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Post Post #1850 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:37 am

Post by PookyTheMagicalBear »

its kind of bullshit I get alt-outted like 3 hours into a game and peta can go like a year in stealth mode

t3 this is all your fault -__-
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It's like witnessing an slow but unavoidable train crash you can't stop."

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Post Post #1851 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:41 am

Post by petapan »

In post 1850, PookyTheMagicalBear wrote:its kind of bullshit I get alt-outted like 3 hours into a game and peta can go like a year in stealth mode

t3 this is all your fault -__-
try making alts that aren't anime girls
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Post Post #1852 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:44 am

Post by PookyTheMagicalBear »

dude your avatar was literally peter pan and no1 alt outted you
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-MariaR


"I can't even look at the game anymore.
That evil teddy bear has got everyone twirling by his thumb.
It's like witnessing an slow but unavoidable train crash you can't stop."

-Norwee
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Post Post #1853 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:49 am

Post by Enchant »

If i made alt, cover would blown up in first 5 minutes.
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Happy Scumday!

Post Post #1854 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:02 am

Post by Retti »

In post 1852, PookyTheMagicalBear wrote:dude your avatar was literally peter pan and no1 alt outted you
It's Link, actually
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Post Post #1855 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:44 am

Post by Prism »

In post 1845, Dwlee99 wrote:Dude if I knew that was you you're dead
It's okay, I knew and still got rolled in Happy Face like a complete dork
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Post Post #1856 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:44 am

Post by Prism »

peta2strong4me
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Post Post #1857 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 8:24 am

Post by the worst »

Ooh nice reveal. I'm surprised Scorp wasn't next to be eliminated but I totally just had the third as Andres, lol. Well played scum.
who's scum? i haven't read up yet but like, it's me
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Post Post #1858 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 8:26 am

Post by the worst »

my town core that I kept facetiously referring to as the entire scum team who were laughing at me turned out to be the entire scumteam... oh no
who's scum? i haven't read up yet but like, it's me
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Post Post #1859 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 9:30 am

Post by fua »

I have no idea who some of these people are.
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Post Post #1860 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 9:36 am

Post by the worst »

we are the legion of the deceived, climbing in droves out of your pocket
who's scum? i haven't read up yet but like, it's me
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Post Post #1861 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:01 pm

Post by T3 »

In post 1850, PookyTheMagicalBear wrote:its kind of bullshit I get alt-outted like 3 hours into a game and peta can go like a year in stealth mode

t3 this is all your fault -__-
wait i'm honestly kinda curious
were you "The Emperor" in MBOS 13?
because you posted a palpatine gif on your main in another game like 2 minutes before the emperor logged on and made some posts but the emperor sounds completely different to you
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Post Post #1862 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:05 pm

Post by PookyTheMagicalBear »

;_;
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-MariaR


"I can't even look at the game anymore.
That evil teddy bear has got everyone twirling by his thumb.
It's like witnessing an slow but unavoidable train crash you can't stop."

-Norwee
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Post Post #1863 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:05 pm

Post by PookyTheMagicalBear »

im trying to avoid games with you so you dont alt out me in the first 2 minutes but ur in like every game >.>
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"I hope one day I can openly play as wolfy as Pooky and get zero pressure for it grumble grumble."
-MariaR


"I can't even look at the game anymore.
That evil teddy bear has got everyone twirling by his thumb.
It's like witnessing an slow but unavoidable train crash you can't stop."

-Norwee
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Post Post #1864 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:26 pm

Post by Dwlee99 »

Pooky YOU'RE THE EMPEROR
I prefer they, thanks :)
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Post Post #1865 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:31 pm

Post by mastina »

Hi I reviewed this game.
(Sorry for taking so long.)
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Post Post #1866 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:38 pm

Post by Scorpious »

In post 1865, mastina wrote:Hi I reviewed this game.
(Sorry for taking so long.)
Forgive me, I’m not trying to be facetious, but does this mean anything? Or is it for your own enjoyment?
"Would you like to know more?"

I am like a renaissance artist. People appreciate me more after I am dead

Semi-V/LA on weekends..

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Post Post #1867 (ISO) » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:50 pm

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In my experience just in case she doesn't check in soon. Mastina is an absolute goddess of reviewing games and is a pretty long-standing normal game reviewer. Sometimes after games there are questions about how the setup was considered from a reviewer's pov and mastina is usually really comfortable going into her thoughts about it.

this post game hasn't really involved setup discussion but sometimes it's really juicy.
who's scum? i haven't read up yet but like, it's me
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Post Post #1868 (ISO) » Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:35 am

Post by Oman »

Well! I got absolutely played by fua and misread scorp all the way through. Really enjoyed seeing how wrong I was there. Well played!
In post 1841, Retti wrote:And, uh, sorry town. Rough game in a lot of regards.

Feel bad for Oman to come back to this, not the best experience to have. The normal queue in particular just seems to have scumsided meta, unfortunately, for a variety of reasons. Win rates favored scum back in the day, too, though, feel like not a lot has changed in that regard. (there was a lot of lurking and replacements a decade ago!) I swear not all games are this bad, though.

