EPTPost Game Analysis
Preface
I hope to have a time of discussion after each game to go over different events and situations, hopefully to have constructive conversation from multiple perspectives. Because I'm all about improvement and I think this is one way to go about it. Now, I'm just a schmuck recently off a mafia hiatus, and I consider myself an "ok" player ("terribad" when scum), so take what I say with a grain of salt (or more :p). Also, feel free to voice your opinions / perspectives. I'd like this to be a discussion rather than a lecture. I tried to organize this by cycles, but it was messy so I'm going to try doing it by topics.
(post-preface - I just finished it all and it's a bit messy. Please bear with me.)
Setup
The setup was a 13 player, 10 town 3 mafia setup with the following powerroles:
- 1 shot cop
- 1 shot vig
- doctor
- 1 shot vig
- scum roleblocker
Concerning balance, I felt like with the presence of millers, framers and godfathers, good scum play could cast doubt on a cop check pretty easily since it's only a 1 shot. The 1 shot vig was very powerful in that it was a vig, and with this setup it is basically self confirming.
I thought there was a good chance that the 1 shots would claim D2 (assuming they used their powers N1) which could really make it tough for scum, since it narrows the lynch pool. Assume a D1 mislynch, no saves and a vig shot on townie (pretty bad scenario for town). That means it is 7 town to 3 mafia, but 2 of those town claim blue, and potentially have an additional cop check leaving a pool of 7 people to look at, 3 of which are mafia. Looks pretty good.
I don't really have too much experience making setups, so I asked Foolishness about the balance, and he said
You have a 13 player setup with a day start and 3 mafia. This means mafia need to survive at least 4 lynches to win (by that I mean 4 towns must be lynched in order for the mafia to win). Since it's 13 players with a day start the doctor won't affect the lynches unless he gets two saves (very unlikely). Furthermore the doctor saving a 1 shot cop or vigi isn't going to do much other than keep a confirmed alive a little longer (since they're only one shot they will have probably used their power). So your roleblocker kinda cancels all of that out in a way (balances with your doctor and 1 shot roles).
Thus you have mafia needing to survive 4 lynches as making it slightly town favored. I think if it was a 12 player setup it would be perfect ("perfect") but the extra player isn't going to drastically change much.
So all in all, a slightly town favored setup. I liked the 1 shots here since it limits "rely on blue powers", but still rewards good play. Might tinker with more limited blue roles.
Treating Others Nicely
I think people should treat people nicely. To clarify, I think that speaking politely, refraining from personal attacks, not putting people down etc all establish a pro-town atmosphere that makes it easier to catch scum. Conversely, I think that the opposite things foster a toxic atmosphere that scum can thrive in. I'll try to give some examples here to illustrate my point (not trying to single out people, just trying to find concrete examples)
On August 12 2014 03:52 Koshi wrote:
##unvote
##vote: VisceraEyes
1v1 is simply terrible town.
VE just trew away a townread to follow some lies.
##unvote
##vote: VisceraEyes
1v1 is simply terrible town.
VE just trew away a townread to follow some lies.
During D1, Koshi puts down onevone as terrible. Now, onevone was indeed town, and reading people correctly is important. However, what does calling him terrible accomplish? Here are some things that could happen.
- onevone may be less inclined to listen to Koshi. It doesn't matter how godly Koshi's reads are if onevone doesn't want to listen. That's not good since Koshi wants people to listen to him, because he needs votes to get his scumreads lynched.
- onevone's motivation to play could drop. People have varying degrees of tough skin, and because this person is a smurf you really don't know. Why would I want to play in a game where I am verbally abused? Likewise, other people's motivations may also drop.
- Other people may be less inclined to listen to onevone. What if he has really good insight into a particular situation?People pick up on these things, subconsciously or not, and shutting him down can mean drowning out possibly good insights.
- If he is mafia, people may be more willing to look over his mistakes as "terrible town". What better position to be in than having town leaders call you terrible and excuse all your scumminess? This lets mafia sit in blind spots.
I'm not saying that this one post had all these effects (probably had none of these), but I'm trying to illustrate that such a type of post could have such effects (which I hope are clear as to why they are not productive in catching scum).
Something similar happens in D2, where Koshi's posting causes a rift between him and VE
On August 14 2014 22:30 Koshi wrote:
Mages / batsnacks / Onegu
Mages / batsnacks / Onegu
On August 14 2014 22:31 VisceraEyes wrote:
Like that's nice and everything, but rather than try and corroborate that post with evidence you're spending time going on and on about how awful my play is. Like, I'm town, so how is that a useful way to spend your time at all Koshi? Srsly, I'm really trying not to be a dick here - how is going on and on about how bad you think I am helping to solve this game in the slightest?
