Mini Normal 1983: Winter Wonderland [Endgame!]

[mastina]

Unless you consider giving town 2 conf towns, a cop, killpower, and a watcher is “swingy”

If given the scum strength of a fucking NINJA STRONGMAN? Which had a BACKUP IN CASE IT WENT DOWN EARLY?
When the town has no protectives?

Yes.

Swingy, but balanced.

You can't ignore the scum power when addressing balance. It's in the setup for a reason.

[Mathdino]

wait by the time i subbed in i'm pretty sure katyusha and HEM were already conftown

[Not_Mafia]

They couldn't be scum together due to lack of hammer, they weren't independently confirmed

[mastina]

Keep in mind also--power roles are a necessity for towns to win. They are inherently needed for a town to stand a chance, because time and time again, it has been shown that mountainous games with no other mechanics are scumsided, fuck what the numbers say IN THEORY, in practice they always end in the scum win because of a simple factor:

The scum have inherent advantages over the town at their base level. At the fundamental mechanical level of a game, the scum have advantages the town lacks. In particular, there are two which are rather important: the scum are the INFORMED minority. They know things that the town does not. They are capable of making more informed decisions and making more tactical plays than the town is because they hold information the town does not. (I'd also say the minority part is important as well, because the more people who're around, the less intelligent they tend to be. )

This advantage is magnified exponentially by daytalk when scum possess it. People often take it for granted, or think that it provides no real scum utility--but there's a good reason scum wins skyrocketed in an existing newbie setup which was balanced around lacking daytalk when daytalk was tried as an experiment. (Albeit with the caveat that sample size was small and the initial jump in wins later died down and could be explained by veterans normally not playing in newbies playing in them.) A competent scumteam makes good use of their ability to coordinate during the day AS WELL as during the night. They bounce ideas off of each other and provide feedback and give input on their opinions on various different areas.

The second inherent advantage scum possess is the nightkill--they are capable of removing the greatest threats to them. (ESPECIALLY in setups lacking protectives, and ESPECIALLY with a fucking ninja strongman.) The nightkill has been time and time again shown, proven, to be the scum's greatest assets. In mountainous games in particular, what often happens is the town starts off promising enough, but the players most essential to pulling the town together are systematically wiped out by the nightkill...leaving only the less-competent town players alive. And because the less-competent town players are alive, the obvious happens: the town, being less competent than it was before the nightkills, suffers, to the point of losing.

The town, in of itself, has NO inherent advantage over scum. None. There is no inherent property of being the uninformed majority which grants an advantage--save for

possibly

the "majority" part. The town's one and only advantage over scum is outnumbering them, but in this also comes the disadvantage in that the more town players there are, the more likely it is for the town to mislynch because the more likely it is statistically speaking for a lynch to land on town. (If there are 3 players and 1 scum in them, 33% chance. 4 players and 1 scum in them, 25% chance. 5 players and 1 scum in them--let's say for some reason that were lylo--20% chance. You get the idea.)

As a result of the scum holding an inherent, fundamental advantage over the town, the towns are REQUIRED to have some compensation to counter that inherent advantage. Thus enters town power roles. And yet, when judging town power roles--which gets me to my point--you

also

cannot just rely on the theoretical statistics of potential combinations in actions...because consistently, the town will perform below statistical expectations of what they can do in theory; the scum will perform at or above statistical expectations of what they can do in theory. Thanks to town lacking information (and thus making decisions which are sub-optimal because they didn't know better), and scum not lacking information (and thus making decisions which are closer to optimal because they have a closer to perfect vision).

This is why playing scum is easier than playing town. Scum can make mistakes, often in regards to misjudging the few things they

don't

know (i.e., who/what the town power roles are)...but it is much harder for them to make a misplay during the night (which is their realm where they dominate) than it is for the town to make a misplay during their night (which is not their realm and where they are at their weakest).

This is basic mafia theory stuff. And anyone who thinks it through will realize the obvious conclusion. In a game of this size, towns need ~3-4 power roles of sufficient strength: not overwhelmingly powerful, not overwhelmingly weak. Divergence from the mold (in this case, making the roles powerful) requires compensation for the scum (in this case, the asceticizer and its backup). The more you diverge from the mold (and this game did), the more swingy your game will be (and this game was, in this case against the town), because the mold is the mold in the first place because it is where the game is most reasonably set.

[mastina]

tl;dr version:
Scum hold inherent advantages over the town (namely, being informed, being the minority, and most prominently, their power to remove a town player from the game all on their own: the nightkill).
Town holds NO inherent advantage over scum (save potentially one which is a double-edged sword that also counts as a DISadvantage), and yet hold many inherent disadvantages.

As a result, towns inherently require compensation against the scum--a "necessary evil".

These power roles, however, do not magically break the above rules. In fact, they are inherently bound to follow them: town power roles hold an inherent disadvantage over scum power roles because town power roles are still the uninformed majority.

Towns will, as a result, consistently perform below what they should, by theoretical statistical numbers, be.
Scum will, as a result, consistently perform at or above what they should, by theoretical statistical numbers, be.

The conclusion from this is that the towns need a level of power meeting a minimal requirement--they don't need

*a*

power to counter the scum advantage, but

some

power to allow for a counter to their own disadvantage. It has been shown, time and time again, that the magical formula where towns have just about the right amount of power where they are able to counter their own disadvantage and counter the scum's inherent advantage into a LEVEL playing field is 3-4 roles of moderate strength. (And if four, probably one scum role also of moderate strength.)

