The New Newbie Game Setup

[Realeo]

If we are concerned that scum will roll town with day talk, should we start considering upgrading the player size from 7 v 2 to 9 v 2?

Please don't kill me

The problem with increasing game size is that it will take even longer to fill games.

I think it has been established that Newbie queue is the quickest queue among other queues? So even if it takes, "even longer", it's only marginally slower?

[mastina]

daytalk helps retention and part of the newbie queue is getting people used to site norms. daytalk is very common outside of the newbie queue and it is more fun. I heard somewhere that giving scum daytalk is like adding an extra member to the scumteam. It's not a problem you just have to balance accordingly, giving town more power to counteract it.

^My take as well, the question would be how to get the balance and for me I'm not sure we'll have it yet. (Depends on too many variables right now, for instance the block loops.)

[Virtuoso]

Perhaps instead of full day talk we can balance it out by giving day talk for the first 72 hours of a game phase?

[Virtuoso]

One thing to take into consideration as well is that day talk enables scum to coordinate quick hammers

[Agent Sparkles]

Daytalk is useful, but there's no way it's going to swing the game enough for another mislynch to be needed to balance it. That's just making it really townsided

[Agent Sparkles]

^By another mislynch I mean another chance to mislynch without losing

[Not Known 15]

^By another mislynch I mean another chance to mislynch without losing

But... 2 players do not just add a mislynch. They also add 2 mislynch candidates. Adding 2 players adds another chance to catch scum on 9players. PRs may live longer but also get more wrong targets. You know what 7vanilla vs 2 goon is?
Horribly imbalanced... vs town.

[Bicephalous Bob]

There can be three blocking roles in a setup, but only resolutions for crossblocking are given in the OP

JK blocks Town RB, Town RB blocks scum RB, scum RB blocks JK, scum RB performs the kill. Does the kill go through?

Also, you put three blocking roles in a newbie setup

[Bicephalous Bob]

Missed cfj in the ISO list. I wouldn't have posted if I hadn't.

-----

09:12. No roleblocker interactions. No town fakeclaims. A clock with roles on it. Simple. Second or third place in the setup contest. Comforting.

[Toomai]

Various notes from my unofficial position as stats guy:

• The general point of "statistically-significant" is 30. It will take several months to build up that many games. But also note that winrates may be skewed to start with simply because SEs/ICs don't know the setup as well yet.
  
• Because there are 12 subsetups, it will take quite a while before we'll have any significant per-subsetup stats (perhaps years). Even per-role/per-subsetup-group stats will take a long time to gather.
  
• Daytalk was strong in Matrix6 because the setup was originally designed without it. Since 3d3 was designed with daytalk in the first place, it should at least be reasonably more balanced.
  
• There is evidence that games with higher numbers of replacements are more likely to result in scum wins. I think the roles in this setup, plus adding daytalk, will result in fewer "lost interest" replacements.
  
• My stats spreadsheet, once it exists, will be using the subsetup representation in this post of mine because it's easy to implement mechanically and is simplistic visually. But if the official newbie queue post uses a different chart than the 3x3 matrix currently in the first post of this topic, then I guess I'll have to figure out how to match it.

[Not Known 15]

Various notes from my unofficial position as stats guy:

• The general point of "statistically-significant" is 30. It will take several months to build up that many games. But also note that winrates may be skewed to start with simply because SEs/ICs don't know the setup as well yet.
  
• Because there are 12 subsetups, it will take quite a while before we'll have any significant per-subsetup stats (perhaps years). Even per-role/per-subsetup-group stats will take a long time to gather.
  
• Daytalk was strong in Matrix6 because the setup was originally designed without it. Since 3d3 was designed with daytalk in the first place, it should at least be reasonably more balanced.
  
• There is evidence that games with higher numbers of replacements are more likely to result in scum wins. I think the roles in this setup, plus adding daytalk, will result in fewer "lost interest" replacements.
  
• My stats spreadsheet, once it exists, will be using the subsetup representation in this post of mine because it's easy to implement mechanically and is simplistic visually. But if the official newbie queue post uses a different chart than the 3x3 matrix currently in the first post of this topic, then I guess I'll have to figure out how to match it.

As far as I know, the mafia win rate has been on the higher side of the scale in total if we are talking about Matrix6.
Matrix6 has also no daytalk and the Scum do not exactly know the setup, and fakeclaims are extremely unreliable.
Some of the possible setups in 3x3 feature a definitely less powerful town. Fakeclaims can stand for some time-but they will inevitably crumble.
AND there is daytalk.
All the evidence points towards some winrates to be lower. And no ppl will continue to replace out in newbie games.
So the evidence strongly suggests that the general setup might(

might, not will

) be too far on the evil side to be balanced, and that some setups have a

very high

possiblilty of town win rates lower than the lowest setup win ratio determined in the current setup, and those were according to something I read already at about 40%...

So I have to ask you question number 1: How is adding daytalk and more believable scumclaims and some weaker(for town) setups a good idea for balancing something that is already leaning on the side of evils?

Daytalk could help with scum retention possibly. But then again some newbies won't stay anyways...
Then there is the issue with the roleblock cycles and such. Complicated stuff. Then there is the high number of possible setups. Complicated.

Question 2: Are you sure that there will be a major dent in replacements?

And for win rates taking a long time to calculate...