Like that's nice and everything, but rather than try and corroborate that post with evidence you're spending time going on and on about how awful my play is. Like, I'm town, so how is that a useful way to spend your time at all Koshi? Srsly, I'm really trying not to be a dick here - how is going on and on about how bad you think I am helping to solve this game in the slightest?
Now Koshi nailed the entire scumteam here. Bam. MVP reads. But only half of mafia is figuring out who is scum. The other half is convincing everyone else, and the way that we treat each other as players has an effect on the latter part. I can't speak for him, but in the same situation as VE, there would honestly be a part of me that would want Koshi lynched regardless of alignment. Would it terrible play? Perhaps. But people can be irrational, especially when emotionally stirred.
Consider D4, where the infamous Koshi / rayn conflict played out. I'm not sure how much of the posts stemmed from objective analysis and how much of them were essentially OMGUS and paranoia. And players would no doubt have similar troubles - how can they figure out who is actually the mafia if on the surface it just looks like two players screaming at each other? If anything, a totally understandable response is the one HaruRH had here
On August 21 2014 23:24 HaruRH wrote:
Onegu lynch isnt happening today rayn. Because you 2 caused this to happen.
Its either you or koshi today. We can still talk about onegu tomorrow given flips.
Onegu lynch isnt happening today rayn. Because you 2 caused this to happen.
Its either you or koshi today. We can still talk about onegu tomorrow given flips.
One of Koshi / rayn had to go. The thread was a total mess, any productive content was drowned out in the spamming and mafia was allowed to lurk. The easiest (and perhaps best) way was to just kill one of them. Even though rayn realized that Onegu was scum, he could not disengage at that point. HaruRH didn't want to hear about Onegu, he wanted the fighting to stop by killing one of them. Confirmation bias took place as negative emotions led to thinking the other person is scum.
(Side note I'm gonna get teeny bit out of game here. Skip this to continue to the game analysis)
Mafia can be an emotional game. It can be frustrating to see the wrong kind of flip or people act like dummies. But I think that there a positive feedback loop of treating people like dummies and people acting like dummies. "Why are you such a dummy?" isn't really going to help players not be dummies. It either drives them out from wanting to play or makes them stubborn in their ways. I think playing nicer could be a way to have higher quality games. To be clear though, I say this as a naive newbie host sharing a personal philosophy, and not a "this is what people should do". In the least I think it makes it easier to catch scum.
Now back to the good part.
Omgus
This was something that I saw more frequently as the game went on, and I wanted to comment on it. Omgus stands for "oh my gosh you suck", and refers to a situation where a player calls someone scum solely for thinking that they are scum, where the logic goes "town player X would realize I'm town. He doesn't, therefore he must be scum". Now as someone who omguses all the time, I've come to realize a few things and have some thoughts that I want to share / discuss.
You know your meta best.
I play an awful scum game. It is terrible. I have all these grand ideas of how to act and fakeclaim and fool everyone, but everytime I roll scum I just freeze up and lurk hardcore. Anybody who knows me well should know this, and should know when I am not scum. Now I just made a flimsy assumption. It is that everyone knows my meta as well as I do. Which is patently false! There could easily be a handful of players who had never played with me. There could be players who haven't played with me in a long time. There could be players who have never seen my scum play. No matter how obvious and clear I think my meta is, and how obviously I play town / scum, it may (read it won't) be as clear to everyone else. You could say things like "check my meta I'm obviously town" but you are playing a game of doubt and suspicion, and it's hard to tell someone "hey you can trust me" when they already do not trust you. Also you are saying "hey do all this work it's obvious I'm town", which few people would go and actually do. They just don't have the time / energy / ability to do it.
Thus I think a self defense based on meta should generally be avoided. Because as it happened in this game, someone suspects someone for some reason, which is met with an omgus, which is in turn met with another omgus. In the end, everyone is calling each other scum for non-reasons (scum could have easily added to the chaos and taken sides here). It doesn't matter how accurate the meta is, most people just don't care for it, especially when self applied, since it is then it can be most misused.
People get paranoid
Most games I play I think most people are scum at some point in the game. It's what mafia is about. Doubting people, finding who scum is hiding among a group of unknowns. Paranoia gets huge, and breaks logic, fueling emotions and crazy situations.
This point is, don't omgus because people may have lapses in judgement and proper thinking due to paranoia. It may be obvious to you that you are the doctor and you can't fathom how someone could ever think you are lying without having had their wisdom teeth removed, put back in, and removed again. It may be obvious to you, but that's because you have confirmed information from a trusted source, namely the host through your role PM. Everyone else only has a big "?" over you, and need to deduct your alignment through fallible means within a fog of doubt. Look at the difference between ObsQT and thread. People in ObsQT have no paranoia, since they don't have to prove their innocence. It is already established. There is more objective reading. Both groups are looking at the same situation but coming away with different interpretations, because both groups have different givens to work with.
