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Hi all, before we sit down and play, games lets get some general rules down (we can edit these slightly obviously).
1) Only join a game if you plan on being active, we know situations can arise, but PLEASE only join if you will be active. Multiple issues of inactivity gets notated.
2) Read the game rules. THIS IS KEY, each rule set usually changes slightly based on who's hosting. The chances could be minor or major based on how much the game is reworked, make sure you are familiar to each games rule set or it can cause major issues.
3) Keep your role or role lists to yourself. Giving them to people without proving their legit, or because they are your friend can backfire and ruin games, play intelligently. Avoid giving lists to players not involved in the game, as they may give the info out as well.
4) Read this beginners guide by ace posted below Beginners guide + Show Spoiler + As for my tips for playing here they are straight from PM land and some others:
1.)Keep your story simple Anytime some guy PMs me with a long post about a lot of things I'm usually very wary. If he'd truly want something it would probably be a really short message unless we've been talking for a while.
2.) You don't have to tell people your role I pretty much do this every game. The only time in any mafia game anybody knew my role without me telling them was when MBH was a DT. You can be very effective without someone knowing your role. The less they ask the more trustworthy they are to a certain extent. It's also why I usually never ask people their role.
3.) Anytime somebody has an excuse as to why they couldn't post (like exams) write it down. Lo and behold in a few hours at least 10 more people will say they'll be inactive because of exams also. Always one of these guys is gonna be mafia. Always because if they wanted to start going after inactives 1 mafia hiding amongst a bunch of these guys means lots of innocent death without strong analysis.
4.) Make sure everyone talks. Quiet people are the first to get lynched. This makes sure that from the get go Mafia have to be involved in the town. Likewise from the Mafia point of view this works very well - if you are active early when you start giving out the bullshit pies only the smart people will pick up on it.
5.) Probably the most important rule of Mafia that most people just don't understand:
It's not what you know, it's what you can convince people to believe. This is really where the Mafia game is won and lost and people just don't get it. In this game you are a mafia mayor and I know this because I read it correctly. Does it matter? Not really, because now I have to convince the town that you truly are. Likewise we all know quickstriker and JeeJee are innocent but in the grand scheme of things it means shit - people believe they are guilty. Once you get people to believe certain things about other players you can start either dividing the town and standing back silently watching them devour each other as mafia, or as a townie bring them all to focus on a few people. The idea is all the same - persuasion is much more powerful than outright facts. If you can lie skillfully or find a crucial mistake to exploit while keeping a straight story people will often trust you easily unless they are smart enough to be objective (coming next).
6.) Reading objectively. This really means learning how to ignore the emotions and fluff in a post and picking out the key information and coming to a conclusion. Doing this you would start to ask yourself some basic questions and realize that a lot of the posts you see can be easily broken down to find major holes. Qatols posts were good - they were good enough to paint him as supportive to the town's plight. Of course I read them objectively and realized that they weren't. He didn't have anything on QS and JeeJee except misguided townies.
7.) Don't revenge accuse. If someone calls you mafia, don't turn around and claim they are mafia unless you are sure. Revenge accusing is just bad as now the town can't see the facts of an argument and it's just some guy mad/paranoid he's painted red. It's also bad because if they are both innocent the Mafia can keep the town focused on these 2 players all the time.
8.) Read posts from the past. Anytime someone dies, you should go back and skim all their posts. If the town is doing bad instead of skimming you should scrutinize them feverishly.
9.) when sharing information everyone doesn't need to know everything. If you're talking with someone privately keep them on a need to know basis. Same goes with the town. A bunch of clueless people are much more dangerous than 1 sane individual. If you tell them too much or too critical info it WILL be misused. Slowly give people more information based on their reactions to past info.
10.) Change your playstyle or at least keep it ambiguous but not threatening. This is obvious.
11.) Not a tip, but partial discussion of what happened this game with so many townies:
Mafia talks to someone through PMs thats innocent (Player X)
Player X starts posting mafia influenced information to the town actively.
People question his stupidity. Problem is he's so active you can't really do much without wanting to lynch him as a town for fear of his stupidity spreading to other players (who probably got Mafia poisoned mouths too, ugh).
