[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[Empking's Alt]

Science is kinda garbage, I dislike.

Adding 2 VTs probably balances it.

Gosh no. That's probably the same movement away from 50% but on the wrong side.

SCIENCE is balanced the way it is.

Ot: I knoe id disagree. Even 4:8 nightless would be imbalanced.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

I guess we could all agree on this definition of "balance" : A game is considered balanced when there is no breaking strategies from the start, a reasonable town win probability calculated with basic routine (no more than 60% no less than 40% without 3rd party - no more than 55% with 3rd party) and an interesting mechanic that makes people want to play it (because it's pointless to discuss balance on a game nobody wants to play - like mountainous *cough*)

Firstly, I will gladly play Mountainous. Secondly, ev calculations assume random lynches - town should be able to do better. For a mini-sized game or smaller I would personally think an ev of 40% is right around what you want.

[GreyICE]

Can we just trash the science setup?

It adds nothing unique that friends and enemies doesn't add, and it's far too stupid a setup to argue about this much.

[Empking]

Can we just trash the science setup?

It adds nothing unique that friends and enemies doesn't add, and it's far too stupid a setup to argue about this much.

Its F&E, only better.

[GreyICE]

No, it's not. If you can't figure out just from looking at the numbers what the problem is, then this is not worth arguing.

3:7:3
2:3:2

If the top is balanced doesn't take SCIENCE to figure out the bottom one is a load of horseshit. 2:5:2 is obviously much better.

As a thought experiment just continue downwards (replace the mason with a single confirmed "Earl" in the setup). 1:3:1 is clearly more-or-less balanced. Adding a scum and a mason to 1:3:1 does not balance make.

[Empking's Alt]

No, it's not. If you can't figure out just from looking at the numbers what the problem is, then this is not worth arguing.

3:7:3
2:3:2

If the top is balanced doesn't take SCIENCE to figure out the bottom one is a load of horseshit. 2:5:2 is obviously much better.

As a thought experiment just continue downwards (replace the mason with a single confirmed "Earl" in the setup). 1:3:1 is clearly more-or-less balanced. Adding a scum and a mason to 1:3:1 does not balance make.

1:3:1 is town favoured even with random lynching. Same for your 9p set up.

We know the 7p one is OK because we've seen thr figures. I'd be more inclined to have problems with G&E than this one (thoigh of course they could both be fine due to mafia power going up more than linearly.

[GreyICE]

1:3:1 is hardly favored with random lynching.

Odds of a day 1 scum lynch: 25%
Odds of a day 2 scum lynch: 33%

Overall odds of town victory: 50%

That's sheer 50/50 on nose. So I challenge your claim, wholesale.

7p one is terrible and broken, stop leading a one man crusade against basic math

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

50%

is

town-favoured. Not significantly in such in a short game, mind you, but town-favoured.

Both 2:3:2 and 3:7:3 seem fine to me.

[Llamarble]

Also the Earl doesn't claim D1 unless he's run up, which makes D2 a 50/50 a of good chunk of the time and bumps town's odds of winning a good bit over 50%

Precisely, town winning percentage is:
1/4 d1scumlynch (1/5 immediate, 1/5 * 1/4 after first running up Earl)
1/5 * 3/4 * 1/3 // Run up Earl, then lynch town, then lynch scum.
3/5 * 1/3 * 1/3 // lynch VT, scum NKs Earl, lynch scum
3/5 * 2/3 * 1/2 // lynch VT, scum NKs VT, lynch scum

Total is 56.7% for town, and that's lynching randomly, which I think we expect towns to improve upon.

[GreyICE]

50%

is

town-favoured. Not significantly in such in a short game, mind you, but town-favoured.

Both 2:3:2 and 3:7:3 seem fine to me.

Both 2:5:2 and 2:3:2 cannot be balanced.

2:5:2 is balanced.

[GreyICE]

Also the Earl doesn't claim D1 unless he's run up, which makes D2 a 50/50 a of good chunk of the time and bumps town's odds of winning a good bit over 50%

Precisely, town winning percentage is:
1/4 d1scumlynch (1/5 immediate, 1/5 * 1/4 after first running up Earl)
1/5 * 3/4 * 1/3 // Run up Earl, then lynch town, then lynch scum.
3/5 * 1/3 * 1/3 // lynch VT, scum NKs Earl, lynch scum
3/5 * 2/3 * 1/2 // lynch VT, scum NKs VT, lynch scum

Total is 56.7% for town, and that's lynching randomly, which I think we expect towns to improve upon.

True, it only works to 50/50 with an innocent child reveal day 1.

Anyway, the point is that 1:3:1 is certainly not VERY town favored, and adding 1 mason and 1 scum does not even become close to town favored.

2:3:2 is not balanced, period. It's strongly scum favored.

[Vi]

Can we just trash the science setup?

It adds nothing unique that friends and enemies doesn't add, and it's far too stupid a setup to argue about this much.

Small Open vs. Mid Open.

Also, there's no reason to talk in vague terms about the probability of Town winning via random lynching in SCIENCE when etc.

