[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[Hoopla]

But all the clear looking people will be alive because they can't get shot. It wont be the typical lylo crowd.

I think you're underestimating how difficult it is to catch scum in games with a high town:scum ratio (and especially with little association tells).

[chamber]

Just theory crafting how to 'fix' my precieved issue with 2:11 mountainous.

[callforjudgement]

I think the chamber version is a definite improvement, but I don't think it fixes the fundamental issues with the setup. (As well as being even more demoralizing for scum.)

[Elmo]

I would be curious to see how 2:11 (or something like it) with randomised nightkills went.

[TheButtonmen]

No Lynchin' the VT is a 2:5 setup where a mislynch results in a NL which basically allowed the town to nominate who was NK'ed, it's been run four times and scum won them all fwiw.

[Quilford]

Is Fire and Ice balanced? Considering 2:2:9 is par for multiball in a Mini Normal, and then you'd also have 2 PRs.... This setup only has 1.5 PRs if you count the kills-cancel-each-other-out mechanic, and it's 2:2:8. At the very least, shouldn't another Vanilla Townie be added?

[Hoopla]

Is Fire and Ice balanced? Considering 2:2:9 is par for multiball in a Mini Normal, and then you'd also have 2 PRs.... This setup only has 1.5 PRs if you count the kills-cancel-each-other-out mechanic, and it's 2:2:8. At the very least, shouldn't another Vanilla Townie be added?

Where did you get the notion that 2:2:9 has to have 2 PR's in a Mini Normal? And that that would even be balanced? I don't think we have any proof of that. My instinct is that 2:2:9 is close to balanced as an open mountainous game, but probably not as a closed game, but we haven't really got enough games played using this ratio to make too many conclusions yet.

[Hoopla]

Reposting this setup here since RedPanda has the intention of running it in the Open Queue:

1 day and night doctor protection remains for the day also.
9 Vanilla townies. 2 are secretly vengeful.
1 mafia traitor.
2 mafia.

the reason I want to keep it as secret is because I don't want any townies to be confirmed by just claiming vengeful.
the traitor here can be nked. can't be recruited.

ideas and suggestions to improve/balance would be appreciated.

I'm trying not to let the "Hidden Vengeful" aspect impact my thoughts on the setup, as it looks playable, but stuff like Naive Millers seem really unfun and is a cheap way to include extra roles without allowing town to confirm themselves via claims. I think some people don't mind hidden roles, and Hidden Vengeful is probably better than Hidden Miller, as getting a guilty claim on you out of nowhere is a lot worse than getting a free kill out of nowhere.

Would probably need to work out a couple more specifics with the Traitor, like endgame scenarios and what happens if the Traitor is alive after both Goons have died. Does it inherit the NK, does it autolose, or does the game just go to nightless?

I'd like to see what others think about the setup.

[Rainbowdash]

I have this problem with vengeful though since I think (like vig) its an anti-town role at its core due to the main fact that most players who are going to actually use a vengeful shot are not really the best players to start on average.

Tie in the additional fact that you are going to have a disporportionally high number of self-hammers in that game for the lynch bait emotional players hoping to be vengeful and I think that setup is going to be heavily scum sided. I could see an 12:2 with one (known) vengeful townie or something working... but not with multiple hidden vengefuls

[Hoopla]

You really think townies are going to self-hammer for a 20% chance of being a Vengeful? It would happen less than townies self-voting in 5p Vengeful and that doesn't really happen

that

often.

[Rainbowdash]

I think it happens more than random (too much already) which is going to drag down town win chance more. I dont see this game working without treating it as mountainous for balance reasons at best.

[Hoopla]

The main thing that bothers me, is that chances are, for the Vengeful mechanic to be a productive +EV factor for town, they need two kills (or a kill + Doc save or a kill + Traitor NK) to keep the town out of evens, which seems unlikely to me, as it's very possible for a Vengeful Townie to be NK'ed. Even if the town gets both uses of the kills, the additional kill they generate (two Vengekills traded for a mislynch) is offset by the fact that two townies will have had to have been lynched in order to get the extra kill overall. You can't really expect townies to use the mechanic in a positive way, even though there are situations where it could be beneficial to use it (like after the Doc making a save N1). For the most part, Vengeful Townies should really only be killing to bring numbers back to odds, but I don't see any player not using their kill.

I feel like Nightless Vengeful Mayhem is probably a better balanced scenario for town than Panda's game, and this has had four scum wins to zero.

On a side-note, I think Nightless Vengeful needs one more townie to prevent a potential D2 lylo.

[RedPanda]

I can scrap the traitor. I only added him because I thought It would be too townsided.

[Hoopla]

I don't know how many takers you're gonna get for a 2:10 open game, to be honest.

