Balance Discussuon Thread

[Antihero]

trick question. multiball isn't really mafia.

next.

[Powder Punk Girl]

Two teams is still absolutely mafia. a variation of something is still that something.

[callforjudgement]

The problem with balancing multiball is that it's not entirely clear what victory probabilities would be balanced. Is 50% town, 25% mafia, 25% werewolf balanced? Or is 33% town, 33% mafia, 33% werewolf balanced?

The other problem with balancing multiball is that it automatically has kingmaker-style issues, not just in the ending but throughout the game as a whole. In particular, each of the factions has to choose which of the other factions they're going to attack more strongly; if town are doing well, scum are likely to focus on killing strong townies, whereas if town are doing badly, the scum are more likely to try to cross-kill. This inherently places a very large amount of negative feedback on the setup, meaning that a mod has little ability to control its balance. (The main thing that a mod can do is to place restrictions on who can be killed, in order to try to keep the negative feedback down; Bulletproof is seen only occasionally in singleball games, but is by far one of the most commonly seen roles in multiball, and is often given to entire factions.)

Finally, there's the general problem that each faction is rewarded for looking weaker than they actually are. Being obvtown is normally a benefit to townies (and to scum, for that matter!), but being obvtown early tends to hurt in a multiball game because it raises the chance that people will pick on your faction. This means that multiball has a lower "skill cap" than a singleball game; if you're a great player, it's probably in your interests to act like you're only an average player, and thus you don't really give much of an advantage to your faction compared to what an average player would manage. It's hard to tell what's balanced under these circumstances; ideally, in a balanced game, the best faction should win, but it's hard to even define what the "best faction" means in a situation where none of the players are really playing to their potential.

Still, as a rough guide, I'd recommend a number of townies equal to approximately twice the

total

number of scum, in a 3-faction game. So against two 3-player scumteams, you'd want around 12 townies. Of course, the balance is going to also depend on the power roles you set out, etc.; player counts larger or smaller than this are likely to be balanceable via changing the strengths of the roles each player gets (I'm assuming a typical sort of setup where power roles are considerably more useful for town than for scum). Just bear in mind that there's only a limited amount a mod can do to balance a multiball setup; the kingmaker effect makes it so that the game is highly likely to shift to a point that the players

perceive

to be balanced, regardless of what happens earlygame, and regardless of what the game actually is. (That means that a role that does something powerful, but that the players aren't aware of until late, is likely to be much more useful in multiball than it is in singleball, as it makes you look like less of a threat than you actually are.)

[Powder Punk Girl]

Thing is the community I am making the game for, all of what you just said is irrelevant. We are a tight knit community that collectively know each other quite well.

[Accountant]

The closeness of the community has jack shit to do with the comments that cfj brought up

[Psyche]

The problem with balancing multiball is that it's not entirely clear what victory probabilities would be balanced. Is 50% town, 25% mafia, 25% werewolf balanced? Or is 33% town, 33% mafia, 33% werewolf balanced?

i like the idea proposed earlier that each player should have an equal chance of winning
if a player goes into a game with a worse than even chance of winning, it seems weird to call the game balanced

[Powder Punk Girl]

The closeness of the community has jack shit to do with the comments that cfj brought up

So everyone already knowing how good each other are has nothing to do with him saying players are going to have to "pretend" to be worse, riiiight. Thanks anyway friend, but you are wrong.

[Accountant]

The closeness of the community has jack shit to do with the comments that cfj brought up

So everyone already knowing how good each other are has nothing to do with him saying players are going to have to "pretend" to be worse, riiiight. Thanks anyway friend, but you are wrong.

Don't add condescension to your ignorance. In the first place, knowing the skill levels of everyone doesn't affect the problematic factor of town not wanting to be obvtown because then scum starts to focus on town. That applies regardless of skill level, regardless of how well players know each other and is the main reason I don't play multiball.

[Psyche]

we typically put accountant on ignore, ppg

[Accountant]

we typically put accountant on ignore, ppg

The vast majority of users do not have me on ignore. You do, because you're blind and deaf and don't want to be anything but.

[Powder Punk Girl]

The closeness of the community has jack shit to do with the comments that cfj brought up

So everyone already knowing how good each other are has nothing to do with him saying players are going to have to "pretend" to be worse, riiiight. Thanks anyway friend, but you are wrong.

Don't add condescension to your ignorance. In the first place, knowing the skill levels of everyone doesn't affect the problematic factor of town not wanting to be obvtown because then scum starts to focus on town. That applies regardless of skill level, regardless of how well players know each other and is the main reason I don't play multiball.

Because scum doesn't want to shoot obvtown regardless of the setup? Do you even hear yourself?

