Mini 2265: Bears with Guns 2: Pandamonium game over

[Jingle]

First things first, thank you for your apology Mala. I accept it, and I apologise for my wording in return. Although it wasn't meant to be personal, it was a bit too harsh and was a reflection of my extreme annoyance at the situation and your defense presented. If that is my toxic trait then here is one to balance it out: I do not hold grudges against anyone and I'm surprisingly quick to forgive and forget, which had already happened while the game was still going. Let's hope that we both can learn from this.

Secondly, JV, you were in the right and I was in the wrong here. Sorry for that.

Finally, the game itself. Thank you for hosting it Nero and thank you to everyone for playing. I think the theme was cool and tbf I think the Veterinarian being able to poison someone is fantastic.

The set-up was unfortunately flawed.

Was it balanced?
On paper: kinda, but swingy.
In reality: not really.
I guess one could look at it as: town having strong PRs vs. mafia having more in terms of player numbers. But, if you break it down, then the PRs were strongly town-sided and parity was strongly scum-sided. Which made the game unstable and therefore, in my opinion, unbalanced.

Now, was this game winnable for either alignment? Absolutely. Town play was bad in this game, and that also includes myself. Scum play ranged from moderately good to very good. Did the mafia team deserve to win? Absolutely.

But, given the fact that the game was unbalanced, it took one less mistake for town to lose the game than usual and scums had an easier job manipulating the vote count. While townies had power concentrated in individuals, scum had power concentrated in their numbers and it was, ultimately, thanks to their numbers that they won.

I absolutely don't think this game was a waste of time. But I don't think this game can be compared to other Mini games I've played either. It was a different experience.

Congratulations to the scum team.

FWIW you’re conflating swing and balance. Balance is “do all factions have a roughly equal chance at winning?” To which I think the answer is solidly a yes. Swing is what you’re describing, where the chances of a roflstomp one way or the other increase. Normals tend to try for low to moderate swing in addition to good balance, but the two concerns are independent.

And yes, this was indeed a very swingy game.

[StrangeMatter]

I don't really like games designed to be extremely swingy since mistakes are more or less going to happen, or something will likely end up making one side win insanely hard and there's almost no chance to come back.

[JacksonVirgo]

I don't really like games designed to be extremely swingy since mistakes are more or less going to happen, or something will likely end up making one side win insanely hard and there's almost no chance to come back.

I don't think many people like swingy games.

[Greeting]

First things first, thank you for your apology Mala. I accept it, and I apologise for my wording in return. Although it wasn't meant to be personal, it was a bit too harsh and was a reflection of my extreme annoyance at the situation and your defense presented. If that is my toxic trait then here is one to balance it out: I do not hold grudges against anyone and I'm surprisingly quick to forgive and forget, which had already happened while the game was still going. Let's hope that we both can learn from this.

Secondly, JV, you were in the right and I was in the wrong here. Sorry for that.

Finally, the game itself. Thank you for hosting it Nero and thank you to everyone for playing. I think the theme was cool and tbf I think the Veterinarian being able to poison someone is fantastic.

The set-up was unfortunately flawed.

Was it balanced?
On paper: kinda, but swingy.
In reality: not really.
I guess one could look at it as: town having strong PRs vs. mafia having more in terms of player numbers. But, if you break it down, then the PRs were strongly town-sided and parity was strongly scum-sided. Which made the game unstable and therefore, in my opinion, unbalanced.

Now, was this game winnable for either alignment? Absolutely. Town play was bad in this game, and that also includes myself. Scum play ranged from moderately good to very good. Did the mafia team deserve to win? Absolutely.

But, given the fact that the game was unbalanced, it took one less mistake for town to lose the game than usual and scums had an easier job manipulating the vote count. While townies had power concentrated in individuals, scum had power concentrated in their numbers and it was, ultimately, thanks to their numbers that they won.

I absolutely don't think this game was a waste of time. But I don't think this game can be compared to other Mini games I've played either. It was a different experience.

Congratulations to the scum team.

FWIW you’re conflating swing and balance. Balance is “do all factions have a roughly equal chance at winning?” To which I think the answer is solidly a yes. Swing is what you’re describing, where the chances of a roflstomp one way or the other increase. Normals tend to try for low to moderate swing in addition to good balance, but the two concerns are independent.

And yes, this was indeed a very swingy game.

If a game can lose its balance very quickly (and that is bound to happen when the swing is too big) then it’s not well balanced at all. But that’s my personal opinion.