Player X is also adamant because not only does he take offense to being called wrong, but the Mafia probably made him feel that those ideas weren't theirs but "his own". So he argues even though he is wrong but doesn't know it.
Player X gets lynched, flips innocent, town has lots of new innocent suspects and no one knows the mafia fucked Player X because Player X was too proud to admit he got his "ideas" from Mafia. The Mafia just stay quiet and watch the new circus.
There are more little things I usually do during a game that Im sure I forgot. But those first 10 are usually good enough to get you through a game.
Other tips Tips on how to play + Show Spoiler + 1 . Just because you are a blue/red role does not mean that you should try to hide in order to avoid getting noticed. In fact, this is generally a huge indication of your role. Acting differently than you have in previous games or being really active on the site while not being active in the thread is an easy way to get caught.
2. If you haven't done so already, read the previous games. This is an easy way to get better quickly. At the very least, please read 1 game before playing. For the first few games have a role list handy and just look at how people play their role. If you want to get into behavioral analysis, try to guess roles based on posts as the game goes along.
5) If you are ever in doubt, or need help, feel free to PM a veteran player, or host for help.
If anyone else can think of some notes to add, let me know and I will toss em in.
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Points that should be added: 1.Just because you are a blue/red role does not mean that you should try to hide in order to avoid getting noticed. In fact, this is generally a huge indication of your role. Acting differently than you have in previous games or being really active on the site while not being active in the thread is an easy way to get caught.
2. If you haven't done so already, read the previous games. This is an easy way to get better quickly. At the very least, please read 1 game before playing. For the first few games have a role list handy and just look at how people play their role. If you want to get into behavioral analysis, try to guess roles based on posts as the game goes along.
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Sydney2287 Posts
I wonder what everyone's opinion is on having mandatory voting. (People who don't vote are modkilled). I'm for it, but I can understand that sometimes people just cannot make it to the thread in time for a day. Though that is easily solved by giving them 1 missed vote leeway per game.
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Canada7170 Posts
On May 12 2009 12:07 Bockit wrote: I wonder what everyone's opinion is on having mandatory voting. (People who don't vote are modkilled). I'm for it, but I can understand that sometimes people just cannot make it to the thread in time for a day. Though that is easily solved by giving them 1 missed vote leeway per game. I agree with this. Also, if any forseeable circumstances arise, people can simply PM the game moderator (but don't lie to him/her, seriously guys/gals). Actually, I'm not going to play a game without modkills of some sort.
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United States2186 Posts
I think the best option is mandatory modkills on missed voting. The exceptions are;
1 night of leeway to miss. If you publically/pm the host that you'll be gone ahead of time it should be fine. People have external stuff, it happens. But if you just leave repeatedly with no notice then off with the head.
Judgment of course, so obviously if say for example Pyrr is posting a ton for the first few days and contributing loads, then goes afk for 2 days then comes back, he doesn't deserve to be modkilled. If on the other hand person x (all 100 of them who do this) goes afk because he got townie for the whole game then die die die.
As for next game, from my understanding, Qatol wants to host and Pyrr was a possibility if we were to have a second game as well.
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Although modkilling works, its usually inactive townies who go inactive, hense if like 10 townies get modkilled, the chances the mafia know instantly whos blue raises.
One idea that has been mentioned recently was forced voting. People who don't vote count as -1 votes to a vote target, so you always need a majority of people voting to successfully kill things. so the town will kill inactives themselves, as will mafia for voting.
Forces town to get rid of inactives, and forces mafia to not hide in them, as they can get pegged for it.
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BC, what do you mean they count as -1? I say if they don't vote we kill them. Regardless of role. Its very simple. Maybe if they don't vote within 2 days if you think that's too harsh.
Can you elaborate on the above idea though?
Edit: It seems to me that you are suggesting that those who don't vote subtract from who the town is voting for lets say they were trying to lynch me and 8 town voted for me but there are 5 inactive, so I get -5 votes so I only have 3? That seems to be helping the mafia more then weeding out the IA's
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I like Ver's idea. I don't understand BC's at this point. Do you mean inactive's subtract 1 from every vote? That would essentially just make it so a majority would have to vote but be really confusing. The town would kill inactives but the mafia wouldn't. The mafia could just vote.
