The Newbie 2d3 stats thread (upd. 2019-05-28, 87g)
- RadiantCowbells
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I don't think newbies being slightly townsided is a problem ftr
The issue isn't even that the games are townsided it's that both newbies and experienced players are demoralized when they roll scum and it bleeds into the games and is creating a vicious cycle of town motivation vastly outstripping scum motivation which leads to town wins which furthers the cycle. It's kinda depressing to read games where scum members have thrown the towel in from the get go.
It's actually kind of a sitewide issue but I'm not sure how to address it. Maybe it's time for us to rein in on normal game townsidedness2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.- Irrelephant11
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Yeah I remember a year ago reading Mafia Discussion threads about how MS is a scumsided website for playing Mafia online
I’m not sure if it’s in reaction to that general conversation or not but I personally feel towns are stronger than when I first arrived on the sceneHey all! Excited and nervous to play my first game with you!
- RadiantCowbells
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It's amusing because at one point MSs biggest claim to fame in the wider Mafia community was us exporting stronger scum players (a la LLD, Frozen Angel, MS, Chelsea) but now I don't think there's a whole lot of strong scum players active but there's a ton of strong townies and I'm reading tons of games where scum just get roflstomped.2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.-
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In post 145, RadiantCowbells wrote:I don't think we should necessarily be pushing 50% town/scum winrates empirically in this context.
Only nea/cop and tracker/jailkeeper really to me are so bad that they really needs to fucking die now
Well, absolutely 50% isn't required.In post 146, RadiantCowbells wrote:Cop tracker is as well by winrate but I don't think it's actually worse than jailkeeper tracker.
What's important is that:
-The general setup isn't promoting breaking strategies
Neapolitan claims Day 2 if the other PR is alive strategy and Tracker claims strategies tell us that the general setup has problems
-The general setup isn't too confusing(this can be partially or fully mitigated by having premade advice in the scum PT and the general chat)
-The general setup isn't too far away from the normal play of the site(semi-opens are actually rarer than Open setups or Closed setups, but Semi-open is better because it retains aspects of both)
-The specific setups are not unfun, especially...
-... not too many potential investigations
-... not totally imbalanced(because it isn't fun to be the one who has all the odds against them)
Nea/Cop can lead to two investigations Day 2 (2 guilties, 2 innocents and its suddenly game over)
Cop/Tracker can lead to two investigations and they usually don't target the same person. And it's vs Rolecop...
Nea/Doc can lead to a very unfun D2 claim(that is a likely mechanical win when not countered), preventing scum from killing them before the Doctor. The win rate of this will likely rise.
Jailkeeper/Tracker don't match that much, but if mafia is lynched... then the second person has next to no chance, especially because its a rolecop, not a roleblocker)- popsofctown
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Ok.In post 149, Irrelephant11 wrote:
Oh no that’s not what I mean at all! I think the question of “could newbies win mountainous” is fascinating and I liked your experiment very much!In post 147, popsofctown wrote:
Ok. I apologize for trying to contribute. I promise not to try again.In post 144, Irrelephant11 wrote:I mean your conclusion simply matches what has already been suggested in this thread: strengthen scum to match the use of TPRs
I just thought it was worth adding that “town PRs might be too much for these newbies” is one solution to the problem - and another is “if town should have power, scum should have more power”, which is something that’s already been suggested here.
Your contribution shows me we’re on the right track
Let's try to brainstorm more ways for scum to gain power. I think there's some design space that isn't getting used that could be uniquely helpful for newbie semi-opens."Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"- OkaPoka
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Well, the random lynching win rate for scum in Mountainous is about 70% so these numbers are a bit high, especially as Mountainous is considered to be more difficult(because scum can freely target the most dangerous enemy).In post 143, popsofctown wrote:Then I went over and did a different program and just did mountainous mafia, with the same amount of skill factor, 11% chance to ignore randomization and just lynch correctly.
It came out to a 55% winrate for scum.- RedFlavor
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Ankamius Survivor
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Just an unpopular opinion coming through.
Neapolitan shouldn't be in the newbie queue setup at all. Cop for similar reasons. Emphasizing night play from day one is not a good basis for teaching newbies how to play and focusing on night actions is far more likely to produce newbies that rely on night actions than day play to win.-
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Jailkeeper and Tracker are obviously something that shouldn't be overused, but they're not as bad as Neapolitan and Cop by themselves because they can only catch the last scum, which means town still has to catch one scum before they're a true problem.
