Dogs Vs. Cats Mafia | Endgame

[Thestatusquo]

That said, there was a level of apathy in this game that I don't think I've encountered before in any games I've modded (including multiball) I don't think town tried very hard, and I think that they had a defeatist attitude of "oh, well, theres lots of scum and we don't have agency" which they used as an excuse and honestly I found that extremely disappointing.

It wasn't an excuse for apathy. It was the cause of apathy. In a game where you can execute scum every day and still lose (by a large margin!), correctly identifying town is actively harmful, and town can control about 20% of the total deaths, it's pretty hard to feel like more effort would produce a better result.

I disagree with every single thing you said here

[Thestatusquo]

Cross killing is part of the balance of the game. Scum factions in multiball should be just as interested in killing scum in the day as town and should be (until they are the strongest/only scum faction) more interested in shooting scum at night.

If you assume that x amount of cross kills happen, the correct play is still to try to eliminate scum during the day and honestly it felt like you werent trying to do that at all and if you had, just tried a LITTLE bit more, town could have won this game.

[Dwlee99]

That said, there was a level of apathy in this game that I don't think I've encountered before in any games I've modded (including multiball) I don't think town tried very hard, and I think that they had a defeatist attitude of "oh, well, theres lots of scum and we don't have agency" which they used as an excuse and honestly I found that extremely disappointing.

It wasn't an excuse for apathy. It was the cause of apathy. In a game where you can execute scum every day and still lose (by a large margin!), correctly identifying town is actively harmful, and town can control about 20% of the total deaths, it's pretty hard to feel like more effort would produce a better result.

Assuming no cross kills and perfect day-play (ie, killing rats, then cats, then dogs in order) town loses by one person. But also there were 5 cross-kills this game.

[Dwlee99]

I don't say the above because I completely disagree, either. I find multiball frustrating as scum because it meant that me being widely townread was actually a hindrance, while the scum that lived longer seemed to be in everyone's scum pools. It's also frustrating as town to know there is less agency than normal, but I think this game was still reasonably winnable for town and there was a lot of agency there to eliminate the right people.

To expand on the agency point: I find that a lack of agency kind of nails a lot of the frustrations with these kinds of games. Once I was dead I was bothered, for instance, that there were two dog cops and a dog doctor and we were all goons. Dog faction had three forced night kills as a result of that (maybe two if we had picked up on Fark's obvious crumb, but still). I just finished a mini as mafia where there were practically three forced night kills in a row and that also felt awful. (Investigative got bodyguarded, killed investigative, then there was a conf town)

I don't know if there's really a solution to that, or if it's just part of mafia. I mean, there will kind of always be force kills if there is an investigative role. And in multiball, town won't control all of the kills. I don't really have an end to this thought as I'm kind of just rambling, but lack of agency is frustrating, yes, but I also think part of playing mafia is trying to ward off apathy despite that feeling.

[MURDERCAT]

GGs fun game Shea

[Kazyan]

After I replaced out of the game, I continued to watch it daily. Seriously, this one was a wild ride from start to finish.

The reason I replaced was that I didn't want to deal with all of the emotions that came from hammering a miselim after overinvesting myself in the game--it's something that I'll have to work on as a person. That said, I don't think my continued presence would have changed anything. I'm pretty much automatically /in for the next game that TSQ runs (if any), because I loved watching the plot twists, and the bastardry was entertaining.

Also, regarding town putting more effort...all three scumteams were absolutely diabolical in this game. I'll be disappointed if no Scummies awards come out of this; Cats, Dogs, and Rats all had excellent play from start to finish.

[Thestatusquo]

After I replaced out of the game, I continued to watch it daily. Seriously, this one was a wild ride from start to finish.

The reason I replaced was that I didn't want to deal with all of the emotions that came from hammering a miselim after overinvesting myself in the game--it's something that I'll have to work on as a person. That said, I don't think my continued presence would have changed anything. I'm pretty much automatically /in for the next game that TSQ runs (if any), because I loved watching the plot twists, and the bastardry was entertaining.

Also, regarding town putting more effort...all three scumteams were absolutely diabolical in this game. I'll be disappointed if no Scummies awards come out of this; Cats, Dogs, and Rats all had excellent play from start to finish.

*Points to signature*

[Thestatusquo]

For anyone interested in the history, this game was heavily influenced by pirates vs ninjas, a game run by Mr stoofer probably before anyone in this game was born.

My inspiration was to take the initial idea of three scum teams and a setup that heavily hints at 2 scum teams, especially to the scum themselves and improve upon it from a balance sense.

