The New Newbie Game Setup
- Lycanfire
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Lycanfire Mafia Scum
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My problem with drawing Encrypter or giving them day 1/odd days is that the mechanic isn't constant.
If you're going to give Newbie games daytalk, give every game daytalk.
People have no business speculating associatives based on daytalk in every single newbie game if it isn't a constant force in it.- Alisae
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Alisae lolbalance
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Bicephalous Bob Mafia Scum
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Those setups are only balanced in the low-information context of m6In post 214, RadiantCowbells wrote:like tracker/doc/goon works
jailkeeper/goon/goon works
cop/goon/goon works
cop/doc/rb/goon works
the problematic ones are the bulletproof ones (both wr wise and oh no bulletproof claim strat wise), so let's just replace those with something else that works better?
For example, if the only setup with a tracker also has a doc, trackers will claim early on- Alisae
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Alisae lolbalance
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mhsmith0 Balancing Act
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no worries proposed newbie setup v2 is coming soon anywayShowhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?- mhsmith0
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mhsmith0 Balancing Act
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Where we're currently at:
A B C Mafia Mafia RoleblockerMafia RolecopMafia GoonRow 1 Town Cop and Town NeopolitanTown Cop and Town TrackerTown Cop and Vanilla TownieRow 2 Town Jailkeeper and Town DoctorTown Jailkeeper and Town TrackerTown Jailkeeper and Vanilla TownieRow 3 Town Cop and Town DoctorTown Neopolitan and Town DoctorTown Tracker and Town Doctor
Pick a column for mafia role, pick a row for associated town roles, add 1 goon and 5 VTs.
We've also discussed the possible modification of adding a 4th row:
A B C Mafia Mafia RoleblockerMafia RolecopMafia GoonRow 1 cop Town Cop and Town NeopolitanTown Cop and Town TrackerTown Cop and Vanilla TownieRow 2 jk Town Jailkeeper and Town DoctorTown Jailkeeper and Town TrackerTown Jailkeeper and Vanilla TownieRow 3 doc Town Cop and Town DoctorTown Neopolitan and Town DoctorTown Tracker and Town DoctorRow 4 neo Town Jailkeeper and Town NeopolitanTown Neopolitan and Town TrackerTown Neopolitan and Vanilla Townie
So that neopolitan doesn't as blatantly point to what the setup almost has to be if/when it flips. In the latter, C4 is probably underpowered for town, but probably not to the <40% town win rate point, and I tend to think the other 11 should be ok balance-wise.Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?- Something_Smart
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Something_Smart He/himSomewhat_Balanced
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I know it's probably not what you're looking for, but C4 being Town Neapolitan and Town Neapolitan would probably not be that townsided and would potentially be really interesting.
I think it's pretty scumsided as it is though, given that scum getting neapolitan guiltied can easily claim cop without having to even give results.- Something_Smart
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Something_Smart He/himSomewhat_Balanced
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mastina She/HerFalse Prophet
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On a skim, it looks fine to me, though I'd need to spend time thinking about the combos in greater detail.- mhsmith0
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mhsmith0 Balancing Act
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The basic issue with a double-neapolitan is that they can potentially get independent green checks on n1, and then it's basically a locked game if scum shoot an unpeeked vt.In post 231, Something_Smart wrote:I know it's probably not what you're looking for, but C4 being Town Neapolitan and Town Neapolitan would probably not be that townsided and would potentially be really interesting.
I think it's pretty scumsided as it is though, given that scum getting neapolitan guiltied can easily claim cop without having to even give results.
Like, it's pretty unlikely, but it's kind of a nasty risk for scum (though I guess you can counterargue they had 2 PRs to maybe knock off at night, and if they missed both AND their targets then maybe they just deserve the loss even with a day 1 vt lynch)Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?- callforjudgement
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callforjudgement Microprocessor
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Creature Solve This Game
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PenguinPower He/Him.peng
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- schadd_
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schadd_ he/itpandora's pukebox
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i'm about to test this on home site fwiw- schadd_
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schadd_ he/itpandora's pukebox
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the one without the extra row.
also it's spelled "neapolitan"- Gödel
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Gödel Goon
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- fferyllt
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fferyllt Titan of Trajectory
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- Cogito Ergo Sum
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Cogito Ergo Sum YARR!
