The Salt Factory - Mafia Metagame Discussion Thread

[#HBC | Gorf]

well yea, if thats what makes you click, in the end its all about fun man. but like, all it takes is more experience and growth. youre still fairly new. i wouldnt even consider myself seasoned and ive been playing, like, for a while lol. just dont sweat it. youll learn to understand it more. but dont join games if youre busy, that doesnt help anyone lol.

edit: it still shows me with ghebs avy dafuq

 

[Ashemu]

a mafia game with real $$$ involved sounds like it'd be fun but i'd be concerned that people would be even crabbier than they can usually be in these games since real dosh is on the line

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

@ #HBC | ZoZo pls hydra with me

make it rain

location: the dosh kingdom

pls

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

when money is on the line we can't be denied

make it rain 2015

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

I'm down for you two to bail again. More money for me.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

yeh ngl id bail i literally just complained in the social that i had too much **** to do before id put something else on my plate

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

And, be honest, you do too, Alex.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

i bail sporadically and with meaning. i couldn't be an artist otherwise

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

real talk

i disappear when i lose any enjoyment i have in a game or if real life decides to broadside me like a ************. given that this game is legitimately a money match with you and a bunch of other players i'd love to beat, i wouldn't ditch.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Until real life stops you like every other time you've tried recently. >:[

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

I just played a mini you basic baka now hydra with me >:r

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

You lasted like two phases then, you want an award?

 

[Gova]

Yes, I do want an award.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

**** dood I got night killed in a mini, what do you want from me? I survived longer as a doc than you

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Im just throwing this one out there. Taking a stance is important, but when commenting on a slot there will always be more sides to the whole. That's not fencesitting, that's honest analysis. Don't condemn people for it.

 

[Missing Person]

a mafia game with real $$$ involved sounds like it'd be fun but i'd be concerned that people would be even crabbier than they can usually be in these games since real dosh is on the line

Oh LAWD.

Money on mafia games would require some people not to flake out on games if they were financially invested in them. However, like you said, the salt would probably be way too much to take post-game. I prefer the more casual post-game (aside from when I lose because people never listen to me on wallflowers).

Now side-bets on mafia games (Like "$5 says we're same alignment/$5 last-longer")? I'd probably do that if I had more disposable income.

But then I'm a degenerate.

 

[#HBC | Dancer]

Bumping this because of thought I've had.

Do you guys think it's possible that Days on Dgames simply last too long? I'm not proposing that we make our Days 2-3 days in length like some other sites do, but maybe something like 5 days would be better? I can think of several reasons this would be better:

• Long games discourage players from signing up. I was looking at the Dgames archive and realized that a lot of the games went on for a ridiculous amount of time. I didn't run any numbers but it seemed like a lot of games went on for about a month and a half. Who wants to make such a huge time commitment to an internet forum activity? I also feel like we've lost a lot of new players just because they didn't really realize the scope of what they were getting into.
  
• Long games can be exhausting. Exactly what it says on the tin. I can't be the only one who has noticed that some game taper out. This might jut be because some games jut tend to be "less fun" the longer they go on.
• Long games are somewhat unfair to anti-town fractions. Part of being anti-town means faking contributions (usually). The longer a game goes, the more scum has to fake, and the harder it becomes for them to remain consistent. It creates a situation where town can just "out produce" scum and find them through a process of activity hunting/PoE. One's "towniness" a lot of time comes out naturally overtime, where faking that towniness while still playing to your scum win condition can be difficult to do since it's manufactured.
  
• Shorter games would not decrease overall content by all that much. Something I've noticed is that a lot of a game's content distribution lays at the beginning of the game. A lot of Day one's are swollen with content wrt later Days. Furthermore, wrt the content of Days themselves, a lot of that seem to la at the beginning and endings of Days, with the middle being more inactive.
• Long games create a daunting situation for replacements. Furthermore, the longer a game goes, the more likely real life **** will come up that will create a replacement situation.
• Finally, shorter games simply means more games! (in theory)

I'm not saying this will fix Dgames. Even if this change was implemented I don't think our activity level will rise, and I know that regardless I certainly won't be coming back. Still though, it's a thought of mine that I thought was worth sharing.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Day phases never last longer than 7 IRL days in my games. I don't think it'd be a problem if I started to cut it down to 5 Days.