I thought the issue with the original game was that scum teams all of the same size gave too much advantage to the hidden team, so i wanted to play around with the sizes of the teams in order to fiddle with the power knobs and create roughly similar power levels among the teams despite the disparate sizes. I think we mostly succeeded with that, although maybe the setup was just a scootch too hustle to dogs in particular. I was really happy with the power level of the rats and the cats and the town.

[Momrangal]

Shea doesn't know kung fu panda what?

[Momrangal]

I think town has basically let BHL get away with doing actual nothing all game.

This seemed to be a major factor in my game I can't really fix.i think i did a decent job early on but saying I didn't ride the wave of apathy would be a lie.

[Momrangal]

As far as me "game throwing" it... Had a very weird effect. I definitely did debate its usefulness and it was a high risk high reward.

Didnt bank on being close to conf!town from that though

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

I don't say the above because I completely disagree, either. I find multiball frustrating as scum because it meant that me being widely townread was actually a hindrance, while the scum that lived longer seemed to be in everyone's scum pools. It's also frustrating as town to know there is less agency than normal, but I think this game was still reasonably winnable for town and there was a lot of agency there to eliminate the right people.

that's part of the challenge of playing multi-ball.

It's more like survivor than it is like mafia.

you have to be able to find the middle where you don't get elimmed and you don't get shot >.>

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

For anyone interested in the history, this game was heavily influenced by pirates vs ninjas, a game run by Mr stoofer probably before anyone in this game was born.

what

[Dwlee99]

that's part of the challenge of playing multi-ball.

It's more like survivor than it is like mafia.

you have to be able to find the middle where you don't get elimmed and you don't get shot >.>

"That's exactly where scum would hide! Night kill them" is how I see this playing out.

[Momrangal]

Also, with that in mind.

Nothing is game throwing unless done in the attempt if game throwing

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

that's part of the challenge of playing multi-ball.

It's more like survivor than it is like mafia.

you have to be able to find the middle where you don't get elimmed and you don't get shot >.>

"That's exactly where scum would hide! Night kill them" is how I see this playing out.

nope

cuz scum need to nightkill un-elimmables

scum don't prioritize killing other scum usually

[Thestatusquo]

I do when i play multiball. And i think it's correct to do so.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

it depends on the game state and how big the townblock is

if you shoot the other team too early you just end up getting POE'd out

[Thestatusquo]

Also, with that in mind.

Nothing is game throwing unless done in the attempt if game throwing

I didn't think the play was very good but it's hard to argue with the results. Wasn't counting on the town being so concerned about potential aliens that they counted you as cleared.

[Momrangal]

Most of town was expecting there to be no more than one scum left, and that both dogs and cats were gone by that point

And i mean... So were we.

like I said in chat, WIFOM is a powerful tool and you are a more logical player i think, so it makes sense that you disagree with my overall approach

Not that im exempt from stupid play as town, either

[Psyche]

multiball really is almost a different sort of game and i think now that i appreciate that i can enjoy those games a little more

[Farkran]

gg rats

I found this game super fun while i was alive, so thanks for modding and inviting me here!

The cat pt is also the lols :> for future reference, know that my d1 reads are complete, utter, meaningless trash in all games as either alignment, lol.

Final outcome was also amazing because the rats were actually never ever noticed by anyone until they endgamed and won, wow. I think if you run this same setup 100 more times it won't happen again even once.

My 2 cents on the setup: fun, probably close to balanced, maybe a bit too many red herrings (dog miller, alien cop and a hidden un-hinted third scum faction) for a multiball where identifying scum is already hard enough. This is nowhere near an excuse for falling into apathy, that entirely falls on the players and never on the setup, but i do agree with SS that more town effort would probably not lead to significantly better results given the circumstances.

TLDR: Very enjoyable to play and potentially balanced winrate statistics, too little agency for the town

[Flea The Magician]

Honestly the pooky kill was based on "nobodies killed them yet."

[Thestatusquo]

My 2 cents on the setup: fun, probably close to balanced, maybe a bit too many red herrings (dog miller, alien cop and a hidden un-hinted third scum faction) for a multiball where identifying scum is already hard enough.

This seems like a very fair critique to me.

[Jingle]

that's part of the challenge of playing multi-ball.

It's more like survivor than it is like mafia.

you have to be able to find the middle where you don't get elimmed and you don't get shot >.>

"That's exactly where scum would hide! Night kill them" is how I see this playing out.

nope

cuz scum need to nightkill un-elimmables

scum don't prioritize killing other scum usually

I do when i play multiball. And i think it's correct to do so.

I'm firmly of the kill other scum camp. My philosophy is thus: in a normal game of mafia, mafia are functionally masons with a NK. In multiball, for the purposes of the other scumteam they ACTUALLY ARE masons with a NK. you should give exactly as much attention to killing the other scumteam as you do to killing vigs, because they really are vigs.