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[RetroMG]

First of all, we would like to begin by paying homage to our fallen comrade, the mighty Crab, who was banned from NeoGAF just prior to this thread being created.

See you next week, buddy.

We don't have a ton of stuff to go over for this season, but we do have a few points that need to be addressed, and we want to leave some space for players to discuss the S7 games before S8 begins.

Danganronpa 3: Metagaming and Linking Previous Games
The discussion of metagaming arose during Danganronpa 3. In this instance, the Season 7 Mod Conclave* has come to a decision. Metagaming is unavoidable to an extent. People will always use past behaviors to justify future decisions, because that is what people do. However, going forward, directly quoting a player, (including yourself) from a previous game (or any other post in NeoGAF, Outer Gafia, or Discord) will not be permitted. You may paraphrase things in your own words, but you may not directly quote. If it helps, think of this as being similar to the Role PM rule.

Minimum Post Count
Discussion has arisen about implementing a minimum post count to ensure player activity. (Above and beyond the "one post per day phase" rule.) What are your thoughts on this?

Personality Conflicts
We have all sorts of players here in Gafia. We have serious scumhunters, malicious mafia, and then there are the jesters. (No, not that kind of Jester.) People who play roles, or are deliberately ridiculous as their way of enjoying the game. We do not want to discourage these people from playing the game in a way that they enjoy, but we also want everyone to remember that Mafia is, at it's core, a team game, and some players may be putting their own shenanigans above the well being of their team.
How can this balance be struck?

The Length of Seasons and Number of Games in Midseason
From Crab, via Ynnny

Please also feel free to bring up anything else from Season 7 that you feel needs reviewing.

Spoiler

*Props to Ouro for the name.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

CRAB o7

in honour of crab, i knew he was wanting to talk about the length of each season and the number of mid-games per season, so. pls add this in your discussion points.

ty

 

[Fat4all]

This was my first season in Gafia, and the first time I played Mafia period. Everyone was very accessible and all my questions were answered quickly and enthusiastically, whether it was mod or player. I never felt like I was out of my depth because of this.

Played two games (Vampire the Masquerade & Quarantine) and had a grand ole time.

I'm very excited to play more in season 8 now that I have some bearings on what directions various kinds of games can go.

 

[Ourobolus]

Shoulda been "Mod Squad."

Don't blame me for your poor choice in words

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

This was my first season in Gafia, and the first time I played Mafia period. Everyone was very accessible and all my questions were answered quickly and enthusiastically, whether it was mod or player. I never felt like I was out of my depth because of this.

Played two games (Vampire the Masquerade & Quarantine) and had a grand ole time.

I'm very excited to play more in season 8 now that I have some bearings on what directions various kinds of games can go.

SCIENCE DOGGO

best doggo (after Baron Corgnelius von Exalot)




Jokes aside: I am so happy to hear that new comers are enjoying the games and our little community is growing still :> It's always such a wonderful feeling whenever I see someone new got bitten by the mafia addiction

Love you, science doggo! Keep being positive and awesome and sciencey <3

 

[Fat4all]

Keep being positive and awesome and sciencey <3

 

[Natiko]

This was my first season in Gafia as well. I went in not having any idea if I would enjoy it or not an the only frame of reference I had was reading through the HP game. Turned out I enjoyed it quite a lot - I ended up playing in five games this season. I definitely felt included by everyone and even with the in jokes and references to past games I'm able to pick up on most things at this point.

I didn't have a particular problem with the metagaming from prior games but the conclusion reached seems fair.

I've spoke a decent amount about my frustration with those that are very low activity at times. I understand that "more posts doesn't mean better posts" could very well apply, but I still think having a bigger pool of posts to look at from a player is beneficial regardless of the quality of them all. I know not everyone is of the same opinion, but I would like to see some more games feature an increased posting requirement ala mini mafia 3.

I'm pretty new so I'm not sure I have much perspective on the duration of this season and mid-season versus previous ones. Strictly speaking from a logical perspective, I would think if there's a desire to tighten up the schedule some then loosening the standards on what type of games can be featured as season openers would allow for you to cycle through seasons faster while still allowing plenty of non-standard games to run. The other question then would be are games being created fast enough to facilitate a tighter schedule (since season openers burn several games simultaneously instead of spreading them out like in mid-season). That part of it I truly have no idea, but I imagine you all do.