I really think that pushing for stronger scumteams or shifting the setups towards less town sided setups and/or less decisive information setups would be best for newbie game health.
I would potentially start playing newbie games, but I've been discouraged from doing so because every game I've skimmed has had an unnatural emphasis on night play that was far less present than when I was a newbie player myself. Having to play around a specific role being in the game or trying to break the setup shouldn't be a thing in newbie games.Last edited by Ankamius on Sat Jun 08, 2019 12:12 am, edited 1 time in total.-
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I believe the way setups are designed is a big reason for this.In post 150, RadiantCowbells wrote:I don't think newbies being slightly townsided is a problem ftr
The issue isn't even that the games are townsided it's that both newbies and experienced players are demoralized when they roll scum and it bleeds into the games and is creating a vicious cycle of town motivation vastly outstripping scum motivation which leads to town wins which furthers the cycle. It's kinda depressing to read games where scum members have thrown the towel in from the get go.
It's actually kind of a sitewide issue but I'm not sure how to address it. Maybe it's time for us to rein in on normal game townsidedness :?:
I've been seeing a surge in decisive alignment information lately and I strongly believe that people are underestimating how strong that actually is.
Read accuracy gets exponentially stronger the higher it gets, so giving every town player the first few rungs for free makes each extra correct read even more powerful than it would otherwise be.
Loyal Neighborizer especially is something I've been seeing thrown around a lot and I don't think that role is healthy at all for the site.- Xtoxm
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- Quest
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This notion that games should be more town-sided is silly. It’s hard to progress as a player when you're consistently playing town-sided setups since you will win more games than not over a long period. A player may get the idea they're improving as a player because of this, when in reality a part of the reason they're winning most of those games is because setups on MS are so town-sided.
You don't improve as a player by getting a clear/guilty on someone; you improve as a player from day-play. The current newbie setup doesn't encourage much day-play and instead puts a lot of emphasis on night-play with all potential reports. Mafia's a game about communicating and interacting with other players and doing both is one of the few ways to improve. Because of this, there’s little learning curve by choosing someone at night and getting a result with their alignment.
It's not uncommon for new players to win a string of games via night-play and get cocky because of it. It’s not a good progression since it leaves them thinking they're better than they are.- TTTT
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It was recently changed to 5 games.In post 157, RedFlavor wrote:I think people should stay more at being newbie before being SE. This will definitely help more games going in queue and newbies become more experienced. Why is it only 3 games anyways?- RedFlavor
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- Toomai
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The reason every newbie setup thus far has started with Cop and Doctor as possibilities is because of how universal such roles are in the game across all its variants and communities, and thus provides a stable foundation to build a setup on that newbies are likely to at least partially understand. I think it is more important to keep them around than to go off somewhere else.
Similarly I also dislike Neapolitan. It's the only town role with more replace-outs than average (higher than the scum Roleblocker even) (admittedly with low sample size), so it's clear that newbies don't like playing it, probably because they don't quite understand how to use it well.This should be required reading for...everyone for anything, really.- teacher
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My two cents for what they are worth: I think town strength has vastly increased compared to my start. I attribute this to more of a repeat core than had been the case for most of my my year here. I recognize and can meta most of the players in the se queue. I remember when penguin was begging - in the threat title no less - for ICs. Now most know each other and the line is a month long.
By and large I think this is positive. The players who are repeats are some I like the most. More to the point, they all tend to have a welcoming/teaching streak in them. And they are strong players - both as scum and town.
But it runs into the TTTT issue of slot odds being 78% town - in over 40% of games, you have stacked town with three experienced and strong town!ses against 2 newb!scum. And even when there is one scum!se, the other two are likely town and may be able to meta the outlier due to familiarity at least on the fringes.
In terms of the “RC scum tips”, so long as the current as the current setup and se line continues, I think having 5/4 and 1 se scum could help.
In terms of any redesign, I am not a designer but do urge continuation of a semi open setup as an important part of the newb queue in my learning experience was learning the mechanical aspects of play.- Irrelephant11
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I'll just ask this thread if anyone has the time to check that all these recent town wins are legitimate, given recent proof of cheating onsite.Hey all! Excited and nervous to play my first game with you!
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