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I can't say I'm a fan. For one, both 1A-1B and 2A-2B seem like they have comparable town power while meaningfully downgrading the scum power (because the Role Cop inherently takes longer to do anything). It also seems like the majority of set-ups go sideways real quickly with the wrong lynch D1 (1A, 1B and 2B all get 2 effective cops; 3A, 3B and 3C get into a classic Cop+Doc situation; 2B is horrible in its own special way); I recognise that having some of that is unavoidable but I think we can do better than 7 of 9.In post 230, mhsmith0 wrote:A B C Mafia Mafia RoleblockerMafia RolecopMafia GoonRow 1 Town Cop and Town NeopolitanTown Cop and Town TrackerTown Cop and Vanilla TownieRow 2 Town Jailkeeper and Town DoctorTown Jailkeeper and Town TrackerTown Jailkeeper and Vanilla TownieRow 3 Town Cop and Town DoctorTown Neopolitan and Town DoctorTown Tracker and Town Doctor
I'm also not convinced that introducing the Neapolitan to the Newbie is a good idea, if only because its name is just a pun.
What about something like the following?
A B C Mafia Mafia WatcherMafia 1-Shot RolecopMafia GoonRow 1 Town Cop and Town RoleblockerTown Cop and Town Universal BackupTown Cop and Vanilla TownieRow 2 Town Jailkeeper and Town TrackerTown Jailkeeper and Town 1-shot Friendly NeighborTown Jailkeeper and Vanilla TownieRow 3 Town Cop and 1-shot Friendly NeighborTown Tracker and Town RoleblockerTown Tracker and Town Universal Backup
I'm sure that's not perfect (3A and 3B seem like the obvious points of improvements) but it increases the number of set-ups to 9 (which seems to be one of the design goals), it has no crossblocking of any sort, a more appropriate power level for the mafia given that they're getting daytalk and only 3 of the 9 set-ups have the "1 wrong lynch D1 derails the game"-problem. It also uses each role at least twice, although admittedly an improved 3A or 3B could change that.Scumchat is awesome. Yarr!
~"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind."~- Alisae
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Alisae lolbalance
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I like CES' setup.
Tho tbh here are my suggestions.
Cut the daytalk, instead replace the goon with an encrypter maybe? shrug
3A Maybe just turn the cop into a Doc and ungate the Friendly Neighbour?
Dunno about 3B tho| here.GTKAS- Alisae
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Alisae lolbalance
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mhsmith0 Balancing Act
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bp is extremely unpopular currently, and 1-shot commuter is a worse version of bp
(I also had this same discussion in the design group )Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?- mhsmith0
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mhsmith0 Balancing Act
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As far as backup goes, I'm not remotely opposed to incorporating that into a table, but last I'd checked, backup was considered an unpopular addition (so was town roleblocker fwiw, though some of that was back when town jk / town rb / scum rb was a potential structure).Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?- mhsmith0
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mhsmith0 Balancing Act
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I'd also say that cop/goon/goon, jk/goon/goon, and tracker/doc/goon/goon are all fairly proven in terms of balanced setups, so I think it generically makes sense for double goon setups to be against those three town PR sets. It's probably not a terrible idea to sub in something like odd-night roleblocker as the scum B power instead of rolecop.Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?- mhsmith0
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mhsmith0 Balancing Act
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Also, as a followup to CES comments...
1) Pretty much all of the column A setups are very much "if the roleblocker gets lynched early, then scum will just lose" type setups, which are... fine? Newbie towns are pretty consistently poor at lynching scum early in general, much less the roleblocker specifically. If scum can't protect their roleblocker for even one day phase, then they deserve to lose.
Moreover, 3a (cop/doc/rb) in particular has been proven over time to be roughly balanced (town win rate >50% but not by a whole lot), and if add in daytalk AND take away the easy "a cop is auto-confirmed just by claiming" aspect, I think there's no reason to think that it should be substantially town-favored given overall newbie meta.
