Open Setup Autopsies (HELP)

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Open Setup Autopsies (HELP)

Post Post #0 (isolation #0) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:06 am

Post by Mathdino »

Every single game I've completed in the Open queue since I got back from hiatus was blatantly biased, broken, swingy, or plain unfun.

So here's a thread to compile complaints about Open setups, because apparently complaining in the game thread on D2 or in the graveyard doesn't actually help anyone.

How you can help:
- Straight up agree/disagree with me (this helps build community consensus)
- Discuss the viability of various breaking strategies
- Discuss potential scenarios in terms of how a game could turn out
- Crunch the numbers for winrates

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:
- End goal is to figure out how to save these setups, or, if unsalvageable, whether to decommission them altogether.

I'll keep a running list of the setups being discussed in this thread.

Setups to Cut Up1. Switch
Spoiler: Setup
1 Mafia Cop Switch
1 Mafia Doc Switch
1 Mafia Vig Switch

1 Serial Killer (with Mafia NK Immunity OR Vig/Cop Immunity)
1 Cop
1 Doctor
1 Vigilante
7 Townies

SK can switch up to 3 roles a night.

2. Polygamist
Spoiler: Setup
4 Goon Lovers
(1 set)
8 Lovers
(4 sets)
Nightless

3. JK9++
Spoiler: Setup
Just go read the setup. It's like C9++.

4. Masons and Monks

Case Closed1. Hard Boiled - I wrote Noir to fix it.


Equi told me to post it in the MD for the record since no one checks the OSD subforum :shifty:
Last edited by Mathdino on Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:00 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post Post #3 (isolation #1) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:53 am

Post by Mathdino »

SWITCH
Spoiler: Roles
1 Mafia Cop Switch
1 Mafia Doc Switch
1 Mafia Vig Switch
1 Serial Killer (with Mafia NK Immunity OR Vig/Cop Immunity)
1 Cop
1 Doctor
1 Vigilante
7 Townies

- Nightstart.
- Every night town PRs are "on" by default.
- Mafiosos that do not perform the NK can "switch" a town PR off.
- SK can kill and also choose to switch any or all of the 3, potentially switching PRs back on.

This setup is
insanely swingy
.

Going through the game history on the wiki page, town has never won a game in which 2 townies died on N0. The last iteration of this setup even had a cop get a N0 guilty. Town lynched 3 scum in 3 days, then mislynched a single time (in LyLo) and lost.

A nightstart game where the alignment of the killed completely changes the game isn't acceptable. In the case that cop and SK both kill townies every night (as is optimal play for both of them), town can only survive 1 mislynch. 2 if the vig shoots town. The win should never be completely outside the realm of possibility for a team.

Meanwhile, if SK shoots mafia N0, the win is practically guaranteed for town or SK.

On a second note this setup is
unfun
.

Nightstart with a cop ruins the game for both the cop and the caught mafia member, making this more about night play than day play. I was the cop.
Nightstart is also bad for the up-to-3 players that can die N0.

Fixing this:


Nightstart with a cop and 3 killers is straight up bad. But daystart messes with the switch mechanics.

Would it be better as just 14p Daystart?
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Post Post #4 (isolation #2) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:00 am

Post by Mathdino »

In post 2, Alisae wrote:All of the multiball setups can go fuck themselves multiball is terrible.
How is town supposed to win Watchmen Wanted again? Also why is plurality splashed in here for like no reason at all? Like, I like plurality but it seems to be here for no reason lol.
Semi-Nightless? Go play Mountainous games instead.
Duck Duck Goose? HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT HEALTHY GAMEPLAY INVOLVES? GIVING TOWN 1 FREE SCUM FLIP. G O O D S E T U P D E S I G N. Fucking brilliant.
Faith +1. 3 Clears easily, Cop + Doc isn't really a good pairing, and percentage roles aren't fun like how they are currently designed here.
Town should always stomp Nightless Vanilla?
Polygamist - I think town only has one mislynch otherwise if they mislynch again they lose.
C9++ - I believe there is a better version of this somewhere, but fuck sks and scum don't really have much power here.
Diffusion of Power - More Cops, More Docs, Shit Setups.
Hard Boiled - atleast give scum a roleblocker, daytalk, and maybe a Rolecop? Otherwise its really townsided.
Hope +1 - play a Cop 13er on MU, its better.
Pick your poison - No reason to pick outside of the following: IC, {Tracker/Cop}, {The other out of Tracker/Cop OR Vig}
I'm not going to use this thread as a means of trashing multiball in general.
I personally don't play multiball but some people do, and their setups should be balanced with respect to other multiball games.

