Mafiascum.net

oh

that seems viable. thanks nsg

i've played a few newbie games recently. people seem to be having fun, balanced or not. i am

can't be that bad

In post 48, northsidegal wrote:i think the argument that people make (and that lycanfire is making specifically) is that the newbie setup doesn't necessarily need to be some "system" like matrix6 or 2d3, it can just be a small number of setups that are known to be balanced and are randomized from

Practically, how is that different than having one setup comprised of multiple subsetups?

In post 52, Toomai wrote:

In post 48, northsidegal wrote:i think the argument that people make (and that lycanfire is making specifically) is that the newbie setup doesn't necessarily need to be some "system" like matrix6 or 2d3, it can just be a small number of setups that are known to be balanced and are randomized from

Practically, how is that different than having one setup comprised of multiple subsetups?

because we have shitty setups incorporated with good ones in the current one in the name of making a cool grid thingy instead of just running good setups

i also think that understanding setup specific details in 2d3 is a major component of being successful as scum whereas it was less so in the previous newbie queue setup, for example

In post 51, u r a person 2 wrote:i've played a few newbie games recently. people seem to be having fun, balanced or not. i am

can't be that bad

In my analysis, I highlighted that 2d3 has ok setups.
Some problems also occur not every time(e.g. a power role dying early or not dying early)
Newbie 1910 had cop doc rber and goon. First, it is also in Matrix 6 and Backup 6.
Second, while it may have some shortcomings with Cop dying Night 1(as it did) there is no problem for Mafia altogether.
Newbie 1907 had cop doc rber and goon and a Roleblocker lynch Day 1 and no power role death Night 2 - the quickhammer on the cop got quickly punished, and town won, but town made a setup error in lynching the Cop in the first place. As such, both Mafia were found out for mistakes and antitown play(including the horrible Roleblocker lynch on day 1 which scum needs to avoid) and no one complained to the result.
Newbie 1905 had just a cop. And I never complained on that setup.
You experienced one of the setups that is often(not always!) ok(cop doc rber goon) and one setup that is probably very ok(Cop 2x goon).
You didn't have A1 or one of the Rolecop setups.

Totally agree with scrapping the grid system and picking out of a pool of known balanced setups.
Newb-Newb scum having sub-30 win chance is silly.

Would this be a pool of Open setups, or Closed setups? (If the latter, the pool would have to be non-public, which in turn would likely disqualify the people who knew about it from playing in Newbies).

One problem I see with an Open pool is that even the simplest Opens tend to inspire endless strategy discussion, unless they've been widely played.

The more role-heavy an open setup is, the more it devolves into setup-related discussions. 2d3 is pretty role-heavy for a 9p open setup (almost always 2 town prs, usually 1 wolf pr), and I think that's probably a decent lesson in terms of it being better to have less rather than more roles in newbie games.

I think a pool of closed setups is a pretty bad idea, because a non-public pool even more heavily benefits people who can setup spec their way into profit, and overly advantaging people who are good at finessing setups seems to be a big downside to 2d3.

There's theoretically some good in terms of getting newbies used to role-jampacked type games (since they are common on ms), but I think the overall downside we're seeing overweighs that benefit by far.

Some examples of opens where there's very little strategy discussion

Cop/6 vts vs 2 goons
JK/6 vts vs 2 goons
7 vts vs 2 goons, but semi-nightless (no nk the first two nights)

Once you start getting into "town gets 2 prs, and each town pr fits in a specific way given other town prs and/or wolf prs" you get into more and more setup/strategy/gaming stuff. 0 wolf PRs, 0-1 town PRs, maybe 2 town PRs in certain specific circumstances but probably it's better to structure it to be 1 town PR at most. That eliminates certain learning aspects, such as how to protect a scum PR and how to hunt for town PRs, but I think the gain of turning the dial way down on setup spec/talk grossly outweighs the loss of exercising certain muscles.

Cop games can lead to strategic discussion but in 9p's there is insufficient time for this.
Would those cop/JK games be imbalanced with a (Mafia)rolecop? The rolecop has shown to be highly inefficient at start, and those don't last long.
You still hunt for town PR's anyways(Cop/JK/Watcher)
So...

