Random Post-Game Notes:
Setup:
On September 30 2014 06:07 Blazinghand wrote:
Well, I figure since I approved the balance and people are complaining, I should listen to what they have to say so I do a better job next time.
The setup wasn't as imbalanced as some people are suggesting. In a game where town lynches mafia on Day 1 though, the flaws of the setup are going to be far more amplified, especially to the players in the game. This for example...
On September 29 2014 23:28 DarthPunk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2014 23:25 HaruRH wrote:On September 29 2014 23:16 DarthPunk wrote:On September 29 2014 23:11 HaruRH wrote:On September 29 2014 23:08 DarthPunk wrote:
I think the game would be better with unknown pairings.
Losing a second scum 50% of the time is not balanced for mafia when they are a team of three. ESPECIALLY with all the KP floating around.
Yes. That was why the pairings of 1town/1mafia was made known, so that it can act as a coverup for mafia. VE/Cr just played it pretty badly in my opinion. Especially with how CR gave up because he rolled mafia. Yes but 1 mafia/ 1 mafia is guaranteed correct? So, no matter what, as soon as town lynches/kills a mafia there is a 50% chance they lose a second mafia for free. There is no universe in which that is balanced for scum. The whole point of playing scum is to reduce the connections, be as hard to find as possible. It is a battle of attrition with the town. But that battle goes to shit when you lose 2 scum for the price of one 50% of the time. If you think about it, Cr could probably have survived if he did not concede. No YOU think about your game critically for two seconds please. There is no way in HELL this game was balanced for scum. I think Town wins 95% of the time. Without question.
... is just overly dramatic. That being said, there are definitely some balance problems.
4 town power-roles vs. 2 mafia power roles starts to skew the game to pro-town, no matter how the pairs are drawn up (i.e. having a godfather and a cop in a mini is standard balance). The problem is that some snow-ball mechanics for town were thrown on top of this.
The pair-system especially made this tough. If a mafia dies within the first two days, it is a catastrophe for the mafia team. If the solo-mafia dies, a situation is created where every flip doubles as a cop-check. If one of the pairing does, two mafia are probably dead. This problem was somewhat masked by CR's "fake-claim" this game (as he was going to get lynched D2 pretty much no matter what happened), but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
I also thought the 3rd parties did not fit this game. I hate survivor roles in general, as "survival" is a pretty easy/boring win-con that does not require you to play the game seriously. I especially disliked that the arsonist was changed from a purely anti-town solo-win role to a survival win-con. I think it's better to have win-conditions that require someone to active participate and try to "figure-out" an aspect of the game.
That being said, I did like the concept of the setup, and I think a few hot-fixes would make a 2nd game much more enjoyable:
1) Change how pairs are determined. A N0 where players can chose their partners would be pretty cool. Those who mutually choose each other are paired up, and those who do not are randomized. All-random pairs also work.
2) Re-work 3rd parties. No survivors. Something like a pair of Assassins, a Hitman, or some solo-win roles (classic SK/Arsonist) would work better in this setup (and would also fit flavor-wise quite well).
3) Less emphasis on power-roles. What makes this setup unique is the pairing system, and I think the roles detract from that.
Town-Play:
I think it was pretty lucky/fortunate that VE got lynched on Day 1. This town wasn't doing much productive on Day 1, and got mafia lynched by virtue of mafia having very little thread-presence and the only major case in the game being written on mafia.
A lot of the problem was that a significant portion of town's time was spent thinking about "process of elimination" and "finding the mafia pair" as opposed to just finding mafia.
On September 24 2014 15:52 Grackaroni wrote:
I think I want to lynch Oatsmaster now.
Yamato/Prom (kind of liking Yamato as town he actually seemed interested in getting discussion started this game)
DP/Vayne (leaning town on both atm but I don't have much experience reading DP)
Grack/Kush (Kush is actually a strong town read for me for the same reason as DP)
Geript/MM1 (I think Geript has seemed really townie recently)
CR/VE (CR claimed 3rd party)
Hapa/abuse (Not as confident on hapa anymore but he's easy to read based on activity later in the game anyway)
This post typifies how a lot of townies were approaching the game. And it's not a very good way of going about things. People were tunneled on Oats/Damdred for a good portion of Day 1 without so much as a case on either of them, made possible by this vague "process of elimination" thing. And this is so bad, because it encourages players to make bad town-reads, and is almost impossible to draw good information from.
If you are Damdred in this game, how do you respond to something like this? If you are suspicious of him, what good information could you possibly divine from Damdred's response to something like this?
Speaking of ill-justified town reads...
