Mini Normal 1829 - Game Over

[mhsmith0]

Lol at shadow bitching about balance in dead thread when scum got two useful PRs while town PRs were all shitty and countered by scum power. Scum sided setup by ms standards.

[mhsmith0]

So part of why I used the power is I figured if Nero was sk then town was gonna get rekt. So it was both protecting a likely town clear as well as a last ditch effort to get info if Nero was NOT town (though I found that less likely).

Ps elyse's reaction to my death was fairly genuine, in a way that suggested likely not someone who already knew why I died that night (I.e. Someone who shot Nero and saw me flip, or shot me and got lucky). That said I didn't develop an informed opinion in dead thread because I'm not gonna work hard to game solve when I'm dead and it doesn't matter.

Pps sub in, die immediately, watch town lose. My town luck continues as usual

[mhsmith0]

@shadow: pm nexus (normal lost mod) and ask.

[mhsmith0]

@thor: would you agree or disagree w my bg use there btw? I figured it was the mechanically correct play, what do you think?

[mhsmith0]

Gunsmith nerfed by mafia doc (false inno)
Vig BADLY nerfed by mafia doc (screws odds of making a correct shot but, while a bad shot can still go through)
Tracker BADLY nerfed by two visiting scum powers (false innos)
Bg is a trash power
Ascetic is a trash power

Oh and gunsmith/vig/bg were each 2-3 shots. Give scum team an encryptor or maybe a 1-shot bp instead of full doc. Full doc is super OP against town lineup, and vanilla cop helps a lot too. Too much scum power, while town power is BADLY misaligned and prone to getting explicitly countered by scum powers.

[mhsmith0]

mh probably didn't read much of the game.

This is true

I saw Nero as the vig likely clear (MAYBE an sk but unlikely), and was hoping he actually had shots left (likely maybe odd night vig or something?) and was slow rolling.

[mhsmith0]

But seriously, a 2-shot vig against a full mafia doc, with no ability for town to get a no kill night, is super sketch wrt balance. Odds of vig landing both shots to keep it at evens is poor. And towns investigative power was mediocre and in both cases compromised by potential for false innos.

Maybe if giga was ascetic 1-shot bp that could have helped a bit, would make the game more prone to get back to odds. But even there, I'd say too much scummpower by MS standards.

[mhsmith0]

Vigs are +EV, but vig needed more shots. Full vig would have been fine. 2-shot vig way too little given other powers.

Wrt scum powers, night one you have doctor save cop or goon, cop targets whoever, goon kills. Only after a scum death (rare d1) does that really matter. V cop useful as much to id vanillas who are lynch targets as PRs who are night targets.

And yes, if a tracker n1 sees someone visiting someone else who doesn't die, that's a false inno. TWO scum powers capable of this.

[mhsmith0]

Although honestly, tracker/gunsmith can both out the vig, and v cop can do so for scum, and doc can stop vig shot, and bg (if crappy) can accidentally save scum. Basically every power other than ascetic was set up to be anti-vig; at that point a full jk is better than vig conceptually, and even more so than a 2-shot vig.

[mhsmith0]

@thor: would you agree or disagree w my bg use there btw? I figured it was the mechanically correct play, what do you think?

There was nothing too terrible about it.
BG is a terrible town role though, and has very limited functional uses - yours was okay.

I'm not remotely surprised I lost though, that does seem to be the pattern for me. The occasional lucky town win I didn't deserve would be kinda nice tbh

[mhsmith0]

You don't balance by imagining the lottery ticket night action scenario, you do it by looking at reasonably likely EVEN IF you get all actions at scum, it's just as likely to be gunsmith at doc, vig and tracker at goon, and doc saves vc. Goon dies, tracker got noting, and gunsmith got a false inno. And frankly, if scum team is ineffective enough to draw all of towns night power, they were gonna lose anyway.

Ps Hell, even there maybe you have a VI BG who saves the doc, and maybe the scum shoot the gunsmith or tracker.

[mhsmith0]

@chilled: yes but idk what it is lol

[mhsmith0]

mhsmith, while I agree with you that the mafia doctor was very powerful in this setup, I think you are severely underestimating the town power here.