Edit: I knew I was forgetting a topic. As for personality conflicts I think that's just something that will happen. Those that do play fast and loose some games seem like they tend to switch it up now and then too. I'm sure if they feel one style was just universally viewed as unpleasant they'll continue to change things up. I don't get the impression anyone here is looking to try and ruin everyone's fun.

 

[cabot]

Town, start winning.

 

[cabot]

I am baking up a delicious and nutritious cake of a game, probably for S8.5.

It will have some form of activity requirement
It will have night-only OG chats
I will modkill anyone who puts themselves before their teams

Spoiler

Maybe that last one is a lie

 

[acohrs]

Crab is in a better place now

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

I'm not a fan of minimum post counts, but they're not hard to reach. Just split up your posts and stop posting once you hit the limit, then die to a coin flip after an absurd last-minute wagon.

 

[Ourobolus]

I'm not a fan of minimum post counts, but they're not hard to reach. Just split up your posts and stop posting once you hit the limit, then die to a coin flip after an absurd last-minute wagon.

coin flips are great, shut up

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

okaaaaay since gafia 3 finally wrapped up, i can post my notes:


1. Scheduling: mid games weren't scheduled efficiently (not staggered properly which led to one game at a time) which resulted in very long seasons... 6+ months
2. Game Variety: Bastard mid game needs to be paired more often with normal mafia game: this is already in effect. Just needs to be maintained, I think.
3. Communication: People signing up to bastard game when they prefer normal game -> game should have more descriptive information on signing up
4. Personality clash - Retro covered this question nicely in OP...
5. Inactive players - Retro covered this question nicely in OP...
6. Season 7 Town v Scum performance: Why did towns kept losing in S7? What could be the contributing factors? - Sophia's guide to playing town, we needs it! (and Sorian's seminars!!!)

Basically, my own inputs are such:

1. We don't need too many mid-games. Currently, we're at 6 mid games before the new season begins again. Personally I think 6 months per season is a little too long. GAFIA, although, it is a dear dear concept to everyone, doesnt need to be run per season, either. Gafia 3, for example, had a little bit of difficulty filling up its roster even when it was advertised once ALL other mid games were over. Alternatively, if people would like GAFIA set up every season, maybe we can reduce the numbers of the other mid-games. Maybe 4 mid-games per season is better than the current 6.

2. I think lots of people in Gafia likes crazy so it's good to always offer crazy in the mix. But personally, I will never sign up to a crazy set up :3 Anyway, the mix is already in place, which is great :>

3. This is something that was picked up after Quarantine, specifically, I think. I mean it's cute to be coy during advertisement but then you may ended up burning the good faith of some players. I think it's always best to be as descriptive as possible when advertising games to players

4. To be honest, player base is my most important criteria when I'm signing up to games. I have held back from signing up because I think I won't have a good time playing with specific people. I tend to be very committed when I play, so when others are showing a playstyle in which they are just signing up to every game for the lulz, I think it is best that I don't put myself in that situations / rosters.

5. Should increase the post restrictions to at least 5 posts per phase?

6. GAFIA's town game is outlevelled by GAFIA's scum play in Season 7. There may be various contributing factors, but as Crab pointed out, noob town > noob scum, middling scum > middling town. So we need to help gafia!town to level up. How? I'm not sure.

Is there desire from gafia!town to perform better? Do gafia!town want feedback to be provided to them after a particularly bad performance?

The thing is, if people do NOT want to improve their game, and are just playing for funsies, there's not much that can be done in this space. After all, it's only a game at the end of the day...

Still, I think Sophia's guide would be a great start to refer to for those players who would like to improve their town game. (and Sorian's imaginary seminars)





OK. that's all from spoder. Please, I wanna hear from more of you!

 

[CrimsonFist]

I wonder if it might be a good idea to let players privately mention during signups if they don't want to be in a game with another player. If they know they'll clash with them. Obviously it should all be done through PMs, but it might be better than clashes causing issues during the game itself.

 

[Natiko]

A small spoder is attacking my integrity D:

Spoiler

Kidding, just thought the phrasing was funny when I'm pretty sure I played in the most games S7 lol

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

A small spoder is attacking my integrity D:

Spoiler

Kidding, just thought the phrasing was funny when I'm pretty sure I played in the most games S7 lol

But you ALWAYS play to win and you're one of my faves ; __ ;

I'd play with Natichan any time!!!