On September 26 2014 05:17 Hapahauli wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2014 03:09 Promethelax wrote:On September 25 2014 04:08 abuse wrote:
1. is a fair point but I am not good with collecting my thoughts well on such huge information loads, so I just go with how I can manage. and I do not agree with 2. I am pretty clear with who I find suspicious and who I find legit.
me and hapa or oats and damdred?
Would you say that the chances are high that 3 mafia are among these 4?
I know I'm not scum and hapa does not seem like scum either. Both Oats and Damdred have not said anything so far that would strike as anti town or scummy.
Why are you sure that there is no scum between DP and Vayne? Does vayne's play so far seem legit and not worth looking into? I'm having a hard time understanding this..
Can people who have played with abuse before tell me if he is usually this wishy washy? This entire post is just an attempt to push the lynch away from himself and onto anywhere else it could stick without actually scum hunting or attempting to find the correct target. DP and Vayne have been been garnering attention up to this point but abuse doesn't say that he thinks either one is scum. Instead he wants geript to call them scum and stop calling him/hapa scum. If I had to pick a single post to lynch someone over I would call this the most lynch worthy post thus far in the game. You mean this? It seems like a pretty typical newbie post, no? Plus he's very consistently suspicious of Vayne in my conversations with him in the QT, so I think that post looks better to me. Perhaps unsatisfying to you guys, but w/e. I really don't want to get into the mindset of forcing myself to defend abuse, because my reasons for not wanting to lynch him are more along the lines of "how could everyone see VE's vote on CR and not want to lynch him with fire?"
This is why they're so dangerous. With this and a string of posts before this defending abuse (even though my read was closer to null on him), I completely mentally checked out of critically reading abuse's posts. And you can watch me continue this delusion into the Obs QT: my analysis was very focused on finding bus-votes on VE, yet I was completely skipping reading abuse's votes for no logical reason beyond my own bias.
I quote my own example here, but there are many others this game.
The rest of the game was straightforward. CR's roleclaim basically guaranteed his lynch on Day 2, geript track claim or not (although that was a pretty sick play). Abuse gave up in the face of difficult odds (and probably insurmountable odds since he was doused).
Mafia Play:
Mafia just lacked the thread-presence to do anything. CR literally didn't push anything (not sure if I can blame him after rolling scum 9 times in a row) and abuse played solid yet not-so-active. If either of them coordinate their activities better with their mafia partners (i.e. push early on to discredit me), i think the early-game looks very different.
As for VE...
On September 30 2014 01:15 VisceraEyes wrote:
Yeah, I don't think I played poorly at all, Haru can suck a D. It's true that I died D1, but I took the cop with me and left town in SHAMBLES with my association play.
e: Like the only reason I was even caught was on outdated meta that everyone just happened to believe. Get outta here.
... this just isn't a very self-critical way of looking at one's play. If you get lynched Day 1 as any alignment, there's often a lot to improve on.
I don't want to single out VE, but I think his play is pretty instructive to break down from a mafia perspective. His filter was actually OK for the most part, yet he got lynched Day 1. Why does this happen and what can we learn from it?
VE started the game coming out swinging, and while Yamato and I were suspicious of him, this isn't really a big deal in the context of the game. What got VE ultimately killed was his inability to keep this up. This town was not super active or opinionated, and in a town like this, it is extremely important to keep up thread presence in the latter portion of the day. This is because a town without much direction is prone to lynch down the path of least resistance. And this is what ultimately doomed VE. Regardless of how valid people thought my meta case was, VE was an in-active no-show until far too late in the day. 10 votes were piled on him in a matter of hours.
And to illustrate how important activity is, look at VE instantly convince DP and Kush that he was "town" 30 minutes left into the day. Had he done such a thing 1-2 hours before, his lynch would have been extraordinarily hard for me to push. Instead, he saved his burst of activity until it was far too late to change anything.
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"It's all going to hell..." muttered Koshi, as he squinted out the window of Shady Acres Retirement Home.
It was a beautiful day in early spring, and light reflecting off of melting patches of snow gave the scenery an unusual luster. Koshi gazed outside longingly.
"It was a better world back then, when I was playing on TL," he grumbled, rocking back in his chair. "Those were real games! That was real balance! But these new hosts..."
His mood turned sour as the sound of those words echoed across the room. He quickly closed the curtains in disgust, and wheeled his chair across the room.
"Gosh darn it! If I was on the balance team, I'd do things right! We'd go back to the old ways, we'd--"
He was interrupted by some footsteps down the hallway.
"HE'S MAFIA! FUCK YOU ALL HE'S MAFIA!" an old woman screamed, running past his door.
"Be careful Mrs. Rayn" a young man hollered, "Your husband passed away a long time ago, please Mrs. Rayn!"
As the scampering subsided, Koshi found himself alone to his thoughts once more.
"Wha... what was I saying? Oh right, I need some grape juice."
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EPT