In a way it'd probably help town, I think because it makes people more inclined to just remove the inactive slots asap. Town has the tendency to stray from that golden rule in longer Day phases because dumb **** always happens last minute for some reason and town goes full ****** mode when they could [and often should] just play it safe.

 

[#HBC | J]

5 days is around the norm of how other places play. I am definitely for encouraging shorter day phases.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Do you guys think it's possible that Days on Dgames simply last too long? I'm not proposing that we make our Days 2-3 days in length like some other sites do, but maybe something like 5 days would be better? I can think of several reasons this would be better:

Personally I feel that making the deadlines 5 days would just make inactive slots way more of a problem. Someone takes a V/LA for three days at any point during the Day and they may as well not be there.

I think that 7-8 days is a good length. I agree that longer days help town and vice versa. I also wanted to say that being in a different timezone can seriously affect how much you get out of a Day because there is no-one around to actually interact with.

Uhh but in general I would say just try it? I do feel that it might take away from the analyzing/isolating/investigating aspect of mafia that I enjoy and can lead to a more 'lynch and hope' attitude but yeah just try it.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Like basically I am just sharing my thoughts on the matter but I am open to trying it.

I just have some reservations particularly for instance I think you would need to replace people VERY promptly otherwise you would just have completely dead slots, which obviously weighs the game down.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Personally I feel that making the deadlines 5 days would just make inactive slots way more of a problem.

Inactive slots are always a problem. The only thing that cutting Day phases down to 5 days would actually do is making townies more inclined to lynch inactive slots asap which is a GOOD thing.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Inactive slots are always a problem. The only thing that cutting Day phases down to 5 days would actually do is making townies more inclined to lynch inactive slots asap which is a GOOD thing.

Nah, I disagree. As town you can't afford to spend your lynches just getting rid of inactive slots, it doesn't really help your win condition. Yeah, maybe they would be less likely to be inactive next time, but I think that's something that should be solved on the mod's end, not that player's end.

I think we could be a lot tougher on activity if we wanted to. I don't know, though. We all have lives of some description. Trying not to spill into a rant here xD

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Nah, I disagree. As town you can't afford to spend your lynches just getting rid of inactive slots

On the contrary. Lynching inactive slots asap is the only way to adequately deal with it. Everything else is fake compromise that will come back to haunt you.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

I've been hosting 5 day phases on this site for over 4 years. Suffice it to say, I prefer 5 day phases.

 

[Maven89]

I'm going to be hosting a game semi-soon (full size) and will need someone willing to look the setup over for me!

The setup isn't ready yet but will semi-soon.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I'll help you with it. Just shoot me a PM or Skype me.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Aight, I have a growing concern about things going on around here, so i'm making a fuss about it because I can and because it's important? to the state of play in dgames going forward.

Objection!

Randomness in mafia games is bad. Would you play a game to Lylo only to have the outcome decided by a coin flip? Would you want to have a night action that might randomly fail? Particularly in lengthy games as seen as this forum I am strongly of the opinion that randomness is a bad thing.

So I want to stamp it out. Case in point:

Reply to the PM to confirm your role, and as an added bonus the FIRST PERSON to confirm gets to be D1's King!

Whoever happens to be online at the same time as the moderator isn't actually random- but the alignment and skill of whoever it happens to be biased towards, is. So the end result is the same.

As far as I know, it is typical for a kingmaker setup to have a night 0 where the kingmaker picks a player to be King. How is this any different, I hear you ask, given it is Night zero? Well- would you want your most active or least active player to be King? Do you want to pick someone you are more able to read, or less? More importantly, is having the kingmaker pick somebody more random, or less random? I have an opinion on this.

Case in point deuxieme:

FANDANGO HAS DIED FROM POISON. Fandango was Orboknown, Town Patriotic Watcher. Since the player that was responsible for his death died, the items in his inventory were randomly distributed using RNG.

