Daytalk for Newbies

[Nachomamma8]

Why isn't day talk standard for newbie games?

I realize there's a chance that giving scum daytalk will skew the careful balance towards scum, but I think it's helpful for new scum getting adjusted to the game (experienced partners can coach, newbie partners can coach/encourage each other), and I think it would help a bit in helping newbies stick around after their first game (it's a lot easier to bond with scumpartners when you have more opportunities to talk to them).

[Plotinus]

+1

I think that would be really great. I think newbie scumslots would probably flake a lot less too if they had daytalk. It is really hard for a newer player in their first or second game when they’ve never been town before and have no idea what to even be doing.

[MarioManiac4]

table][row][cell][/cell][cell]A[/cell][cell]B[/cell][cell]C[/cell][/row]
[row][cell]1[/cell][cell]Town Jailkeeper[/cell][cell]Vanilla Townie[/cell][cell]Mafia Encryptor[/cell][/row]
[row][cell]2[/cell][cell]Mafia Roleblocker[/cell][cell]Town Cop[/cell][cell]Town Doctor[/cell][/row]
[row][cell]3[/cell][cell]Town 1-shot
Bulletproof[/cell][cell]Mafia Goon[/cell][cell]Town Tracker[/cell][/row][/table]

I kinda think this should be the newbie setup.
It isn't as strong as fully giving daytalk, but it would be nice to have mafia narrow the setups down to 2.
Setup 1 and C punish bussing the most and this would encourage not doing so.

[popsofctown]

You can skip the below. More-on-topic, I think scum daytalk would be a huge boon for newbie scum's motivation levels and is a really good idea.

Spoiler: daytalk in general

I kinda wonder whether scum daytalk should be outright standard. I think having it is really close to a wash, power level wise. It's better than not having it, but barely so. While you can get lots of advice from teammates, the more you have secret conversations with the other bad guys, the more risk that you put yourself in a state of mind that will scumslip more in thread. It's something powerful/useful but that can be dangerous if spammed too much. Like the Ring of Sauron.

Adding the power for scum to daytalk (and also, at times, choose not to daytalk) and adding additional types of scumtells for good scumhunters to look for seems to broaden and deepen the game. At the same time I'm not sure it's a slam dunk obvious improvement because I think mafia is the funnest when every effort is made to make scumhunting easier since it's inherently very very hard. And there's no way daytalk will hurt scum, unless scum consistently misuse it.

[Postie]

When I first started stalking threads on this site I thought scum daytalk

was

standard and was kinda disappointed to find out that it wasn't. I think things would definitely be at least a little bit more fun if this was implemented.

[Ankamius]

Playing scum is definitely funner with daytalk. We're a team against the entire rest of the game, it feels right that we get the opportunity to act like one.

[saulres]

Is the winrate for scum lower with daytalk? I was under the impression that scum win most games, even without it. If adding it would only make it easier for scum I don't see how that's a good thing.

[JeanDarc]

I think enabling daytalk so that scums (if there is a Power Role) can share results is nice too. Although this may "simplify" the implied Mafia strategy and dilute the core gameplay element (reading between the lines and all), I really do think scum day talk is worth looking into. Plus, check the stats on newbies - the scum slots have high, high replacement rates.

Okay this is officially ridiculous.

The slot replacement rate for newbie scum slots is now 87.5%, and the player replacement rate is now 110.6%.

In other words, newbie scum slots have a 7/8 chance of seeing at least one replacement, with an average replacements-per-game of 1.1.

And because I don't count most pregame replacements, nor replacements that are another person's fault, this is a lower bound.

Okay this is gonna make me look stupid but here it is.

I found a major bug in the replacements pivot tables. Basically, all slots in all games since 1531 were being counted as both town and scum for the question of "how many times did this slot get replaced". I don't have a clue how it happened, nor why Excel didn't pop up one of its "these adjacent formulas don't match" boxes to tell me.

So expect some major changes to the replacement stats in the next little bit. I suspect things will look far less ridiculous once it's all corrected.

Worth looking into it - even without the data error, this is a sore thumb.

note:
That's what I assumed happens for Power Role - mod fetches result by PM, not in the Private Thread - in any case, a day-locked private thread makes the whole thing moot.

[JeanDarc]

To approach this for Themes/Mini games:
enabling an anonymous Mafia "contacter" role (maybe name it Informant) that can send anonymous messages to certain roles would be interesting. For example, the Informant could have a secret day-time "contact" thread with a third party role. Not sure how the anonymity can be managed, but I've been thinking it would be cool. Sort of like a "Blackmail" almost.