 

[CrimsonFist]

I wonder if town has been made a bit weak recently. Just using Gafia 3 as an example in terms of investigative roles, they had a one shot cop and a tracker (who suicided early on). All vanilla games are generally considered to be scum sided, and if town isn't given much to work with, they're at a disadvantage.

Without going back to check the actual results it also feels like the matrix/mini games, which use a (supposedly) balanced setup are much more even in terms of the outcome.

 

[Bronx-Man]

I think going forward the post requirement should be 10 posts per each day phase. We had waaaaay too many inactives in Gafia 3 to the point where it was ridiculous.

And we all know "personality clashes" is code for "Bronx", so let's just get it all out in the open.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

season 7's main games (persona, vampire, pop) (which feels like a long time ago, now) were vetted for balance and stil scummies won

then, it was pixar, zelda, danganronpa 3, quarantine, mini mafia 3, gafia 3 (only pixar and quarantine ended in town victory and i wouldnt quite say town victory in quarantine was a result off a good town play...)

so that's like... 7 out 9 games ended with scum victories in season 7

of course, balance may be a factor... but yeah, seems to me that there are other factors in play... like say: activity level, players quality when they are playing as town, etc




as for gafia 3 balance, i told oreo that town may be a bit weak before it was launched but he shut spoder down because spoder knows nothing about balance ; ___ ;

Spoiler

no really, spoder knows nothing

I think going forward the post requirement should be 10 posts per each day phase. We had waaaaay too many inactives in Gafia 3 to the point where it was ridiculous.

And we all know "personality clashes" is code for "Bronx", so let's just get it all out in the open.

contrary to your assumptions, personality clashes existed even from before the man from bronx joined gafia. for example, razmos avoided squidyj, and a lot of people avoided darryl

some people just dont really gel with others' playstyle. it isn't new information :> it exists in every community, probably and it's something that can be managed, with empathy and levelheadedness and a degree of tact and honest communication. just because you don't like someone's playstyle doesnt mean you dont like them as a person.



as for raising the post req to 10, it may be a bit of a stretch for some people, but currently it is TOO LOW at 1. I think 5 maybe a compromise?

 

[Sophia]

I think a factor for Persona was that most of the scum team consisted of relatively new players who weren't' as easy to read there. And even then, it was a narrow victory for scum: They lost two members, and were pretty close to losing the others.

I can't explain why scum won the other games tho. I do feel like we got pretty close on the balance for Persona simply because I had one person say it was town aligned and one person say it was scum aligned. =P

Still, I think Sophia's guide would be a great start to refer to for those players who would like to improve their town game. (and Sorian's imaginary seminars)

I'm gonna have some people look this guide of mine over when I get a chance. Hopefully it'll be helpful to some people @.@

 

[Verelios]

Making Personality Clash code for 'Bronx' doesn't quite flow off the tongue like you'd think. Hey, I really like/hate playing with 'Personality Clash', let me in...no wait, that sounds awesome. I don't really have a problem playing with anyone since it's all just fun but I can understand why this might be an issue when some people spend most of the day going over a policy lynch, when it should be enacted, etc, and mostly meta.

As for post count, I'm in favor of at least 10 posts per day phase. That's a minimum of 50 posts by the fifth day, in a 72 hrs day phase that's just 3.3...posts per actual day...let me do that again, that's just 20 posts in two day phases. I think everyone can spare a minute or two for them while playing.

 

[melonrabbit]

When do we ban Cabot?

Once he's out the community will improve drastically.

...in general I prefer games with minimum posts because not kills a game more than inactivity amongst the players. Bullshit mechanics, scum or Ouro I can deal with but feeling like you are having to force people to play and participate is just no fun.

Overall, this was a difficult season for me personally. And I sincerely hope that didn't impact anyone's enjoyment of any mutual game we may have shared. If it did, please feel free to PM me.

I don't have any specific feedback or insight. I think the major flaw, in hindsight, was me, the player -- which is why I'll be sitting out Season 8 as a player.

 

[Natiko]

I'm really not sure how to fix the issue of town sucking, mainly because it doesn't feel like a lot of the losses came down to the same things. DR3 and Persona came down to the wire and I don't know that I think town lost due to any one reason. I mean Persona and DR3 easily could've gone the other way those last days. Zelda on the other hand felt very bad to lose as town since it didn't feel like we ever could've pulled that out outside of just lynching inactives across the board, but when everyone else has more content to analyze it was hard to justify lynching people with like two or three posts a day phase. But if you take that approach to Gafia 3 town still gets stomped because activity had nothing to do with the loss there, that was just repeated tunnel vision instead.

