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GAFia Season 5 Review Thread | #totallynecessarygambits

Re crabscale: the problem here imo is that it mixes two separate metrics, maybe even three if you look at it in another way: Amount of PRs and normality (which you could split into unusual game mechanics and unusual PRs although the former almost always will heavily influence the latter). So my proposal is a point rating 0-3 in those categories.

Examples:
Heist 0-0-0
Princess 2-0-1
Danganrompa 1-3-2
 

Kawl_USC

Member
Discord seems to be a pretty good place to have separate spec threads

Maybe the one linked one on OG and separate ones in discord? Limits clutter on OG lets people be spoiled or not to their content and allows slow long term discussion and live reactions.

I think discord and OG serve pretty different purposes and that both are good for this community. I know I've had a great time chatting and speaking with people the past few days in there.

But I do agree we should shy away from too much official proceedings (or like any) being held there.

Edit: will post thoughts on the questions sometime later.
 

cabot

Member
Number of player slots for the game: 22
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Palmer, CzarTim, Kawl, YNNNY, Burbeting
Theme: Bar MAFIA
Game Category: 6-7

Kawl would be looking to co-mod with myself if we get this off the ground.
 

Gorlak

Banned
1. pair mechanic
It was great <3 Very interesting and a nice way to spicen up the ordinary town role. I'm especially hoping for a lover game with alignment independent pairs (scum/town, town/neutral, etc.) and unknown pairs. One has to see how this would be balanced, but there are multiple possibilities for much more fun.

3. balance
love boat balance was great, but in general scum should be strengthened. 9 main games played and only 1 scum win is not enough. We can argue about bad scum play, but a town win by default should not be expected.

4. metagaming
It was okay. Integrating the crab scale in the love discussion was something I didn't want to do, but once I saw the contradiction I had to (and I wasn't convinced by it). Can we please kill the crab scale? Just give players a quick reference point like "Is this game: sane/weird/crazy" and that's it. Keep the classification simple and we have less meta things to argue about.

5. day 1
Shorten it. 24 hours are enough. If I had run a midseason game that would've been the way. Day 1 is nonsense and unnecessary, no need to drag it out.

6. activity
While Love Boat was the most active game at times I couldn't have enough. In general the level of activity was fine. Nobody spammed a thread with trivial or unrelated statements (except for Splibot's lover chat maybe, but that was their own place :p). Too much activity wasn't a problem. At times I'd wish for low activity posters to contribute some more... Maybe posting once a day phase isn't enough of a sign to be involved? Every 24 hours? At least having an active vote?

7. 30 players
Sadly that are way too much players, I decided, for myself, to not take part in huge games anymore. It's even more time-consuming, easy to overlook stuff, easy to coast along, all in all it's just exhausting. I know I had the time for Love Boat, but I don't want to dedicated that much time to it.
 
3. balance
love boat balance was great, but in general scum should be strengthened. 9 main games played and only 1 scum win is not enough. We can argue about bad scum play, but a town win by default should not be expected.

12 main games, 1 scum victory from Star Wars (that is 8% win rate for scum, mind ;____; ... as in, it doesnt even crack 1 in 10 chance...)

2 solo neutral victories (DR and PW) ... 16.7% win rate for neutrals

and the rest goes to town at a whopping 75% win rate (When Death is on the Line, Animal Crossing, Cthulhu, Archer, Nightvale, Werewolf Reborn, Harry Potter, Disney Princess, Love Boat)

The statistics look different if we include mid-season games, but they are a different beast. Most of them aren't tweaked for 'balance' (yes i put quotation marks there cuz I'm being a bit commentary on how the games that are tweaked for balance actually resulted in 8% scum winrate :x)... and most mid-season games are more experimental and fast-tracked, and yet, scums win easier in mid-seasons.

6 scum wins in mid-season from 8 games, which is .. funnily, opposite the main season's trend, putting scum winrate at... 75% (NX, Election, Heist, FF, MGS, Avalon)
 

*Splinter

Member
I don't understand splitting main season and mid season games, there really isn't any difference between them. What's the combined win rate? Remember we are working with very small sample sizes here
 

cabot

Member
6 scum wins in mid-season from 8 games, which is .. funnily, opposite the main season's trend, putting scum winrate at... 75% (NX, Election, Heist, FF, MGS, Avalon)

Could it be related to a lot of the more active players playing in midseason, whereas more new and less frequent players play main games?
 