If you can go more in-depth into Watchmen Wanted, Duck Duck Goose, Faith+1, Hard Boiled, and Pick Your Poison, I'll add them to the autopsy list.

I'm not getting the impression that your critiques of Semi-Nightless, C9++, Diffusion of Power, and Hope+1 are being made in good faith, since it seems like you just dislike the roles or don't personally find the ideas fun. Feel free to prove me wrong. This is more for deconstructing objective problems with setups though.
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Post Post #5 (isolation #3) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:12 am

Post by Mathdino »

POLYGAMIST4 Mafia Lovers (1 set)
8 Town Lovers (4 sets)

- Nightless.

Lot to dig into here. To start off, I would argue that there's little value in NOT claiming your lover on Day 1, and it seems like everyone who's played this game has done the same. If anyone has a strategy for this that involves not claiming, do tell.

So if everyone does claim (with scum dividing in 2 and claiming 2 pairs), that makes this essentially a 2:4 Nightless White Flag setup with 6 non-consenting hydrae.
This makes the setup extremely unfun
. Furthermore, any given townie has only 5 other "slots" to sort.

As played normally,
this setup is scumsided
. In theory, White Flag means scum can't bus. In practice, scum just runs each other up to L-1 all the time and claims they're totally okay with bussing. Scum's ideal strategy is to distance their pairs as much as possible (or at least treat each other as town). Doing so almost completely removes town's ability to scumhunt. Plus, since the game ends after 2 mislynches,
most towns will screw up
. This setup is unforgiving.

However, FURTHERMORE,
this setup has a breaking strategy
. Literally random lynching creates a 60% winrate for town. Why is the actual town winrate 36%? Because in reality, lynches are not random, and scum's high volume of players means they can control the narrative much better. Just one town lover pair not voting for scum is a loss for the other 6 townies.

Now if lynches were random (which people say is against site rules but I can't find this), you'd get 60%, but suppose the town agreed on a single lover pair as a town king (to just decide or dice roll 2 lynches). This leads to a winrate of 70%. Town's optimal strategy is just to find one pair that's being townish and have them roll 2 lynches. Done.

I recently won this setup by reading a low-experience lover pair as newbtown and then sheeping their RVS vote the entire game. Lucked out and we won. When correct play as town is to leave everything in the hands of chance,
this is even more unfun for the players involved
. You could argue "well don't do that", but then that punishes players playing to win.

Fixing this:


One player from that game said they were trying to rework it, but I don't think this is salvageable. I don't think this setup should run again, and the majority of players from that last game agreed.
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Post Post #8 (isolation #4) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:25 am

Post by Mathdino »

JK9++Go read the wiki.
Essentially, it's a variant of C9++ with the following changes:

Cops become Trackers
Docs become Docs/JKs
Vigs become Vigs/Vengefuls
ICs/Masons become Hiders/1-Shot Commuters
Roleblockers become Rolecops/Gunsmiths

Mafia Roleblocker becomes Mafia JOAT (roleblock, ninja, strongman)
Godfather becomes Mafia 1-shot Bus Driver
SK Investigation Immune choice becomes Ninja/Strongman Kills

I'm going to base this on the argument that C9++ is, in practice, balanced. Its history seems to suggest so. However,
town has only won 1/8 JK9++ games before I won the last one
. The most recent iteration had an extremely imbalanced playerlist (D1 non-bus scum lynch) and only 2 mafia.