[Morning Tweet]

reminds me of league. they try to combat swing with difficult comeback mechanics. dunno if giving town more power really qualifies for that (since that also increases swing). but i dont have a better solution

[Nero Cain]

I wish, and I'm not blaming Jingle at all, he had been like "Nero, this is a cool setup with neat flavoring but the town needs greater numbers." I feel like this might have been much better as a 15/16 player game. My real worry here was that the lover pair gets offted early and town would be way ahead number wise. momo shouldn't have been eliminated d1 and I don't really get why Wave was voting Math d3 when he knew he blocked him and JV wasn't poisoned. I was so confused and had to double check that I didn't fuck up.

[Jingle]

I don't think many people like swingy games.

The popularity of GIM and every other game in the genre disagrees with you.

[Jingle]

If a game can lose its balance very quickly (and that is bound to happen when the swing is too big) then it’s not well balanced at all. But that’s my personal opinion.

The point I was making is that that isn't balance. You're saying that you thought the game was too swingy for your tastes which is a valid criticism (and one I tend to agree with, as I mentioned in the mod thread (In hindsight, I think a vig and scum lovers was a poor combination, which didn't actually end up affecting the game)). It's more a function of telling you the right game design wording so that when you give feedback on a game it is more easily understood.

On the other hand, looking at this purely from a game design standpoint: I think that you think the game is actually swingier that it really was. A vast majority of the time town is going to get a guilty via watcher on night 1 or 2 and almost certainly on a goon barring any severe misplays, meaning the game should extend farther than it did this game resulting in a much more standard game experience. With a guilty outed, the watcher becomes functionally vanilla because the JK should sit on them until the JK dies and then they should be killed. The issue with the swing here was more the possibility of a N2 scumwin (2x Town elim, 2x town NK, 1x town poison) compared to the possibility of scum just being boned on D1 (lovers dying). What happened here was 4 very strong town roles not having any impact on the game at all, which is very unlikely.

I agree that this game was probably not the cup of tea of most of the player list, but the statement "I don't like coffee, so coffee is bad" is analogous. I think the setup itself is fine, although we definitely could have done a better job communicating design principles before it began to attract a pool of players more interested in a higher variance game. I also think that Nero's thought to turn it into a large would be a good way to reduce the swing element if he decides to run a similar game in the future.

[Toogeloo]

I don't think many people like swingy games.

The popularity of GIM and every other game in the genre disagrees with you.

I think it more apt to say, people don't like swingy games when it takes them by surprise. I expect GIM to be ridiculous.

For me personally, good balance means town probably fucks up a couple times in the beginning of a game but can bring the game around and even out in the mid game, and then the end game is a horse race.

Having scum in control for day play requires good night play by town and bad night play by scum in order to stay balanced, which is a harder to achieve.

[StrangeMatter]

GIM is definitely different in that its intentionally designed as a game that was intended to not be taken super seriously.

For sure people don't like swing games where its not known that it could be an extremely swingy game. Still this game was going to swing either way if certain conditions were met, though we definitely played very poorly so town just got stomped.

Still infuriating how the CSF wagon got counterwagoned out of nowhere and then MegAzu just self hammers.

[Greeting]

If a game can lose its balance very quickly (and that is bound to happen when the swing is too big) then it’s not well balanced at all. But that’s my personal opinion.

The point I was making is that that isn't balance. You're saying that you thought the game was too swingy for your tastes which is a valid criticism (and one I tend to agree with, as I mentioned in the mod thread (In hindsight, I think a vig and scum lovers was a poor combination, which didn't actually end up affecting the game)). It's more a function of telling you the right game design wording so that when you give feedback on a game it is more easily understood.

On the other hand, looking at this purely from a game design standpoint: I think that you think the game is actually swingier that it really was. A vast majority of the time town is going to get a guilty via watcher on night 1 or 2 and almost certainly on a goon barring any severe misplays, meaning the game should extend farther than it did this game resulting in a much more standard game experience. With a guilty outed, the watcher becomes functionally vanilla because the JK should sit on them until the JK dies and then they should be killed. The issue with the swing here was more the possibility of a N2 scumwin (2x Town elim, 2x town NK, 1x town poison) compared to the possibility of scum just being boned on D1 (lovers dying). What happened here was 4 very strong town roles not having any impact on the game at all, which is very unlikely.

I agree that this game was probably not the cup of tea of most of the player list, but the statement "I don't like coffee, so coffee is bad" is analogous. I think the setup itself is fine, although we definitely could have done a better job communicating design principles before it began to attract a pool of players more interested in a higher variance game. I also think that Nero's thought to turn it into a large would be a good way to reduce the swing element if he decides to run a similar game in the future.

