerably anti mafia (especially since he killed a mafia already, and he would be a SK rolecop and rolecop = bad) Well, sort of yes and no. When bum came out saying there were only 4 visitors , it didn't take long for Town and Mafia to figure out zeks was the SK. He was bound to be lynched. We actually hit zeks too, as we figured he would very likely be the Role Cop, and there shouldn't be any protection. The entire thing was just unfortunate. The SK needs us as much as we need the SK.
I just think there was an argument to be made that the town could control the SK hit and lynch the SK later if he didn't cooperate. I don't know if it would have worked, but it is a thought. And a traitor is the perfect player to argue that position because the mafia shouldn't really be altogether too worried about recruiting the traitor until the mafia numbers get pretty low. Until then, the traitor is basically a sacrifice behaviorally because they (effectively) have no special role other than dodging checks unless recruited, in which case they are pretty much vanilla mafia.
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@Radfield: I felt so bad for Scum when zeks actually ended up killing Subversion and outting Fishball. That's 2 games in a row an SK has accidentally got Scum in trouble early game ^_^. Also your plan was a decent extension of Qatol's plan from PYP 1. I guess with an established starting plan whoever rolls Scum next time will need to think of ways to avoid being forced into picks.
I disagree. First of all, Radfield's logic for CV was not good. In PYP1, town played terribly and used the CV to kill "scummy" people, who all turned out to be innocent. The allowance for killing off "scummy" people by a (weaker) variation of "double lynch" I think makes town not think as hard about finding scum. It turns into "well, they're both scummy so we lynch one and CV the other keke?" since they can. CV is a scapegoat for lack of good analysis. And mafia should use this to their advantage.
I think that using CV as a double lynch every day is NOT good for the town, as Radfield claims. Town needs information, not reckless killing. If the CV spot is out in the open and "controlled" by the town collectively, there is no way of confirming what CV's alignment is. Any consensus hit directed toward a mafia could run into huge problems, like scum doctors, roleblocks, etc. Good scum picks and play means that town won't gain anything from CV hit regardless of CV alignment. Furthermore, using the CV to off "scummy" players simply ends the game faster and hastens the town's loss. 3 KP in a 20 player game is BAD news for town. The fact is, with only 20 players and 1 KP, mafia is in a tough spot, especially since SK has every incentive to play-pro town (given he can't be NKed by the mafia, and wants to avoid lynch by the town). So mafia shouldn't rely on SK hits to help them, although SK is likely to hit some townies anyway. The difference between a "town controlled" CV and an SK though is that mafia don't know who SK is or who he's going to hit, so its almost impossible to RB him or protect one of their own. Therefore, although mafia is safe from CV, they are not safe from SK. Regardless, mafia is hurting if only 2 KP exists in the game, since one of those KP should be pro-town and is hard for mafia to guard against. The addition of a third CV KP to the game is a blessing for them because now they can speed up the game and have less to worry about a long drawn out game with a lot of investigations.
Second thing about Radfield's (original plan), town announcing numbers ahead of time is terrible. Thankfully you realized this before the end of the day. Basically this gives mafia holes to exploit and makes it easy for them to get high numbers by either shotgunning high numbers, or "accidentally" double picking high numbers and hoping the townie in that spot switches. Announcing numbers ahead of time is just asking for mafia manipulation. And really, town shouldn't be all too concerned about the order of picking. There are roles town wants that mafia really doesn't care about. And trying to rig the draft order isn't going to do any good because as town you can't guarantee town gets the top spots. "Central planning" with regards to the draft order is pointless. The reason why town choices in secret are good is because of double picking. Like in PYP1, townies should have announced number picks after the draft order was released, which brings with it a bunch of information mafia can't manipulate. The lesson to be learned from PYP is that town shouldn't tunnel vision the resulting list and should actively analyze, but the fact is that the list helps narrow things down/restrict mafia's options. Post-draft order number announcment should be mostly ignored by the town, but can't really be ignored by the mafia.
Third thing: assigning roles. The way it was done this game wasn't really in the town's best interests. Sure, it attempts to force mafia to get certain roles, but if a mafia occupies a spot where they are the first person who supposedly is supposed to RNG between, say, role cop and vet, they obviously take rolecop and now town is deprived of info while mafia did nothing "wrong" with regards to breaking the town plan. It relies more on luck of the draft order than anything else. Second, roleblockers mean the random defensive picks in there aren't as useful as they should be. Mafia knows which roles are where, and as the game moves on they can figure things out by process of elimination much easier than if everyone chose their own role. Also telling getting the role list out in the open like that allows mafia to safely pick roles they want. Mafia in the 4th spot could have easily claimed to have picked CV and gotten vanilla when in fact they picked doctor. (the next person to pick doctor wouldn't know since there are two possible doctors this game).