[Accountant]

Because scum doesn't want to shoot obvtown regardless of the setup? Do you even hear yourself?

Scum loves to shoot obvtown. Please don't start acting dumb.

[mhsmith0]

Except that scum generally DOES want to shoot obvtown. Scum generally want to kill people who are problems due to

1) Being a PR
2) Being obvtown and unlynchable
3) Having good/dangerous reads

Of course WIFOM plays and the like do happen, and multiball gives more space for such things. But it's still true that people who are obvtown tend to be bullet magnets, which means that scum don't particularly want to be "obvtown" in multiball, despite the fact that being obvtown is generally to their benefit in single ball.

[Powder Punk Girl]

Because scum doesn't want to shoot obvtown regardless of the setup? Do you even hear yourself?

Scum loves to shoot obvtown. Please don't start acting dumb.

You are the one claiming being obvtown is more problematic in a game of mafia with multiple scum teams than a game with one team.

[Accountant]

Let me lay it out for you.

BEING OBVTOWN MAKES TOWN STRONGER.

Why?

1) someone that townies can trust/rally around
2) unmislynchable = lynch pool smaller = higher % of catching scum
3) drawing NKs means PRs are safe

In singleball, town WANT to be obvtown, because it makes town stronger.

In multiball, town doesn't want to be obvtown. Why? Because it makes town stronger. The mafia teams are going to go "there is obvtown making a townbloc and generally being a nuisance. Obvtown makes town strong. If I crosskill here, we might lose hard.".

So being obvtown in a multiball game makes the mafia stop wanting to crosskill and start wanting to kill town members(more), and focus on hunting down town PRs rather than other scum.

In particular, each of the factions has to choose which of the other factions they're going to attack more strongly; if town are doing well, scum are likely to focus on killing strong townies, whereas if town are doing badly, the scum are more likely to try to cross-kill.

So being an obvtown leader who everyone trusts is shooting yourself in the foot. That logic applies no matter how tight knit you are and is a problem inherent to multiball and NOT singleball.

[Powder Punk Girl]

If you are a strong town voice regardless of the setup you are going to die, I don't see a problem here.

[Accountant]

It's not about dying. Being a strong town voice who dies in singleball is fine, you'll end up strengthening the town by drawing kills away from PRs and leading the town when you were alive.

Being a strong town voice in multiball is not fine because it can mean doubling the nightkills headed your way.

[Powder Punk Girl]

So as a strong town voice you cause 1 night kill instead of two by drawing both scum teams to kill you, how is that a problem?

If anything I would say it becomes even more imperative that you be a strong town voice and make your reads known.

[Accountant]

No, as a strong town voice in multiball you make scum teams stop crosskilling and start killing town because you just made town a threat to both of them. Where before the nightkills were 1 crosskill and 1 townkill, they're now 2 townkills, which means that the murder of an enemy is converted into the murder of an ally.

[McMenno]

man I'm grabbing some popcorn for this

[Firebringer]

can i ban people from my thread?

[callforjudgement]

So as a strong town voice you cause 1 night kill instead of two by drawing both scum teams to kill you, how is that a problem?

The problem is that winning a multiball game as town without crosskills (i.e. scum killing scum on the opposite scumteam) is difficult to impossible. So the problem isn't that you're drawing kills to yourself compared to other townies (as a VT, that's a good thing); the problem is that you're drawing kills to yourself

when they could be hitting scum

.

Town can, in theory, win a multiball game without ever lynching correctly; and they frequently do win multiball games with no accurate lynches until near the very end of the game. That's almost certainly an easier way for town to win than trying to win a game with both scumteams ganging up on them.

[Antihero]

the only advice i have for multiball is to put enough townies in there to where it's impossible for town to lynch scum every day and still lose.

i still think multiball is a mafia-like mish mash game but i do realize i'm in the minority on that.

[Powder Punk Girl]

No, as a strong town voice in multiball you make scum teams stop crosskilling and start killing town because you just made town a threat to both of them. Where before the nightkills were 1 crosskill and 1 townkill, they're now 2 townkills, which means that the murder of an enemy is converted into the murder of an ally.

And how are you so sure it would have even been 1 crosskill and one town kill. How do you know it isnt two crosskills or how do you know it would not have been two town kills regardless. Both scum teams are going to want to silence a strong town voice regardless, so if you draw both teams to kill you you cause one kill instead of possibly two. And you have to remember once a scum team flips that is when the other team will officially be sure there even is a second scum team.

[Lycanfire]

The problem with multiball is that scum get to look town by scumhunting and towns looking town have twice the chance to get murdered for it.

I don't see the controversy of multiball. Use it on your homesite esp. if it doesn't deviate from modding meta there.