Here's why this is way more scumsided:
- Trackers are objectively worse than cops. Trackers are worse than 1-shot Cops. The likelihood of a tracker guilty is absolutely minimal. Tracker innos mean nothing.
- JKs lead to more night action WIFOM than docs and can't protect investigative roles. C9++ has the option to gamble on follow the cop.
- Vengeful is useless. Fakeclaiming is almost impossible for scum (because it's easy to figure out the setup by massclaim) so Vengeful is just a named townie.
- Hider is an okay role, but D1 confirmed townies are insanely powerful, especially with the possibility of a doc.
- Roleblocker is objectively way more powerful than Town Rolecop.

- Mafia JOAT has a roleblock in it, and is thus stronger.
- 1-shot Bus Driver fucks over the "leash the vig" strategy.

That's about it. I think the setup is fun and all, and it's hard to break except in very particular scenarios, but it's massively scumsided.

Fixing this:

- Any ideas for giving town more power here? Be sure to read the setup first.
- Vengeful needs to be removed, as no one will actually lynch them.
- Rolecop should be changed to Gunsmith.
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Post Post #9 (isolation #5) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:28 am

Post by Mathdino »

Alisae this thread is about fixing and improving setups in good faith.

If people want to play multiball, they will. You saying that multiball is unfun doesn't help anyone.

This thread is explicitly not for talking about the merits of multiball/SKs OVERALL.


I recommend making your own thread for that.
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Post Post #12 (isolation #6) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:36 am

Post by Mathdino »

Not bad. Why not write up a wiki page for it?
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Post Post #14 (isolation #7) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:41 am

Post by Mathdino »

Duck Duck Goose statistics suggest more mafia wins. 80%.

I actually think DDG is pretty good and balanced. Town's inability to coordinate or out-guess the scum is its weakness.

The only way all townies arm on the same night is if everyone agrees to do that (or the meta becomes quietly doing that). Then scum spend one no kill and it's 3:8 Mountainous the next day, which is strongly scumsided.

And AGAIN, this is not about multiball as a concept. If you have critiques of specific multiball setups outside of "multiball is bad" then go ahead and post them.
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Post Post #16 (isolation #8) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:47 am

Post by Mathdino »

I've asked you multiple times to please stop. I don't want this thread derailing into a discussion on multiball. This always happens in discussions about setups on MD.
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Post Post #22 (isolation #9) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:35 pm

Post by Mathdino »

I appreciate your response! I actually agree with you on a lot of those points. I don't think I made the accusation that any setup was swingy on variability in the design; in fact, I really enjoy most of the semi-open setups available!

The problem to me with Switch (and most nightstarts) is that the alignments and identities of those removed from the game early on can essentially predict the winners, while also not allowing a couple people to play at all. I don't think a nightstart version of it is salvageable, but I'm wondering how a daystart version would play out.

When it comes to JK9++, I'm coming it at it from the assumption that C9++ is balanced (I could be wrong because of massclaim tactics), and then arguing that JK9++ is more scumsided at every opportunity. I like the variation in the roles, but, for example, the tracker lineup is significantly worse than C9++'s cop lineup, while the mafia JOAT is better than the mafia roleblocker. For JK9++, I'd like to preserve that initial variability (it is what makes the setup fun) while bringing down to C9++ levels.
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Post Post #27 (isolation #10) » Thu Jan 25, 2018 4:55 pm

Post by Mathdino »

Re: JK9++: Thanks for commenting!

- Keep in mind the intent of JK9++ is to set itself apart from the more popular C9++, which has roles of Cop, Doc, Vig, Roleblocker, and 1-shot variations thereof. So from a conceptual level, I think alignment cops, docs, and roleblockers are off the table.

- Vengeful would be more useful than a Hatedizer. Keep in mind that the reason Vengeful is useless is that if they ever claim Vengeful in, for example, a massclaim, few would ever doubt their claim. So they would never get lynched. I'd be very surprised to find examples of JK9++ vengeshots. If we replaced it with Hatedizer, same story: someone claims Hatedizer, they function as a Named Townie because no one disputes that claim.

- PGO is a good idea actually within the realm of killing roles. It would have to be voluntary rather than compulsive to avoid killing PRs, but it's interesting, self-confirmable, and can be gamed if you fakeclaim vig when you're actually PGO.

