Matrix6 BP fix

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Post Post #11 (isolation #0) » Sun Apr 16, 2017 3:39 am

Post by Toomai »

Could I put my vote into "if you change the setup, change its name"? We can't have someone say "Matrix6" and have anyone thinking "which one?" The daytalk experiment provided enough confusion.
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Post Post #19 (isolation #1) » Sun Apr 16, 2017 3:12 pm

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One potential wrinkle with a BP->Backup switch is that it lowers uncertainty of Tracker results. In Matrix6, if a Tracker sees a visit but there was no kill, it could mean:
  1. He tracked scum to the Doctor's target. (setup C)
  2. He tracked the Doctor to the scum's target. (setup C)
  3. He tracked scum to the BP. (setup 3)
In "Backup6", #3 is no longer possible, and so getting a visit to a no-kill confirms the setup is C and enables Follow the Tracker. I feel like this isn't too big an issue since it's a corner case, FtT isn't too strong until one scum dies, and setup C doesn't exactly have a high town winrate already. But it's a consideration.
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Post Post #29 (isolation #2) » Mon Apr 17, 2017 1:46 pm

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In post 24, mhsmith0 wrote:True, but it's IMO less of an unbalancing issue than BP auto claiming and then tracker knows that he's dealing with a doc if there's no BP claim.
I agree with this. (To be honest I knew it was a weak reason to start with; I just wanted to introduce the name "Backup6". Because it has a Backup and is a backup to Matrix6. It's like irony or something.)
In post 25, Ircher wrote:The BP strategy improves winrates.
Is that actually proven in practice though? I don't keep stats on it because using a strategy is not an easily trackable thing, but I heard someone else is.
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Post Post #37 (isolation #3) » Tue Apr 18, 2017 11:39 pm

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In post 35, Lycanfire wrote:make osbp active instead of passive, thoughts
Would ruin town's already-shaky winrate in the BP setups, and newbie setups should probably keep to Normal roles for best education of site meta.
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Post Post #44 (isolation #4) » Wed Apr 19, 2017 11:31 pm

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We're trying to change a reasonably-balanced setup as little as possible to disable the popular new claim strategy being paraded around. Let's not tweak more than what's needed.
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Post Post #48 (isolation #5) » Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:48 pm

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Quickly thrown-together example role PM wrote:You are a
Town Universal Backup
. The first time a town-aligned player who is not a Vanilla Townie dies, you will inherit their role. You will receive the new role PM immediately once the other player has died. You will not receive information about any of that player's previous actions or results. If you die, you will be flipped as "Town Universal Backup" in all circumstances.
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Post Post #110 (isolation #6) » Thu Apr 27, 2017 12:08 pm

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If it were up to me, I'd use Backup6 for at least 30-40 games, look at the stats, and determine whether it's good enough to keep. Matrix6 has been the most balanced and consistent newbie setup so far (and most long-lived? unsure) and I see no need to make anything but the most minimal changes to try and fix the hotshot new meta.
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Post Post #126 (isolation #7) » Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:03 pm

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See I like Backup because it's actually really similar to BP: it forces scum to waste a shot. And comparatively:
  • Better: Doesn't want to claim (like other PRs).
  • Better: Active ability instead of passive; more likely to retain newbie interest.
  • Better: Ensures that town's one "true" PR will survive one kill/lynch. No claiming, targeting, or towning-it-up necessary.
  • Slightly better: The Jailkeeper/Tracker will be slightly more sure of their action's results.
  • Significantly worse: Doesn't actually stop anyone from being killed.
I think Bodyguard is poor for a newbie game because it succeeds by dying (pretty much), and I would think that the fun stops for most newbies when they die.
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Post Post #131 (isolation #8) » Sat Apr 29, 2017 2:34 am

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In post 130, Nachomamma8 wrote:
In post 126, Toomai wrote:I think Bodyguard is poor for a newbie game because it succeeds by dying (pretty much), and I would think that the fun stops for most newbies when they die.
Is this the major point against bodyguard?
Well that and the Tracker knowing he's guaranteed to live the night after he claims and possibly more:
In post 116, mhsmith0 wrote:If a tracker knows that he's either with a doc or a bg, he's debatably incentivized to claim sometime day 1. The reason why tracker d1 claims are antitown currently is that there's a 50% chance that he dies immediately N1 if shot because it's a BP that can't actually do anything. The relatively nice aspect of a UB there is that tracker is a sitting duck if he claims d1 50% of the time. Also bodyguard still sucks as a role, and jk/bg/rb is probably even more scumsided than the current jk/bp/rb.
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Post Post #198 (isolation #9) » Tue May 02, 2017 2:42 pm

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May I remind everyone that the newbie setup started with the most fundamental, well-known roles and has evolved very slowly with intent to keep things fair and reasonable without sacrificing those basic roles.
  • Original: 5v2, Cop + Doctor vs 2 goons. Follow the Cop was developed within 100 games.
  • C9: Same as Original, but to break up FtC, it's a 50/50 chance that there's no Cop, and also a 50/50 chance that there's no Doctor. Obviously evened up very scumsided.
  • Pie E7: Same as Original, but to break up FtC, gives scum a Roleblocker. The Matrix6 version of this has 2 more players and is pretty balanced, meaning this 7-player version must have been scumsided.
  • California: Same as Original, but without the Doctor altogether. Scumsided.
  • F11: Moved to 9 players. Four subsetups: you can have a Cop, or a Doctor, or a Roleblocker, or all three. The "all three" one is balanced as we now know, but the rest are badly scumsided.
  • 2of4: Gives scum a Rolecop and town two of the following: Cop, Doctor, Jailkeeper, or nothing (VT). Worked pretty well, but the Doctor+Jailkeeper subsetup was too good for town.
  • Matrix6: What we have now. Was almost certainly built around the Cop+Doctor+RB trio, with the JK, Tracker, and BP added to even out the matrix.
We don't have any real reason to suddenly blow everything up and add all these new roles. Just keep it simple.
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Post Post #354 (isolation #10) » Wed May 03, 2017 4:03 pm

Post by Toomai »

By the logic of the people saying "either stop using or ban the strategy", it's perfectly fine to have setups involving Cop+Doctor with no breaking-up factors as long as we either ban Follow the Cop or politely tell people to not invoke it. Nowhere else on-site has it been okay to continue running a busted setup while simply requesting players to not exploit it. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Now that said, I don't think this case is at all as urgent as people seem to be treating it as. Sure the current situation is not optimal, but it's hardly bad enough that we have to change the newbie setup yesterday. The strategy isn't even conclusively beneficial for town according to my statistics so far. (I want to say something else but don't know if it would involve ongoing games.)

In any case, it's clear this discussion has gone off the rails, and it's probably best for the listmods to decide what to do from here on out.
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Post Post #490 (isolation #11) » Sat May 13, 2017 3:25 am

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In post 488, Cogito Ergo Sum wrote:I'd probably just call the new set-up Matrix6.2 or something (Matrix6b?) rather than Back-up6 since the latter name only makes sense if you're already familiar with Matrix6.
Let's be honest none of the newbie setup names make sense unless you're familiar with them.
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Post Post #652 (isolation #12) » Sat Jun 17, 2017 2:46 am

Post by Toomai »

I feel like 2 things are happening:
  • There doesn't seem to be clear evidence that the strategy works as advertised, so it's not being used as much. It's certainly not being triggered automatically in every game anymore.
  • It's taking a long time for the listmods to test, decide on, and implement a new setup.
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