I don't understand splitting main season and mid season games, there really isn't any difference between them. What's the combined win rate? Remember we are working with very small sample sizes here

primary difference is that main games are vetted

mid-season games are also smaller and generally runs faster and have less new comers since there is no special recruitment threads unveiled for them

i can combine the statistics, for sure, but there is a general feeling that some people take main season games with a different mind-set (more serious) and mid-season games are more 'fun and crazy'

basically, i split the statistics to comment about how vetted, bigger games in our community are not producing the results that vetted, bigger games should
 

*Splinter

Member
primary difference is that main games are vetted

mid-season games are also smaller and generally runs faster and have less new comers since there is no special recruitment threads unveiled for them

i can combine the statistics, for sure, but there is a general feeling that some people take main season games with a different mind-set (more serious) and mid-season games are more 'fun and crazy'

basically, i split the statistics to comment about how vetted, bigger games in our community are not producing the results that vetted, bigger games should
That last line is a fair point, however I think with so few games played we can't conclusively say that scum are disadvantaged. There have been very few games where scum were screwed by balance (HP) or mechanics (VI, maybe DR).
 

RetroMG

Member
1. What did you all think of the pair mechanic?

I thought it was fantastic, and I would love to see it return. Not regularly, but on the same rotation as the Gafia Allstar games - Every couple of seasons, as a special event.

2. We've had this discussion across a bunch of different chats/forums, but there was some concern over the Blackmailing mechanic and the 1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer in AA. Is there a balance concern?

The mods know my feeling on this. I think for that game, it was imbalanced, and I think it has forever altered the Gafia meta, because from now on, no claim can really be TOO insane to take seriously.

3. In general, how do you think the games were balanced? Town won all 2/3 games, and the lone neutral won AA, but was it a balance issue or a gameplay issue? Does scum need a buff in future games?

I think scum needs a buff in future games, but I'm probably the wrong person to ask.

4. Metagaming. On one hand, it's unavoidable. If someone in a previous game is acting differently, it's possible that it means that something is up. However, there's a point where people are really, really reaching for things. I get that sometimes you don't have the concrete information you're looking for, but how far is too far?

Metagaming based on things like Role PM text, flavor (I'm thinking of the Night Vale "titles") post counts/times - These all suck, and should be modkill-worthy. That's not mafia, and you're all better than that.

5. Day 1. What does everyone think of shortening D1 by a bit? We're all floundering - maybe it's good to get that day out of the way a bit faster. However, I personally think D1 reads have merit, but I think shortening it a bit might be a good idea.

Yes please. Day 1 sucks.

6. Activity levels. Disney Princess suffered from this. It's tough because real life does interfere from time to time, and the games do require a certain level of commitment. I'm not saying everyone needs to emulate Sorian please don't, but it's a bit disheartening to show up the next real-life day and see that not much discussion had happened.

I agree that it's a problem, but I have no meaningful suggestions on how to change it.

7. Love Boat's size was 30 players. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it was only 15 players, but you had to go through 30 players' worth of posts. Too big?

Perhaps a little, yes. We all thought LB would be the first game to end, because at it's heart it's really only a fifteen player game. Imagine our surprise when PW and Princess finished first. This also goes back to my idea of making couples games a "special event" kind of game, like Gafia.
 

RetroMG

Member
I also want to plug Discord, the neat chat community that Fireblend set up for us. If you've ever hung out in Steam chat with a bunch of Gafia members, you know what a blast that is. This is like that, but the party keeps going.

Voice chat is not required - You can turn off voice and just type. (Most people do this, most of the time.) We've run a couple of "Live" mafia games in there, and they have been a blast.

https://discord.gg/0twF7FTfMNAo0hLc

Click this link, (Will be good for approximately 24 hours from this post,) and it should walk you through creating an account and send you right into chat.
 

Karkador

Banned
From what I've seen (and I haven't looked at every game), scum is often dealt an uneven or swingy set of roles and situations to deal with.

Mafia should ideally start the game with the upper hand and control of the game. They're playing a defensive position on a hill. Sometimes they don't get the tools they need to do this; or they have to collide with the game mechanics (something that's not really in their control), or they get one amazing power that makes their entire game collapse when they die.

I guess the anti-mafia bias is a result of wanting to please the crowd - Town winning means more winning players in general. But it gets a little boring, too, doesn't it?
 

Palmer_v1

Member
From what I've seen (and I haven't looked at every game), scum is often dealt an uneven or swingy set of roles and situations to deal with.