If the tracker tracks the mafia doc to one of his partners, it's difficult for the doc to find a claim that can explain that action. Doctor doesn't work, as it's likely the most scummy member of the mafia team that was protected. I would probably have to claim either jailkeeper or roleblocker in that situation, but both of those are obvious scumclaims given the other powers the town has. Similarly, Vanilla Cop/Neapolitan is also too much investigative power, so the mafia vanilla cop also has trouble fakeclaiming. If the tracker targets any of the scumteam during the night and survives, there is a good chance that scummember will be lynched as a result.

Similarly, even though the gunsmith isn't as strong as a full cop (1 incorrect innocent, 1 incorrect guilty), he can also detect two of the mafia members.

Finally, the vig. If mafia doc prevents the vig shot, then that effectively functions as a guilty result on the player targeted (as could be seen during night 3). If he shoots 2 town players, town gains a mislynch. And if he shoots 1 townplayer, he becomes conftown himself, without actually costing town a lynch (as his target would likely have been lynched anyway).

Add the bodyguard, who should help keep conftownplayers (vig/investigative/investigative results) alive and confirm himself town in the process.

Basically, scum used it's nightabilities optimally this game, killing both investigative roles night 1 and night 2, preventing a vig kill, then killing confirmed innocents night 3 and 4. Yet we still lost 2 scummembers (at least partially) to night interactions. blitz' fakeclaim wasn't believable given town power, and the vig shot on shadow essentially functioned as a guilty investigation. If perfect nightactions leave you with 1 scummember who needs to dodge 4 kills (lynch, vig shot, lynch, lynch), I don't think you can call the mafia abilities overpowered.

Wrt balance, consider the simple scum setup of goon-goon-roleblocker. That's generally considered to be a pretty solid amount of scum power, so the question becomes, is scum here more or less powerful than that. The answer is more... a lot more.

Start with the vig. A roleblocker can stop vig shots. But a block on vig still has good odds to save a townie. Meanwhile, a mafia doc keeps the feature of potentially stopping vig shots on scum without having any chance to accidentally save a townie.

Next, the gunsmith. This one is obvious: scum doctor gets a fake innocent (much like a godfather vs a cop), while roleblocker semi outs his existence by giving gunsmith no result.

Next, the tracker. Here, you have TWO non killing scum roles, neither of which result in obvious sketchy outcomes, such as a roleblocker migth cause someone to know they were roleblocked. When as a tracker you see someone visit someone else who doesn't die, you generally consider it an innocent result (all the more so if there are multiple night deaths), and don't much question why they visited (mafia doctor action, if sketchy as a doc protect, could easily instead be a pro town jailkeep, for instance, for all the tracker would know).

And bg/ascetic are both essentially useless. Bg can only "confirm" himself by dying, which is really only useful to protect a really strong town role, or a hard confirmed town, neither of which this game had. Ascetic is a named townie that could reasonably be a policy lynch for setup spec reasons.

Moreover, scum has an every night investigative role (especially if/when they realize the vig is out of shots, since then doc can kill if needed). This means that towns only real edge here, namely the existence of a bunch of named roles (even if they're almost all crappy), is undermined by scum teams ability to narrow down who is or isn't VT.

So basically every single ability of town is actively countered by scum power, AND town roles don't work well together (vig works badly with bg and gunsmith), AND three of the four active town roles are limited shot.

The only real thing town had going for it design wise was lack of day chat. But overall it was very scum sided by MS standards, with town powers badly coordinated and scum powers substantial. I think the reviewers over-valued the sheer number of town roles and under-valued how much power scum had and how badly the town powers worked together.

Ps here are the mini normal setups I've been involved in:

1823 mod
Goon encryptor 1-shot strongman
Vs vig, tracker, doctor, 1-shot bp

1782 player
Encryptor, odd night ninja, even night jk
Vs follower neighbor, voyeur neighbor, odd night jk, even night rb

1775 player
Encryptor goon goon
Vs jailkeeper, universal backup, JOAT (cop/watcher/commuter/bodyguard)

Each was way more town sided compared to this one.