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The problem with the inactives counting as a "no lynch" vote is that it becomes the town's burden to control the inactives. You're basically punishing the town because people are inactive. This can be done, but I don't see how to balance that without giving the town a lot more KP.
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I really don't think modkilling is the way to go. I often just don't know which way I'm going to end up voting and the variable day/night transition times often prevent me from voting. Inactivity based on boredom hits town much more than mafia, but inactivity based on IRL commitments and other un-game related factors should be roughly equal.
If that's the case, then the real burden for our next game should be trying to get everyone involved from the outset. We can either give pretty much EVERYONE a role (albeit a watered down version of the current roles), or we can keep the games small with players who are known to be active.
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Oh hi secret mafia forum.
I'd love to keep playing mafia games, but the last thing I need is another time consuming distraction at work.
I've always liked the idea of giving everyone some type of watered down role. It's quite depressing to be green.
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Ok, the last game has motivated me to add something to this thread. (Also, I think we should be continually adding little tidbits of advice for new players.)
If you survive a hit, tell everyone about it! (Assuming the game doesn't have something funky like 2 rival mafia families.) The mafia already know they hit you and that you lived. Why hide that information from the town?
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If you're playing a game in which mafia don't know each other (but can use role checks), and you're mafia, be very careful about which PMs you reply to.
"yo mannn I just used my role check today to check you, and you came back as mafia too, I was trying to figure out how Caller wrote clues and I guess I got it (or got lucky rofl) just PM me back so we can get this mafia death machine rolling, the sooner we organized the better. If you don't want to PM me back yet, I suggest using your power and checking me too."
You should _never_ reply to something like the above PM. Could've been sent by a fellow mafia, or by a townie who was spamming you. How can you tell what the sender is? By role checking them. Which means that the townies can just spam everyone with PMs and force mafia to waste a ton of nights role checking to see if it's safe to reply to a PM.
When is it safe to reply to a PM from someone claiming to be mafia? When you get something like this:
"Hey man, I'm a rebel just like you. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS PM BEFORE YOU CONFIRM I'M A REBEL. Next night I will hit [name of inactive player], when he shows up dead at daybreak you'll know it was me who killed him. You can make sure because the clue should link to me in some way."
Townies can spam you with this kind of PMs too, but you can tell they're not legit when the target doesn't come up dead. A vigilante can in fact promise to have someone come up dead the next day and make good on that promise, but he's using up his one hit which he could've used to kill a mafia instead. If the promised person comes up dead, look at the clue left behind and make sure it links to the player who PMed you or his profile- if the checks out, you can be sure whoever promised you to kill that person was in fact responsible for the act, and probably a fellow mafia. Use your discretion to figure out if he could be a vigi, and how much info you should trust him with.
It's a messy and time-consuming method, but there's one thing that no one can do like a mafia: Killing people at night. This is the safest way to coordinate, although it's really damn slow. It's possible to coordinate more quickly by having all mafia PM to a single other mafia, but you'd need a) Someone who is publicly and more or less demonstrably known to be mafia, and b) Who lives through the night to be able to confirm fellow mafia members through the hit list.
Since Vigis can kill off a roleclaiming mafia during the night, this method is hardly foolproof- but it's probably worth trying anyway in a big game.
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Ok new new tip: if you are mafia and happen to be in control of the hits, don't dance around the blue players. If you know that LTT is a blue, kill him. It doesn't matter if you think you can control him. Kill him. Leaving blues alive until the end game will come back to bite you.
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United States2186 Posts
On analysis: when trying to find mafia, do it one at a time rather than trying to analyze every single player in the game. I made that mistake in my first game too, and I did very poorly in it. It's simply too difficult and too ambitious to focus on finding every mafia. Concentrate on one person, or two if there's a double lynch.
Also, a key difference between the top players and the majority is the mindset. So far as I can tell, most players here simply go with the flow. They read their pms and the thread and react to what happens. That's it. They are a victim of the tide of the game. Thus if the mafia control the flow of the game, they win, because the town is at the mafia's mercy. That's how we won in mafia 7, and we won in such a way that nobody besides Ace understood how.