Town Neighbours are also interesting mechanic related to this (on the other hand)

[Nachomamma8]

Is the winrate for scum lower with daytalk? I was under the impression that scum win most games, even without it. If adding it would only make it easier for scum I don't see how that's a good thing.

If adding daytalk can increase enjoyment of the game and increase the number of people who actually stick around, then I think that it's worth spending time to fix balance if needed.

[Postie]

To approach this for Themes/Mini games:
enabling an anonymous Mafia "contacter" role (maybe name it Informant) that can send anonymous messages to certain roles would be interesting. For example, the Informant could have a secret day-time "contact" thread with a third party role. Not sure how the anonymity can be managed, but I've been thinking it would be cool. Sort of like a "Blackmail" almost.

Mafia-aligned Mailman?

[saulres]

Is the winrate for scum lower with daytalk? I was under the impression that scum win most games, even without it. If adding it would only make it easier for scum I don't see how that's a good thing.

If adding daytalk can increase enjoyment of the game and increase the number of people who actually stick around, then I think that it's worth spending time to fix balance if needed.

I don't disagree with you. But AFAIK nothing's been done to fix the current scumsideness of game balance yet, so I'm not sure why it would be done afterwards?

I could be totally wrong though, I haven't seen recent stats.

[Porochaz]

No. We want games to match site meta as much as possible, this doesn't involve daytalk.

Also scumtalk in oldy mafia 2 made a huge difference to our scum win.

[Porochaz]

Also the main purpose of newbie games is to weed those not interested out rather than trying to retain people. Especially if we bend too far to trying to retain people then when they get into "proper" games they flake because it wasn't like their newbie experience.

[Vampirate]

There'd be less incentive to explore the site if the scum had day talk all the time in newbie games.

That's also giving them training wheels when they need to practice the unicycle.

[Vampirate]

I do think you could put an encryptor role on B3 though.

Currently the B column has townie, cop, goon.

I think the encryptor role should replace the goon role there so it's VT, Cop, Encryptor.

I think that's be more balanced and definitely more interesting.

[Postie]

Those are fair points. I'm already a huge fan of newbie games, and I'd probably play them forever if there was daytalk.

I do think you could put an encryptor role on B3 though.

Currently the B column has townie, cop, goon.

I think the encryptor role should replace the goon role there so it's VT, Cop, Encryptor.

I think that's be more balanced and definitely more interesting.

That sounds like a good idea.

How difficult would it be for scum to communicate using well-hidden steganography?

[Nachomamma8]

No. We want games to match site meta as much as possible, this doesn't involve daytalk.

Also scumtalk in oldy mafia 2 made a huge difference to our scum win.

Mmmm I'd disagree that typical scum meta doesn't involve day talk. Most of my recent scumgames have had daytalk and I play a lot? Also I don't think that daytalk is a make or break type of deal, just a super helpful for new scum type of deal

[Vampirate]

No. We want games to match site meta as much as possible, this doesn't involve daytalk.

Also scumtalk in oldy mafia 2 made a huge difference to our scum win.

Mmmm I'd disagree that typical scum meta doesn't involve day talk. Most of my recent scumgames have had daytalk and I play a lot? Also I don't think that daytalk is a make or break type of deal, just a super helpful for new scum type of deal

I think the encryptor should be put in though because scum are going to need to adapt if encryptor is taken out. It's more for after they get out and explore the site.

[mastin2]

I actually, very strongly, see the merits for this.

Daytalk not being in newbies seems like, honestly, a bit of a relic, a remnant of the past.

Sure, back in the good olden days, daytalk was a rarity. But as time has progressed, it's gotten to the point where daytalk is more common than not having daytalk. While some of said daytalk comes from encryptors, even if you remove encryptor-daytalk from the number of games with daytalk, you're probably still going to come up with stats that are very close and/or are still in favor of daytalk being more common than not.

All the same, not having it remains standard because that's the way it used to be, and also because some people like it that way, and also because yes, daytalk does give the scum a slight advantage. (Albeit so marginally so, it's basically nil. It used to be a bigger one, but then the meta shifted as to make the advantage it granted be basically obsolete.)

And I actually agree: it'd very much help newbies bond, increasing their chances of staying around.

No. We want games to match site meta as much as possible, this doesn't involve daytalk.