(did they not get sent a result on me because he died? shocked they weren't calling for my head in the dead thread)
Thanks for thinking of me. I didn't get a result on you, no, otherwise VERY MUCH YES :D It's not really about win-rates though. Games can be fun, can be tough and interesting, without being about scum winrates. For me a good marker is what's the town-scum elim split. If you're just getting scum last day, that's worse than random change, and it suggests the town has not got it all together. The best games go back and forth a bit, trying to find those elusive connections.

I really thoroughly did not enjoy so much of this game. I can't believe the amount of stupid (and I mean that very strongly) anti-town play comes out from townies and is just accepted. Not just like "oh I'm really well intentioned but leading a wagon on a fellow townie" but actively slamming down quick hammers, strict OMGUS with a refusal to move past, a mix of spam and silence, like over all just...I can't imagine actively scumhunting in this environment. Like, even with y'know, being the baddie, Fua did more to help the town than most of the town players (not slots, but players). There's a lot of people who seem to be more committed to maintaining their brand than playing to a wincon, which was culturally not something we encouraged.

I also want to give my thanks to GB and Datisti, as well as to both our reviewers, for getting this game off the deck. I'm a little culture-shocked by what is considered "normal" in terms of both roles and modifiers. I actually read up on the whitelisting thread when I got my role PM. I was especially shocked to see so many modifiers on so many roles. I'm happy to express it as being from another time, but the amount of modifications and caveats on this game definitely made me feel like I couldn't make assumptions about the setup, which I've always found to be a benefit for a normal game. Defs not a comment on
anyone
in the mod/setup team for this game! Just the rules and expectations have changed while mine have been cryogenically frozen.


It was *wild* to be a part of this game. A really unenjoyable wild with some really enjoyable people. Was lovely to spend time with the group at least. I don't know if I will play again, because I feel like there's a lot that has moved passed me here. But I'm glad I exposed myself to the general goings on of mafia play on ms.net in 2021/22. Thanks for hanging out!
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Post Post #1869 (ISO) » Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:51 am

Post by Dwlee99 »

Tbh this game was exceptionally bad in a lot of ways. Sorry for my role in that. You'd probably have more luck in a different game.
I prefer they, thanks :)
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Post Post #1870 (ISO) » Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:13 am

Post by petapan »

yeah the spam is very much a new thing (looking at the lengths of some of my old games is eye-opening)

unfortunately that was very much something i leaned into as mafia, keeping the game unmanageably fast means the people that fall behind get shut out and it's harder to catch up. i really don't like the meta of hyperposting in general



definitely concur that i'm not really a fan of what the normal guidelines have become, there's too much emphasis on puzzle box setups that are meant to thwart the assumptions of players and mechanics which are fairly alienating to those unfamiliar with the meta
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Post Post #1871 (ISO) » Sat Jan 08, 2022 8:11 pm

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In post 1870, petapan wrote:unfortunately that was very much something i leaned into as mafia, keeping the game unmanageably fast means the people that fall behind get shut out and it's harder to catch up. i really don't like the meta of hyperposting in general
I wasn't here for very long, but just bold, underline, italicize, red-text this right here. Hyperposting is killing me in some of these games and it's just getting worse. And I find myself leaning into it at times. But when you go to bed and wake up to 15-20 pages of spam or people yelling at each other in circles, it makes me want to jab my eyballs with a fork. So then you're town, but you haven't posted in 25 pages so people start scum reading you for inactivity and you made 5 or 6 posts the previous day which is perfectly reasonable. And it's not just large themes or larges in general. It happens in opens and normals. Absolutely nuts.

/rant
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Post Post #1872 (ISO) » Tue Jan 11, 2022 2:34 am

Post by Oman »

Really, it's a cultural thing. Like with the quickhammers because "that's just how I do". Spamming, all that stuff. Its just cultural. That's why had the big discussions around Lim All Liars back when I was a kid here: How do we discourage play that is anti-town at the group level, when that behaviour is fun, easy, and/or adventageous at the personal level? We even had a rough time with some people playing deliberately scummy in town games to build meta for their scum games.

It was disruptive then and it's disruptive now. Seems like the culture has drastically shifted to be more okay with it, though.
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Post Post #1873 (ISO) » Mon Jan 17, 2022 12:58 am

Post by mastina »

In post 1868, Oman wrote:the amount of modifications and caveats on this game definitely made me feel like I couldn't make assumptions about the setup, which I've always found to be a benefit for a normal game.
For the record, my personal belief on Normals is that the less they look like a Semi-Open, the better they are.

By which, I mean: the more roles, and the more modifiers, that exist, the less predictable and less breakable-by-the-town the game becomes because with more combinations of roles/modifiers, there's more variety to be had in setup design. The wider the pool of roles and the wider the pool of modifiers, the wider amount of possibilities exist and with more possibilities comes less ability to nail down precisely the setup just from having seen one role flip.