Cop/6 VT's vs Goon and M Rolecop
JK/6 VT's vs Goon and M Rolecop
Watcher/6 VT's vs 2 Goons


Nevermind, better take the Masons out. It becomes to setup-stuff-y

In post 49, RadiantCowbells wrote:

In post 48, northsidegal wrote:i think the argument that people make (and that lycanfire is making specifically) is that the newbie setup doesn't necessarily need to be some "system" like matrix6 or 2d3, it can just be a small number of setups that are known to be balanced and are randomized from

yes pls

I have long been an advocate of this!

In post 59, mhsmith0 wrote:Some examples of opens where there's very little strategy discussion

Cop/6 vts vs 2 goons

I disagree. Setups which are known to contain a Cop but not a protective role normally lead to players attempting to develop highly elaborate claiming strategies to be able to learn about the Cop result without outing the Cop themself.

From a "stop people arguing about the setup" point of view, it'd be better to have a role which made townies it targets into Activated Innocent Children, which is similar to a Cop but removes any incentive for claiming (as if you're about to lynch an investigated townie, they'll be able to activate and confirm themself, thus there's no reason not to play normally until that happens). However, I've never seen such a role before, so it'd need to be more standardised before using it in Newbies.

(A comparable role would be the Loyal Fruit Vendor; this also adds in potential counterclaiming strategies because scum, when run up, can claim to have received fruit when they didn't. Again, however, despite being a Normal role, it's not the sort of thing that's traditionally seen in Newbies.)

In post 62, callforjudgement wrote:I disagree. Setups which are known to contain a Cop but not a protective role normally lead to players attempting to develop highly elaborate claiming strategies to be able to learn about the Cop result without outing the Cop themself.

This will usually not happen there.
At day 1, the cop has no result to claim.
At day 2, there was a Mafia lynch on Day 1... or the Cop has to claim anyways. If there was a Mafia lynch Day 1 you could actually go towards hypothetical claims.
At day 3 after a Mafia lynch the cop has been found out or a peeked townie is dead or town just wins. Either way, Cop claims.
Time is too short to have any claim strategies with the cop save for a Mafia lynch Day 1.

My experience with newbie games is that the Cop typically doesn't claim D2 (although they may well leave a breadcrumb in case they die N2). You'd claim a guilty, and you'd claim if your inno is about to be lynched, but otherwise there's not much point in claiming, as it greatly reduces the chance of a useful result D3.

in my personal experience cop should not exist. i think replacing it with a detective would work better

EDIT: I had a complete thinko, ignore this.

In post 66, callforjudgement wrote:What version of Detective are you thinking of?

It's not a standardised role on mafiascum.net

, and it's a common enough name that different sites are likely to have different meanings for it.

That's wrong.
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... Guidelines

Oh right. Somehow I managed to completely forget about that one.

In post 61, mastina wrote:

In post 49, RadiantCowbells wrote:

In post 48, northsidegal wrote:i think the argument that people make (and that lycanfire is making specifically) is that the newbie setup doesn't necessarily need to be some "system" like matrix6 or 2d3, it can just be a small number of setups that are known to be balanced and are randomized from

yes pls

I have long been an advocate of this!

Bumping this for discussion
2d3 needs replacement imo

I'm happy for people to recommend/create a small number of setups for discussion.

@Toomai
are you planning to continue updating these stats?

I have this semi-open setup; without daytalk(by default!). Also, no multitasking(in accordance with the Normal rules):

The Town Cop and Town Jailkeeper setups should be good enough. The Town Watcher, well, it should be good enough.
The Mafia roles look a bit more complex, but they should be still understandable.
Setup knowledge is required, required as in "Know what the enemies you might face can do". But Town cannot make any annoying claim strategies(Mafia, however, can - but that's good; after all, there should be at least one knowledgable townie who can explain that).
Generally, it is of a complexity people should be able to understand(after all, newbies can and should ask the mod how something works).
The JOAT role description, however, needs to be crystal clear about multitasking and what the Ninja modifier applies to.
(And yes, it's only 6 direct setups, row 2 and 3 are identical because of the increased odds - and those are part of the setup!)
EDIT: Removed the Strongman, I think it's better to try it out with medium extra strength to prevent doubt on the jailkeeper's results in a case of fakeclaim. Totally overlooked that. I hope that the doubt factor will keep the win rates for 1 C up. As a bonus, we also have less complexity.

, or,

Wasn't goon, rolecop vs. doctor, jailkeeper discovered to be very townsided back in the 2of4 days?

Admittedly, the balance of a subsetup will depend on what other subsetups exist, but I wouldn't have expected there to be that much of a difference.