[Shadow Dancer]

Yes, according to EV wiki page science has about 37% town win probability.
I personally think that we should aim to only approve 2-faction-setups with win percantages of (50 +/- 10)% for each faction.
Also SCIENCE is badly designed because an encryptor as power role makes no sense in a two man scum team.
I would start by grouping very similar setups together and then find out which player numbers are required to make a certain setup type balanced, keep those setup variants that are (or make up new ones) and throw out all the rest.

I guess we could all agree on this definition of "balance" : A game is considered balanced when there is no breaking strategies from the start, a reasonable town win probability calculated with basic routine (no more than 60% no less than 40% without 3rd party - no more than 55% with 3rd party) and an interesting mechanic that makes people want to play it (because it's pointless to discuss balance on a game nobody wants to play - like mountainous *cough*)

No. This is not a definition of balance. When a setup is broken it means that one side has an optimal strategy that grants them significantly higher win percentages. A setup can force one-sided strategies on both factions and still be balanced under optimal play of both sides. In that case it's stale but definitely not broken. However this should be avoided, too, because it makes in-game experience rather one-sided and boring (I guess it's OK for micro sized games).
I don't agree on mountaineous. The only problem with any mountaineous setup is that it requires absurdly high numbers of townies to make it balanced.

Firstly, I will gladly play Mountainous. Secondly, ev calculations assume random lynches - town should be able to do better. For a mini-sized game or smaller I would personally think an ev of 40% is right around what you want.

Garbage. This assumes that scum could

not

fare better... Which is obviously wrong and totally disregards the fact that it's the scum faction which starts out with an inherent advantage (that cannot be quantified, however). Also in a mountainous the scum faction corrodes from the bottom (i.e. the weakest player dies first) while town, through the night kill, is also majorly decimated from the top, which automatically leads to an expected endgame with good scum vs. mediocre town.
Are there any mountaineous setups that have been run sufficiently often to provide significant statistics on actual percentages? I predict that they are worse for town than theory based on random lynches predicts.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Any set-up wherein scum have a greater inherent advantage would have random lynching as a breaking strategy and are thus problematic (that may be a valid knock against Mountainous, now that I think about it).

[Empking]

CES: Were we separated at birth, seriously. Everything he's said this thread has been gold dust.

[Shadow Dancer]

Any set-up wherein scum have a greater inherent advantage would have random lynching as a breaking strategy and are thus problematic (that may be a valid knock against Mountainous, now that I think about it).

That'd be pretty much the short version, yes.

I wouldn't call random lynching a breaking strategy, though. It's just the most boring possible stale strategy.

[GreyICE]

Any set-up wherein scum have a greater inherent advantage would have random lynching as a breaking strategy and are thus problematic (that may be a valid knock against Mountainous, now that I think about it).

Given town win percentages in known mountainous, lynching with dice tags not only significantly shortens the pain, but probably increases town EV.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Hence the parenthetical statement.

[zoraster]

Hey, Vi or Hoopla. I don't want to mess with your pretty cateloguing, but I have a problem with the entry for White Flag.

White Flag doesn't necessarily have to be the open version played in the past two iterations. It's a mechanical change.

In fact, the first version that I ran when I designed it wasn't open at all, and it had power roles (albeit most of those power roles were useless making it virtually mountainous). I was wondering how to fix that as the wikipedia article seems to suggest that it's an open setup, when it's not JUST an open setup.

[Vi]

I thought I fixed that? *checks* That can be fixed easily.

Also, Wikipedia has nothing to do with this site.

[Empking]

Zor, you designed the White flag mechanic?

[zoraster]

Zor, you designed the White flag mechanic?

Sorta.. It's such a simple thing that I doubt I was the first to think about it. So far as I know, though, I'm the first to run one here, and I didn't "get" it from somewhere else. When I announced that I was running the game (under some other title) someone else suggested that it was known as "White Flag" elsewhere, but I've never been able to find where that elsewhere was. Still, it was a much better name for my theme game than the one I had, so it became White Flag.

[Llamarble]

Ah, I thought Mith came up with it
Here
Is what he mentioned as his reason for wanting to play the whiteflag game during team mafia.

[zoraster]

That does predate my game, but I'm pretty sure I never saw it as I wasn't involved in MD at the time. Still, creation credit goes there. Did a white flag game actually get run off of that?

[Hoopla]

No, it's not. If you can't figure out just from looking at the numbers what the problem is, then this is not worth arguing.

3:7:3
2:3:2

If the top is balanced doesn't take SCIENCE to figure out the bottom one is a load of horseshit. 2:5:2 is obviously much better.

As a thought experiment just continue downwards (replace the mason with a single confirmed "Earl" in the setup). 1:3:1 is clearly more-or-less balanced. Adding a scum and a mason to 1:3:1 does not balance make.

I tend to agree with Grey, 2:5:2 does seem more balanced than 2:3:2, and minimises the possibility of a claiming strategy being a relevant discussion in the game. If this is true, is it necessary to have another mid-sized Friends and Enemies game?

Ignoring the balance side of things, is it even a fun/interesting setup? We have a bunch of 2:3:2 setups, with the 2 being a Cop/Doc. I see SCIENCE playing out similarly to those, with the main variable being the masons can confirm each other. In both setups though, the main town power comes via PoE of having claimed roles/non claimed roles on D2, and scum having to choose which pool to hide within.