EPTSmurfing bad.
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Protactinium
Canada550 Posts
Smurfing bad. | ||
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aidnai
United States1159 Posts
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dreamflower
United States312 Posts
On January 04 2011 07:30 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: I approve of that! You are like a father to us, a father who beats his children. While at time we hate you and your belt (banlist) at the end of the day we can't help but love your tireless work banning inactives, making us a better game in the end, even if its at the cost of a healthy relationship. I made this banner for Qatol. ![[image loading]](http://i499.photobucket.com/albums/rr355/maidenofmystery/Images/Qatol.jpg) The green face is from the Qatol card in L5R. Forgive my poor Photoshopping skills, not to mention this brief derailment of Ace's thread. Sometimes, having a funny inspiration and wanting a break from work can do funny things to one's mind. | ||
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Qatol
United States3165 Posts
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RebirthOfLeGenD
USA5860 Posts
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LSB
United States5171 Posts
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Ace
United States16096 Posts
On January 04 2011 00:17 Qatol wrote: I disagree completely with your statement that Vigis take more skill to play than Hatters. I don't think we have seen more than 1 instance of the Hatter role being used correctly actually (dreamflower in Mafia XV). The thing is, if the Hatter is lynched, the town is wasting KP. It might be appropriate to change the role so they have 1 bomb instead of 2 to avoid the carpet bombing effect, but it is a lot harder to draw out a hit from the mafia while placing your bomb correctly than it is to survive for a day or two and then take a shot. Whether the Hatter dies by lynch or NK he/she has fulfilled their job: dying to kill other players. I agree that via lynch the town has wasted KP but we have seen many times where the town purposefully lynches a claimed Hatter. Scum and SKs can not claim Hatter because of this. The Hatter's job is to die. They don't want to die. If they claim it the town will ask where the bombs are and when is it a good time to lynch you. 2 things neither of those players want to deal with. It's one of the best Pro-Town claims ever because there is no counter claiming it. We don't have the hatter roleclaim and double lynch immediately in an attempt to "carpet bomb our way to victory" because that's actually the easiest way for the town to lose. The town would rather use their KP when their information roles have had a little time to point out scum. Throwing KP at early game suspects is an easy way to kill townies and put the town into a big hole. Sure they might get lucky from time to time, but it just isn't a consistently effective strategy. Well you can't bomb your way to victory Day 1 anyway. But by Day 3 when some investigative results and lynches are resolved the town should just have their hatters claim. Really what are the Mafia going to do? Kill you? Why can't SK or Mafia pretend to be a Hatter? Because they're afraid of a lynch? That is a ridiculous waste. If they have managed to make themselves suspicious enough that they are worried they cannot dodge a lynch with a Hatter claim when they probably could survive with a Vigi claim, they probably screwed up anyways. Also, this isn't really that much of a problem because a lot of the games have the Vigi role on the role list and it just isn't used. The whole point of it being there is so the Mafia/SK can roleclaim it. I'm with Incognito. I don't think your proposed changes really do much for the player skill level. It won't increase because people don't want to get better. DrH, mandatory smurfing is just a bad idea. The games become more about figuring out who is which smurf than they do about finding scum. As said before, Mafia and SK can't pretend to be MH because the role is designed to die. The Town will lynch a MH just as fast as they sometimes lynch Vanilla Townies or unclaimed Blue roles on the chopping block. The difference here is the Town clearly thinks killing the MH is an immediate advantage. As you asked - being afraid of the lynch? Yes. Because unlike any other Power Role this is the one the Town WILL lynch even knowing it's a Townie. I don't know who is modding games with Vigis there just as a prop. It is imo one of the best roles, if not the best even without SK and Scum fake claims taken into account. I pointed out in my previous post why but to sum it up: Vigis add much more depth and rewards Scum hunting better than Mad Hatters can. If I'm good at finding Scum why would I want to have to kill myself to take out people? I'd rather kill them and stay alive to find more scum. I still think forcing the game to be played like most other places with in thread voting and no PMs will up the skill level whether people want to get better or not. Read through the past games with Private Messages and look at how terrible some of the players are doing. It's not even always their fault because they honestly have no idea what is going because half the information that would help them is missing. | ||
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Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
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BloodyC0bbler
Canada7876 Posts
