I have three observations here.In post 5088, Natirasha wrote:(This is a sign your mechanic was broken Magua)
First, the bonus-on-red-auctions mechanic worked as intended. That is, it was not intended for Town to win most, if not all, of those auctions. Previous drafts of the setup simply had Town unable to bid on them (it would just be between the two scumteams), but that was deemed too much.
For Night-kill, it was specifically intended that scum would win all, or all-except-one, of those auctions. Town could cost scum money, but it was never intended to be an even or "fair" competition. It could happen, but I wanted it to happen no more than once in the game, even if the scum were being trampled.
For Investigation Immunity, Hitman, etc, there is a very strong town strategy of claiming when you won it (as was done with both II and Hitman D1), and I very much wanted to avoid that because I wanted to avoid confirmed innocents being confirmed innocents.
Allowing Town to bid on these auctions as well was more to do with giving the scum things to have to worry about and being more cautious than anything else.
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Second, for the "sheer amount of money scum have" bit, there is an issue of scum snowballing when they're not lynched (that was the reason for Nero being governed -- he could generate more money for the team), yes. I played around with different systems that would scale the amount gained to the size of opposing players, but they proved very unwieldy.
Beyond this, "the plan" resulted in Lost Butterfly gaining about $500 from being transferred to, making up about 1/3 of the Right Hand Mafia's money at the end of the game.
This was contrasted, as before, with Town almost never lynched except at deadline, which I'll
happily
admit was not in the forecasted plan for the game. That did hurt Town in comparison to scum, yes.---
Third, Town didn't really bid on much. Half the town never bid on anything because they transferred their money. N5, only pieguyn and Lord Mhork bid on anything at all. pieguyn won three abilities for $1 that Night. Several auctions that the scum put a lot of money on (eg, Governor) throughout the game went for $2-$10, rather than costing scum money.
The design goal was so that the Town wouldn't communicate about Night stuff, yes (or, wouldn't communicate about Night stuff until a Day or two afterwards, which I couldn't stop). This was a direct response to what happened in the second game.Natirasha wrote: The second half of the "let's randomly fuck with the town". All of these abilities simply serve to prevent the town from coordinating properly. I understand what you want the mechanical point of this to be--all the factions, bidding on different powers to get them. It creates an interesting counterplay, and the unlinked scumteams only serve to excetuate that. I like the basic theory. However, obviously scum will try to coordinate actions in such a playground. These countermeasures, however, completely undermine that aspect of the game--in fact, it actively punishes the town for talking!
To the statement that without coordination Town couldn't win, eg, Night-kill: As above, that was the point. Town could win Night-kill if they always bid on their money on it (and got an Efficiency Bonus instead of never getting one...), but again, it was *never* the goal that Town could do so consistently. Maybe once around N4 or N5, but in doing so they'd lose all their money and that would be that. That is, I never wanted this game to become Nightless (or, with Town-controlled kills, essentially Double Day Nightless). It could happen, but it was never going to be dominant strategy. It was never intended that Town ever be able to communicate to control all the auctions.
The intention (if I can use that term loosely) was that Town would scumhunt, etc, during the Day, do their own individual thing at Night, and if they came up with something from those actions, maybe use it. It was always intended that mass-claim be bad for the Town.
), or that Harakiri was too paranoid to claim in the QT, or that the other team hammered, or that there might have been a role that could block our kill if we outed ourselves. Slow-playing in LYLO when no one on your team is in danger of a lynch is always the best move.
