[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[Quilford]

Is Operating Room balanced, theoretically?

[Hoopla]

Also you should prolly scrap 2:11 Mtns in favour of White Flag, what with the 35.6% theoretical town winrate 'n' all. I'm too lazy to find 2:11's actual town winratem though; does anyone know of it?

I'm not sure any Mountainous 2:11's have been played. From the open and closed setups that use 2:10 as a base, I believe the town has won 2 from 11 attempts. It's important to note that in some of those setups town had a Doctor or a couple of weak PR's. In fact in one of the town's 2:10 wins they had a vig, which would have strongly improved their chances. I think mountainous 2:10 has been played multiple times without a town win.

I don't know how well town would do in 2:11 since it's an extra lynch and all - it's helped town's in 3:9's --> 3:10's, but I still wouldn't want to be town.

[Quaroath]

Operating Room should be binned unless there is a mechanic change along the lines of odd doc # is a save, even is a kill. Would really dent group vig chances with the docs.

That's just kind of luck. Seems like a very ugly solution. We already have a bunch of those luck-based night actions extravaganzas, see Tread Carefully, Medical Mafia, Mayo Clinic etc. I don't know. It's an okay idea, I guess, but doesn't look like it'd produce any interesting gameplay.

Probably won't, likely the setup should be binned. It's also the only fix I can think of that removed the town doc-vig from the game. (I was the scum doc in the game that was run and we got two nk's Night 1 out of doccing people that were suggested as doc targets) Only other fix I can think of off hand is changing one of the town docs to a nurse, that only activates if both of the others doctors or dead (to stay with the heavy medical theme)

[izakthegoomba]

How is it that 2:10 being horribly unbalanced has gone unnoticed for so long?

[Hoopla]

They were mostly played in the days where everything that was unbalanced went unnoticed.

[Hoopla]

Bumped the C9++ thread with what I wanted to do with it here; http://mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p3497954

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

2:11 is unbalanced. Scum has too much control over the game using their nightkill.

[Hoopla]

2:11 is unbalanced. Scum has too much control over the game using their nightkill.

What do you think of 3:10 White Flag?

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Well it's certainly balanced (EV of 47.8%), the only question is whether random lynching is a breaking strategy. I'd like to believe that the town's ability to find connections among the three scum is significant enough to at least balance the nightkill. Hopefully, once one scum goes down, the real pairing will become more obvious as the Days go on

[Hoopla]

Okay, I'm binning Mountainous 2:11.

And MD wept.

[izakthegoomba]

What is a balanced mountainous then?

Is there any point in having mountainous games on the list? Very few mods will want to run them, and not many players will want to play them.

[IceGuy]

Operating Room

- Don't particularly like this setup. I talked with a couple of players about it after its first run and had mixed reactions. The town's optimal play is to just use the Doc's as a group vig or nightlynch, which isn't very novel and doesn't really seem to comply with how the setup was supposed to be played.

Could be fixed by having doctors with different treatments. If there are several doctors, and they all use the same treatment, the patient is protected; if they use different treatments, the patient dies.

Pick Your Poison

- It's a good concept, but it's clear the poison choices need to be rethought. There are plenty of other PYP versions out there that are better than this one. Patrick/Ether/whoever else can weigh in on what the best one is, because I haven't seen many of them.

The current PYP version is rather boring, since the optimal strategy is to always select Doc and RB (and this has been chosen in all three completed PYP games).

I like the concept, but the choices for scum should either be a real alternative (for instance, scum picks either Doc and RB, or Cop); or scum gets powers depending on the powers town got.

Polygamist Mafia

- True Love seems like a better version of the mass lover game. I don't know if this one is warranted, but I'm happy to go along with it if there are people who seem to like this version too.

Polygamist Mafia is interesting since you can't bus your partner to lynch. You have to keep both yourself and your partners alive without anybody drawing connections between them, and this strategic angle is missing in True Love.

Tread Carefully

- I'll talk about this again when we do the experimental setups. But it looks doable from a cursory scan.

Too swingy, I think.

Two-Fold C9

- Another super swingy 2:2:8 setup. I don't really like it, so I'll defer to what others think.

Twofold Mafia

- I like this one slightly more than the above setup, but meh. Do we need another generic 2:2:8 setup. Again, happy to listen to what others think on this one.

Bin them; there are more than enough similar and better setups.