You're correct that TTTT and TTT can exist with a rolecop. It's not unlikely enough at all for me to have to calculate that :P. I wonder if Neapolitan would be a better call for that slot seeing as it's so popular lately. Problem is that role makes massclaims significantly easier and would essentially start functioning as a rolecop.
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Post Post #32 (isolation #11) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 1:18 pm

Post by Mathdino »

@Ghost: I agree re: 1-shot Neapolitan.

@Red: I don't think the issue is the game being too townsided. It's the swinginess based on whether or not town breaks the game open with non-mafia strategies.

@smith: So then the logical thing would be to run stats on setups with SKs and those without, yeah?
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Post Post #35 (isolation #12) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 1:36 pm

Post by Mathdino »

SK isn't loved by everyone, but like multiball, it's gonna be a factor no matter what, so the best we can do is balance around that factor.

Most SK games should have something of balanced winrate with respect to the 3 factions. Singleball games should obviously be closer to 50/50.

The weirdness of C/JK9++ is that when you sign up for the game, you're coin flipping as to whether or not you're playing an SK game. I don't think I really have a problem with that since it's more of a conceptual issue (and thus a matter of personal preference) than it is a balance thing.

I also don't think there are any 3rd parties really interesting enough beside SK to warrant designing opens around them.
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Post Post #39 (isolation #13) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:18 pm

Post by Mathdino »

I think you're conceptually on the right track. Just wanna clear up some common misconceptions about the setup. Ironically, the mafia last game was the most confused of all!

All power roles are switched on every night by default.
All switches take place before any night actions are taken.
So for example, say the mafia switch off the Cop and the Doc.
The SK has the ability to switch AND kill, so the SK might switch Cop/Vig and not switch the Doc.
Keep in mind mafia and SK don't know what actions the other took.
In that situation, since Cop was switched twice while Doc and Vig were each switched once, Cop is on and Doc/Vig are both off.
THEN the mafia and SK make their kills.
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Post Post #44 (isolation #14) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:59 pm

Post by Mathdino »

SWITCH
That's correct. It's presumably night start so players can get some starting info, but the obvious suckiness of nightstart is you can have 3 players dead and a cop guilty depending on what the mafia/SK switch on and off. Day start would run the risk of having mafia claim cop or doc switch at L-1 and killing the doc immediately afterward... but this is no risk that isn't faced by all open setups.

JK9++
Alignment changing would be frowned upon. A lot of people hate SK and might actively try to get the psychiatrist to target them. Runs the risk of people straight up claiming SK.

I'm thinking maybe Watcher is a better/stronger role than Tracker? Not sure how much that would affect the balance. So you'd have
I = 1-shot Watcher
II = Watcher
III = Watcher, 1-shot Watcher
IIII = Watcher, Watcher

P still has JK, H still has Hider (an admittedly interesting role).

Then to prevent the uselessness of Vengefuls I'm thinking Vigs/PGOs but the gamestate would definitely be shifted by the possibility of having PGOs around.

R should definitely be Neapolitan instead of Rolecop. That's at least as useful as roleblocker is.
R = Neapolitan
RR = Neapolitan, 1-shot Neapolitan
RRR = Neapolitan, Neapolitan
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Post Post #51 (isolation #15) » Sat Jan 27, 2018 12:45 am

Post by Mathdino »

Thanks for the input BBMolla.

POLYGAMIST
Yeah this is basically a hydra version of Lover's Mafia. Adding another townie in a nightless would break it in favour of town. 71% winrate on random lynch.

SWITCH
Yeah I think basically every nightstart game is horribly outdated. It's kinda hard to boycott nightstart as a whole when they hold up the open queue for a week. I'm gonna recommend overhauling to daystart and seeing how it plays.

DUCK DUCK GOOSE
I assume by 2 VTs you mean 2 1-shot PGOs? In that case yeah sounds good.

HARD BOILED
I'm not convinced this is 100% broken yet... but this is a discussion that needs to be had for sure IMO.