2) 3C is a block that LOOKS like it could be townsided given the potential of "follow the tracker", but in practice scum are winning that >50% of the time in the current meta, and that's with an essentially confirmed tracker AND no daytalk. Take away the auto-confirm of the tracker and add daytalk, and there's simply no way it's townsided in current newbie site meta.
3) 2B is actually one where you can argue against it just because of how messy it ends up being (tracker can guilty the rolecop), but I don't particularly think it's a balance issue unless you argue that the rolecop itself is a bad PR, in which case yeah I'd be fine with like odd night roleblocker instead.
I'd say that in terms of game design and balance, the following are explicitly good for newbie games:
3A cop/doc/rb
1C cop/goons
2C jk/goons
3C tracker/doc/goons
I'd also say that jk/doc (2A) is a potentially very powerful town combo, but a full roleblocker against it (should) keep it balanced
Which leaves:
1A - one strong investigator, one weaker investigator, up against a full roleblocker, which I think is generically ok for balance? Scum ought to be able to shoot or roleblock 1 of 2 town PRs on night 1 by random luck alone (ignoring potential for them outing PRs during day play anyway), and if they can't do that, they're being objectively worse than most scum teams are in terms of night actions, and it's probably ok for them to lose accordingly?
All that said, I do think you can argue against rolecop as the appropriate scum PR on column B. An odd night roleblocker, or maybe some kind of JOAT (roleblocker/strongman/vanilla cop), something along those lines is probably acceptable?
I also have a personal preference to have 12 cells instead of 9, since that reduces the setup gaming that comes from a smaller number of possibilities, but that's ultimately up to PP I think.
PS I'm somewhat inclined against the kind of major structural overhaul implied by subbing in multiple town PRs with unknown balance effects (roleblocker, friendly neighbor, backup) AND multiple scum PRs that have never been seen in newbie games (watcher, 1-shot rolecop). Town roleblocker in particular seems to be... unpopular? with people who basically think that town roleblockers destroy towns and don't want them in the hands of YOLO newbies (this was part of the discussion on the previous round of setup proposal). I'm personally agnostic wrt backup (I think it's a fine enough role) but I know that there are people who really dislike it, partially because it's pretty unusual as a site role (friendly neighbor, gated or not, has the same problem).
PPS FWIW, looking at 10/3 mini normal stats (workbook not checked fwiw but it ought to be about right), the most common town power roles are:
jailkeeper
doctor
tracker
cop
JOAT
1-shot bp
bodyguard
gated vig
gunsmith
roleblocker
friendly neighbor very rarely pops up (in fairness neapolitan is pretty uncommon too), and universal backup isn't unheard of but isn't super popular either
and most common scum power roles are:
encryptor
rolecop
roleblocker
godfather (these were super popular before being blacklisted)
joat
neighbor
mafia watcher in particular almost never pops up
PPPS I think I'd also be fine with making column C a mafia encryptor and making daytalk on that column only (which then gives town more info on setup depending on scum flip) but I'm not really married to that ideaShowhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
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Not Known 15 Mafia Scum
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I think the only really problematic ones are 1 A;Town Cop and Town Neopolitan and 3B,Town Neopolitan and Town Doctor.
1 A suffers from the serious problem of two hard clearing investigative roles. I'd say if it's Day 2 and both are alive you have a potentially massive problem already(as scum). You will more likely than not have at least one genuine guilty or two clears; especially if town assigns people to be checked at night to Neapolitan and Cop(to prevent overchecking)
Town Neapolitan and Town Doctor: You have one unprovable Doc and two Mafia. The odds of hitting Doc aren't low. Doc is only viable if he protects twice, or if Neapolitan reveals itself on scum. This can go seriously wrong.
Solution: Remove the Neapolitan. Add the Universal Backup instead.
The UB is weaker in the cop games but still a potential second investigator... but not at the same time. The UB+Doc combo makes 2 survivals more likely, adding a mislynch; making it stronger while eliminating the horrible false guilty.(and just to clarify, Docs should try to be in the group of not really that sus but also not high chance town; which is exactly the same group an invest should check, normally)
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- mhsmith0
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- Alisae
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