[SETUP] [EV] Have We Won Yet?

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[SETUP] [EV] Have We Won Yet?

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:30 pm

Post by Spangled »

This setup has been heavily edited from what it was, as the original setup really did not work. In the original setup, the amount of scum were randomly determined, and town were not told when they had won, but rather had to determine it. Needless to say, the original setup was swingy and not very fun.

The new idea, heavily influenced by the old one but, I believe, much more fun and better-working, can be found down below, or if you're slightly lazy, here.

The OP is below, for your convenience — perhaps for comedic purposes?

Spoiler: Original Post/Setup
So. This is both [SETUP] and [EV] because I think it requires a lot of tweaking to make playable, balanced, or perhaps even fun, but I think it could be run eventually. It is loosely inspired by Conspiracy.
  • Mountainous; no PRs or anything, 11p(?)
  • Number of scum is random, between 1-4 (or 1-3, or 1-2, or 2-3, or 2-4 etc?)
    • Town is not told when all scum are dead
    • Scum can win by being 50% of the PL, as usual
  • After the first scum flip and then after every day, town vote on whether there they have won the game (because there are no scum left), or whether to put it off to the next day. If a majority vote that there are no scum left, then if it is true, town win, if it is false, scum win. If a majority vote to put it off, the next day begins.
    • This could also be done during the night by way of PMing the mod...? It removes discussion, but makes the whole process faster and smoother. Maybe how many people voted which way during the night could be shown at the beginning of the day...?
  • NKs, or perhaps Even/Odd-Night NKs makes more sense to me than Nightless, but maybe Nightless could work...? (Doubt it though)
    • NKs are not compulsive; that would be stupid
I was also thinking that scum could set up logic chains in the PT for if they die - who to kill on such and such a night and under what circumstances. Such a chain might look like:
N1: If Spangled is lynched D1, shoot RC. If this is false, shoot Creature.
N2: If RC was shot the previous night and Creature is lynched D2, shoot teacher. If this is false, shoot RC.
N3: If Creature is dead, shoot Spangled. If Spangled is still alive, shoot implosion. If Creature is alive, shoot him - this overrides the command to shoot Spangled.
N4: If number of scum > 0, No Kill.
etc. (disclaimer: names pulled out of metaphysical hat; no buddying is at work here)

So. Is this setup completely, disgustingly broken? Is it completely unfun?
Can it be improved; how? (What do you think the EV might be?)
There are several general questions I've got in this post; how many people is this setup ideal for, how many scum should exist, how should voting for having won work, how should NKs be handled, should posthumously-acted-on logic chains be allowed? Daytalk is also an unknown here.

Please talk to me about what would make this setup better, and above all what is wrong with it.

Please note, again, that the above, spoilered, is not the new, improved setup. That can be found by scrolling down or looking here.
Last edited by Spangled on Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:45 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:53 pm

Post by Jingle »

In post 0, Spangled wrote:So. Is this setup completely, disgustingly broken?
Yes.

Mountainous is historically balanced at around 11v2 iirc, and your mutation is inherently scumsiding.

You need some kind of major buff for town to make up for the scum can autowin portion of the event.

This has been drunk Jingle, please direct all criticisms to your local police precinct.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Sat Aug 03, 2019 9:00 pm

Post by Jingle »

Also, central mechanic has an in built work around of just kinda ignoring it.

There's no downside to just continuously lynching until you hit 2 people left.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Sat Aug 03, 2019 9:01 pm

Post by Jingle »

Gun to my head, I think both options are fixed-ish by making the town-vote-for-end into a guess at remaining number of scum with some benefit to being right.
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Sun Aug 04, 2019 12:12 am

Post by Spangled »

In post 3, Jingle wrote:Gun to my head, I think both options are fixed-ish by making the town-vote-for-end into a guess at remaining number of scum with some benefit to being right.
But then it
is
a guess; dumb luck.
...I suppose it was originally, anyway, though. Hm.
Jingle wrote:
In post 0, Spangled wrote:So. Is this setup completely, disgustingly broken?
Yes.