But you ALWAYS play to win and you're one of my faves ; __ ;

I'd play with Natichan any time!!!

No worries ynnny, I was just kidding

 

[Ourobolus]

I wonder if town has been made a bit weak recently. Just using Gafia 3 as an example in terms of investigative roles, they had a one shot cop and a tracker (who suicided early on). All vanilla games are generally considered to be scum sided, and if town isn't given much to work with, they're at a disadvantage.

Without going back to check the actual results it also feels like the matrix/mini games, which use a (supposedly) balanced setup are much more even in terms of the outcome.

Scum basically had a roleblocker and that's it. The Poisoner was effectively a one-shot, and the Voyeur was there to confuse them since there were two JOATs running around. The BPs were pretty much useless, it was only there to make it slightly more difficult for the neutral to win.

I'm fine with critiques of my game, but let's not ignore the fact that Town didn't do themselves any favors in the vote/talk department.

And I had Kawl yelling at me all the time that scum was weak

...in general I prefer games with minimum posts because not kills a game more than inactivity amongst the players. Bullshit mechanics, scum or Ouro I can deal with but feeling like you are having to force people to play and participate is just no fun.
.

 

[Sophia]

It's okay, Ouro. I still like you.

I definitely would like to see the minimum post count requirement raised, in light of no other way to to increase activity. Ynnnny's five per day phase seems fair to me.

 

[Sawneeks]

as for raising the post req to 10, it may be a bit of a stretch for some people, but currently it is TOO LOW at 1. I think 5 maybe a compromise?

I agree with Ynnny that 5 posts per Day Phase is a good compromise but I also think judging someone's activity should be on the Mod ( or the Mods of that Season ). 5 Posts per Day Phase is doable but if you're just barely hitting that for multiple Day Phases I think it should be reasonable for the Mod to PM that person if they feel that individual isn't contributing enough. If you're posting only 5 joke posts and nothing else I think it should be fine for a Mod to talk to that person and ask them to step it up a bit.

Basically 5 would be the Minimum needed before you're replaced/modkilled but it would be highly encouraged that you post more than that.

I can't explain why scum won the other games tho. I do feel like we got pretty close on the balance for Persona simply because I had one person say it was town aligned and one person say it was scum aligned. =P

Watching Zelda run it looked like Town lost because of both a lower activity Scum Team that could hide under the radar and a Town that like to Tunnel on activity above all else.

There was also the whole multiple kills and Neutral aspect ( something something Ascetics ) but I still feel that Zelda came down to Town's Meta where anyone who had high activity was a lynch target, meaning if you had lower activity you were pretty clear.

But changing the Meta isn't something that we can really change all at once as a group, it's something each individual needs to consciously be aware of and make an effort to change in their own style before things slowly start to shift. And that breaks down to each person wanting to try a change or not, since we can't force anything on people with requirements to a playstyle. I still think your guide will be good for those who want it but unless people want to push themselves to improve in their own way there isn't much we can do.

 

[CzarTim]

I feel like we had this conversation a few seasons ago, except it was "how do we get scum to win more"

Some of it was poor play, some of it was poor balance. Eventually it worked itself out. As long as players and mods are learning from experience, this will work itself out too.

 

[Ourobolus]

As long as players and mods are learning from experience, this will work itself out too.

Shit I knew I forgot something

 

[Dusk Soldier]

To be speak on the Town vs. Scum issue. I don't think the games have been balanced for town.

I think it was Season 5 that saw a town sweep, and as a result I think that it caused:

i. Game Runners to put more effort into buffing the scum team.

ii. Town sitting around waiting for PRs to do the scum hunting. I think a lot of players are used to the strategy of Vanilla's suiciding and trying to draw night kills, while PRs figure out the scum team, but I don't think PR players have really been given as strong abilities in recent games.

Also noticed a lot of PRs full claiming and in turn rendering their abilities useless. If you have the time, read through any game where *splinter roled a town PR, he is very good at claiming without telling mafia how to counter his role.