The distinction is that the top players are actively looking for mafia. I know I probably reread the thread at least 10 times during a game. This might be out of reach for some people as I read extremely quickly, but at the very least everyone innocent should routinely go through all of one person's posts OBJECTIVELY, and try to see what their intentions are.
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I preferred my way of playing when i did: Do what i want and don't analyze anyone, unless i was a detective, then find out who someone was and talk to them. (+ Hax find ver first night)
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Bumping this post too, the next Mafia game that's run if I don't mod it is going to have a new format. We've been using an inferior format for 2-3 years now and based on activity and player skill it just isn't working out.
From now on in my games but hopefully adopted in other mods' games:
1.) For anything except large games (40+ players) all voting is done in the game thread. In an effort to improve the general ability of everyone this is a must. The ability to see the votes right in front of your face will probably go a long way in making everyone better.
I'll be using the voting format of games I modded on another site: ##vote: player name. Also I'll allow people to unvote as it makes things more explicit. No abstaining because...
2.) Majority to lynch. This will probably be the biggest change for small and medium games. If you reach majority votes before the deadline you are lynched. This is to promote activity and help analysis skills. If the deadline is reached and there isn't a majority then it is a no lynch. Imo this change is probably the most important one to improve game flow.
3.) No more clues. It's come to the point where people have to admit clues just make people downright awful players. If you don't believe it ask yourself what players pin Mafia most often and how they've done it? With the exception of Camlito and MTF in one game with lots of support no one has ever been consistently able to use clues to get Mafia. No one. All the best players have done it with analysis of what's being posted. This clue nonsense is just bringing down the skill level. Read games like Mafia 5, 6, oh and especially 7. I think if anyone reads 7 after all this time has passed they'll get what I'm saying. Focusing on clues is such a bad habit it's making some of the newer players completely miss what the point of Mafia is: a mind game.
4.) From now on if you don't let a mod know you'll be going AFK ahead of time and for how long, you're mod killed and banned. Point blank. Standard game days are 48 hours minimum to account for this being an international site. Seriously, no one in the world is that busy to not take 10 minutes out to read a thread on the internet. No complaining about the thread being too long - most people on this website know how to read. This implies you also know how to skim posts, pick out what you need to know and keep going. No excuses.
5.) Elected positions are done for now. If we do have them they no longer should be immune to Role Checks. In fact role checks are going to be rare and instead I'll be using Alignment checks only for a bit. We have to teach people how to read others as well as the game itself. Pardoner if anything is the role I'd use and it's going to be hidden and unelected.
6.) With no more elected roles Bodyguards are going to be gone in their current form. If I use them it'll probably just be One per game, and in fact it would act like a Martyr role. I think the bodyguard mechanic has been misused by the players so badly that it's no longer even useful. Qatol told me himself and others tried to fix it with the Mafia subbing idea and it was great. Unfortunately I think we can all see removing them is the ultimate solution.
7.) The last thing I'll encourage is the use of some behaviors from Mafiascum. Like I said I think the way some of them play is the way the game should be played. So one of the behaviors I'm going to ask we start using in our games is Finger of Suspicion. This tactic, commonly labeled Fos is when you basically tell a player you think he/she is possibly scum but won't vote for them yet. This is to also promote discussion in our games.
Feel free to discuss all of this.
For new players, and even some vets, if you have questions on how I come to the conclusions I do in games, or figure things out, or why I play a certain way when I do also feel free to ask.
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No abstaining Was going to suggest this after this game.
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Yea, I've seen too many games ruined by abstaining. With Majority Lynch everyone has to play or their screwed. Ah well ^_^
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United States2186 Posts
1. I think this might be more counterproductive than anything because it fills the game thread with a lot more unnecessary posts. I'll bring this up again but having too many posts hurts the town considerably since good posts are ignored and people aren't forced to react to information. See day 1 of this current game lol, that was ridiculous.