I didn't read the entire game, but I liked citi.zen's early game play. He saw the dangers of the flawed use of CV and argued against it with good reason. He also noted the dangers of the central planning of town roles. Sadly I don't think anyone bothered to read over the post where he posts Ace's thoughts on why CV isn't the role people should be most concerned about. Its pro-town to lynch CV right off the bat. Buys a lot of time for the town investigative roles and forces a longer game which should hurt the mafia. Unfortunately you probably should've stated your intention to kill the CV after role picks were finished but thats ok.
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Setup: Ignoring special roles, mafia is severely disadvantaged from the start. 4 v. 15 townies and 1 SK and only 1 KP to show for it. Mafia can be buffed either by upping KP, or upping numbers. Since technically there is 2 KP total in the game already (though one not controlled by mafia), I wouldn't suggest increasing KP (KP = 10% of players is standard -- when the KP is controlled by the mafia. Since in this game it is not, the 2 KP is weaker than would normally exist in the game). Increasing mafia numbers to 5/6 so that its 5/6 mafia v. 14/13 townies and 1 SK is a fair deal I think if you remove the CV. Makes things much easier to think about in terms of role picks and I think will stimulate people to think more about other roles rather than trying to figure out how to deny mafia their extra KP (they have a legitimate reason to do this, but I think the whole discussion stifles what the game could potentially be).
On September 07 2010 08:00 Qatol wrote:+ Show Spoiler [Roles selected in both games] +
Compulsive vigilante
I think I've already made my thoughts known on this, but it's a really important role for the mafia. They have trouble ending the game without KP and this role is the only role which gives more than 1 extra KP (other than Inventor in PYP1 or Bad Santa in PYP2).
As explained above, I think this role should be removed while buffing mafia KP. There are many more strategic options for mafia that they don't require extra kills if they just had one or two more members. But with few members, picking CV looks attractive. And town notices this. Might as well just get rid of the issue completely.
Meth Man
One of the strongest role the town has. I'm surprised the mafia haven't made more of an effort to defensively pick this just to keep it out of town hands. In my opinion, it is probably a bit too strong, especially since it takes out Serial Killers or Mafia.
There are really a lot of options for this role. Claim it as a high profile player to stay alive longer and scare the mafia from killing you even if you aren't the meth man. Claim to be Role cop or BB if you are the meth man. The thing is, these can be accomplished with the use of bulletproof and veteran without punishing the mafia. The role is kinda unfair to the mafia since now a kill could make them lose one of their own. Bulletproof/veteran are better options balance-wise as it isn't so volatile, yet still keeps the same strategic options open.
Day Vigilante
I think this is a nice role. Well balanced and useful no matter which side gets it.
Copy Cat
I think this is actually a deceptively weak role unless players scheme to make it stronger. However, when it is strong, it is really really strong. Could be the source of a pretty nasty combo (in the twilight before someone is lynched, day vig the compulsive vigi to give the mafia a hidden compulsive vigi and still allow the mafia to waste the day 1 lynch). But as long as the town doesn't forget about it, it gives the town something interesting to do early.
I don't have a problem with this role. If town doesn't try to rig the role picking, mafia can't exploit the CC.
Doctor
Standard role. I don't remember what Naive or Weak mean, but I'm really glad you have 2. I think this role should be picked more often.
Completely agree. Doctor is useful for either side really.
Role Cop
Very strong role for either side. Has some use for the SK as well, but it is a lot weaker in my opinion because they just don't want to run into a defensive role or a medic. If the person who claims this role isn't mafia, they are likely to take a hit relatively quickly because there are some roles which benefit the town more than the mafia or vice versa.
Tracker
I don't think this one is very strong because if the mafia are playing correctly, most of them will get the roles they were trying to pick. In that case, the tracker becomes a lot less useful unless you're trying to track down something goofy like the roleblocker.
I agree. This role is weak because mafia could be any role. Tracking a mafia rolecop to his target isn't all too useful for town
Floridian
This role only becomes useful in the absolute end game. I still don't think it is a very good role, but Floridian SK is decent. I'd still rather have something like Day Vigi or Jack if I were them though.
This role is more useful given how people like to play here at TL. Setting up a townie who mistakenly hammers can set town off on a wild goose chase given how people like the blame game. The floridian doesn't even have to be on the majority vote list to get the guy lynched, so town isn't necessarily going to find scum/SK on the vote list.
Mason
Good role for anyone who can play well outside of the thread.
Impatient mason is more valuable than this variation. As long as you pick wisely you should be OK though.
Pardoner
Solid role mid-late game for the mafia. Any other use will probably just get an innocent/SK lynched because of how TL mafia works. I think I'd rather have more KP as mafia again though.
Martyr
I never really liked this role much because to a certain extent, the mafia and SK still get their kill.