[mhsmith0]

Also mini not normal, radjas GoT mafia

2-shot janitor, 1-shit bp, tracker
Vs IC, watcher, odd night vig, bodyguard, plus flavor that gave town info

[mhsmith0]

1823:
2-shot vig is WAY weaker than vig, bodyguard is WAY weaker than full doc. Full doc can outright prevent multiple kills, and can travel every night (so tracker can see) with no risk of the action killing him. Full doc and bodyguard are not even slightly comparable. Hell, just look at this game. If Thor is a full doc he probably docs the gunsmith n2, and now we are back to odds with another investigative shot. Or barring that, my save on Nero would have also put us back on odds AND confirmed me town WITHOUT my dying.

Ascetic is not slightly weaker than 1-shot bp either. It is massively weaker. Bp is a pro town role that forces scum to waste an extra night kill to eliminate, which means that a strong town player can dominate a game with a bp.

Doc+vig or doc+tracker can lead to weaker versions of "follow the cop", which was the main reason I gave scum a 1-shot strongman (also had a chance to use it on the bp).

As far as gunsmith goes, it can get a false guilty on the vig (and out them both) or a false into on the mafia doctor. Moreover, the limited shots means that there's a strong incentive to out early since here aren't many shots left, which changes the game play of the role a lot.

1782:
Town essentially has three decent powers and one joke power (voyeur). The town powers are a bit nerfed by odd/even, but they have the potential to go late game and really hurt scum. As it was scum killed town PRs basically by accident, but we got an n2 block on scum that opened the floodgates to a relatively easy town win.

1775:
The main reason we lost was that maestro game threw. JOAT has two strong investigates in cop/watch, and the watch power was wasted when n2 it could have spotted the second scum.

Mini: odd night vig is basically the same as 2-shot. Small chance of dying n2 vs small chance of getting a third shot. Watcher is WAY stronger than tracker, basically comparable to alignment cop. But the big town edge was flavor; janitor potentially screws it up, but otherwise it's solvable by flavor. Without flavor it's comparable to this one, with scum power set up to counter town flavor (three scum PRs AND day talk was too much scum power).

[mhsmith0]

I man, you guys played well, and congrats, but this game probably shouldn't have passed normal review. At best it was BARELY within reasonable boundaries. I'm quite curious to see the review thread actually, tbh.

[mhsmith0]

Of course bitching about setup isn't super useful, so here's how I'd be more balanced while keeping the concept:

1) all scum become macho (or MAYBE all but doc). This means that doc is now ONLY useful against the gunsmith, and vig is no longer massively nerfed

2) vanilla cop becomes even night. Scum get a small bit of investigative power, but it's not game changing like an every night v cop is.

If that's too far to town, then I'd turn the goon into encryptor or pull the ascetic (who I'd presume was added just as a throwaway bit of power to town to make up for their overall lack of power)

[mhsmith0]

Another interesting idea would be to switch the doc/bg so town gets the full doctor, and scum gets the bodyguard. That way bg can be used as a false inno to tracker, or a cover on the v cop (though thats unwise IMO), but is essentially just a throwaway scum power instead of one that's super OP against the given town powers.

[mhsmith0]

Actually it was massively weaker, as a doc shot would have put game back on odds and nearly confirmed the doc as town since what kind of dumb scum no shoots there.

[mhsmith0]

I think we disagree on a few basic things:

1) the vig itself and its functionality in this setup

you think vig/bg/gunsmith is a good set of town powers to have. It isn't. It's a terrible set, because they coordinate really really badly. Gunsmith can easily out the vig early, and bg can accidentally save a scum. Vig is by nature a swingy role; throwing in those two roles nerfs the vig pretty notably.

And then vig is even further nerfed by being two shot and by having a scum doctor (which in this context is WAY more powerful than a roleblocker against the vig, since rb can easily save a town, while doc is just going to save scum). Basically, a two-shot vig is negative EV against a scum doc UNLESS town has the ability to outright stop another night kill (jk or doc or rb or commuter/hider etc.). So mechanically speaking, a 2-shot vig is reasonably likely to only have one kill go through (double shooting or shooting a protected scum), which makes it merely a role that puts town on evens, which really isn't much use, ESPECIALLY given the reasonable likelihood that vig shoots a town PR.

So mechanically, a two-shot vig is a really bad fit in this setup. A full vig also I think doesn't work well given gunsmith and scum doc, I'd actually think a full jailkeeper instead, which adds some swing and can screw with either town (tracker/gunsmith) or scum (vanilla cop) investigatives, and is a role that's very powerful late game.

