Matrix6 and the Newbie Queue

[Cheery Dog]

My problem with matrix 6 is the possibility of the tracker tracking the doctor.

[Mina]

you did mix up row and column.

No, I didn't.

Which is BBmolla's?

F11 without the unbalanced all-VTs combo. (That said, scum knowing the existence of a cop and doc changes the dynamic a bit. They'll almost always know whether they can afford to fakeclaim.)

[Master Mew]

you did mix up row and column.

No, I didn't.

Rows are horizontal, columns are vertical (you know, like actual columns).

Now look back at the way you explained your role table. :p

[BBmolla]

you did mix up row and column.

No, I didn't.

Which is BBmolla's?

F11 without the unbalanced all-VTs combo. (That said, scum knowing the existence of a cop and doc changes the dynamic a bit. They'll almost always know whether they can afford to fakeclaim.)

But what is wrong with that?

[chamber]

Cops are more powerful than watchers.

I don't think this is true. (though which is better is likely a function of game size)

[Quilford]

you did mix up row and column.

No, I didn't.

Rows are horizontal, columns are vertical (you know, like actual columns).

Now look back at the way you explained your role table. :p

Sorry buddy, you're the one misunderstanding here.

[N]

Quilford, have a look at what you wrote again. Either you mixed up row and column, or you need to explain how your thing works better.

[chamber]

Quilford, have a look at what you wrote again. Either you mixed up row and column, or you need to explain how your thing works better.

Yep

[eyestott]

I'll just toss out a random Newb setup idea.

Town Cop	Town Roleblocker	Town Tracker
Town Doctor	Town Jailkeeper	Town Watcher
Mafia Rolecop	Mafia Roleblocker	Mafia 1-Shot Strongman

Select one town role from each of two columns, and then choose the scum role from the third.

Add Goons and VTs as necessary for 2:7.

This is how it works:
There are 5 VTs, 2 town PRs, 1 Mafia Goon, and 1 Mafia PR. The 3 PRs may not be in the same column. Therefore:
There will be one of a Cop, Doctor and Mafia Rolecop.
There will be one of a town RB, town JK, and mafia RB.
There will be on of a town watcher, town tracker, and mafia 1-shot strongman.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Matrix6 is complicated. There are 6 roles to teach with screwy interactions. (Without looking, what happens when roleblocker kills and blocks jailkeeper, who blocks roleblocker?) Only one of the 6 is balanced, though averaged winrate is ~50%.. Is it time for a suspect test?

That's the one interaction that's not obvious, but it's also fairly rare. As for balanced, I don't really think you're going to do much better.

F11 without the all-VT option still has a 2 Goons vs. 1 Doctor option. That's not close to balanced.

The problem is essentially that making a good Newbie game is really really hard. You're very limited in what roles you can use (it's a small game and it's for newbies) and if you have only a few possible set-ups (like e.g. the classic "Cop or 2 Masons" set-up), then claiming is really straightforward and the power roles become a crutch and if you go for more set-ups, it's really hard to make the set-ups relate coherently without creating bad or unbalanced set-ups (like the 2 Goons vs. 1 Doctor or 2of4's Doctor+Jailkeeper set-up).

[Bicephalous Bob]

IC the Light

2 Mafia Goons

1 Inexperience-Challenged Innocent Child
1 {Tracker, Doc}
5 VTs

sorry for the shitty pun

[Bicephalous Bob]

IC the Light Light

Mafia Goon
Mafia Faith Healer

1 Inexperience-Challenged Innocent Child
Town Faith Healer
5 VTs

Faith Healers have a 100% success rate except if they target the same player.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

For the record, I'm still in favour of replacing the 1-shot BP by a Town Backup (for either the Jailkeeper or the Tracker) in Matrix6.

I'd also be quite willing to help try and design a better set-up, if it was done in a private topic somewhere (I don't think another 30-page thread is the best way to get things done myself).

[GuyInFreezer]

I think Watchers shouldn't be anywhere near a newbie game, to be honest. They're too powerful. Even a one-shot means you're likely to be caught by luck rather than skill.

Cops are more powerful than watchers. As the newbie queue listmod, do you have any plans to remove the Cop and replace them with the more balanced Voyeur or Follower?(

mutiny

)

Nah watcher is much more powerful than a cop.
Cop needs to find scum to get a guilty result.
All watcher has to do is just predict the nightkill which is much easier than finding scum.
(Watcher in semi open setup makes it even more dangerous)

[quadz08]

Mina, here's what I think you should do here, if you'll take my advice - we've had a million threads about newbie setups and the queue and shit before. Pick like 4 or 5 people who you think will be helpful with setup design, experience with newbies, data-gathering and analyzing, etc, and make a private topic. Come up with a plan in there, check with the listmods/Mith for approval on anything really major, and then push the go button and just do it. Mass discussions just don't seem to be particularly beneficial.

[Phoenicks]

Agree with quadz.

Emphasizing: Matrix6 did what it was designed to do (use more roles, reach ~50% winrate) reasonably well. If you replace Matrix6 with something simpler, it may be 'better' without advancing any consistent goal. I think not just the setup but the structure of the queue is worth considering. And it's worth debating, per chamber's original thread, whether we want to attract more newbies.

I think the best policy is to worry about making more mafia players before making mafiascum players. This means being comfortable with shorter deadlines or a new queue. That's just me, and if it's not where the site is going, then keeping the queue as-is makes most sense.