Watcher
Other than some funny stories from bum, this role didn't seem to have much of a purpose in this format either because even if you watch someone good, you just don't get that much information. If bum had been a doctor instead of a watcher, he would have gotten 2 protections instead. Far more useful.
The normal watcher would probably be too imbalanced. But perhaps changing it so that you get the name of the first player who visits and only the first player could make it useful. As for using it to learn the mafia count, I would argue that town should know the mafia count before the game starts.
Bullet Bill
Very strong town role as things stand right now. The town doesn't like to pick roles that shoot, so this almost becomes an alignment check. I like it for the SK as well because he can use it to help tweak the mafia-town balance in an attempt to make the game last longer.
Bad Santa
I don't think this role is as strong as it appeared to be in this game. First of all, chaoser got VERY lucky and picked 5 townies for his list. If the mafia had been on the list, this role would have probably been a lot weaker. Maybe tweak this role a bit and assign the list to Bad Santa in the future, ensuring that there is always at least 1 innocent and 1 mafia on the list?
I think this role should be removed. Its like a list check that activates upon the death of a member. Really swingy and unnecessary imo.
Traitor
Interesting role. Really the threat of this role does a lot to keep the town busy. Be mindful that this role is in the game if you increase the number of mafia.
Look hard at these and maybe consider tweaking some of these roles.
Alignment Cop
I agree that this role is underused. I think it's the threat of being Paranoid (and thus useless) that bothers people. Otherwise, it is a very strong role. I like it the way it is.
Bulletproof
I think this one is underused because of the presence of the Meth Man. Why make yourself immune to night hits when you can take down the person who hit you? At the very least, I think there should be 2 of these in the pool so people have some more security about taking this role.
2 Bulletproofs would be a headache for mafia since SK is already bulletproof. The elimination of meth man should make this more attractive though so I'm ok with it as it is.
Jack Of All Trades
I am honestly shocked that this role is never selected. I think it is one of the strongest roles in the game, yet it keeps getting passed over. If anything, it is a little too strong.
Veteran
Another really weak role (in comparison). It is 100% worse than the bulletproof, and even that role isn't seeing much use thanks to Meth Man. I would either cut it, make it stronger by giving it another ability (maybe you survive the first time you are lynched? - makes it better for SK to pick too), or put a bunch of them in the pool so you are basically assured of getting a role if you pick Veteran.
I like this change. Otherwise veteran is obviously inferior to Bulletproof.
God Father
I agree that this role needed to be made stronger from PYP1. I like the changes you made with the role, and I see it as relatively on par with Vengeful Player. However, I would like to see it confuse a few more information roles, at the very least the Bullet Bill role. The biggest problem with this role is there is just no reason for non-mafia to take it.
Killing the hammer voter isn't all that useful, esp since the best behavior analysts pushing for your lynch will be on the front of the wagon, not the tail end. Would be much more useful if this was simply an vengeful player who can't be alignment checked. I'd just combine the traditional GF role with Vengeful player and get rid of vengeful player to consolidate.
Role blocker
Another role I can't understand why people aren't taking. This one is really good for almost everyone. Does it disable Meth Man?
I agree. Especially with the town penchant for claiming a lot of roles/controlling who gets what role, roleblocker becomes insanely powerful. Stopping people from investigating or killing your team mates is priceless. Of course, stopping them from investigating and killing innocents is also beneficial given townies are likely to go crazy and suspect X because he was roleblocked or even suspect whoever X was supposed to target. If town is obsessed with controlling the roles, mafia don't need to try to deny town information roles. They can cause enough chaos with RB.
Vengeful Player
KP role, but it isn't as strong as Day Vigi. It should probably see more use. I wouldn't change this much.
See my comments on GF.
Prince(ss) of Darkness
I haven't really thought through the ramifications of this role enough yet. It seems like it would be situational though. By the way, why is it Prince(ss) but not Meth (Wo)Man?
If CV is eliminated as I propose, this role would get weaker. Giving town extra use of blue powers while mafia only gets +1 KP isn't all too great, esp since mafia shouldn't really be having night actions which benefit them directly. Imo mafia role picks are best when they seek to counteract town roles.
I think there are just too many roles in the game right now. I think some of these overlapping ones need to be cut, or at least make the roles closer in power so it isn't quite so obvious which ones should be picked. Gotta agree with this. The way the game is set up, discussion revolves around a few key roles which limits strategic diversity due to nearsightedness, imo.
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Radfield
Canada2720 Posts
A few comments:
The idea of claiming numbers beforehand was not my idea, It was Bill Murray's. I originally argued against it, then said fine whatever, then after more thought argued against it again. I certainly never said it was a good plan.