When the games first started circles were formed in them, but the pming also heavily relied on what I like to think of as an "idea circle" or anything on those lines. People would get together, fully expecting 1 or more of the people they are talking to to be mafia. Rather than discussing role distribution, the group would talk about strategies that could be used, behavioural analyze as a group, clue analyze as a group. There was alot of information being shared, and due to the nature of the group everyone had to participate somehow. Eventually people may end up claiming, but the idea was more on finding reds than confirming town. I am not sure where this whole stance of confirming town circles and just offing people came from (an active mafia team should easily destroy this unless game is horrrribly town favoured). If pm's were used as they were in the past, or as the people I routinely pm'd in games did, I believe the skill level would rise. I could be horribly wrong on this, but I just think the concept of how to use pm's got lost somewhere along the way. | ||
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aidnai
United States1159 Posts
- for circumnavigating a spammy town environment - for pressuring lurkers or mafia suspects to vote with the town - for analyzing with a select group - ultimately, for scumhunting. However, I also completely agree that the way they are used right now makes me feel left out of half the conversation in a game, with less info to analyse and less connection to what's happening. Although, lately it seems like PM's are always getting posted in the thread anyway lol...irc logs too now rofl. I suppose some people will decide they are ok with pms, some people (myself included) will prefer no pms. There will likely still be games with and without, so everyone should/can be happy. | ||
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pevergreen
Australia252 Posts
It was winning game after game, and frustrating many people. If you were town, you followed them. If you were mafia, you died fast. If you were in the PTN, you had all the fun. Hosts started to take measures against this. In a game called 'Netherworld', a pro town group formed. It comprised of the detectives and two doctors. It was later joined by myself and another person. I was part of the mafia, a 5 man team in this game. I had a traitor role, if I could kill 4 people, I would break off and form my own mafia, directly against my old teammates. I pursued this objective, infiltrating the pro town group. It was, however, also infiltrated by a guy named TinCow, who was revealed as the serial killer, but passed himself off as pro town. He got 4 kills, formed his own mafia, killed the PTN from the inside, and won the game. Different people restrict it in different ways. A game just finished had three tiers of investigations and players could change alignments. Thats a common form, as is the nerfing down of detectives. Its up to the host to take into account the likelihood of a PTN forming, and counter-balance it, or don't let it form. I don't believe removing PMs is the best way, and it has always been a big part of how we play. | ||
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Qatol
United States3165 Posts
On January 06 2011 14:06 pevergreen wrote: The PTI or PTN (Pro-Town Information group or Pro-Town Network) was and, depending on the host, still is a big problem where I play. It was winning game after game, and frustrating many people. If you were town, you followed them. If you were mafia, you died fast. If you were in the PTN, you had all the fun. Hosts started to take measures against this. In a game called 'Netherworld', a pro town group formed. It comprised of the detectives and two doctors. It was later joined by myself and another person. I was part of the mafia, a 5 man team in this game. I had a traitor role, if I could kill 4 people, I would break off and form my own mafia, directly against my old teammates. I pursued this objective, infiltrating the pro town group. It was, however, also infiltrated by a guy named TinCow, who was revealed as the serial killer, but passed himself off as pro town. He got 4 kills, formed his own mafia, killed the PTN from the inside, and won the game. Different people restrict it in different ways. A game just finished had three tiers of investigations and players could change alignments. Thats a common form, as is the nerfing down of detectives. Its up to the host to take into account the likelihood of a PTN forming, and counter-balance it, or don't let it form. I don't believe removing PMs is the best way, and it has always been a big part of how we play. I don't think you're understanding the problem that people have with the PM networks. I don't think a single person here is complaining that they are too strong. That is because bad things tend to happen to people who form PM circles. The biggest problem that someone like Ace has with this is that townies tend to be careless when working in PM circles and they wind up giving up their roles for no reason. There is inevitably a leak and then they wind up killing each other and looking silly in the process. The other problem people complain of is that if you are in the PM network, you feel like you are playing the whole game by yourself and the town is a bunch of lazy players piggybacking off your work. If you aren't in the circle, you are pretty bored because the circle doesn't trust you and all they want you to do is vote the way they tell you to vote. Personally, I think that it is okay to leave in PM networks, but the skill level of the players needs to be increased to do so. PMs can be very strong analysis tools and a good way to persuade the town towards your point of view is used correctly. But not enough players actually use PM networks correctly, getting themselves in trouble instead. If players are not willing to improve, then PMs are a bad idea. Honestly, I think this is best solved by having PMs only used occasionally, mostly in Boot Camp setups. Most players just aren't ready for them yet. | ||
