The Newbie Queue Setup

[RadiantCowbells]

the values of roles aren't static

[RadiantCowbells]

i think if we're going that route it would be better to sim the games

[RadiantCowbells]

that's a really poor way to do things because it doesn't consider interactions at all

[RadiantCowbells]

i already have a program that can sim an incomplete set of normal roles and give a reasonable estimate of winrate based on actual interactions
if we're going down the road of generating setups I could expand it to generate setups that fit whatever winrate and setup parameters that we define
this point system will end up creating a ton of very poorly designed and mismatched setups

[RadiantCowbells]

i already have a program that can sim an incomplete set of normal roles and give a reasonable estimate of winrate based on actual interactions
if we're going down the road of generating setups I could expand it to generate setups that fit whatever winrate and setup parameters that we define
this point system will end up creating a ton of very poorly designed and mismatched setups

[RadiantCowbells]

To do even a small list of roles like this is going to end up with either poorly balanced setups or lots of variables to the point that the setup will be extremely complicated to implement

This point system is very poorly thought out unless you're only allowing like 5 town roles and 2 spy roles, in which case I don't see what the value is in moving beyond the current system

[RadiantCowbells]

Also, like, a lot of how we get users is through exporting stuff to small offsite mafia games and then people taking interest and eventually coming over. NewD3 is fairly commonly played on small mafia sites, as was Matrix6 before it.
Regardless of what Penguin says about balance if we end up with a newbie game that is generally agreed to be poorly balanced that will hinder it being taken up on other sites which will reduce the inflow of traffic which, etc.

[RadiantCowbells]

I would consider the wiki to fall under the category of exports, so.

[RadiantCowbells]

online players searching for setups to use

Okay so again: small mafia site needs setups to use. They find the MS wiki and take one of our setups and it gets played elsewhere. New players get introduced to mafia which expands the potential audience, and the name Mafiascum is now recognized so if they turn around and google Mafia they're more likely to click Mafiascum than other options.
I'm not saying that it's only because it's the Newbie setup, far from it, I've seen even weird shit that isn't played here anymore like Jk9++ on random sites, but it's not inaccurate to say that as the newbie setup it is seen as 'endorsed' in some way and someone who is just quickly looking for something to run might see it as a default option.
Each player can only write one thing as the reason they came to MS even though there's a multitude of factors and it's never going to say in these blurbs that "I saw a bunch of sites when I googled Mafia but I clicked MafiaScum because I remembered the name from the game that I played on OSU." There's also situations where MS users mod games themselves offsite and then people end up coming here being self-described simply as "I came because Schadd_ is a cool it" but I think that it should go without saying that MS setups being bread and butter on other sites is going to increase MS's name recognition, relevance in the broader social deduction community, and drive traffic here.

[RadiantCowbells]

I've said my piece on that; I don't think that any token or buy in design will end in a good newbie setup and I think the next step forward is either a new setup that cuts whichever are subjectively the "worst" setups in ND3 or the "leap" forward of jumping to automatically designed setups.

[RadiantCowbells]

I think negative feedback is as important as positive feedback PP; I'm not invested in creating a new setup but if someone came up with one that I liked I would not be shy about saying that I liked it. Similarly if there's something that I think really doesn't work I think that it's worth stepping in to explain what the flaws are.

I'm not bashing you when I say that I don't like your loose take on balance, I just think that you underrate how much the knowledge that a setup is perceived as imbalanced impacts the ways games play out. If you remember the original daytalk situation where towns were getting slaughtered I think that what really happened is that scum got a small boost and a bunch of 'streaky' wins and then after it got discussed it emboldened scum and demoralized towns and the perception of it being scumsided created a reality of it being scumsided. Stuff like that creates a shadow that hangs over games and if you remember in the original D3 there was at least one scum topic where scum complained at the start of the game that they didn't think the game was balanced and gave up before the game started.

[RadiantCowbells]

That said I don't think this is really something that needs to be either public or here; if you'd be interested in talking about it further we should take it to DMs.

But I would actually agree with you that actual balance isn't that important. The perception of balance on the other hand is.