I understand your point. My point is, this setup does not fit my idea of a mafia game at all. Which is why I say that the game is not well balanced, because this is too far off from what fits my idea of a mafia game. I can accept that some people like this idea, but this game deviated a little too much from what I expected while entering it. I think it probably would have been better to inform players of the swing and let them decide and speculate on that. In what I see as a forum game of mafia, swing is part of the balance, and it is an important part in most games.

Note that this game could have well gone wrong for scums too. If town got lucky and eliminated one of the scum lovers Day 1, the chances of scums winning would decrease dramatically.

I also disagree completely with the fact that the town PRs having no impact was very unlikely. The fact that mafia's greater numbers allowed them to manipulate the vote counts with ease. I mean, just look at the VCs. On Day 2 and Day 3, the scums all just barged in and used their sheer numbers. And they were absolutely correct in doing that. Sure, they wouldn't have been able to push any of these without town being on them as well, but my, MegAzumarill's, or MathBlade's mess-ups should not have impacted the game as hard as they did. I don't think a single decision should impact the game so much and the fact that it did is what I mean by saying that the setup is flawed. Of course, the mafia played better and they deserved their win. But in a less swingy game, the win would have been more difficult and the mess-ups town did would have had a less profound impact than they did in this game.

That is, unless the players are told before that they should expect the unexpected.

[Greeting]

GIM is definitely different in that its intentionally designed as a game that was intended to not be taken super seriously.

For sure people don't like swing games where its not known that it could be an extremely swingy game. Still this game was going to swing either way if certain conditions were met, though we definitely played very poorly so town just got stomped.

+1

Still infuriating how the CSF wagon got counterwagoned out of nowhere and then MegAzu just self hammers.

CSF wagon stalled because she was scum, and when the chance to get a viable town counterwagon presented itself (me offering to vote out Meg instead) all of the scums just barged in and Meg self-hammered. And that was basically how the end of Day 2 went. Does usual mafia go like that? No, because the scums have less voting power because of lesser numbers and they also feel less inclined to rely on their voting power as the game is balanced in terms of PRs as well.

[Jingle]

That is, unless the players are told before that they should expect the unexpected.

FWIW, I've been a pretty big proponent of a clearer system for establishing what to expect in games for quite a while now (Read: years) and agree that both Nero and I could have done a better job on communicating the type of game this was going to be (or any job at all in my case, really). I have always thought that setting up a proper expectation for the style of game you're running is a central part of running a great game, and to that end I tend to invite specifically players I think will enjoy the game I'm about to run when modding, which has an unfortunate side effect of making my games tend to be a little cliquish when I take the time to make them quality. With that said, it's much more difficult for less frequent mods to do that and I don't really think Nero did a bad job with the game at all.

I could continue arguing the likelihood of a middle of the road outcome, but frankly I don't think it gains anything to do so. Your assessments are valid, and the game WAS very swingy. I still absolutely think the scumteam deserved their win and the town earned their loss.

[StrangeMatter]

We definitely deserved to lose but I don’t feel like it’s much of a victory if I was scum there. No offense since Mafia played really well but with how town played it doesn’t feel like one I’d actually earned.

[StrangeMatter]

Semantics here, and no offense again to scum, but when I think earned I mean winning against good players, and or against the odds with a lot of work put into that as scum.

[StrangeMatter]

Never mind I’m stupid, I read wrong. Ignore these two posts.

[JacksonVirgo]

HALP

IDK IF I'M MINDMELDING

OR IF MOMO IS PARROTING ME

VOTE: Mala no

I had this right too. *sigh*

[Malakittens]

Still infuriating how the CSF wagon got counterwagoned out of nowhere and then MegAzu just self hammers.

CSF wagon stalled because she was scum, and when the chance to get a viable town counterwagon presented itself (me offering to vote out Meg instead) all of the scums just barged in and Meg self-hammered. And that was basically how the end of Day 2 went. Does usual mafia go like that? No, because the scums have less voting power because of lesser numbers and they also feel less inclined to rely on their voting power as the game is balanced in terms of PRs as well.

This. I know I was trying to wait for another option I could jump on instead of voting CSF & megz ended up being it. I know it's a shitty spot to be in.

I mean i actually enjoyed the game overall

10/10 would play another nero game

[Nero Cain]

It's more fun when you are winning so you might have enjoyed the game more as mafia than as town but thanks anyways. Glad you decided to play.

[lilith2013]