[Magua]

Re: Tit-for-Tat: Unless I'm missing something, this setups seems swingy in the wrong way -- in the case of the Mafia Jailkeeper or the Town Rolecop, dying not only punishes your side by losing a PR, but also helps the other side by giving them a PR.

I've only played the setup once (as scum) and didn't particularly enjoy that aspect.

[Hoopla]

Re: Tit-for-Tat: Unless I'm missing something, this setups seems swingy in the wrong way -- in the case of the Mafia Jailkeeper or the Town Rolecop, dying not only punishes your side by losing a PR, but also helps the other side by giving them a PR.

I've only played the setup once (as scum) and didn't particularly enjoy that aspect.

I think the point

is

if your alignment's key role perishes you get a disadvantage. The Tit for Tat aspect comes in once the other team hits that role - they catch up.

I kind of think the setup makes more sense and reduces some swing if you flipped it to a Town Jailkeeper and Mafia Role-Cop. Jailkeeper is very potent for town in endgame scenarios, and Role-Cop for scum does nothing for them at the end, as presumably all the PR's should be outed by D3 or D4. In this setup, there is a more neutered, matched reward for town and scum if they kill the right player - scum Jailkeeper in late game isn't that great for them, and town don't really get

that

much value from a Role-Cop late game.

[Hoopla]

What do you think of my C9++ proposal, Magua?

[Mr. Flay]

Hey Vi. I've been thinking that the current roster thing is kind of a silly, unnecessary exercise. I feel like the easiest way to determine which games are chosen is to just assign a category (small/mid/large/experimental) to an upcoming mod and just let them pick whatever game they want from that pool. Then once that game has been chosen, it gets locked out for 5 picks (or half the amount of setups within the category) - I don't know yet exactly. This way you get a roster that changes by itself so different games get picked, but there is still an element of popularity involved. Does that make sense?

Yes, and I like it.

[Amrun]

As the mod of the first Operating Room, I don't think it should be binned.

I DO think it needs some tweaking.

There were some suggestions put forth post-game. I'll come back with them in a bit.

[Hoopla]

Hey Vi. I've been thinking that the current roster thing is kind of a silly, unnecessary exercise. I feel like the easiest way to determine which games are chosen is to just assign a category (small/mid/large/experimental) to an upcoming mod and just let them pick whatever game they want from that pool. Then once that game has been chosen, it gets locked out for 5 picks (or half the amount of setups within the category) - I don't know yet exactly. This way you get a roster that changes by itself so different games get picked, but there is still an element of popularity involved. Does that make sense?

Yes, and I like it.

I think it probably doesn't need to be a static lock-out either. If a setup is really popular and fills quickly it can be locked out for a short amount of time - but then, if a setup doesn't fill or takes a long time in signups, it can be locked out for a bit longer. That makes it a pretty democratic roster driven by what players mostly want.

[Mr. Flay]

Eh, I think going 5 games without a repeat in any given category is perfectly reasonable (less if the sum total of candidates is lower; see Approved Large Opens).

If you make it mathematical, then it's easy for the List Mod/coders to help mods choose what can come next, without any bias/headache.

Is there a reason you're aiming for assigning categories, though? Just to prevent cherrypicking?

[Amrun]

Yeah, I think putting Large Opens in that rotation is a bit weird since they're rarely run by popular choice.

[Amrun]

I also think mods should be able to choose their category.

[Hoopla]

*shrug*

I think unpopular setups should be punished for not completing a signup or taking forever. I don't see anything wrong with going with a 5 game lock-out if it fills normally, then 8 or 10 if it takes longer than the amount of players in days. Realistically, a 13-player game shouldn't take two weeks to fill and I don't see why a setup that takes ages to fill should get another chance to be picked so soon.

(Obviously we're talking about the Small and Mid sections, and maybe Experimental. We could break it down by percentage instead of a number though.)

[Mr. Flay]

I'm fine with a longer lockout for failed signups.

Maybe you cannot pick the same category as the last game signup? Last two signups? Iunno...

[Hoopla]

I also think mods should be able to choose their category.

Mods were given free choice for a while with farside and there was a marked increase in 12+ setups being picked. There was a whole contingent of players who wanted small games, but they weren't being run enough in places like Central Park. I think you'd probably go back to more mods picking larger games or a higher ratio of Experimental games if you let that happen.

Experienced mods get a free pick from any category (or their own design) - that's plenty of freedom. New mods can't have everything.

[izakthegoomba]

What counts as an "experienced mod"?