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RebirthOfLeGenD
USA5860 Posts
The other problem people complain of is that if you are in the PM network, you feel like you are playing the whole game by yourself and the town is a bunch of lazy players piggybacking off your work. If you aren't in the circle, you are pretty bored because the circle doesn't trust you and all they want you to do is vote the way they tell you to vote. I could not agree more with this. I remember the first few mafia games I played this is exactly how I felt. The issue is kind of remedied when you start being aggressive about what you want to do. By being active you generally either don't give a shit about PM circles or get into/create one. I mean hey if you aren't in one, then just start PMing people. Its what I do. But it definitely turned me off at first and felt like it was basically the good players/friends vs the mafia and I was kind of there watching. I think when I host XXXVII I am definitely going to include a big advice section on what to/not to do in a PM game and what to consider. I think we have never really taken the initiate to put in a games OP what exactly everyone should be thinking. Its good to have some guidelines or some ideas to keep in mind going into it, some stuff to keep newer players from getting discouraged which can happen all too easy in PM games. It sucks thinking there must be so much going on you just have no idea about. Its one of the reasons I like no PM set ups from an analytical perspective. I know everything is exactly how it seems in the thread and don't have to wonder if people are saying things I don't know. For example OpZ and another player plotting my death in XXXV  | ||
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L
Canada4732 Posts
The games typically run along the Day 1) Random lynch. Day 2) Lynch an idiot. Day 3) Lynch whomever the DT/blue claimant has fingered route, and as such we see huge drops in activity midway through day 2, as there's nothing for most townies to add to the game at that point, regardless of if there's a townie circle or not. Also, regardless of the role setup, even in no PM games, most games do devolve into setups wherein a very select few people do the hard lifting, push conversation and actively scumhunt while the majority of town sits back and chimes in from time to time. That's not a game problem, its a time management issue from the players. Not everyone's going to have the time to push their agenda, and even 2-3 superb posts by a time stripped town player can be chumpposted and ignored if mafia are on the ball. | ||
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Qatol
United States3165 Posts
On January 07 2011 19:03 L wrote: Stop playing with detectives that rolecheck and PMs won't form game deciding circles. Compensate by giving town abilities that need to be properly used, like vig hits. The games typically run along the Day 1) Random lynch. Day 2) Lynch an idiot. Day 3) Lynch whomever the DT/blue claimant has fingered route, and as such we see huge drops in activity midway through day 2, as there's nothing for most townies to add to the game at that point, regardless of if there's a townie circle or not. Also, regardless of the role setup, even in no PM games, most games do devolve into setups wherein a very select few people do the hard lifting, push conversation and actively scumhunt while the majority of town sits back and chimes in from time to time. That's not a game problem, its a time management issue from the players. Not everyone's going to have the time to push their agenda, and even 2-3 superb posts by a time stripped town player can be chumpposted and ignored if mafia are on the ball. Amusingly, this happened in Mafia XXXV (which was going on when you made this post). Instead, there were 3 Vets and a Vigi. Most of the town players spent a good portion of the game complaining about how worthless the DT was. More mini games without DTs might be interesting. | ||
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LSB
United States5171 Posts
24hour Night Zero. (No kill). This will just be a period where alignment PMs are sent out, and for the mods to ask people about their profiles. No voting can be done, but essentially it extends day one by 24 hours. Extensive replacement list filled with active vets. This way as the game progresses, the town's inactive players can be replaced with people will be more active and the quality of discussion will still remain high | ||
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L
Canada4732 Posts
On January 19 2011 02:19 Qatol wrote: Amusingly, this happened in Mafia XXXV (which was going on when you made this post). Instead, there were 3 Vets and a Vigi. Most of the town players spent a good portion of the game complaining about how worthless the DT was. More mini games without DTs might be interesting. As an aside, vet is also a terrible role. | ||
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Qatol
United States3165 Posts