[Rainbowdash]

I think 2:10 with and 8 VT 2 venge might be feasable... I just still read that as scum sided. Problem with a venge in an open setup is if they claim, they become more or less confirmed town.

Maybe... 2:10

2 goon
1-3 venge town
7-9 vanilla town

Or something like that could work. It eliminates the problem of a set # of venge essentially making them confirmed town so no point in lynching them, allows scum to claim venge if they want somewhat safely, and keeps the game just less breakable. I forsee some "you claimed venge, most of us think you are town but we should lynch you" which I dont like, but if you wanted an all vengeful game this may be the best path to take.

[Hoopla]

I think RedPanda is still sticking with Naive Vengefuls to eliminate the problem of them claiming.

I don't really know what the setup is trying to achieve - it just seems like a weird Vengeful/Nightless Vengeful Mayhem mutation that doesn't look overly fun.

[Rainbowdash]

"Hidden" I think is just one of the modifier that makes me flinch really badly and im not sure really should exist since its hard to create optimal play ever off of them. That and as I said already, I think vengeful is an anti-town mechanic due to the type of player who normally is able to use it.

Maybe a 2:10 nightless with a single hidden venge would work, but it seems like putting a tacky spin on a setup (NVM) that already needs a whole lot of work.

[Hoopla]

Thoughts on a setup Kcdaspot would like to run soon:

9 townies
1 town vig
3 maf
2 werewolves

maf have a factional Role block.

werewolves kill like normal.

It's a tweak on Jungle Republic, so mafia won't have a nightkill.

[callforjudgement]

So, I came to a realisation recently (while reviewing someone else's closed setup), and I think this is the appropriate thread.

Specifically, it's about mountainous; I've decided that 2:7 is probably more townsided than 2:11.

I know this seems absurd. But my reasoning goes like this: town early in the game have low information, and so are going to find it hard to catch scum, especially with only two targets among so many players. Meanwhile, the scum have all the information necessary to help them aim their kill from the start, assuming any of them know anything about meta (which is quite likely; many players do). So, going from 2:7 to 2:11, town gain the advantage of being significantly ahead if they hit scum in their first two lynches; but this is kind-of difficult to do. Meanwhile, scum gain the advantage of, if town miss twice, being able have killed two of the best townies, while meanwhile, town will have been aiming for the players who look scummiest, rather than the weakest players. I have a theory that the town's advantage if they guess right is smaller than their disadvantage if they guess wrong.

(FWIW, I don't feel that 2:7 mountainous is balanced. My guess is that the town win rate would be around 20 to 30 percent in practice, which is awful, but 2:10 and 2:11 seem worse.)

There is an obvious strategy for town to improve their win rate in 2:11, by the way, if this theory is correct: policy-lynch twice at the start of the game without attempting to scumhunt. (The lynches should be on players stronger as scum than town; this tends to describe VIs the most accurately, who typically do great as scum, which is just a nice side-effect.) Not only does this get rid of two of the players who would hurt town most, while scum are getting rid of the players who would help town most, but town has a couple of additional advantages here: first, they might actually hit scum (because with an honest mod, it's random what alignment the worst player will get), and second, scum don't have a free choice (they can't shoot their buddies, and may have to avoid always shooting the very best townie because of WIFOM) and town do.

Who knows, it might even make 2:11 actually fun to play…

[quadz08]

No, that would make 2:11 really shitty to play. If the ideal strategy for a game is to not play the game, then your game sucks.

[izakthegoomba]

No, that would make 2:11 really shitty to play. If the ideal strategy for a game is to not play the game, then your game sucks.

So, in other words, 2:11 Mountainous sucks. Which we already knew...

[callforjudgement]

Wow, nobody's posted here since August?

Anyway, I'm planning to run Black Flag Nightless when my turn in the Open queue comes around, and we accidentally reviewed it in the other thread, rather than here. So if there are any Open reviewers who for some reason are watching this thread, but not the Open discussion thread, here's your chance to air your views!

[Hoopla]

I have no qualms with trialling this setup - it seems balanced enough and neatly skips around a lot of the problems nightless games have in general.

[PMysterious]

Thoughts on a setup Kcdaspot would like to run soon:

9 townies
1 town vig
3 maf
2 werewolves

maf have a factional Role block.

werewolves kill like normal.

It's a tweak on Jungle Republic, so mafia won't have a nightkill.

Mafia never had Night-Kill in Jungle Republic. How do I know? I played the set-up before. The set-up only buffed the Mafia with a role-block and replaced the Seer with a Vig. That's all it did.

[UberNinja]

Yeah she's saying "Due to it being a Jungle Republic-inspired game, mafia won't have a night kill as per usual" and then stating the other parts which are changed by Kcdaspot.