Practical applications? Try to cut down on omgus in general. There are definitely pairs of people who know each other very well and can read each other solely off omgus. But unless you are sure you are one of them (and even then I wouldn't since other people can't see it), I'd try to stay clear of omgus. Instead try to focus on why a certain player X is mafia, and center discussion on them. If people think you are scum, try to explain yourself as clearly as possible, and don't just lash out. Now it could very well be scum heaping false accusations against you, in which you do want to point out the fallacies therein, but defaulting to retaliation isn't where you want to be. Defend yourself, and move on. If they are stuck on it, explain yourself as necessary. If you think they are scum, point out the areas where. Holding composure throughout will make people more willing to listen to you since you don't look like flailing scum hitting anything that comes near.
Cop Stuff
The easy part is saying Damdred did a good job getting a red check on batsnacks night 1. Unfortunately he died so I can't really comment on his use of it, but we can at least look at what good check targets would have been.
D1 was pretty hectic and votes were everywhere, and didn't really consolidate until late in the day, when they settled on HaruRH (uh oh!) before Mages conceded. Now the Mages thing was quite bizarre and rare, so I don't know how to evaluate that, but let's say that that didn't happen in which case HaruRH would probably have been lynched. rayn basically organized the whole HaruRH lynch by himself, as it is basically him saying HaruRH is mafia, and everyone else sheeping on for one reason or another.
One side comment to make here, is that while consolidation of votes to lynch someone is important, quelling discussion in order to do so can be dangerous. More specifically rayn focusing on consolidating votes for HaruRH and cutting discussion on batsnacks. Had HaruRH flipped, town would have been in an utter mess, because rayn had basically spearheaded the lynch and everyone else hopped on in the name of consolidation rather than giving their own reasoning, meaning that it would be difficult to separate scum from town bandwagoning. Furthermore, discussion of batsnacks did not happen so he could have easily come in D2 pointing fingers at everyone and people's D1 suspicions of him would be lost in the mess. Now it could be that rayn thought the resistance to the lynch was scum based, and so it's reasonable to want to stop scum interference, but unless you are absolutely sure that the lynch is correct, you don't want to cut off discussion, because they could be town, and what you feel is town resistance (which is what it was), or they could still be mafia in which case you want their teammates to be held accountable. I think this could be avoided by having people comment for themselves which lynch they prefer and vote likewise, and then perhaps work on consolidation after that groundwork has been laid. It was quite close to deadline though so perhaps the whole thing could have been avoided with cleaner discussion, but I digress.
Anyhows, coming back from that huge tangent, it's usually good to check into mislynch wagons. If you think rayn was scum, then check him. If you thought that rayn was town, then you probably want to check into the wagon for people who hopped on without much explanation / reads on that person, and usually on the tail end of it since mafia are less inclined to jump on early wagons. Now they could honestly be townies who had an interest in consolidation so you need some context (check their filter to see their read progression etc.), but I'd wager such a check would have been good (last 4 players on HaruRH were onevone, batsnacks, Damdred and Onegu).
Had I played I would have considered saving the check for later. Since it is 1 shot, there is a strategic element of "when should I check?", and I think you could make a point for waiting until a later cycle, perhaps when you have stronger reads or perhaps to clear between inactives or such. The downside is that I think strong scum players could pull such a fakeclaim off, but hopefully you have established your innocence through your posting beforehand such that people don't think you are pulling wool over their eyes.
Vig Stuff
First things first, HaruRH is basically mod confirmed town here unless CCed, and it is a suicidal move to pull off as scum since it means at best you get a 1 for 1 with the vig who already used a bullet that must exist. That is the nature of the setup. There is no other way to account for additional KP. That is extremely powerful. Questioning this is automatically suspicious, and is something batsnacks was actually doing, and maybe should have been caught on.
This was extremely fortuitous for town since HaruRH was lynch candidate #1 D1, and it meant he could play confirmed town, removing a potential mislynch from the pool of suspects.
Now as for the choice of target, I would do something similar to the cop check metric. There was a wagon on himself (!), and it is unlikely that the wagon is entirely town based. Then I would filter a bit more carefully. A cop check is a soft check - it says "this guy is probably town / scum". A vig shot is a hard check - it says "this guy is definitely town / scum" by flipping him. Shoot into the players that are speaking nonsense, or the lurkers, or just flat out scummy (hopefully someone who meets multiple criteria). I think shooting someone who is "difficult to lynch" is very dangerous, since unless they have a reputation as a strong scum player, they are probably difficult to lynch because they are town. Conversely, "easy to lynch" shouldn't discount a vig shot. If someone is super scummy, you should shoot them, freeing up the next day's lynch for other scum.