The 2 things I've noticed popping up in the most recent games I've played are Lovers added as a town power role, when they're generally considered an advantage for scum.

And Counters for every ability. (For instance If town get's a doctor, scum gets a strongman; town gets a tracker, scum gets a ninja etc.) Town should usually have a slight advantage in PRs, since even if mafia doesn't have a counter, then can still use night kills.

 

[Ourobolus]

There don't need to be counters to everything, but the ones that aren't countered need to be limited (x-shot, for example), IMO.

 

[squidyj]

Posting is good, reading is better, shitposting gets in the way of reading.

 

[Verelios]

Posting is good, reading is better, shitposting gets in the way of reading.

I don't follow. Is this a bid for less shitposting or what?

 

[Kyanrute]

shitposting is beautiful

 

[Verelios]

shitposting is beautiful

 

[cabot]

I'm really not sure how to fix the issue of town sucking, mainly because it doesn't feel like a lot of the losses came down to the same things. DR3 and Persona came down to the wire and I don't know that I think town lost due to any one reason. I mean Persona and DR3 easily could've gone the other way those last days. Zelda on the other hand felt very bad to lose as town since it didn't feel like we ever could've pulled that out outside of just lynching inactives across the board, but when everyone else has more content to analyze it was hard to justify lynching people with like two or three posts a day phase. But if you take that approach to Gafia 3 town still gets stomped because activity had nothing to do with the loss there, that was just repeated tunnel vision instead.


No worries ynnny, I was just kidding

I can speak for games I was involved in:

Pop balance wise was fairly swingy. It had powerful scum, but a neutral who could soak them up and some Town counters. Then the neutral died N1, and the poison shot was missed by the doctor. Unfortunate events but they always happen in a game. The only other problem with Pop was really that there were only two powerful town roles, so the responsibility lies on the player to do well there moreso than normal. That's not really a regret, Pop was a smaller game than the others in the roster. You get less players, you need to step up. Town lost there because they were inactive. It's not on scum to find the scum (unless you're Gorlak I guess), so when Town just aren't doing anything, the games only gonna go one way.

Zelda was an unfortunate issue of player rolls which led to a really difficult situation as Town. With a neutral that was killing only Town as well as the scum kill, there really wasnt room for 'lynching an inactive' except maybe on Day 2 where it was decided CCS was the best lynch. After that I had no choice but to go with my scum read as my kill, I didn't have the luxury of an inactive stab in the dark when the odds were against us. Kinda feel like that second neutral was Sawneeks trolling me hard. I refuse to believe it as a concept. REFUSE.



Mostly I'm with Tim. This happened like 2 seasons ago except the question was 'Why is scum tanking?'. The meta changes, and so will the results.

On activity, I was thinking '1 meaningful post every 24 hours' which actually ends up being less than 5 a day phase, but yeah. I just get annoyed when people post garbage instead of playing to appear there. If I'm modding, I'll be possibly doing 5 a phase with a very stiff eye on content. I do believe its mod's discretion for this sort of stuff though.

Not so sure about the PM players I hate thang. I mean, it does make sense, but we only play a few games simultaneously and its a big community with a cloud of players that have divisive playstyles. The odds are you're gonna hit one or two of them in a game.
When you're out in the real world you can't magically make the douches disappear, you have to find a way to deal with them. I feel the same mentality should be applied.

I tend to just ignore the players I don't like playing with in the early game, then I try to objectively read them if they live longer using others' interactions and their own content.

 

[squidyj]

I don't follow. Is this a bid for less shitposting or what?

you must be gafia town.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

I'm hearing you both, Tim and bottie, and I acknowledge that there is probably an organic shift between town winratio in the previous seasons and now scum winratio, but i do think there is a one slight but distinct difference in the discussion, being that I do not think what's happening now is all about game balance.

I may be misremembering things a little but a few seasons ago, the discussion centered around town winning was mostly focused on game design / balance. There was not quite a vibe from the community saying that the quality of the players themselves were lacking. Whilst, as a comparison, the current discussion has a lean of the perspective that maybe gafia members have levelled up their game as scum more than as town.




Squids, i'm with you on a lot of things, it seems (sadly :<).

Spoiler

 

[Fat4all]

The games should be balanced for whichever team I'm on.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

The games should be balanced for whichever team I'm on.

silly science doggo

balanced is balanced

did you mean to say the games should be imbalanced for whichever team you were on

:3

 

[Fat4all]

silly science doggo

balanced is balanced

did you mean to say the games should be imbalanced for whichever team you were on

:3

*Nixon-voice*

"When I'm on a team, that means it is balanced."