Back in the day, if a Cop flipped, that single role flip was probably enough to give the town an idea of the entirety of the setup, because of the small pool of roles/modifiers, so one role flipping meant that you had the information to know what role combos would be probable off of just that one flip--one flip alone might not make the setup
certain
, but it was unhealthily informative given how the whitelist was small enough to be borderline a Semi-Open in of itself. You had a pretty good idea what the setup was likely to be from so much as a single flip, just because of what roles would work with that one role that flipped.

By continuously expanding the roster of Normal roles/modifiers as we come up with implementable mechanics that can be added healthily and which fulfill Normal mechanics (no redirectors for instance), we make the games be less predictable, less certain. One flip no longer makes the setup basically wide open; one flip isn't enough to give you a pretty good idea of what the setup is likely to be. It
can
be, but far more likely than not, you'll need 2-3 roles to have flipped before you can hone in on what the setup is more likely to be.

Imo, that's a healthy direction.

But I do understand the culture shock of coming from the time when the whitelist was quite small compared to today since it's a lot of new info to learn and the documentation of the changes isn't as good as it should be and interactions aren't as defined as they should be (a natural consequence of there being more roles/modifiers--each new role/modifier adds interactions with every previous role/modifier so a lot of interactions slip through the standardization cracks and require later looks to figure out if/how to standardize them).
In post 1870, petapan wrote:definitely concur that i'm not really a fan of what the normal guidelines have become, there's too much emphasis on puzzle box setups that are meant to thwart the assumptions of players and mechanics which are fairly alienating to those unfamiliar with the meta
Imo, good setup design fulfills all of the following:
-The setup is not easily guessed;
-The setup is not broken by a massclaim early;
-The scum have agency in both the day and the night, but not total control over either;
*The scum do not have a counter to every town PR (or at least, not a counter to most town PRs);
-The town's power roles give the town a boost, but the town is not reliant on their power roles to win the game;
-Town PRs give benefit to the town, but the town can still plausibly win with bad luck;
-The game has relatively low swing;
-The game has low odds of severe swing in one direction (in other words, even if the game is swingy, it has equal odds of swinging both ways rather than a 75% chance of swinging towards one faction over the other e.g. a high chance of swinging towards scum but a chance to swing hard towards town);
-The swing on sides is loosely equivalent (in other words, even if the game is swingy, the benefits from gaining an advantage are loosely equal for both sides);
-The game is fun for the players and does not contain unfun mechanics;
-The game is not too heavily themed;
-If the game does have a theme to it which is acceptable, the theme isn't very guessable to players and only becomes obvious in postgame, (and/)OR, if the theme IS guessable, it doesn't provide a sizeable advantage from having been guessed;
-The game is loosely balanced, ideally close to 50% (we can pass anything which goes up to 60-40 either direction but the closer to 50%, the better);

Probably a couple more but these hit on the major ones. (An optional one is for each game to be unique, to make each experience be different from the prior game.)

The thing about that though is that most of these are, strictly speaking, entirely optional.
We're required to review to make sure the game fits Normal mechanics (which means it can't be too heavily themed) and we're required to make sure the game is within the 60-40 (nothing 65-35 or so) margin of balanced (this covers guessability + massclaim breakability + scum counters among others imo), but we're not required to do literally anything else. Agency, "game is a puzzle", reliance on town PRs, swinginess, ease of swing to one faction, and funness are all technically speaking not required in reviews.

It's my opinion that the NRG should aim for those things, but they're strictly speaking not
required
to exist in Normal games.
After all, a NRG mandate is to try and preserve the vision of the setup designer. We're meant to try and preserve the core of their vision when we give our feedback. We need to make the game fit Normal mechanics and we need to make sure the game is within the acceptable balance margin, but beyond that, anything we do is going above and beyond our call to duty because technically speaking, most of the review process is meant to be making the least amount of changes possible to the moderator's intended setup. Make the fewest needed changes to have the game be runnable.

And even when we DO include the technically-optional stuff...it's hard to hit the mark on everything.

YOU try designing a setup that hits literally every mark I mentioned.
Setups that are balanced, not easily guessed, not broken by massclaim, give scum agency, don't give the scum a counter to all the TPRs, have the TPRs give a boost to the town but don't outright solve the game for the town, low in swing, have the existing swing be loosely equal between factions, have the benefit of the swing be loosely equal between factions, don't have a guessable "theme", are still unique, and are fun to both factions?

Far and few between because designing a setup which hits some of these marks often sacrifices hitting the mark on others.

It's much much much harder than you might think.

Granted, when I'm not as sick as I am and as swamped with RL shit as I am, I'm planning on posting to MD some better insights into my NRG philosophy, which will go into this a lot more extensively, but this should give you at least some insight into things.

tl;dr: we're only required to do a couple of things, and more than that is going extra (reviewers are meant to maintain as much of the core vision of the designer as possible); when going through those extras, it's incredibly hard to hit every mark (especially since many are seemingly mutually exclusive with each other), so we do the best we can, but designing a truly perfect setup is effectively impossible. (And even if it were possible, you run that one game and then you need to design another. One perfect setup is seemingly impossible. Now try to design two, three, four, five...)
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