[quadz08]

We're definitely trying to make mafiascum players, to be honest. Mafiascum players are all going to be mafia players, while the inverse is not the case. We're not lookng to change our site meta from the newbies up - rather, we want our newbies to pick up on some amount of existing site meta as they enter. (Obviously, meta will evolve over time - it just shouldn't be every time a wave of people from New Site X shows up.)

[Master Mew]

I don't think the length of phases in Newbie games should be changed, since they're currently consistent with the rest of the site (now on the other hand, if a new queue for slightly more quick-paced games were to be introduced, which is an idea I would support but which would deserve a separate thread for discussion, then I think the topic might be worth revisiting) - we don't want to be prepping our new members for a site meta that doesn't even exist as an option outside of the Newbie Queue.

However, I do think it would be wise to stick to very simple setups for the Newbie Queue - not only is it intuitive, but as stated earlier there are plenty of simple setups being run all over the site as we speak. Running complex setups in the Newbie Queue will weed out potential members who get frustrated by the complexity, even though we have no reason to weed out those people, since our current site meta outside the Newbie Queue caters to them quite adequately.

[N]

I'd also be quite willing to help try and design a better set-up, if it was done in a private topic somewhere (I don't think another 30-page thread is the best way to get things done myself).

/in

[Mina]

I agree with quadz and Mew on deadlines. Tying into chamber's thread, I think a queue with shorter deadlines is a great addition to the site (alternately, we could merge it with the micro queue)...and if we're trying to attract players with experience elsewhere, they don't really need to play newbie games, anyway. But I dislike having mostly two-week deadlines elsewhere and one-week deadlines in the newbie queue.

I can start a PT for this soon, although I feel bad picking favourites to help design it. .___. I guess my main worry is that we all have a hypothesis, that being the set-up is too complicated to be a good introduction to Mafia. And it certainly

feels

right. But I don't have any data supporting this. My only idea for fixing this so far is newbie surveys. And I agree with Phoenicks that the responses to this survey would be be self-selecting. The people who feel overwhelmed or flake out will probably never make their voices heard--I could ask flakers questions similar to those surveys you get when you try to uninstall adware ("Why was our product unsatisfactory for you?"), but it feels like a lot of work for something that would get an abysmal response rate. Any other suggestions would be nice.

Basically, I want to be scientific about this. Does anyone have any evidence, even

anecdotal

evidence, that people aren't grasping the set-up? Because I'm just afraid we're going to fix something that isn't broken. The only data points I have so far are positive anecdotes from newer players.

[Quilford]

Does anyone have any evidence, even anecdotal evidence, that people aren't grasping the set-up? Because I'm just afraid we're going to fix something that isn't broken. The only data points I have so far are positive anecdotes from newer players.

Yeah, this.

Maybe you could set up the surveys and we could have this discussion again in a few months, haha.

[Master Mew]

Basically, I want to be scientific about this. Does anyone have any evidence, even

anecdotal

evidence, that people aren't grasping the set-up? Because I'm just afraid we're going to fix something that isn't broken. The only data points I have so far are positive anecdotes from newer players.

I have quite a few friends who have played forum mafia before, but have never played on Mafia Scum before (i.e. the usual clientele of our newbie games), I showed them the wiki page for Matrix6 and asked them these questions:

1. Do you feel like you understand this setup well?

2. As your first game on Mafia Scum, would you feel comfortable playing this setup?

3. Do you feel like this setup is well-suited for new players?

I'll let you know the results once they've all chimed in. It will be a relatively small sample size, of course, but they're exactly the sort of people we're trying to attract!

Other than doing that sort of thing, all I can think of is to actually do a face-to-face poll: Try to explain the game of mafia to strangers, using the Matrix6 setup and one other, simpler "control" setup and gauge the results.

(That would be fun)

[Muffin]

Let's be realistic/pragmatic: Keep in mind that some new players are totally overwhelmed when they start, even if they will one day grow to be great players. These are the ones that the Newbie queue ought to be fore. The Newbie queue should cater to just the reinoe's that can jump in the deep end right away and come up fighting. Players that don't need the newbie queue shouldn't influence the newbie setup IMO.

After all, isn't the newbie game about teaching the fundamentals? Indoctrinating newbies and expecting them to come out of their first newbie game and understand "the site meta" is far too lofty a goal. I think that's asking too much of a player who's possibly playing their first forum mafia game ever, and probably doesn't know what's going on at all. That player likely doesn't give two shits about "site meta" because it's just way over their head.

I think striving for 50% balance is equally lofty. I would be happy with a simpler setup that was only balanced 60-40 because, again, the game is about teaching the fundamentals and not padding our win rate statistics.

[chamber]

I suspect most players in newbie games are new to MS not to mafia.

[Mina]

Thank you so much, Mew! <3

I'm tempted to do something similar on my home site, but I suspect I'll get a resounding response of "you call THAT complicated?" Their games tend to throw newbies to the wolves much more than mafiascum does--there are no just-for-newbies games, each game has a long list of possible roles, everyone plays under alts, and you're not even ALLOWED to reveal that you're a newbie.

chamber, you're probably right that most people come to mafiascum after playing on other sites, but I feel like newbie games are there to help those who are Mafia virgins or close to it (those with significant off-site experience can always jump into another queue).