2. Not really sure how this would play out or why it's better. Can you elaborate a bit?
3. I think having clue games every once in awhile is nice but I agree that. Just a minor correction though as Cam basically owned us singlehandedly in BC's 2nd game from day 2/3 clues and MTF got Vivi as well in Qatol's game, both of those solo. Otherwise yes, clues do make people dull and hurt the town more than help.
4. Yup can't agree more. After this game we are actually going to post the ban list instead of the just informal one that's passed around when something is hosted.
5. Ambivalent. The town screws itself often by lynching innocent elected roles since players gravitate towards them in bad ways, but how do we keep day 1 discussion? We don't want a repeat of the smurf game day 1, we don't want to put day 1 rolechecks back in and have ace vs folca or me vs qatol/you again. Elected roles are very very good at stimulating activity. Nothing wrong with leaving them aside if there's a replacement. Any ideas?
6. Yea bgs aren't a good role; the current system as qatol says works but still not that great. Unprotected offices kinda suck though.
7. Oh no oh no. I've read a fair number of mafiascum games and the primary problem that plagues them is that the town runs themselves in circles with useless info and way too much spam, and FOS is one of the primary reasons why (also lack of pm'ing aggravates this). WIFOM overemphasis is also another problem that just hurts the town more than helps (considering how often it is misused). Most of the games there are just painful to read because of these two factors.
Obviously inactivity hurts the town a ton but over activity and fluff is just as bad. It's a tricky thing to balance and imo the posting usefulness/frequency is one of the main reasons why games go in the direction they do.
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1.) For anything except large games (40+ players) all voting is done in the game thread. In an effort to improve the general ability of everyone this is a must. The ability to see the votes right in front of your face will probably go a long way in making everyone better.
I'll be using the voting format of games I modded on another site: ##vote: player name. Also I'll allow people to unvote as it makes things more explicit. No abstaining because...
1. I think this might be more counterproductive than anything because it fills the game thread with a lot more unnecessary posts. I'll bring this up again but having too many posts hurts the town considerably since good posts are ignored and people aren't forced to react to information. See day 1 of this current game lol, that was ridiculous.
The game thread is always going to have fluff posts. That's just part of playing online. However beyond that I think this is sorely needed. Looking through past games the town in general has no clue whats going on when it comes to votes. This along with majority lynch puts everything right in front of your eyes. This is also great for the Mafia as it allows them to exploit holes in town bandwagons. Having a separate voting thread just kills the game when a major part of the discussion revolves around voting and motives. For large games it's understandable since tracking votes isn't something everyone wants to do.
2.) Majority to lynch. This will probably be the biggest change for small and medium games. If you reach majority votes before the deadline you are lynched. This is to promote activity and help analysis skills. If the deadline is reached and there isn't a majority then it is a no lynch. Imo this change is probably the most important one to improve game flow.
2. Not really sure how this would play out or why it's better. Can you elaborate a bit?
The current mechanic is that whoever has the most votes at the end of the day is going to die. This is pretty bad at the moment for the reason of lurkers and non-active players. In fact players just abstain. With majority lynch you HAVE to vote. If there are 20 players in the game and 11 are needed to vote for one person to die you'll see activity and discussion jump. You can't just decide to abstain because you'll be hounded. When votes are stalled you'll be hounded. Checking bandwagons will be more important with majority lynch. It's also great because you can't even have an excuse not to pay attention to the votes. If we keep letting people have the ability to make excuses for not playing then the game overall suffers.
5.) Elected positions are done for now. If we do have them they no longer should be immune to Role Checks. In fact role checks are going to be rare and instead I'll be using Alignment checks only for a bit. We have to teach people how to read others as well as the game itself. Pardoner if anything is the role I'd use and it's going to be hidden and unelected.
5. Ambivalent. The town screws itself often by lynching innocent elected roles since players gravitate towards them in bad ways, but how do we keep day 1 discussion? We don't want a repeat of the smurf game day 1, we don't want to put day 1 rolechecks back in and have ace vs folca or me vs qatol/you again. Elected roles are very very good at stimulating activity. Nothing wrong with leaving them aside if there's a replacement. Any ideas?