Yeah.

I haven't actually checked with Bardull, but as far as I am aware, this random distribution of items during the game actually resulted in the independent role receiving a significant upgrade from survivor to serial killer. That's a pretty huge swing in the game right there.

How could this have been avoided? By provision of some backup- by defaulting to the last person to vote for that player, for instance. Or the next player in the playerlist. Or to a specific role which was designed to acquire otherwise missing items. Any of these options are surely more deterministic and less random than literally rolling a die and going 'welp I guess an extra townie is dying now'.

-- end questionable public service announcement --

 

[BarDulL]

The independent stole the item from Fandango before Fandango died.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

The independent stole the item from Fandango before Fandango died.

Fair. But as I understand it, they could also have randomly got the item they needed, right? me no gusta.

{ That feel when Orbo roleblocks me & steals from Nich & kills fand in the same night 0_0 }

 

[Orboknown]

Hey man I'm just that good i can geg away with all that and committing suicide /self murder

 

[BarDulL]

Fair. But as I understand it, they could also have randomly got the item they needed, right? me no gusta.

{ That feel when Orbo roleblocks me & steals from Nich & kills fand in the same night 0_0 }

The Walrus could never be distributed to the Indy through RNG. That would be silly.

Walrus aside, two things I could have done included giving items to the person responsible for hammering the player who poisoned player A, or giving the items to a player that was on the same faction as the player who was responsible for killing another player. Among other things.

Lets say Kantrip was hammered by Nich. Nich receives Kantrip's items. Then Nich receives Fandango's items when he wasn't responsible for Fandango's death. I think it's lame to 'reward' a player when they had nothing to do with it, personally. They essentially end up getting lucky based on things that were out of their control. Defaulting to the player that last voted a player responsible for killing another player is also just plain arbitrary. It makes sense to want consistency, but rewarding a player that could not have known Fandango was going to die is pretty silly.

I could have just given it to the faction responsible for Fandango's death. I didn't think that was fair though since Town successfully lynched the player responsible for Fandango's death, and it doesn't make sense to compensate scum for their team mate's death if they would have otherwise lost the items Fandango had given Kantrip if Kantrip had been lynched a Day later.

I generally agree that randomness is counter intuitive in just about any competitive setting. However, in this case, it only occurred under rare circumstances, and even then, the items were predominantly smoke and mirrors; most of them did nothing unless they were in the hands of a player that could actually use them (items that were role specific would not be given to players that could use them through RNG). As for the gun/bullet, I made it so that the gun/bullet could also not be distributed to the same player via RNG.

The only item that could ostensibly be hurtful towards the set up that could also be theoretically distributed via RNG was the cellphone that could call the other cellphone, but a neighborhood is pretty harmless IMHO.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

The Walrus could never be distributed to the Indy through RNG. That would be silly.

From my perspective in the game, I had know way of knowing this and actually thought the opposite.

At any rate, I'm not trying to debate the merits of your setup, the reason I brought it up was because it seemed to contain significant random elements. If it actually didn't, then maybe I am making a strawman of your setup.

But I think that my point still stands in terms of random = bad. Which is why I am on this train and want to warn against it.

 

[RadicalRat]

Aight, I have a growing concern about things going on around here, so i'm making a fuss about it because I can and because it's important? to the state of play in dgames going forward.

Objection!

Randomness in mafia games is bad. Would you play a game to Lylo only to have the outcome decided by a coin flip? Would you want to have a night action that might randomly fail? Particularly in lengthy games as seen as this forum I am strongly of the opinion that randomness is a bad thing.

So I want to stamp it out. Case in point:



Whoever happens to be online at the same time as the moderator isn't actually random- but the alignment and skill of whoever it happens to be biased towards, is. So the end result is the same.

As far as I know, it is typical for a kingmaker setup to have a night 0 where the kingmaker picks a player to be King. How is this any different, I hear you ask, given it is Night zero? Well- would you want your most active or least active player to be King? Do you want to pick someone you are more able to read, or less? More importantly, is having the kingmaker pick somebody more random, or less random? I have an opinion on this.

