Normal Game Balance

[Menalque]

In my opinion, normal games (specifically mini-normals) have become overly townsided, often as part of the review process.

If this is a commonly held sentiment (i.e. not just me and a handful of others) then this seems to me like something that should be redressed for the sake of the normal queue. Consider this an info-gathering exercise to see if (1) there actually is a widespread perception that mini-normals are townsided and (2) as a sampler for interest for those who would be interested in playing in mini-normals that abide by all the rules of normalcy but may not be approved for balance (due to the bias towards townsided setups).

In the case that (1) is true, I think the NRG needs to take that feedback on board and work towards countering the townsided bias present. In the case that (2) has significant or moderate interest, I may run a game/a series of games in the mini theme queue that will be normal for all intents and purposes, but will be balanced by my standards rather than the current NRG standards for balance.

[Hectic]

100% agree. I also dislike the use of regular cops, I don't think it's particularly rewarding when scum is caught with an inescapable guilty.

[Isis]

Watchers are worse! (I'm not sure I can substantiate this logically, much like someone of my other opinions about closed setup design)

[Menalque]

NB: should maybe have said in the OP, but I’d appreciate if any long standing members of the NRG didn’t vote in the poll, I’m looking specifically for the opinions of those who play in the normal queue but who have little to no say over which setups are approved for it

edit: autocorrect issues

[Isis]

What does "NB" mean?

[Menalque]

What does "NB" mean?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nota_bene

[T-Bone]

Do the stats support this at all? Are towns winning a disproportionate amount of normals?

Because normals "feel" townsided is a really meaningless critique without any sort of data.

[Menalque]

Why is the number of games being won by town/scum respectively more important than whether scum felt like they had an incredibly unpleasant uphill battle in the games they won and town had no real sense of victory in the games they won because everything was stacked in their favour?

[T-Bone]

Because any reasonable discussion of a critique to something that is being done should start with data. We can't make decisions on feelings alone. Not to speak for implosion, but we tend to make data driven decisions when it comes to mafia. You can look at how the newbie queue has changed over the years to see that.

My guess then is that the answer is close to 50% yes?

[Menalque]

Right: my point is that’s a bad criteria to use. If towns consistently play like shit and win 50% of the time because they’re loaded with power then that’s a strongly townsided group of setups. And the only way you’re going to know if people are experiencing that in their games is asking them, as I’m doing here.

[Ythan]

Ego.

[Menalque]

And correspondingly, maybe those setups are townsided and everyone’s fine with it, but if they’re not (even if only a significant minority are not) then there should be some form of alternative available to those people who are dissatisfied.

[T-Bone]

I mean we have an approach to look at setups and see what the win rate should be. Have you calculated EVs of any of these setups? Wouldn't that show setups as townsided?

Have you....considered any data at all?

We can certainly have the conversation of what is and isn't townsided and I am glad to see this topic! But if you don't have a baseline then you can't effectively talk about the issue. You "feeling" games are townsided is a statement with no meaning.

[T-Bone]

Otherwise you're arguing that you're dissatisfied with something you don't even know is true or not. Which makes no sense. You've vaguely cites that normals are townsided but don't provide any evidence or examples. Can you grab some recently completed games and discuss them and why they are townsided?

Maybe our setups are scumsided and people are just incredibly poor at being mafia.

Maybe they are neutral but people use meta...and as we all know meta is trash(tm). (This is tongue in cheek)

[skitter30]

I agree with mena that people can feel normals are townsided even if the hard numbers of win-loss ratios dont support that

I havent played that many normals recently, tho, so i'm not sure i have an opinion

[implosion]

A couple of days ago nsg said that the past 2 years have been quite close to 50%, but she wasn't as sure on 2020. I won't say more as I don't have the data but if she finds this thread and wants to then she's more than welcome to~

Right: my point is that’s a bad criteria to use. If towns consistently play like shit and win 50% of the time because they’re loaded with power then that’s a strongly townsided group of setups. And the only way you’re going to know if people are experiencing that in their games is asking them, as I’m doing here.

This argument has never really been convincing to me, specifically the "town win rates are low because towns are playing bad" argument. Towns play how they play, and scum play how they play; if "towns are playing bad", then that means we exist in a meta where players tend to be better at scum than at town, and the balance of a setup has to reflect the meta. I've played mafia in a lot of different contexts: forum mafia with long deadlines, in person, in different IRC environments with different kinds of communication and different deadlines. And each of them has a different standard of balance. There is no hidden platonic ideal of a balanced setup; a setup is balanced in reflection to the people playing that setup and the medium in which it is played.

