The Newbie Matrix6 stats thread (complete)

[Zachrulez]

Does that take into account that you're cherry-picking the set-ups that have the most extreme win-rates? The Jailkeeper set-up's win-rate specifically seems weirdly high. I also doubt Doc+Tracker is really that bad, with Town having 2 perfectly serviceable PRs.

Also, Watchers don't seem fun in Newbies (just consider an IC-newbie scum team; who do you think is going to make the kill?) and Watcher-Doctor specifically is very much undesirable.

The ability to stop kills is probably quite a bit more powerful than we give it credit for in a 9p setup when the role has two chances to stop the kill. (Hitting the kill target or the source.) Notice the winrate when paired with a roleblocker is much lower.

It'll probably take a bit bigger sample size to solidify that thought process though.

[Zachrulez]

Sounds like newbie games could get very boring if the trend of newbie scum replacing out at rates much higher than random continues.

[Zachrulez]

Could also correlate with having just one experienced player in the scum team increases the rate, thus the higher rate of one experienced player in a scum slot increasing scum's win rate.

This is what I think is happening. More experienced players being in a game make it more likely that one or both draw scum and those games probably take a more pro scum direction than one that has newbie scum. There are exceptions... but that's what I think is happening.

Counterintuitively I think cutting back on the amount of experienced players in the newbie queue would be a better answer than finding the right amount of SEs. Something like 2 ICs or 1 IC and 1 SE or even 1 IC period. I think newbie scum having to contend with experienced players that happen to be town for longer in a game make it more likely for newbie scum to ultimately be found and can be a unbalancing factor.

I don't think there's an easy answer though, the above is just my hunch on what a solution should be.

Edit: Ultimately the question is what you want to have more influence on the newbie games overall? The experienced players or the newbies themselves? I would argue that newbies should be determining the course of their games for better or worse as often as that can be achieved.

[Zachrulez]

Newbie scum have the highest winrate, so that doesn't work. It also doesn't explain why there's such a large difference in winrate.

I thought about that, but when you follow the newbie scum line over to the 2SE 1IC setup, they don't anymore so I'm not calling that statistically significant. (In regards to it smashing my theory anyway.) I think 3SE and 1IC is a system where the experienced players being town actually manages to destroy itself because statistically you would expect to find at least one scum in the group most of the time. It's an explanation I find easier to buy because I don't think newbie scum outplaying experience is the norm even though I wouldn't say it's impossible for it to happen.

Edit: Actually over on the 3 SE 1 IC side the winrate is higher when one of the SEs is scum. Missed that when I was replying to this post.

[Zachrulez]

I do want to point out that once broken out into newbie/se/ic configurations, most of the subtypes have fairly small sample sizes (<20 total games).

To get reasonable sample sizes for some of the subtypes, you would have to play an incredibly large number of newbie games under the setup due to the unlikelihood of some of the draws happening randomly. At some point you do need to theorize over having hard data because it's not feasable you'll ever have hard data on some of it.

Anyway because I'm somewhat bored and because I do believe that players will approach experience vs newbies in a different way, I think it's worthwhile to point out based on the data available that at least one IC or SE drew scum in the 3 SE, 1 IC setup approx 71.5% of the time. With 2 SE, 1 IC, the draw for at least one was approx 62.6%. I'm sure there's a way to figure out the mathematical probability, but that's for someone way more crazy into the math than I am.

Anyway, if I'm one of the SEs or ICs and I happen to draw town, I'm sure a compelling argument can be made toward lynching one of the more experienced players based entirely on the probability of one of them being scum alone. (I just pick the least likely to be town and invent some reason to lynch them.)

I'm sure the validity of that approach could be called into question, but my thought is to whether or not those kind of factors should be mitigated by reducing the presence of experience vs newbies in a newbie game. My thought is there should be just enough to teach the newbies how to play and no more.

Maybe 2 ICs is not sustainable, but would the notion of going 1 SE, 1 IC be a totally ludicrous idea to consider? That would actually bring us pretty close to the 2 IC ideal we had way back when, but with 1 IC actively expected to teach the game and 1 SE to offer alternative advice or to call out the SE if they're scum bsing? Is it important to have a third experience role? Does one of them have to be guaranteed to be town? (In 1 SE, 1 IC they could both be scum, but it would be rare.)

[Zachrulez]

Anyway, if I'm one of the SEs or ICs and I happen to draw town, I'm sure a compelling argument can be made toward lynching one of the more experienced players based entirely on the probability of one of them being scum alone. (I just pick the least likely to be town and invent some reason to lynch them.)

The odds of there being scum among the other non-newbies is literally the same odds as the odds of there being scum among any group of players in that game of the same size. There's no substance to this argument.

I'm not arguing that it's optimal play necessarily, just pointing out that those kind of stats can have power in an environment where experienced players can be seen as bigger potential threats.