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

*Nixon-voice*

"When I'm on a team, that means it is balanced."

!!!

&#129300;

 

[*Splinter]

The "no quoting past games" rule sounds like a pointless compromise that pleases noone. Past events will always be discussed, but now it's harder to refer to exactly what event we're talking about?

I think it's worth remembering that past events are never (as far as I've seen) brought up as a 100% clear cut "gotcha". In fact, it's usually an in-game point is being made and compared to a past event to help the explanation. For example "Sorian is scum because blah blah blah and (for the benefit of those who don't follow that explanation) here is a past example of a similar thing happening".

To be speak on the Town vs. Scum issue. I don't think the games have been balanced for town.

I think it was Season 5 that saw a town sweep, and as a result I think that it caused:

i. Game Runners to put more effort into buffing the scum team.

ii. Town sitting around waiting for PRs to do the scum hunting. I think a lot of players are used to the strategy of Vanilla's suiciding and trying to draw night kills, while PRs figure out the scum team, but I don't think PR players have really been given as strong abilities in recent games.

Also noticed a lot of PRs full claiming and in turn rendering their abilities useless. If you have the time, read through any game where *splinter roled a town PR, he is very good at claiming without telling mafia how to counter his role.

The 2 things I've noticed popping up in the most recent games I've played are Lovers added as a town power role, when they're generally considered an advantage for scum.

And Counters for every ability. (For instance If town get's a doctor, scum gets a strongman; town gets a tracker, scum gets a ninja etc.) Town should usually have a slight advantage in PRs, since even if mafia doesn't have a counter, then can still use night kills.

Agree with all of this.

Spoiler

Especially the part that says play like Splinter.

No but really these are great points.

I know I'm somewhat guilty of waiting for PR's to happen, but I think every game I played this season felt like I was playing vanilla Mafia (and we all know how that goes). If you take a look at old games (WDiotL, DR1) you see multiple town PR's interacting with each other, and scum forced to create lies to fit in.

I remember the discussions about town being overpowered, and I felt that although town was winning a majority of games they were (usually) close games that could have gone either way.

I don't think scum have gotten better, I think scum are no longer being asked to lie.

 

[*Splinter]

I sincerely hope that didn't impact anyone's enjoyment of any mutual game we may have shared. If it did, please feel free to PM me.

+1 to this as well. I push things a bit far, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. Please let me know if this happens, I never want to make games less enjoyable for people

Spoiler

except for cabot, obviously.

I don't have any specific feedback or insight. I think the major flaw, in hindsight, was me, the player -- which is why I'll be sitting out Season 8 as a player.

Aww no way

 

[cabot]

I'm hearing you both, Tim and bottie, and I acknowledge that there is probably an organic shift between town winratio in the previous seasons and now scum winratio, but i do think there is a one slight but distinct difference in the discussion, being that I do not think what's happening now is all about game balance.

I may be misremembering things a little but a few seasons ago, the discussion centered around town winning was mostly focused on game design / balance. There was not quite a vibe from the community saying that the quality of the players themselves were lacking. Whilst, as a comparison, the current discussion has a lean of the perspective that maybe gafia members have levelled up their game as scum more than as town.

There will always be balance / design complaints. Very rarely do people feel they lost fair and square. There was poor scum play all over the shop in previous seasons, which led to losses. Scum won in midseason, which makes sense since its mostly vets that play regularly who join midseason.


The meta change this season was 'lots of people forgot how to Town' with a dash of 'Old good Town players changing their play intentionally or accidentally' which sort of conjoined and made a perfect storm of fumbles.


Not me, though. Perfect scumhunting Town who nailed Scum!melon again and again and again and again.

I feel I'm ready to chuck my S8.5 idea to people to look over (outside Tim and Yeeny)

Is it time to do that or what

 

[Swamped]

Metagaming

I like Retro's proposed idea of not directly quoting past games. I didn't follow DR3 much, but I do think that in general people don't rely on metagaming to get someone lynched. It's usually backed up with in-game stuff as well. So seems like a fair rule.

Minimum Post Count

I like this idea too. 5 posts seems reasonable for main season games. I would even be open to the idea that the mod decides what the post count should be for their game.