Mountainous is historically balanced at around 11v2 iirc, and your mutation is inherently scumsiding.

You need some kind of major buff for town to make up for the scum can autowin portion of the event.

This has been drunk Jingle, please direct all criticisms to your local police precinct.
Even-night killing or similar might solve it... Maybe...? (Although I see your general point).
Jingle wrote:Also, central mechanic has an in built work around of just kinda ignoring it.

There's no downside to just continuously lynching until you hit 2 people left.
The point of playing scum (when going for LyLo) is to get one of your people inside the top 2, though, isn’t it?
(But then the mechanic is kind of pointless, yes).

Gah. This setup-idea seems not to have any particular worth as compared to regular mountainous. I’ll have to think about how to make the central mechanic more of a part of the game — or whether to just drop the idea.

In the mean time, suggestions and further criticism is appreciated.
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Sun Aug 04, 2019 6:45 am

Post by popsofctown »

Spangled, have you seen my setup "Safe to Split Push" from the monthly challenge thread? You might like it because there is some similarity in concept. I'm on my phone but I'll tryhard and link it anyway
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Sun Aug 04, 2019 6:47 am

Post by popsofctown »

"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:29 pm

Post by Spangled »

Okay, so the original setup is in fact disgustingly broken, and inherently swingy, with a central mechanic that doesn’t add anything to the game — which, in fact, would probably be negative fun for both sides. Thank you Jingle, Ausuka, and popsofctown for helping me realise that.

But! This idea can be taken and made better (if very different, and more based on pops’ challenge setup than Conspiracy). New setup:
  • Game is almost flipless — flips are either
    2-Shot Fruit Vendor
    or
    Not 2-Shot Fruit Vendor
    .
  • Scum wincon is as normal.
  • The setup is 10:3, and it is fully VT vs. Goon.
  • As in the previous setup, town are not told when the number of scum reaches 0.
  • During the night, every player (including scum) vote on how many scum there are left, by PMing the mod the number. At the start of day, how many people voted each way is revealed (and thus the majority vote), but town are not told whether they were correct or not.
    • If the majority vote 0, and it is true, town win. If it is not true, scum win.
    • If majority vote any other number, then if it is true, one town player is randomly selected to become a 2-Shot Fruit Vendor; they are sent a new Role PM, in essence; that of a 2-Shot Fruit Vendor, and are considered as such for flips. If it is not true, there is no consequence.
There are, however, many variations on this setup. Several options:
  • You could have the game completely flipless.
    • You could have only lynches flipless,
    • You could have only NKs flipless.
      • You could have the latter true, but scum get flips.
  • You could have there be some consequence for town not guessing correctly, other than not correctly guessing 0.
  • You could have the minor power given to town for guessing correctly not be an FV, but rather have them all told how many scum were offwagon on the previous day,
    • Or have just one person, or maybe a few people, told how many scum were offwagon on the previous day.
  • You could have scum not win when they achieve parity, but have to get a majority to vote that number of scum = 0 (although personally I think that would be silly).
  • And, of course, you could have the setup be 12:3 or 11:2 (although I think that 3+ scum is probably a must for assocs, but that is purely my opinion).
I'm sure there are many more variations I have not thought of, and I'd be glad to be told those, as well as whether this new setup
works
in concept, and is fun - in other words, please critique away!
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 5:04 am

Post by Creature »

I prefer the original setup. Maybe something like 2-4 scum with 13 players and 2(n-1) unaware town 1-shot bulletproofs where n is number of scum.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:34 pm

Post by Jingle »

Current iteration seems townsided if you organize guessing for the worst case scenario.


Examining the best case scenario for scum:

D2, one mislynch under your belt. Day start is 8v3 with a named townie and an additional random named town every mislynch for the remainder of the game. Faking a mislynch when there's a scumlynch outs one scum per day. Faking a scumlynch when there's a mislynch is impossible, although you can counterclaim.