I don't understand why town wouldn't want to double lynch each day. We all agree that a no-lynch is bad, so therefore a single-lynch each day is good for the town. Why does the line get drawn between a single lynch and a double lynch. Day one is of course a bit of a separate issue as I'm not sure a double lynch would really be a great idea. But once on Day 2, there is a wealth of info in the thread. At what point does lynching become detrimental to the town? 1.25 lynches per day? 1.5 lynches per day? I guess I don't see a benefit to drawing the line at 1 lynch per day.
The way I see it, the better the ratio between town KP and Mafia KP, the better off town is. With a CV(working as a double lynch) town gets 2 kills for every 1 mafia kill. That means 2 scummy players are dying for every non-scummy player. In a regular game with 30 people or so, you'd be looking at 1 scummy player(lynch) for every 3 or 4 non-scummy players, a much more difficult task for town.
Yes the CV hastens the end of the game, but unless your relying heavily on investigative roles or in a fairly inactive game, this isn't terrible. The fewer hits mafia get off the better, because it keeps the pro-town players alive. If town had infinity lynches and was active, that would be hugely in favor of the town, as they effectively reduce the mafia KP to zero. The issue though would of course be activity.
Also, although mafia can dodge the CV hits via roleblock/Medics etc, that only delays the inevitable. If someone is up for CVing and miraculously survives the night, then you're going to lynch that person the next day, putting you no further behind then if the CV didn't exist. I do agree that the CV's uncertain alignment is an issue though and that he certainly needs to be lynched before the endgame. I also agree that having the extra hit can make people more slack about scum-hunting. When you only have one lynch, you treat that lynch as a precious resource. With more lynch power it's easier to slack off, although of course this doesn't need to be the case.
Just wanted to make my thoughts a little clearer, as I felt you were missing my reasoning on the CV. I'm certainly not sure about any of it though, and am willing to be persuaded.
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Radfield
Canada2720 Posts
Also, as far as my original drafting plan went. It's purpose was twofold, try to ensure town gets decent roles, but more importantly, get the town talking. Unfortunately, other than citizen, very few people tried to add or amend anything in the plan, when it was very much in need of amendment. At the end I started seeing more and more holes in the plan, but I felt it was too late to try and fix them. If there had been more discussion about it I think we could have come up with a much more sound plan.
Several strong points:
Denying powerful mafia roles by assigning them top slots(roleblocker should have been denied)
Having town avoid 'gun' roles to make Bullet Bill much more effective
Avoiding roles which are more beneficial to mafia then to town, making the role cop more effective.
Using an RNG for defensive roles to try and minimize overlap(4 people sent in Meth Man at one point or another, no one sent in either Vet or BP at any time. It might have RNGed this way, but I bet people intentionally went after it)
If mafia want to take Bullet Bill, Medics etc, I think that benefits the town in this set-up, as town still have powerful pro-town roles, while mafia is denied their dark-side equivalents. Mafia can try and muddle up the town with their roles, but that takes a lot of skill and is inherently risky for mafia. Much more so than hiding in the shadows using PoD and Bad Santa to bolster their KP and wipe out any strong townies.
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Pining some important roles at the top of the list is hugely helpful for the town and Radfield took the lead in that discussion.
The more I think about it, the more damaging the CV seems to the town. The mafia should pretty much always pick a role-blocker, especially if it is "reserved" for them. An active mafia can generally push for the night 2 CV target to be a townie. Then they can push for another townie night 3, but then RB the CV! Imagine the confusion: was the target red and saved by his mafia buddies? Is the CV red? Who is the RB? This would take forever to sort out...
In general the RB could prevent people from "proving" their role, important in this role-heavy set-up since it can spread confusion and side-tracking conversations forever. The GF in this case not bad either, and it offered an extra KP.
So again, my feeling is not that the mafia was underpowered, I thought the new roles and the traitor did what they were supposed to. They did get very unlucky and a bit disorganized early on, then unlucky again mid-game with the whole bad santa thing.
Edit: I also think a 2x lynch every day would in fact be bad for town since it does not generate much more information than a regular lynch. It's not the flips that matter, it's the conversations around them, and I don't think 2x lynches give you much more conversation. On top of that, with a RB, the CV is nothing like a 2x lynch since the mafia basically has an anonymous pardoner.
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Radfield
Canada2720 Posts
Also Qatol, you mentioned that he JOAT didn't have a high enough priority in the plan, but I'm not sure I agree. It was given the second highest priority for townies to grab, the only role higher up was the role cop. Now whether these should be switched or not I don't know, but JOAT certainly wasn't left out of the plan or forgotten. It was regarded as very important.
Reasons it didn't get picked:
Southrawrea(50% chance) took Traitor instead of RNGing a chance of JOAT
Opz(50% chance) RNGed a defensive role
JeeJee(25% chance) either RNGed something else, or didn't bother RNGing
bumatlarge(50% chance) almost certainly did not RNG, and simply grabbed something he thought he could get.
If all four players(All townies even!) had followed the plan, we would have had around a 90% chance of getting it(I think)
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EPT