PICK YOUR POISON
My understanding is that Stack The Deck was specifically designed to counter Pick Your Poison's design flaws? Why is Pick Your Poison still running?
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Post Post #52 (isolation #16) » Sat Jan 27, 2018 12:47 am

Post by Mathdino »

In post 50, BBmolla wrote:Add two VTs to switch too, make it 16p.
I think it's gonna have to be either/or. Either add VTs or daystart. Honestly I think daystart will fix most of this setup's issues. I might run that to see how it goes.

I mean the inherent problem here is that if mafia and SK repeatedly fuck each other's switches over, town has a hilarious inordinate amount of power. It can't be saved from that inherent swinginess in the concept, but I think it can be saved by the swinginess of N0 kills.
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Post Post #56 (isolation #17) » Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:10 am

Post by Mathdino »

POLYGAMIST
Then it would be 2:4 nightless or 2:5 nightless but with lover pairs. Basically an involuntary hydra game.
Not sure this is salvageable on a conceptual level.

HARD BOILED
I'll add that to the setup list. I remember it was broken years ago, and ABR added a townie to make it 13p and less broken.
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Post Post #69 (isolation #18) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:14 am

Post by Mathdino »

Alright let's revive this a bit.

I'd like to run an experimental open setup soon, whether it be one of the setups under review or a modified version of a problematic existing setup.

BBMolla's Polygamy For All seems actually really cool. Lot of players but not with the game length that coincides with larger games. My hesitation is in whether people would actually be interested in playing it given how Polygamist went.

Are there any less mechanical setups you guys think we can play around with?
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Post Post #70 (isolation #19) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:28 am

Post by Mathdino »

MASONS & MONKS2 Mafia Goons
2 Werewolf Goons
2 Masons (not Mafia)
2 Monks (not Werewolf)
5-7 Vanilla Townies

- Masons/monks are confirmed to each other as not mafia and werewolves, respectively.
- Masons cannot both be werewolves, and monks cannot both be mafia.

Got a request for this setup, which has a 100% town lossrate on the wiki.

The problem with this setup (within the constrains of multiball) for town is that it can't actually confirm anyone. (Please no snarky comments about how the problem is multiball, I get it)

I wonder if this would be balanced just by converting a townie to an activated innocent child?
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Post Post #72 (isolation #20) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:49 am

Post by Mathdino »

If we take Fire and Ice as roughly balanced, a doctor would turn it into Fire & Ice with the additional ability to confirm townies when one scumteam gets killed.

Thinking along the lines of bulletproof.
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Post Post #74 (isolation #21) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 11:03 am

Post by Mathdino »

In post 49, BBmolla wrote:
In post 2, Alisae wrote:Hard Boiled - atleast give scum a roleblocker, daytalk, and maybe a Rolecop? Otherwise its really townsided.
Force town to choose Tracker (it's gamethrowing to do otherwise), give Mafia a Rolecop. Or, more interestingly, force town to choose Vig and add a VT and keep Mafia as is.
A lot seems to depend on D1. The tracker/vig dichotomy allows adaptability for town. Plus, there's still an optimising strategy for if T/V goes vig. Hell, the 12p version was broken in half by making T/V go vig.

You know, in keeping with the theme, I actually think giving scum a Jailkeeper would be the most thematic and balanced way to fix this. Can be used defencively (maybe scum fakeclaims vig) or offencively.

I'd be very willing to run this with a scum JK I think.
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Post Post #76 (isolation #22) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 11:23 am

Post by Mathdino »

Needlessly screws over one scumteam I think, given that hiders almost universally breadcrumb everything.
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Post Post #83 (isolation #23) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 12:54 am

Post by Mathdino »

Including 2 Paladins is definitely a buff for town. Eliminating one scumteam (via D1 lynch and single crosskill) could potentially result in 4 clears, however, which is a little much.

The nature of multiball is to be swingy. My guess is that due to the possibility of so many clears, this tips the setup into a 50% townwin 25% mafiawin 25% werewolfwin range.

Tactical massclaim just seems debilitating in a way unlike most multiball setups.