Mafia should ideally start the game with the upper hand and control of the game. They're playing a defensive position on a hill. Sometimes they don't get the tools they need to do this; or they have to collide with the game mechanics (something that's not really in their control), or they get one amazing power that makes their entire game collapse when they die.

I guess the anti-mafia bias is a result of wanting to please the crowd - Town winning means more winning players in general. But it gets a little boring, too, doesn't it?

Game should still be fun as Town even if you lose, as long as it's somewhat close. Nobody enjoys a landslide though.
 

*Splinter

Member
I guess the anti-mafia bias is a result of wanting to please the crowd - Town winning means more winning players in general. But it gets a little boring, too, doesn't it?
But this implies games have been intentionally balanced in towns favour. That's never been the case, and in fact Yeeny balanced slightly in scum's favour and they were steamrolled.

I don't think we should be skewing things more and more in scum's favour just to inflate their win rate. Strive for balance and learn from actual mistakes made.
 

Karkador

Banned
I'm not saying "skew in mafia's favor", exactly . It's that I think game runners have been putting in weird obstacles to mafia's success (myself included), as if they need nerfing by virtue of being mafia
 

Sorian

Banned
But this implies games have been intentionally balanced in towns favour. That's never been the case, and in fact Yeeny balanced slightly in scum's favour and they were steamrolled.

I don't think we should be skewing things more and more in scum's favour just to inflate their win rate. Strive for balance and learn from actual mistakes made.

This is my thought. I don't want to play in a game where the mod intentionally tried to buff Mafia more to make the game easier on them. By its nature, being Mafia is harder than playing town, a single Mafia player is just worth more than a single town player so a shitty town player can get carried, a shitty Mafia player can destroy the game for their team.
 
I think the issue with correctly balancing the Mafia is primarily the players that end up rolling Mafia in any given game.
Some players are better than others (speaking from experience), and might be able to use certain Mafia powers better than others.
Also, sometimes, Mafia just has plain bad luck.
Look at PW as a great example of that.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
I'll just say this. I don't think the games this season were unbalanced. Maybe some minor things here and there, but nothing game-breaking. A lot of it came down to luck and (inadvertent) poor play.

I just wanted to pose the question to see where others' thoughts lie.
 
But this implies games have been intentionally balanced in towns favour. That's never been the case, and in fact Yeeny balanced slightly in scum's favour and they were steamrolled.

I don't think we should be skewing things more and more in scum's favour just to inflate their win rate. Strive for balance and learn from actual mistakes made.

I dont think any of the games have been balanced in any side's favour strongly. I think Princess was slightly skewed in Mafia's favour but town still had a lot of powers. I agree with you and Sora, the community should never buff Mafia because of this statistics of current winrate performance. I featured it because I think the community needs to know its markers and maybe, knowing how Mafia has not been winning as much as it should, the future Mafia players can strive with more zeal to crack that elusive scum victory throne :>

As I said in the mod chat, games die and live in the hands of its players.
 

El Topo

Member
I think Love Boat as a vanilla game was reasonably balanced. Mafia could have won that one. Frankly, with so few games I think it is way too early to demand that we balanced things in favour of mafia.
We should not forget that luck plays an enormous role. I will say though that mafia is maybe harmed more by inactivity than town.
 
1: I love pair games, the two times I have handedly one were when I was in a pair (Sicily with El Topo and Boating with karkador). I will apply to any and all pair games in the future.

2: honestly? I didn't pay attention to DP or AA, I didn't even see they ended until logging in to OG from a computer (as opposed to mobile)

3: again, I can only speak to how love Boat was balanced. We won, and in my eyes it came down to a coin flip at the end (and it would have been an entirely different game if Hydro Cannon had not occurred). Scum had a great chance to win this one. Town was in the dark for most of the game and we had to dig deep to win (yes I have read the pages of salt hoping scum would win our game)

4: Metagaming on past play... Well it can work, but great players change their posting habits every game regardless. Metagaming by crab scale and being active? The being active talk with Kark was mainly so that we could estimate when we would get responses to our gambits.

5: yes shorten day 1 to 24 hours, unless it is a night start game then 48 hours. Nights should be no less than 24 hours.

6: low activity with 20+ players not a bad deal, going 12 hours without a post with only 8 players? Excruciating... Life happens, but that doesn't make it easier.

7: Large games are hard to keep track of while playing but great to watch (I loved watching volcano island and Harry Potter for instance). Couple games by design need to have huge casts, but I hope the next game I am in has less players.