Question 3: Are you comfortable with running a setup multiple players, including very experienced players, have stated concerns about being worse than the current setup, a setup that has 12 possibilities, making it difficult to see win rate flaws, or to identify poorly performing sub-setups... in the

player retention sensitive environment

of Newbie games?
Newbie games are supposed to be fun, easy to understand yet they are also supposed to help people with getting correct gameplay, especially gameplay without power roles, but also how to deal with power roles.
They should not be
-complicated(we already have something like this in Matrix 6 and now you make it worse)
-full of positive feedback(and no, the current setup isn't good on that account already, and the proposed one is worse)
-one-sided(I said enough about this, I hope)

[Toomai]

1. I'm unqualified to comment on the setup balance.
   
2. During the Matrix6 daytalk experiment, replace rate for scum newbies dropped from 50.0% to 34.1%. But replace rates for all other playertypes went up (less starkly). Since this would be a whole new setup, I would expect SEs/ICs to be more inclined to stick around to try it out for a bit. Furthermore, the newbie queue is currently experiencing the highest replace rates in the Matrix6 era (though partly just because August and September are the worst months for replacements, with people losing time since summer's ending and all that). So yes, I do believe changing to this setup would reduce replacements, at least for a bit.
   
3. The newbie queue does not have a "test environment", so if people want a change there's nowhere else to do it. And if it does go awful, Matrix6 is certainly not broken enough that we can never go back.

[Not Known 15]

1. I'm unqualified to comment on the setup balance.
   
2. During the Matrix6 daytalk experiment, replace rate for scum newbies dropped from 50.0% to 34.1%. But replace rates for all other playertypes went up (less starkly). Since this would be a whole new setup, I would expect SEs/ICs to be more inclined to stick around to try it out for a bit. Furthermore, the newbie queue is currently experiencing the highest replace rates in the Matrix6 era (though partly just because August and September are the worst months for replacements, with people losing time since summer's ending and all that). So yes, I do believe changing to this setup would reduce replacements, at least for a bit.
   
3. The newbie queue does not have a "test environment", so if people want a change there's nowhere else to do it. And if it does go awful, Matrix6 is certainly not broken enough that we can never go back.

I am not saying that there should be no change... there is a reason after all.
A replace rate of 34,1% from 50% is still significant... but we need to make sure that daytalk is not overpowered. There was a reason after all, why matrix6 daytalk was dropped, no?
Unfortunately, the less players you have... the more difficult it gets to adjust the win rates, naturally. One small change can be big...

[RadiantCowbells]

If the success of this change is contingent on spiking interest, then it's not sustainable.

I don't think SEs or ICs should be flaking from newbie games.

[Virtuoso]

I don't think SEs or ICs should be flaking from newbie games.

Agree 100%. If an SE/IC flakes/replaces out then I feel that person should be banned from the newbie queue until that game is over.

[RadiantCowbells]

It's mostly repeat customers.

[MathBlade]

I don't think SEs or ICs should be flaking from newbie games.

Agree 100%. If an SE/IC flakes/replaces out then I feel that person should be banned from the newbie queue until that game is over.

I agree 1000000%

Like in my intro post I made a promise to never be prodded. That is how damn much I think an SE/IC should be.

A prod is needed if you forget V/LA or just don't care enough to contact the mod.

I freaking hate prods and prod dodges.

[RadiantCowbells]

I don't agree that that's quite reasonable.
I have played in 56? completed newbie games on site. I've been prodded every once in a while but I believe I only replaced out of one and that was by force. I've replaced into at least half of those.
If shit really goes down for me and I need to be replaced from a game as an SE I should not be penalized because things got really bad for me at a discrete time.
Penalize the people doing it repeatedly. Not the people who have a single bad period.

[Lycanfire]

radical idea: allow any mod to choose any newbie approved setup. not necessarily open, so long as it's signed off. it can be matrix6, 3d3 if approved, or others.

i've noticed there is a lot of talking about the box and who is willing to climb inside it while there are others that want a bigger box. why are you trying to fit into a box?

[RadiantCowbells]

Few ICs and SEs really understand how Matrix6 works even now. Open up the amount of setups and you have even more experienced players not knowing what they're doing.

[MathBlade]

Few ICs and SEs really understand how Matrix6 works even now. Open up the amount of setups and you have even more experienced players not knowing what they're doing.

Maybe ask ICs and SEs questions the first time before letting them sign up?

[Lycanfire]

Few ICs and SEs really understand how Matrix6 works even now. Open up the amount of setups and you have even more experienced players not knowing what they're doing.

i'd argue that we need quality experienced players in order to deliver quality play

a variety of setups would bring in people that want to play opposed to those that want to play matrix6 as a chore.

in my first game, ten years ago, i was playing in a closed theme as a serial killer with no idea what i was doing. i ended up obvtowning and getting n1 killed by groupscum. i did well enough on the day play but i overlooked that my kill wasn't all that great at neutralizing the threat scum had to me. here i am-still playing. just in a different home. i trust newbies to get by.

i don't think the box people are trying to define will lead to retention as much some think. it would fix BP/tracker and nothing more. focus on bringing people that will make games fun to play.

[RadiantCowbells]

I don't think that the people that play newbies are unrepresentative of the people who play mafia in general.

[Alisae]

Perhaps instead of full day talk we can balance it out by giving day talk for the first 72 hours of a game phase?

Yeah lets motivate people to rush days EVEN MORE then we already do good job 10/10 brilliant idea -_-

[Alisae]

The first step here in giving scum daytalk is it should probably be in the form of an encrypter
you know
that one role you never see anywhere else on site but in normals

Then maybe make it Odd or Even Night?
Essentially sometimes you have daytalk sometimes you don't