As an aside, your variants have several cases where they just don't mean anything. For example, if mafia has parity A: there will never be a mafia lynch and B: they can simply force majority vote of 0.

Creatures solution might be fixable if the players are told they're bulletproof. 7+2 1shotBP v 2 is probably townsided, even without them being told they're BP, though. I'd guess the formula being n+2 scum, 11-n town, n+1 of the town are given a 1 shot BP.
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:29 pm

Post by Spangled »

In post 9, Jingle wrote:Current iteration seems townsided if you organize guessing for the worst case scenario.


Examining the best case scenario for scum:

D2, one mislynch under your belt. Day start is 8v3 with a named townie and an additional random named town every mislynch for the remainder of the game. Faking a mislynch when there's a scumlynch outs one scum per day. Faking a scumlynch when there's a mislynch is impossible, although you can counterclaim.

As an aside, your variants have several cases where they just don't mean anything. For example, if mafia has parity A: there will never be a mafia lynch and B: they can simply force majority vote of 0.

Creatures solution might be fixable if the players are told they're bulletproof. 7+2 1shotBP v 2 is probably townsided, even without them being told they're BP, though. I'd guess the formula being n+2 scum, 11-n town, n+1 of the town are given a 1 shot BP.
Where do the two named townies come from? Town has to correctly guess how many scum are left, and are not told if they were correct or not in that endeavour.

I also don't see what you are talking about with faking a mislynch or scumlynch - scum don't need to fake lynches either way because the game is almost flipless. I'm not sure where you're coming from here...

Yes, the scum-don't-win-at-parity variant is silly. Ignore me.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:31 pm

Post by Spangled »

In post 8, Creature wrote:I prefer the original setup. Maybe something like 2-4 scum with 13 players and 2(n-1) unaware town 1-shot bulletproofs where n is number of scum.
That was not what I was expecting. That could be made to work, but I still think the inbuilt way of ignoring the central mechanic up until the end means it would just be less fun than a regular mountainous.
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 3:05 pm

Post by Creature »

Other possible idea:

After two scum lynches, town get to vote whether there are more scum or not. If they're correct, there are more scum, game continues as nightless.
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 3:25 pm

Post by Jingle »

In post 10, Spangled wrote:I also don't see what you are talking about with faking a mislynch or scumlynch - scum don't need to fake lynches either way because the game is almost flipless. I'm not sure where you're coming from here...
If you leash the entire village to guess a single number, the appearance of a FV or no appearance of a FV becomes a flip for the previous day. FV here balances like a named townie (or actually slightly better than because they have an advantage when claiming targets, but Named townie is the closest comparative role).

If there is a FV claim, Either: A. You lynched town. or B. Scum claimed FV.

If scum claims FV, there probably won't be an additional FV claim the next day AND there won't be a fruit given at night, meaning you have a functionally guaranteed scum lynch.

If two people claim FV, you KNOW that there was a mislynch and that one of those two players is scum.

Both of those fakeclaims are bad for scum in the long term, so it can be assumed that claims are valid until LYLO for most purposes.

Basically, balance wise the setup breaks down to 10v3 with a public cop that hits a random towny whenever there is a town lynch, which is an okay-ish setup but probably more fun as 10v3 with a public cop whenever there's a town lynch because the random nature of the cop would just be frustrating.

(Note to self: Check if 10:3 vengecops is a thing) EDIT: 10:3 Vengecops is 43% EV according to the wiki, FWIW.

If you want to fix variable scum to be viable, you could punish town for lynching while there are no scum alive. Perhaps if town lynches and there are no scum alive, the last scum to be lynched recruits a town player to join the scum faction. In this case, you need to up the level of town power to assume that there's always 4 scum, because the mechanic would be very scumsided. (Which is a lot of power for both teams in a mini, FWIW, and probably super swingy because of it.) Potentially a sensor, probably public, would work well with the synergy of the setup. At that point, you don't need the guess mechanic, because town no lynching is always good for scum if they have players left and manipulating the perception of the gamestate is skillbased, not luck based.
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 7:35 pm