8: I know there were only 7 questions, but I wanted to add that playing with Kark was a great experience, I felt that we had just enough information to be "in the know" and missing just enough that we had to really scum hunt. And Kark is great at scum hunting.
 

*Splinter

Member
For Day 1, I think 48 hours would be better than 24. It can take 24 just from everyone to realise the game started and make a first post
 
Number of player slots for the game: 24 (Subject to change)
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Nobody
Theme: Anime
Game Category: 6-7 (Probably)

Been trying to put this together for the last couple of days. It's probably going to be really unbalanced/flawed but I'd like to see if I can get it in a decent enough state to try running my first game!
 
Number of player slots for the game: 24 (Subject to change)
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Nobody
Theme: Anime
Game Category: 6-7 (Probably)

Been trying to put this together for the last couple of days. It's probably going to be really unbalanced/flawed but I'd like to see if I can get it in a decent enough state to try running my first game!

Do you need a planning board set up for this on Outer Gafia Matt? or a Co-Moderator ?
 
Do you need a planning board set up for this on Outer Gafia Matt? or a Co-Moderator ?

It's getting very close to the point where I'd like to start sharing it and getting some thoughts so a board sounds like a good idea. I'm not opposed to having a co-mod either if somebody wants to give it a go.
 

roytheone

Member
1. Didn't play in it of course, but it did look like a lot of fun! Having a partner to bounce ideas off seems like a great idea, and it gives everyone something to do during the night phases.

2. I think the blackmailing was fine, even though I would have made Matt attack bulletproof to prevent towns main counter to it dying soon if we got unluckily. The main problem i had with the Xam thing was there being a role that basically confirmed there being another cop. It made it a bit to easy for Xam to become confirmed town.

3. I think all three games were well balanced. There were some small issues, but nothing major. Scum tend to lose a lot in this community, but I think a big part of that is that playing scum is simply harder then playing town. Making a mistake as town is bad, but making a mistake as scum is 10x worse. I don't think scum needs a general buff, but I will say that maybe the PR power of scum should be divided a bit better over all the team members, instead of them having one player that is very powerful and basically a semi-king.

4. I am fine with people talking about difference in behavior from game to game. That is still trying to read people and playing mafia. However, when things like role PM text and the Crab scale are being brought up, that is crossing a line. People shouldn't do that.

5. This is a hard one, since some people hate day 1 and think it is a waste, while others see the merit in it and want to use it for reads later. I don't necessarily like day 1, but I do think it has it uses from time to time, so I don't know if I am in favor of shorting it.

6. Low activity sucks, but some people just don't have a lot of time to play. That is generally OK, however it is often a valid tactic for scum to kill high activity players and basically kill the games activity level. That sucks for the town players and spectators, but we can't prevent scum from trying that.

7. I was not in the game, so can't really comment on this, I only know the extreme level of activity in NX sucked and made that game not very fun :(
 
It's getting very close to the point where I'd like to start sharing it and getting some thoughts so a board sounds like a good idea. I'm not opposed to having a co-mod either if somebody wants to give it a go.

I made you a private board on Outer Gafia, Matta~ you can post your design there and I'll have a look at it and give you feedback later? :)
 

*Splinter

Member
Regarding the crab scale: I think we're overstating how much this was brought up. Gorlak mentioned it but I don't remember error anyone being swayed by it, I highly doubt it changed the outcome of that day.

Still, a slightly vague-er scale wouldn't hurt I guess. I also liked the idea of separating role rating and mechanic rating. It makes more sense than the current scale I think
 

Kyanrute

Member
1. I wonder if pairs were more beneficial to town than scum. Pairs gave everyone a another trustworthy person to discuss things with, what is normally a boon of the scum. I feel there was great variance in how people used the mechanic, as evidenced by the split votes some pairs made. Because of this, I feel it is hard to tell the maximum potential of the pair mechanic for town. An obvious experiment for the future would be making a game with one mixed pair, should one wish to introduce doubt and weaken the mechanic somewhat.

2. I was in a boat, not in a courtroom.

3. Boat scum misplayed. In the end the neutral ended up being way more beneficial to town than to scum, but that is neutrals for you, swingy. The solution would be either to make neutral roles boring as fuck or not have them in the game at all. Both options are stupid in my opinion. My feeling is that scum are weaker to misplays than town in general and this leads to the win%-difference. Should the scum be buffed because of this? If you want to make them win more, sure. If you feel that the factions should be imbalanced by nature, do nothing.