Spoiler

Goodbye megaposts...

Personality Conflicts

I personally don't have any problems playing with anyone here. I understand that the overall game flow does depend on the people playing, but it's fun to adapt to other playstyles. The only thing I care about is that people play from the heart, and that they play to win.

The Length of Seasons and Number of Games in Midseason

The only advantage (as far as I can see) of having shorter seasons is that we have more chances of recruiting new players and returning ones, as we can post the recruitment thread in General. The mid-season games tends to be the really regular players most of the time. I do think the mid season this time ran a bit long. I think 3 months a season seems pretty reasonable

On Town Losing and Game Balance

I'm sure there were games this season which were really close. I was in Vampire and Gafia 3 and those weren't close at all XD. In the games I was in, Town was quite reticent about coming forward with their roles and the information they had. For example, if you are an x-shot and you've used everything, may as well come forward. I agree with Splinter that this is usually what leads to scum having to lie, and they simply had to lie less in these games.

I do not think it is necessary to play around with the game balance. We have multiple people reviewing the games beforehand. I think the balance is fine as is. 5 scum for 20-25 players seems perfect to me (it used to be 4 scum for 20 players in the early days I think).

I'm really interested in the implementation of night only chats, even in the main games. I believe forum mafia is usually played like this? I'd like to try it out, and possibly make it the new standard going forward if it works well. Gafia scum have really learned how to play well, and this might be a good way to balance things (of course this would imply other roles like lovers and masons can only chat at night too).

Conclusion

Looking forward to the next season! I'm so proud of us all and I really think we have come so far from season 2 (when I started). Also I finally have an idea for Fire Emblem Mafia: Together, we Lynch. So I might tinker with that and maybe have it ready for Season 8.5 or 9.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

@cabot
Oh... I guess I'm not quite seeing the 'complaints' of balance having been terrible this season. But. I wasn't playing so I might not have the perceptiveness to sense it.

I genuinely thought scum play outshone town a few times this season (e.g. vampire scum team, pop scum team, mini3 scum team, gafia 3 scum team)... Not in every game, for sure, but enough occurrences to have made me feel the disparity between the gameplay of these two factions.

Anyway, I will take your points of view on board. Maybe balance is still a factor, of course.

@swampie
lovely inputs! thank you swampie :> loads of where you're at feels like where i'm at, too :>

looking forward to your FE mafia, for sure

 

[CrimsonFist]

I'm against night only chat for main season when we have a lot of new players. Mid season sure.

 

[Natiko]

i also don't know that I agree with the sentiment that the overall Gafia scum game has just swung ahead of the town game and that it'll swing back of its own accord.

Almost all of the games weren't even close. Of the ones that were close you have stuff like Persona or DR3 but thinking about it, those games both featured scum dying before D2 and had teams that didn't have a ton of scum experience.

I think ultimately it's a mix of town having players that end up not playing much (whether that's inactivity or only shitposting), more games that ask town to find scum through traditional means (which is harder when the previous point is occurring), and then in general a town meta that is a bit weak (I'm guilty of this myself - go find my reads in any game lol). It's not JUST a matter of game balance or JUST a matter of town needing to play better. It's several things.

 

[CrimsonFist]

I think we're kind of at the point where certain players are good enough at being scum that they're not really going to get caught out, aside from town paranoia or power roles. I mean a big part is poor town play (useful PR's suiciding, people not really trying, general apathy) too of course.

 

[cabot]

@cabot
Oh... I guess I'm not quite seeing the 'complaints' of balance having been terrible this season. But. I wasn't playing so I might not have the perceptiveness to sense it.

I genuinely thought scum play outshone town a few times this season (e.g. vampire scum team, pop scum team, mini3 scum team, gafia 3 scum team)... Not in every game, for sure, but enough occurrences to have made me feel the disparity between the gameplay of these two factions.

Anyway, I will take your points of view on board. Maybe balance is still a factor, of course.

@swampie
lovely inputs! thank you swampie :> loads of where you're at feels like where i'm at, too :>

looking forward to your FE mafia, for sure

My point was less about balance issues this season as more of someone somewhere is gonna complain about balance no matter what the setup is because its all subjective. My point was that reasoning was probably weaker in previous seasons, it was just scum tending to be poor.


There's no doubt Town wasn't great mostly this season, and Scum were pretty good.