Alternatively, doc and 1-shot bp coordinate nicely with a vig, far better than bg and ascetic, so at least town gets meaningful kill prevention power as compensation for the scum power and the vig/gs poor fit.

2) gunsmith with a false guilty (vig) false inno (mafia doc) and fake claimable guilty (mafia vanilla cop) is super nerfed, even before the 3-shots. As much as I hate cops, it should have been a 3-shot cop with that much power set up to screw with it. Tracker is ALSO nerfed, since it has multiple scum roles that visit at night and can suggest false innocents.

3) town lacked a single super strong role to build the game around. No full vig, no masons, no alignment cop. If town isn't going to have a really big role to build around, it needs roles that work reasonably well together, and/or basically no scum power. Instead it got roles that worked badly together, and a lot of scum power opposing it. This is a setup that's going to be won by scum probably around 2/3 of the time as a closed setup IMO on MS. I'd say that's really pushing the boundaries of balance.

Ps take a look at this thread
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=67307

Personally, I think power distribution shouldn't deviate too far from this:

3 Goons - 3 Strong Powers OR 4 Middling to Strong Powers
2 Goons, 1 Mafia PR - 4 Strong Powers OR 5 Middling to Strong Powers
1 Goon, 2 Mafia PR's - 5 Middling to Strong Powers

In terms of that philosophy, there were two mafia PRs here, and five town roles of middling ability that worked badly together.

t with that said, I do agree that mods/reviewers are often too quick to nerf things, and everyone forgets that towns are really really stupid. A tracker or rolecop isn't the kind of information role that can carry a town. (And the scum seriously do not need a roleblocker to counter a tracker/doctor combination,

or a mafia doctor against a two-shot vig.)

A bodyguard is just a buffer; stronger protective roles help not just an individual town, but actively make the meta a better place by discouraging scum from shooting the most obvious targets. I don't know why voyeurs are even a thing.

Cough, cough

For the most part, I think the simplest way to produce a balanced game is to include a Cop or Masons but they're a very blunt tool in terms of creating balance as you always have confirmed players in the game, and understandably some mods don't like using this role.

The challenge is to create a balanced game when these roles aren't present, and I think it's necessary that the town has multiple full-power roles, like Watcher, Tracker, Jailkeeper, Gunsmith etc, with scum getting no more than a 1-shot RB.

The dinky little weak PR's that can on either team like 1-shot Doc, Even-Night Role Cop etc, should be like garnish on the finished setup to make it a bit unpredictable, and not really counted when tallying up the power you've given to town. But I'll talk about that more when I do this:

[mhsmith0]

Wrt Bg protecting scum, it's basically an lol village thing. Not likely but as discussed, towns are dumb.

Wrt RB vs doc, I completely disagree, especially in a setup with five town prs. Vig is highly prone to shoot a vaguely scummy looking player who's actually a town or on n1 or n2. One reason some prs look scummy is they're laying low to avoid nk, but that makes them vig bait. In this setup, a n1 vig of tracker or gunsmith is highly possible.

I would agree that a super early lynch of doc is brutal on scum team, but lynching the mafia PR basically SHOULD be near game-ending (you see that in newbies wrt the RB for instance), and a doc claim is lynch proof under duress d1, and will draw a gunsmith n1 most likely, and probably NOT a vig shot. So imo the scum doc dying early is super unlikely barring a random n1 vig on a non claim getting really lucky, so "what if that happens" is imo not strongly worth worrying about.

[mhsmith0]

Town found scum early, and scum didn't handle their PRs properly.

And scum still won. If you're arguing town played better than scum, then that supports the idea there was a balance issue wrt the result. Some of it was lol village at the end, but imo towns power was low compared to the norm, especially adjusted for scum power.

[mhsmith0]

As I said before in the review thread, there needs to be a range of acceptance of balance where something is not easily predictable just because it is considered as balanced. That predictability almost gets rid of the advantage of closed setu

This I agree with. Scum getting two useful PRs to counter towns very limited and non coordinated power set was imo outside that range. MAYBE that's ok with a scum doc and two goons. Even then I'd want to think on it. Throwing on a vanilla cop was imo way too much.

[mhsmith0]

Yeah towns performance after I ate a bullet for Nero was LOLOLOLOL. Mechanically it was the right play but I wish I'd just holstered despite being a scumspect slot.