Post by Spangled »

In post 12, Creature wrote:Other possible idea:

After two scum lynches, town get to vote whether there are more scum or not. If they're correct, there are more scum, game continues as nightless.
Still sounds fairly swingy.
Is this totally removing the aspect of town not winning when number of scum = 0 etc, and just carrying over there being an uncertain number of scum from the original setup?
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Sat Aug 17, 2019 7:56 pm

Post by Spangled »

In post 13, Jingle wrote: Basically, balance wise the setup breaks down to 10v3 with a public cop that hits a random towny whenever there is a town lynch, which is an okay-ish setup but probably more fun as 10v3 with a public cop whenever there's a town lynch because the random nature of the cop would just be frustrating.
Now I’m seeing what you mean. I hadn’t considered the possibility (indeed, probability) that town would leash the votes. Any ideas to make it work better/be more fun? If the random nature is frustrating, perhaps town could vote on a person to become FV if the guess is correct — the twist being, of course, that that could mean scum might get the FV (and not use it, obviously).
In post 13, Jingle wrote: (Note to self: Check if 10:3 vengecops is a thing) EDIT: 10:3 Vengecops is 43% EV according to the wiki, FWIW.

If you want to fix variable scum to be viable, you could punish town for lynching while there are no scum alive. Perhaps if town lynches and there are no scum alive, the last scum to be lynched recruits a town player to join the scum faction. In this case, you need to up the level of town power to assume that there's always 4 scum, because the mechanic would be very scumsided. (Which is a lot of power for both teams in a mini, FWIW, and probably super swingy because of it.) Potentially a sensor, probably public, would work well with the synergy of the setup. At that point, you don't need the guess mechanic, because town no lynching is always good for scum if they have players left and manipulating the perception of the gamestate is skillbased, not luck based.
Some people consider cult to be bastard... and those who don’t tend to love them. I mean, I know that players will know what they’re getting into with this, but it feels like an unhappy compromise that few will like.
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Sun Aug 18, 2019 3:36 am

Post by chennisden »

Flipless is also basically bastard
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:41 am

Post by Jingle »

Unexpected flipless is bastard, but advertised flipless isn’t. You should still make sure your players know they’re playing a flipless game though.

Cult is explicitly bastard, but that means almost nothing in an open. The problem most people have is with bastard modding, not bastard elements, and they’ll know exactly what they’re getting into wrt cult. That’s like saying that people don’t play opens with secret millers or death millers or mimes (I can link to all of those in the last year, btw) because they’re bastard.

The biggest issue with bastard is that it’s hard to balance well. The second biggest issue with bastard is that people don’t trust the mod. The third, and by far smallest, issue with bastard is that people don’t like some of the roles.
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Post Post #18 (ISO) » Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:45 am

Post by Jingle »

Scum being able to get the FV means that there is no town utility to the role and the game is strictly more scumsided than the 43% EV vengecops.

If you want an example of the frustration of town in flipless, vengeful ghosts ended recently and had a lot of bitching about it.
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Post Post #19 (ISO) » Sun Aug 18, 2019 10:52 am

Post by Spangled »

In post 18, Jingle wrote:Scum being able to get the FV means that there is no town utility to the role and the game is strictly more scumsided than the 43% EV vengecops.
Yeah, I realised that thinking back over it. Hm. Is this new setup idea fixable to be fun?
Or should we go back to tweaking the old one?
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Post Post #20 (ISO) » Mon Aug 19, 2019 5:59 am

Post by Jingle »

FWIW I think the old setup has merit as a new setup, if the issues can be worked out. The new one is a vengecops variant, which is already a decent setup that I like, but I’m just not sure there’s enough there to make it stand out and most people don’t like flipless games.
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Post Post #21 (ISO) » Mon Aug 19, 2019 6:56 am

Post by popsofctown »

I prefer that, by LyLo, everything has flipped.


Guessing whether you've lynched any mafia is fun, but also scumhunting using flips is fun, and these things are at odds with eachother.
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"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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