Well the town screwing itself is mostly a result of players literally not knowing how to read. But that's another topic for another time. Day 1 discussion is based heavily on other player's actions. Whether it's an election, a lynch, shoddy voting - it will happen. We can't allow games to be bad because players don't know what to do. They'll just have to learn. Most Mafia games aren't played with clues so I don't see why we should keep killing our games for the sake of extra discussion. Elected roles once in a while may be fine, but we've had them so many times and it hasn't really improved game quality for long time.
7.) The last thing I'll encourage is the use of some behaviors from Mafiascum. Like I said I think the way some of them play is the way the game should be played. So one of the behaviors I'm going to ask we start using in our games is Finger of Suspicion. This tactic, commonly labeled Fos is when you basically tell a player you think he/she is possibly scum but won't vote for them yet. This is to also promote discussion in our games.
7. Oh no oh no. I've read a fair number of mafiascum games and the primary problem that plagues them is that the town runs themselves in circles with useless info and way too much spam, and FOS is one of the primary reasons why (also lack of pm'ing aggravates this). WIFOM overemphasis is also another problem that just hurts the town more than helps (considering how often it is misused). Most of the games there are just painful to read because of these two factors.
Well I somewhat agree. There are a large number of games to go through and really, there are large variations in skill level on that site. You'll always find games with bad players so it's hard to really get an accurate description on how well some mechanics are used. That said yes, they do sometimes run around talking about the wrong things but how is that any different from here? It's better to talk about the wrong thing, realize it and hop on the right path than to not be talking at all or even worse not even playing the game. Fos's are actually great at causing discussion. If someone says they think you're suspicious you will respond. I also think lack of Private Messaging = very good. You're forced to play with what's presented to you which overall will make you sharper. There is a reason I have a crazy success rate of catching Mafia and a lot of it has to do with just purely reading the thread. Likewise if you follow the good players in some of those games and read their deductions and even lies when they are Mafia it's a lot of information based on what can be seen in public. This goes a long way into getting better as you have to play crisp or you're an easy target no matter which side you play for.
Overactivity is great. Look at the Day 1 of the past few games and you'll see 50-80 pages of mayhem. Sure some of it is fluff but it keeps people interested. If I joke around in the thread, of Chezinu posts some nonsense if others find it entertaining you can't really fault them. In fact you should use it as a tool to go ahead and get us lynched. L has tried that against me like 3 games in a row now.
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L has successfully tried that against me like 3 games in a row now.
Just sayin'.
:3
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Getting killed at night doesn't count.
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I just had an idea if you want to use elected roles: Just have one bodyguard and elected roles aren't immune to role/alignment checks unless their original role allows it.
I personally still won't be in favor of elected roles anyway.
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On February 24 2010 04:58 Ace wrote: I just had an idea if you want to use elected roles: Just have one bodyguard and elected roles aren't immune to role/alignment checks unless their original role allows it.
I personally still won't be in favor of elected roles anyway. That solution still doesn't remove the "useless bodyguard" problem. Unless someone knows who the BGs are, it is random chance whether you will find them or not. Maybe announce who the bodyguards are after the election? Might be a source of some interesting mind games between the mafia and the medics. Also, I don't like the idea of elected positions that can be rolechecked. The problem is they spit out confirmed innocents too easily. Pairing that with a bodyguard who is basically only going to be found by dumb luck doesn't seem like a good idea.
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Well these are going to be small-medium sized games. I just wanted one bodyguard for the fact that killing one is much better than Mafia having to kill 4. I was just trying to give an alternative to outright getting rid of them which is my goal anyway ^_^.
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Posting here to highlight the 2 guides that I wrote after mafia VII and mini mafia 2 because they have been buried/forgotten and that was way too much work for me, especially with people complaining that nobody is improving.
Mafia VII This was written from the perspective of godfather in one of the more effective mafia teams we have had on TL, outlining our strategies/ thought process. There are some pretty important lessons in there if you read through it though, like the importance of close teamwork/ communication to the mafia.
Mini Mafia 2 This was my attempt to give people an example of behavioral analysis. Note that there are definitely different styles to this (Ver focuses a lot more on how people have posted in previous games, for example) but a lot of the basics are still the same.