1. It is a ridiculously hard role to win with. The margin for error is much smaller than Town or Mafia, and I think that can make getting the role extremely frustrating. 2. More importantly, all too often it sets up a situation in which Town/Mafia/or the SK cannot win. Instead, they are able to decide which of the other two sides will win the game. I don't think it is fair to the members of the other two sides because they become reliant upon the actions of people who no longer have a stake in the game. Examples: a. In PYP3, deconduo as mafia was forced into a situation he could not win unless JimboSIlvers (the SK) decided to forfeit the game by saving deconduo from a lynch. However, JimboSilvers was reliant upon deconduo to use his night hit on a player other than JimboSilvers or the bulletproof player. JimboSilvers only won the game because a player got himself modkilled. Otherwise, deconduo's decision to not hit anyone would have given the game to the town. b. In Mafia XXXVI, LunarDestiny was exposed as a SK relatively early in the game, but he was not lynched. At this point, he has lost. The town and the mafia will unite to take him down later in the game. There is no way for him to win. However, he can still significantly affect the outcome of game by either hitting town members or mafia members before he gets himself lynched. This is particularly frustrating for the mafia because if LunarDestiny decides to side with the town, the mafia have no way of eliminating him from the game because Serial Killers are immune to night kills. c. This has not happened yet, but imagine an end game scenario with 2 greens, a SK, and a mafia. It is day. For simplicity's sake, assume that everyone knows the alignment of everyone else. If the townies both decide to vote for the SK, then the mafia member wins. Otherwise the SK wins. Now you might argue that the player/faction should just play better to avoid this problem. However, I think that the current design of the SK role invites these situations, especially if the Serial Killer survives into the late game because it is in the Serial Killer's best interest to keep at least 1 mafia member alive for the extra KP. Additionally, the mafia cannot usually eliminate a SK without the help of the town. I have a solution to this problem, a role which we used in Mafia XXII and then never used again for some reason: the Assassin. Assassin The Assassin is this game's third party candidate! Except for, there may be more than one? To complete his/her win objective, the Assassin is to find and kill all the other Assassins in the game. Assassins will be told in their role PMs how many Assassins there are in the game, but nobody beyond them will know. Assassins show up as Assassins to role checks. To clarify the Assassin's win objectives: The Assassin wins alone, and must complete his mission before the war between the town and the mafia ends. The Assassin counts toward the number of town-aligned people for counting town vs. mafia purposes. In order to kill his targets/competitors, the Assassin is a combination of vigilante and detective. Each Assassin will have two role checks to use per game, and two night kills per game. You may only use one of each per night. If you manage to kill another Assassin with your night kill, it will be refunded. We can definitely tweak the basic version of the role (making it bulletproof to non-assassins at night, taking away the rolechecks, letting them kill every night, doing whatever), but I think the basic objective helps to remove both of my concerns without detracting from the basic game environment. | ||
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Foolishness
United States3044 Posts
However I am of the opinion that 3rd party roles should just be taken out altogether. That includes roles like village idiot. | ||
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Ace
United States16096 Posts
Mafia, even if they know the presence of an SK don't have to Night Kill anyone if they don't want to. Sure, deconduo NKing someone makes it easier for the SK to win but Mafia aren't forced to NK. The role is hard to win with because it requires a balancing act and some luck. This is exactly why SKs are bulletproof and show up innocent. If we could go back in time I still wouldn't force deconduo to NK if he didn't want to. Also JimboSilvers was still in decent position to win as the Town was still in LYLO. He had options for sure. As for 2 that doesn't happen often. SKs are rarely outted early on unless it's known there is one in the game or they do something to make themselves known. That could be getting caught in a lie about being a Vigilante, attracting too much NK attention and living, or even playing in a funny way. Even so when they mess up I rarely see them screw the other 2 sides over apart from maybe 2 games on TL. Those few instances where SKs sell their services in attempt to screw the Town/Mafia are hard to moderate since the SKs may be thinking they can live longer and in fact further their Win Condition. Otherwise a hidden SK that outs himself purposely to screw over one of the other factions should be modkilled and this won't be an issue. b.) is what I was just talking about (in Insane Mafia I think). Really though Town should just lynch an SK at that point. Part of it can be blamed on LD I guess, but most of the blame has to go on town at that point for being so damn stupid. If c.) happens oh well. If it gets down to 4 players with a known SK then really what happened before that to let an outted SK live so long? If the SK lives to the late game then they deserve it. Assassin was just a boring role. I think I was in a game with them and really didn't care about their WC. It was also a broken role that could affect the game just as much as an SK could. Having a game within a game doesn't seem to work well in Mafia imo. | ||
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