I think I roughly agree re: adding a doctor or a town vig.
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Post Post #86 (isolation #24) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 10:53 am

Post by Mathdino »

I admit I'm probably not the best voice on balancing multiball, but I think the model we use is definitely important.

For singleball, I go in with the basic assumption that Friends and Enemies (3 mafia vs 3 masons) is roughly balanced (slightly scumsided just because masons are bad at hiding themselves), and a Cop 13er (3 mafia vs 1 cop) is balanced on MU but scumsided here. Hilariously, Faith Plus One (a Cop 13er with 2 Faith Healers) is actually scumsided in practice here, dunno why.

Regardless, looking over popular multiball setups, it looks like
- Friends and Enemies and Enemies (2 mafia, 2 werewolves, 3 town masons) is balanced by 50:25:25
- Fire and Ice (2 mafia, 2 werewolves, 1 doctor, extra mechanics) is balanced by 33:33:33.

So we can have the goal of "balance around town getting 3 clears" or "balance around the hope that town can prevent enough NKs to win".

I think Masons and Monks and Paladins looks balanced by 50:25:25, and would be interested in seeing that run (albeit uninterested in playing most likely).
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Post Post #88 (isolation #25) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:47 am

Post by Mathdino »

EV in practice of course, rather than in theory. Singleball theoretical EV can swing from 40% to 60% yet have completely opposite results in practice.

But yes.
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Post Post #90 (isolation #26) » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:39 pm

Post by Mathdino »

Polygamy for All:


Effectively equivalent to 2:5 with one lynch immune scum on D2. D1 is 2:5, D2 is 1:3.

1 - (5/7 * 3/4) = 46.4% town EV. Not bad, but a bit big.

Polygamy For You and Me


6 lynches end the game for scum on D1, and 2/8 lynches end it on D2.

6/16 + 10/16 * 2/8 = 53.1% town EV. Also not bad, also a bit big :P

They're both balanced setups, but yeah your calculations were a bit low.
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Post Post #92 (isolation #27) » Sat Mar 31, 2018 9:02 pm

Post by Mathdino »

On second thought, I actually would argue these setups are scumsided.

The problem with Lovers Mafia and Polygamist is that while they both have 60% town EV on random lynching,
lynches are not random
, and high volume of scum basically guarantees mislynches.

Polygamy for All is roughly okay, although 4 mafia instead of standard 3 is huge.

Polygamy For You and Me though creates 4 mafia on D2 who can quickhammer (and basically can't do anything else).

They're cool ideas in theory, but I don't think either would solve Polygamist's issues in practice.
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Post Post #94 (isolation #28) » Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:10 pm

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Oh boy it's my thread so I can do what I want --

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Post Post #96 (isolation #29) » Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:31 pm

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Okay this I like.

I don't like Vigilante Mason; gut says it's actually optimal for a Werewolf Mason to just shoot their buddy. Could make it super obvious that they're buddies on D1 "accidentally" in order to cover up this play.

Doctor Monk is really interesting, but you're gonna have to deal with the fact that EV-wise (ignoring actual play) it's always optimal for Doc to protect their buddy until all wolves are dead.

But factional rolecop is the best idea I've heard to reduce the swing of whether or not mafia and wolves rand mason/monk.
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Post Post #98 (isolation #30) » Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:24 pm

Post by Mathdino »

I don't think EV really says anything on that considering how many options there are to use either the masonry or the rolecop well. Lots of gambits available if you roll mason with someone as scum in that setup.

The real question then is whether Doc/Vig is too much. Vig claim results in Follow The Vigilante, and both of them are effectively innocent children once claimed.

There's a happy medium between the two, I'm sure.

What if we do Town Angel Monk and Town Doctor Mason? Angel protects against wolf kills, doctor against mafia kills. No vig (adding more swing is probably a bad idea in the current meta :P).

Alternatively, Doctor Monk and Angel Mason. I'm not sure which would be more interesting.
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Post Post #101 (isolation #31) » Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:05 am

Post by Mathdino »

In post 99, BBmolla wrote:Ooh good call.