If anyone else writes something like this, I encourage them to post those guides here as well, because I think this thread should have a collection of those kinds of guides to give people a nice quick reference which is easy to find.
EDIT: Yes, this is shameless advertising for my guides. Don't like it? Write something better.
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FREEAGLELAND26780 Posts
I feel like we need to update this thread sometime...
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United States2186 Posts
On August 09 2010 03:23 flamewheel wrote: I feel like we need to update this thread sometime...
I'm writing a town guide as a counterpart to Ace's mafia one. Is that good enough?
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On August 11 2010 04:50 Ver wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 03:23 flamewheel wrote: I feel like we need to update this thread sometime... I'm writing a town guide as a counterpart to Ace's mafia one. Is that good enough? Yes plox. <3<3
Seriously, I think TL town is just really undereducated as far as towns go. Or maybe it's just me.
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You only say that because you got to see them from your scum view in WaW mafia ^_^
but yea you're right
ETA: But in general it is way better than it used to be. Before if you drew town here you were almost guaranteed a loss without some luck.
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United States2186 Posts
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Are you counting all of those games equally?
Mafia 2 was very town favored looking back, depending on if we are counting the ability to get invincible DTs as a better tool than 20 scum.
Mafia 3 was also heavily town favored with Day Detectives also. Not to mention that one came down to everything going right for the town.
Iirc 15 was the one where the town had to struggle for victory because we really did have bad townies and it did take some effort to get that win.
Those are the only 3 I can comment on because I remember being in those games the most. In every one regardless of which side I was on I never felt the town had enough skill that they could win off of ability alone. Even in this year's games there are maybe 3 players if I drew scum I'd actually try to play seriously for because drawing town is a curse.
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United States2186 Posts
Well yeah lots of games had plenty of luck/imbalanced. I'll try to go through very briefly (using thread names to differentiate):
*Mafia 1 had too many mafia and nobody had played before. *Mafia 2 had some good plays from both sides I thought. Your BG plan, LTT's infiltration, Plexa/Camlito/MTF's clue analysis. Not sure who it favored? Mafia screwed up badly with hits though. *Mafia 3 yeah favored town, town did play decently well but a lot of it was based on blue roles. *Resurrection was an interesting game; you, Caller, Mynock, and Qatol all did quite well as town and I had a great game as mafia. *Wrath of Khan was ridiculously mafia favored though showtime did a great job playing the double agent. *Mafia 4 was very town favored but LTT and Qatol had some genius ideas that ended it first night. *Mafia 5 we had the most stacked town team possible and figured out a ton of innocents + mafia even on day 1. *Mafia VII the majority of the mafia team played extremely well. *Mafia 8 a lot of us played terribly while some people stepped up like Dreamflower and 0zc3c for town, BC, Caller, and MBH for mafia, and did really well. Mafia was very favored and should have won but they got unlucky with Vivi missing a key vote by a minute and then Showtime ragequit. *Pyrr's mafia game the entire town played poorly except when foolishness busts out days 3/4 with most of the mafia figured out but the town doesn't listen to him. Favored town setup. *Plexa's game several of the mafia had a good or excellent game (pyrr, chezinu, motbob, rol?) while foolishness was the town's saving grace. Was very imbalanced in favor of town. *Red Army mafia was screwy and probably favored town a bunch? Chezinu Lucas and I all had a good game there. Yeah XV was a mix of great and bad. You as the DT pardoner were lynched day 2 despite making the correct play of pardoning motbob day 1 (though mafia did help push this skillfully). Then Dreamflower should have singlehandedly won the game by bombing 2! mafia night 2 but both medics blocked her hit on L haha. The rest of the game was a result of very poor mafia coordination more than anything.
That's a simplified synopsis of course but at least in my view the old games were generally decided by a few key performances. The two games where one side had the most people play well were Mafia VII for the mafia and Mafia 5 for the town.
But yes I can echo you about now. Even if I had the time to play like I used to I wouldn't even want to anymore. We need more big impact players who can regularly deliver key performances and towns that don't try to hinder those players from doing their jobs.
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I completely blanked out VII from my mind because that might be the worst performance by a town in any game of mafia I've ever seen. A good mafia team vs a terrible town and well we all know the result.