Doctor Stuff
Umm ... I dunno. It's usually not good to claim doctor ever. Had VE kept silent there was a good chance scum would shoot confirmed town HaruRH, resulting in a save and a much more believable claim (should it come to it), but the preemptive claim + paranoia of a mafia hail mary on people's parts led to VE being under suspicion for quite a while. Like I mentioned in the cop part, it's good to already have established your innocence without relying upon claiming to avoid such scenarios.
Scum Stuff
There's several stuff here that ties into the other parts but I'll collect them here.
Losing Mages D1 was super tough so if it caused a heavy loss in motivation, that's understandable. I will still review thoughts on scum play and where improvements could be made etc. Take note that I extra suck at scum so you should take extra grains of salt with this.
D1 was basically ideal for scum until the very end. Town was chaotic, people were bashing each other, votes were bandwagoning on HaruRH without need for explanation. I think however it would have been good to play a bit more actively here. In messy situations, scum tend to get lazy and play a very laid back style, avoiding attention and letting town destroy themselves. While a legitimate strategy, should town ever rally themselves, these scum are usually the first to be picked off since their non involvement in general is pretty tell tale of their alignment. I think it would have been very good to feed the chaos, accusing people haphazardly, distracting people from useful discussion etc, such that people are more clueless, and you blend in more. This prevents easy pickoffs should town rally, and also deters blue actions against you. For instance in Detention Mafia I played as scum where we had an easy D1 mislynch since a new townie was caught lying, but I proceeded to do nothing all D1, and was checked as scum N1 and lynched D2.
The N1 blue snipe on Damdred was well done.
For D2, I wished that scum tried more to save their roleblocker. Had the lynch been pushed off to say, MM1, that night scum could have blocked VE, shot confirmed town HaruRH safely (very unlikely to have multiple docs) and punished town for VE's doctor claim with his mislynch D3, and probably have ridden the paranoia into a D4 mislynch for the win.
N2 ... geez. So scum actually shot Koshi here because Onegu thought VE wasn't the doctor ... and Koshi didn't die because VE protected him instead of confirmed town HaruRH ...
I ... I don't know ... good work? I don't think it was the worst shot shooting not VE, if for the sake of casting suspicion on him, and had the shot gone through it could have ("VE why are you still alive with roleblocker dead?" -> mislynch). I think I'd have shot someone else though, since Koshi had a town read on Onegu. You want to keep the people who think you are town, and shoot people who think you are scum. WIFOMing the reverse usually doesn't work out. But all that went out the window since VE chose to protect Koshi. It's not entirely insane though, and is in fact genuine WIFOM, since a reasonable scum would shoot doctor anyhows so might as well go for the big plays right?
Anyhows, it should also have been considered that had VE been mafia, withholding a shot meant that he would have to pull off an additional mislynch to win, whereas if he shot someone that night he could have won with 2 mislynches. Not that it was definitive proof, but it should have been something to consider. But paranoia feeds off crazier situations like these so again, let your play speak for itself, not blue claims.
I think for the final Day I would have probably tried to shoot HaruRH. This is because with 4 players left, a night kill just means it is MYLO vs LYLO. One mislynch still wins the game at this point (barring an awkward stand off with no-lynch), and since VE did haxor save on Koshi before, there was a chance he might do it again, and if HaruRH actually got shot it would be an instant mislynch there. In anycase, scum should always be careful who to bring into endgame. With HaruRH confirmed, it would basically be you vs the other townie, in which case I would be sure to figure out who HaruRH was more suspicious of (check his filter and posts etc.) since he would decide the lynch by himself.
Props to Onegu for trying to stick it out as best as possible, I really appreciate the effort instead of the insta-concede N2.
Final Thoughts
Thank you all for playing / co-hosting / observing the game! It was a very fun (although at times frustrating) experience and makes me really appreciate all those who have hosted games in the past. I had a blast chilling in the ObsQT and chatting it up, and had fun making up flavors on the go (sorry for the not-punctuality, I was probably making up flavor >.<; ).
I plan on trying to host more often, probably normal minis in a similar setup so I can get the hang of making balanced setups, moderation level, flavor and post game analysis. I will be doing signup preferences with people who hung out in ObsQT as well! If you have any constructive feedback on mechanics / my analysis, certain setup or even flavor requests, please let me know! Thanks!