If you want to talk about whether it subjectively feels like towns have too much power, sure. It's quite likely there are a good number of people who feel that way. But I'd argue that those aren't actually feelings about whether the setup is "balanced"; they're feelings about whether the setup is as hard as they want it to be. As far as I can tell, there's no way to call something "balanced" except to say "in the environment and with the people with which this game will be run, we expect it to be won by town roughly 50% of the time". For an alternative, some do exist. For instance, if you want to run or play in games that are explicitly harder, pick an open setup with a relatively low EV and run it or play in it. But I feel like the alternative you're implying would be like, a "hard games" queue? And the site has litigated the issues with queue splitting and merging again and again over the years, and I think it ultimately comes down to: if there's a lot of demand for it then we could consider it, but if not then the downsides outweigh the upsides.

I guess my question is, if not to a 50% win rate, then what standard do you want games balanced to, and why do you think it's the appropriate standard?

[Menalque]

Can you grab some recently completed games and discuss them and why they are townsided?

Sure! I can respond to the other points you/implo are making tomorrow too, but for some reason I always end up starting this type of conversation when it’s like 3am local time for me.

But to take, as an example, the most egregiously townsided game I’ve seen recently, have a look at this: https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=84455

Scum, for all intents and purposes, won that game. They played better, they killed PRs, they invited conflict at the town, bussed when necessary, NOBODY had a correct solve by the time lylo rolled around. What happened? Town won because there was a bulletproof vengeful in the game on top of a vig and scum went from winning to losing with the snap of a finger. It’s a result that was deeply disappointing for scum, and led to several (maybe the majority?) of the town stating that the game should have been a scum win/that we would consider it a scum win. That game was ultimately satisfying for not very many people at all. That’s a problem.

Like I said, that’s the most egregious example I can think of recently, but in my recent and fairly regular playing of mini-normals, it’s not an isolated experience by any means.

[T-Bone]

This is good. Go to bed though.

[Something_Smart]

I think I agree with you that the current perception is that mini normals are townsided.

I also think I agree with T-Bone that they aren't actually townsided. (I voted before seeing your request not to, sorry about that-- you should maybe edit the poll to make that more clear.)

I disagree with T-Bone that data is required for a claim to have value. Player enjoyment is the number one priority in modding, period.

I think the discrepancy is due to the fact that normals are balanced under the assumption that townies are going to have some level of suboptimal play, but strong players like Menalque see weak town play as aberrant and deserving of punishment. If towns consistently play like shit according to you, then all that means is that you are really good, and games where you are town are probably going to appear townsided as a result.

[T-Bone]

To be clear, I wasn't asserting that games are town or scumsided. I don't know.

[Something_Smart]

Regarding Mini 2169: you said that scum killed PR's as though that's supposed to be indicative of good play. What happened was, scum killed all the useless PR's while leaving all the important ones alive. Presumably those town PR's played well in order to misdirect the scum kills; I don't know when exactly all the roles were claimed.

The town also got lucky in that they made the faulty assumption that TGP was town for being protected (if I'm reading it right) when that didn't actually happen.

Maybe that setup was badly designed, but if so it's because town was in a very strong position but scum weren't aware of that. That's a problem, sure, but it's a question of swing, not balance. That setup had a pretty high amount of swing dependent on night actions, but that in and of itself doesn't mean that the setup wasn't balanced-- imagine if Noraa had died N1, for instance.

[skitter30]

If a game is balanced that doesnt inherently make it fun to play

Thinking back i think i've more often felt as scum that town was stacked than vice versa

It feels like you sometimes have to be ~very strong scum~ to supersede decent town play + prs, whereas town can usually count on the prs to give themselves a boost

Or, another way of saying it: scum often have to play the setup nearly flawlessly, whereas it's a lot more forgiving for town

[Something_Smart]

Thinking back i think i've more often felt as scum that town was stacked than vice versa

This might be because of asymmetric knowledge. By the time massclaim rolls around, you know what you're up against as scum, but as town you don't know for sure what the setup looks like until the end of the game.

So you're going to spend a lot more time as scum thinking "this setup is townsided" than you are as town thinking "this setup is scumsided", even if you play an equal number of scumsided and townsided games.

[skitter30]

That's fair

[Ythan]

Consider how fun sk is in spite of the difficulty of winning as one. Not a response to anyone in particular just maybe tangentially related to the discussion at hand.