4. Comparing peoples behaviors between games seems fine, but the conclusions drawn from this seem useless to me. All that the comparisons are good for is putting a wee bit of pressure on the person. So what if someone behaves differently? It could be a scum tell. Perhaps it is not. Perhaps it is a conscious choice they made in order to improve their town play. Perhaps they are breadcrumbing their role. Perhaps they are busy in real life. Perhaps they were busy in real life before. It could be and mean fucking anything. Shit seems pointless to me.

5. Fuck day one. Shorten it. 48h sounds good to me, 24h would be too strict and some unfortunate thing could very well prevent a person or two from posting during the day completely.

6. I was a slow poster myself, more thanks to the way I am than thanks to my role. I feel there both sides must give some leeway to each other. Yet, posting million things during a hour is not good imo nor is the opposite. I am not sure if there is anything that could be enforced here, other than please post x times during phases and have lower than x posts per minute.

7. Somewhat too big imo.
 

Flame_AC

Member
1. The pair mechanic is better than normal mafia, it's so much fun to be able to talk to someone during the night and bounce ideas around.

2. I think balance was fine, LB scum had a great chance at winning.

3. I only paid attention to Love Boat, but that neutral was a cop in the end. Not sure how you could have changed it though, the game itself was balanced and we as scum had an excellent chance at pulling off a win.

4. The Crab scale played a large part in the demise of Blawl, which really stopped a lot of momentum we could have made. Maybe I'm biased, but that line of reasoning has no place in these games.

5. This may be a surprise, but Day 1 is my favorite day of the game, there's such a wild feeling to it when no one knows anything and everyone is grasping at straws. I think it's great as is.

6. Activity was generally fine in LB, no real way to force activity. Maybe have a night action tied to the number of posts someone makes?

7. The size in Love Boat wasn't a problem, it was fun having so many different opinions, if everyone posted a lot, it'd be a problem, but that's not the case.

Someone throw me a Discord link, I don't have one.

If I was to ever run a game, it would be a pair game for sure.
 

Gorlak

Banned
3. I only paid attention to Love Boat, but that neutral was a cop in the end. Not sure how you could have changed it though, the game itself was balanced and we as scum had an excellent chance at pulling off a win.

4. The Crab scale played a large part in the demise of Blawl, which really stopped a lot of momentum we could have made. Maybe I'm biased, but that line of reasoning has no place in these games.

I disagree with both points.

3. The players interpreted it as a way to confirm non-scum, which was based on nothingness. If batsmag had hit scum you could've claimed it and be confirmed. It just didn't play out this way.

4. It didn't convince anyone. As I said before here and in the lover chat I felt uncomfortable to bring it up and I would gladly ditch the scale for future games, but Burb kept it vague enough to suggest a miller would be within his interpretation of a 5. The big swing to cabinter even came after mentioning the scale and the reason Blawl were lynched was the simple contradiction with Karkhead.
 

Sophia

Member
The neutral was only a cop because Bats and Mags hit town every time. Had they hit scum, it would have played out very differently because scum would have been alerted and gained a whole lot of info. Either the scenario Gorlak posted would have played out, where scum could fake confirmed townie and nobody would have doubted it, or the scum could have started a lynch train on Bats and Magnum.

I don't feel the role was too imbalanced myself, although I feel the game hung largely upon the success or failure of the neutral. Bats and Mags got very lucky because one scum team got counter-claimed giving them better odds, and they played extremely well because of how they flew under suspicion.
 

Terrabyte20xx

Junior Wrestlemania XXX Champion
Can't believe I missed this. I think everyone else has kinda stated my thoughts already. On meta-gaming I will say that it's just something we're going to have to deal with. I think we should stress that it's not the be all end all, but this is a community, and when people recognize eachother, they're going to want to compare how they play.


On a different note, do I need to resubmit my game?
 
Number of player slots for the game: 24ish
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: None currently
Theme: Death
Game Category: 8-10

This game was based on an idea I had started to think about a couple years back. But at the time I got stuck on making the mechanics work, so I put it on pause. Picking up mafia again here has inspired me to take another stab at this game, and I think I am close to something that could work well. Getting feedback from some veterans would be greatly helpful. I hope the high scale rating isn't off-putting.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Number of player slots for the game: 20-24
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Palmer_v1, RetroMG, maybe others, I forget.
Theme: Ouro's Bastard Bomb Game
Game Category: 7/9
 

RetroMG

Member
As you submit new games, could you mention if they are intended for the main season for a mid-season game, please?

Thanks.
 
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