Mmmm I'd disagree that typical scum meta doesn't involve day talk. Most of my recent scumgames have had daytalk and I play a lot? Also I don't think that daytalk is a make or break type of deal, just a super helpful for new scum type of deal

^In short, what Nacho said. It might provide an advantage

in theory

, but in practice, it's not nearly as strong as it once was. It's also seen so frequently that whenever I draw scum and

don't

have daychat, I'm shocked.

And I play a TON of games.

[Kalimar]

I think the advantage it confers varies very much on the make-up of the scumteam. If it isn't used, it's adding nothing, but if it can be used to strategise in the moment and keep morale and energy high (amongst other things), it can add more than its weight in gold.

If Toomai's stats are up-to-date, scum are already coming out with a slight edge of about 2%. The balance overall is therefore pretty even, although four of the individual setups look skewed to one alignment or another (with small sample size as the inevitable caveat with such commentary), making that overall figure potentially misleading. I think that without tweaks to the overall setup format this change probably would disturb the balance further, but I do agree with the points that scum daytalk would likely provide a more fun experience and increase player retention in individual games. Site-wide and long-term, I don't know how much of an impact it would have, since scum slots are by their nature rarer and I think quite a lot of newer players who do finish a game reason the lengthier format isn't quite for them and don't continue regardless of alignment, which is fine as long as the site population isn't in too much decay.

In terms of being representative of the site, I'd say daytalk is more representative as a site feature than Matrix6 as a setup is, given that there are very few setups like Matrix6 as a macro holistic entity. Granted, daytalk does tend to feature more regularly in themed games, not so much in Opens (as far as I know) and a mixed bag in Normals and Micros, so it isn't exactly universal across the board, though certainly a common feature. Curiously enough, though, a move to making daytalk standard in newbies would probably lead to the worthwhile question as to whether it should be a site implicit standard (albeit a non-mandatory one in player-created games), and I guess that would really come down to what people think the benefits of not having daytalk are.

Encryptor isn't a bad idea and would side-step the need to ask the above question at all, though it would still disturb the ecosystem. With the B3 proposal scum get a buff in an already seemingly scum-sided setup (Tracker/BP) and the cop setup balance is about even. C1 would probably be a better slot for it, the single JK setup is a seemingly more town-sided one, but then scum get a buff in a possibly already slightly scum-sided setup in the Doc/Tracker one. It is possible that the setup information an Encryptor flip would give would offset a little of the scum-sided impact its inclusion would have, but I'm not sure it would bridge the whole gap - an Encryptor flip would be most valuable early, and typically the earlier a scum is lynched the more likely town will win anyway.

[Porochaz]

Well, as I've played 3 games in the last however long, and the 1 mentioned above had day talk, 1 didn't and the other I can't remember, I was town. So I might not be in the best position to say anything.

I also think you are trying to keep things as simple as possible for newbies. Encryptor does complicate things, I think if you were to do this, it would have to be a blanket daytalk or no daytalk.

I just think there are better ways of doing this PLUS I'd be interested to see how many replacements are needed from scum/town slots. Because I'd imagine that more people would be thrilled at being scum.

Also it blurs the don't talk out of the game thread rule, which might be a silly reason but Im taking the stance that all newbies are dumb.

[Porochaz]

Putting Encryptor in starts giving some games daytalk and some without. It's bleh at best, if the enjoyment factor is an issue (which I don't think it is) then you need to allow it over all the games, if it's a help out the newbs thing then same applies.

Im not sure why we have shifted focus on trying to get people to stay on site. Either they are going to enjoy the game or they aren't. Trying to cater for them in the newbie thread is a very dangerous game as it means that when they move on to the larger games they may see it's not sunshine and roses and replace out there at a later date. Newbies are a taster of the site at it's basics. There are good reasons for that. I don't see the point of adding bells and whistles and chocolate ice cream to it when it's not needed.

[Plotinus]

Stats on newbie replacement rate and other newbie related things: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=39739

If you see a slot that needs replacing in a newbie game and it has already been replaced twice, it is overwhelmingly likely to be a scum slot. If you’re town and a slot in a newbie game is replaced once, it’s more likely to be scum but not so much more likely that you shouldn’t do normal scumhunting, but if it’s been replaced 2-3 times then yeah it’s probably scum. (I use this more for determining which slot that I want to replace into rather than who to vote for)

[GuyInFreezer]

I thought the whole point of no daytalk was to introduce people to mafia games, which, most of the time, have no daytalk.