Case in point deuxieme:



Yeah.

I haven't actually checked with Bardull, but as far as I am aware, this random distribution of items during the game actually resulted in the independent role receiving a significant upgrade from survivor to serial killer. That's a pretty huge swing in the game right there.

How could this have been avoided? By provision of some backup- by defaulting to the last person to vote for that player, for instance. Or the next player in the playerlist. Or to a specific role which was designed to acquire otherwise missing items. Any of these options are surely more deterministic and less random than literally rolling a die and going 'welp I guess an extra townie is dying now'.

-- end questionable public service announcement --

Does this include "Not sending in a night action will apply to a random player"???

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Does this include "Not sending in a night action will apply to a random player"???

Ask ~ Gheb ~ and #HBC | Ryker

The short answer is that players not sending in Night actions is, in my opinion, a fail state in the game in the same vein as a player not posting during the Day. There is no good answer to the problem.

In general I consider that not using an action is a suitable punishment for not being active. How accurate this is will depend on the setup, however.

I could say more but I can't right now.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Randomizing Night Actions that people failed to send in is honestly just a half-assed compromise. I hate doing it but interpreting it as no Actions being sent in has proven to be worse time and time again. I generally agree with Kary's opinion of RNG having no place in mafia games outside of assigning role PMs but in this case I'm really not sure what else to do.

Honestly, failure to send in an NK is such an amazingly dumb thing to happen that I legit consider a change of rules that just gives mafia the insta-loss in that case.

 

[Maven89]

Could just insta-kill a mafia member

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Gheb's right. It has to be a random action in any game where there is even the possibility of a compulsive action. Personally, I am of the opinion that the mafia NK should be compulsive in every game, so Night Actions have to be randomized on a fail or your system is gameable. People can fake claim that there action is compulsive and that they simply failed to send in an action, which is claiming based on outside the game factors, which is super gay. However, the inverse is worse. When a role you intended to be compulsive is able to actively show that it isn't compulsive by not sending in an action, you have lied to your players.

Gheb is correct about the fail state analogy and I agree with his post as well.

 

[RadicalRat]

Why should an action be compulsory though? It seems to me that unnecessarily limits scum strategies.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Any action can be compulsive for the benefit of the game.

For example, there is a role meant to weaken tracker that chooses a player to visit each night that does nothing. It just can be tracked visiting places. It's a lighter version of Grave digger. It loses its entire purpose if it isn't compulsive.

In less obvious places, there are times when your game is balanced around a Serial Killer and a Mafia and town gains a large advantage over Mafia if the SK isn't killing. It isn't fair to mafia if the SK decides he's just going to pass, so you make him compulsive for a better game.

There are all sorts of different roles that may only see niche use that you make compulsive simply because the game is more interesting that way. A townie that voteblocks or hands out double votes or a role blocker for example. There are scenarios where your game benefits from having more going on simply because it becomes more interesting that way.

As for the mafia NK, you have to limit certain strategies. It establishes the rules that the game is played by. You don't allow players to attempt to prove alignment via meta data because that's not fun. It limits their strategies for the enjoyment of all players involved. The mafia NK does much the same. It means that players know something has happened when there is not a kill. It gives them that confirmation and let's them go look for something which is a lot of fun for a lot of people.

However, even if you don't subscribe to that, a compulsive mafia NK is the number 1 easiest way to avoid a never ending game in a world where both factions are playing optimally.

Let's say we're in MYLO and town is going to nail mafia via night actions if the last mafiat attempts a kill. Best action is to No Kill, right? Well, Town's best response is to No Lynch forever. Why not make Town lynch? At its core, Town wants to save as many lives as possible, and mafia wants a total takeover. Mafia is the one that has to act here. Town should be perfectly content to pick up and call the game over since no one is dying.

If you don't have a rule in place, that scenario comes down to arbitrary decision by the mod. Arbitrary mod decision mid game is indefensible. Gross.