I also forgot about XV. The Shikyo-Amberlight-Rol-Vivi death squad aka auto lose. But that's just another long long list of people who don't know how to read. That was definitely a lucky town win.
And yes we do need more players that can I guess we have to say "command attention" and steer the game. It's one of the reasons I really only try to play in theme games so that it has enough players or replace into games so it can continue. Some of the other people on this forum should have the chance to make a name for themselves but it hasn't been happening at a rate fast enough. Looking back at your results where the town did win it came down to a few key players. While I won't say that one person can win the game for the town the very fact that we only remember a few outstanding performances is where the problem lies. Not enough impact of good talent on the town leaves it up to a few people who usually are hindered by the very town they are trying to save resulting in lots of arguing.
I guess once I actually finish writing this scum guide (lol) and you finish your town guide that will be the next step into raising the overall skill level.
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Early on in TL mafia history mafia had the upper hand. Up to TL Mafia XII, with the exception of TL Mafia V, the games that town won were close, had an imbalanced setup, or were won because the mafia let the game slip at the last minute. Town wins were more attributed to mafia epicfails rather than town epic wins.
The problem in the earlier games besides a lack of skill was a lot of volatility with big name players. Back then, the game is basically decided by day 3 when the key town players were dead and everyone was ignoring their analysis/they didn't have a chance to do analysis. Because quite frankly, without certain analysts, town is easily duped and led around in circles by the mafia. Recently, however, big name players have been surviving longer into the game due to a couple things (Godfather to counter DT rolecheck auto-win, Medic lists, and smaller games with less KP means mafia can't afford to carpet bomb their way through key players and have a less pronounced advantage with massive KP). With a few exceptions of course, I think this has led to a stronger performance from town.
With that said, we've also had an influx of capable, promising, mid-tier players who have also helped bridge the massive gap between the top tier and the lower tier players. I think now towns have a little bit bigger base of players to rely on compared to the earlier games (although some of these players have not been consistently playing games).
Another weird thing is correlating skill with name recognition/influence. Skill without name recognition or influence is sadly something that has led to the defeat of many towns before when the game could have been a lot closer. Some games include good players with strong analysis that gets ignored.
Name recognition/influence that overstates skill has also been instrumental in leading townies off the right track. I guess this could be attributed to a laziness/impulse toward following the most vocal players. Players who have presence and are aggressive, but are oftentimes wrong often still command a following. They're just so hard to ignore, even if you're a townie who doesn't read the thread very much or doesn't put a lot of effort into the game. In a sense this destroys a certain ability of high skill/lower influence players to have a positive impact on the game. And even if one of these less influential players attempts to have their voice heard, it often ends into a town v. town accusatory fest which ultimately ends with a mafia win.
While yes, it is a legitimate mafia skill to be able to be influential in a town, I think most of this has to do with egos. Post game commentary devolves into a brag-fest, while people with legitimate achievements are quite frankly ignored. Ultimately the best solution is to have townies think for themselves, not be sheepish, and learn how to do good analysis themselves. However, I feel that towns pick up the most from the most vocal players in the game. While learning from vocal people is not necessarily a bad thing, it leads to a perpetuation of the same methods that fail them in the first place. Knowing what worked and what didn't work can be a good framework for improving town play. Unfortunately, I just don't think the town is currently exposed to all the styles/information that is out there. I think we've already discussed 3rd party game reports to help players learn, but that seems to have been a flop from past experience. Other methods may be necessary.
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Ahh it seems like I should have read past the green/red Christmas colored post, as Ver/Ace already discussed the points I addressed after that. Oh well.
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Ultimately the best solution is to have townies think for themselves, not be sheepish, and learn how to do good analysis themselves. Good luck there.
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FREEAGLELAND26780 Posts
Hmmm I'll read this stuff tomorrow. Looks promising.
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I hope Ver doesn't mind but his information was very helpful, and I think it would be good for players to read even after it disappears below the date filter. Some great discussion afterwards as well.
For new players, this is using a specific game but it is mainly for examples and has great advice regarding all mafia games.
How to Improve: Mafia XXX Analysis - By Ver
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United States2186 Posts
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