Meditation

13 Players:

2 Mafia Goons

2 Werewolves

1 Town Angel Monk
1 Town Doctor Mason
7 Vanilla Townies

  • Daystart
  • Two vanilla players who are not Mafia are randomly selected to be Masons.
  • Two vanilla players who are not Werewolves are randomly selected to be Monks.
  • These masonries are allowed to talk together at night.
  • It is possible for a Mafia Goon to be a Monk, and likewise, a Werewolf to be a Mason.
  • Players can not be in multiple masonries.
  • If neither Mafia is a monk, they gain a factional rolecop.
  • If neither Werewolf is a mason, they gain a factional rolecop.


In this way scum have incentive to try to be townie enough to get the town protector to protect them from the other scumteam. With three members in the masonry it discourages just killing the PR because otherwise the other mason will probably out you.
Townsided I think (although I guess that doesn't mean much given low town multiball winrates). There's no disadvantage to just having a mason claim and either have the doc protect them or pretending that the doc is protecting them.

I think having 3 player hoods is probably along the right lines though. Also discourages crosskill which is also nice. Creates some nice WIFOM over whether masons/monks died because scum can PR hunt, because they have a rolecop, or because they're in the hood themselves.

How about:
  • Angel Mason and Doctor Monk (to discourage claiming and just protecting your mason buddies)
  • Give daytalk (to make the setup more interesting and give scum a counter-buff to the 3 player hoods)
  • Doc can't self-target (ofc)
Meditation is a great name for it too :P
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Post Post #102 (isolation #32) » Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:55 am

Post by Mathdino »

@Ghost:
I'm not totally sure I see an issue with the setup tbh. The EV should be exactly equivalent to Double Day Unlimited, assuming town takes the optimal strategy of dueling every day.

I wrote a program that calculates town EV for Double Day assuming town No Lynches when mathematically optimal.

2:7 - 38.6%
2:8 - 42.9%
2:9 - 42.9% (town No Lynches)
2:10 - 47.7%
2:11 - 51.6%

Basically, towns lose this here because towns suck at all-vanilla games. Assuming a skill level causing scum lynches even slightly more than random, this should be balanced.

And town was bad in the game you linked. Lynching the original duelist was so obviously the correct call.
In post 100, AnonymousGhost wrote:
Problems


- Too many kills per cycle (Day + Night Phase i.e. D1 + N1 = 1 cycle): Worst case scenario is that town looses 3 players (duel, lynch, NK), which creates a 2 M v 4 T game. In combination with the duel mechanic and the lynch mechanic, this effectively creates D2 into a LyLo situation. Duel/Lynch the right person or lose the game on D2. Which is basically how Micro 78 ended w/ a scum win.
This is a feature, not a bug. While it's true that 2 D1 mislynches results in 2:4, 2:4 also allows for 2 lynches. One duel, one normal lynch. If town THEN loses, they lost because they managed to mislynch 4 townies in a row, which is incredible leeway and more than basically any other micro setup allows. (lolMStowns tho)
In post 100, AnonymousGhost wrote:
Possible Solutions
- Make the Duel mechanic end the Day Phase after a majority has been reached. It'd effectively turn the Duel into an alternative lynch mechanic. A reason why people might be so duel happy is because a finished duel doesn't end the Day Phase. Getting that immediately flip can produce discussion, but that want for discussion might lead to rash duels and dead townies.

- Replace the Lynch Mechanic with the Duel mechanic. This combos with the first suggestion of the Duel mechanic ending the day phase.
While doing either of these is theoretically fine (as long as you balance EV around a total Mountainous setup which towns will basically always lose), it's generally not fun to have all your power taken away by gladiators. The lynch is a good mechanic for a reason.
In post 100, AnonymousGhost wrote:- If a day phase could host a duel and a lynch - this is ignoring the suggestion that a finished duel ends the day phase -, I'd suggest replacing scum factional NK with a scum vengeance kill.
Interesting. So scum only get a kill upon being lynched? This is basically just Nightless with vengescum.

Here's the program for that.

Your intuition is good. This is 49.5% EV.
In post 100, AnonymousGhost wrote:- Or increase the # of players in the game from a micro to a mini to prevent a D2 LyLo.
As shown above, 2:8 creates this situation.
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