More than that, things will disproportionately be townsided unless scum are compensated. And even if scum are compensated, because you've added more to the formula, it is more complex and thus, more swingy. (This game is that type.)

Less than that, things will disproportionately be scumsided outside of some extreme severe measures which are maybe passable. (For instance, cop JK 1x BP as a closed; cop JK as an open. Both of these in a 13p are reasonably close to balanced as both contain the strongest town roles.) However, with said measures in place...the swing will increase depending on how things go. (In the aforementioned examples, the lifespan of the cop determines whether town or scum hold the edge.)

So regardless of what way you diverge from the mold, if you make alterations to the formula, the swing of the setup increases and the balance of the setup is harder to pin down precisely. I maintain however we still get it mostly right.

[Not_Mafia]

Even you tl;dr is too long

[Firebringer]

Even you tl;dr is too long

[Mulch]

Even you tl;dr is too long

[Firebringer]

This setup was def townsided
The cop can potentially get two guilties and lots of innocents
The vigs are both conf town since normal standards you can’t argue scum Vigi
The only role that didn’t have actually much power was watcher

The only reason game didn’t go to Town was almost all town power was eliminated by night 2

[Firebringer]

The fact you have two conf town roles shouldn’t be understated as well as cop who can get more towns confirmed
Your looking at game where essentially
4 people essentially could be confirmed town on day 2
Thats four people scum essentially can’t lynch

[mastina]

The vigs are both conf town since normal standards you can’t argue scum Vigi

The vigs are indeed both conftown if both actually get their shots off and don't end up shooting each other, shot, or lynched--all of which were incredibly realistic probabilities. Not just possibilities, PROBABILITIES. And sure enough both vigs were dead before D3. This wasn't some unlikely worst-case scenario which was something that the town just had bad luck in having happened. (Well it was the worst-case scenario, but it wasn't JUST the worst-case scenario made reality.) This was something which was quite likely to happen, and as it turned out, did.

The only reason game didn’t go to Town was almost all town power was eliminated by night 2

And the setup was literally made in such a way where this was not just a possibility--it was a probability. Which again actually came to pass. NOT ONLY does the cop have to dodge the vigs, BUT ALSO the cop has to dodge the scum nightkill

and

get a successful investigation off when said investigation could be on either the vig kill or the scum nightkill.

FURTHERMORE, even if the cop doesn't target someone who dies, this still does not guarantee a result...because the asceticizer could be used to force a No Result. This, not going into how claiming cop is not going to necessarily save the life of a player from the lynch unless they DO have a result to show for it. That's SIX different ways--count them,

SIX

different ways, the cop can fail to successfully use their role.

The watcher as noted was nigh-worthless with an essentially-ninja-strongman on the scumteam's side. And was not a town claim especially given this (because what can you say? The truth, "I targeted the nightkill and got No Result", gets you lynched because no sane town would believe it even thought it was true), and can--and indirectly, DID--lead to said Watcher being lynch.

The vigs were the strongest roles in the game...and while the vigs are in fact self-confirming, their shots need to land on scum or else they fuck the town over...especially if there's only one successful/non-redundant (vigs shooting the nightkill shouldn't be a thing but CAN be a thing) vig shot, forcing the game onto evens.

The town was by no means weak. They had strength, yes. Quite a load of it, yes. They were as powerful as a town can get, this is undeniably true...

...But in spite of that strength, the weaknesses built into their roles given the entirety of the setup (between both scum roles, scum's nightkill, and the own probability of how they would handle their own roles) counterbalanced those strengths.

It is unquestioned that the town in a best-case scenario could with these roles STOMP the scum.
It is also undeniable that the game's results proved that in a worst-case scenario town would and was STOMPED by the scum.
But that is not called imbalance.
That is called swing.

You cannot rely on a hypothetical best case scenario and state that "because of this thing which could have happened, game was townsided" while ignoring all of the reasons countering it, from the unlikelihood of the scenario, to the equal and opposite inverse outcome, to

the actual results of the game

.

4 people essentially could be confirmed town on day 2

Wrong. D2 is before the even-night vig gets to prove their claim. A cop claim is not proof of alignment or role and in fact would be seen as suspicious in a vig game. (Cops are rarely paired with vigs; most commonly, it's GUNSMITHS paired with a cop and thus a cop claim in a proven vig game is more likely to be seen as a fakeclaim. In fact I suggested in review doing exactly that but it was decided gunsmith was too much of a nerf to the town.)

The odd-vig's conftown, the cop result is conftown in all likelihood, but that's it.

In order to get four conftown, it needs to have those key players survive to see D3.

If by D3, scum have allowed four conftown to be left alive...then frankly, they fucking deserve to lose. The nightplay is the realm of scum, where they are meant to dominate. If the town is left to run amok for not one but TWO nights in a row, the scum get what's coming to them Inversely, if the town manages to hide their core PRs and have them survive such that the cop is able to produce two innocents and both vigs get to shoot successfully...

...Then they deserve to win. No two ways about it.

[BuJaber]

Not to mention that a cop claim means scum kill following night so a cop needs to get as many results as possible while dodging lynches before they claim. It really is super difficult almost impossible to get 4 conftowns by D2.

[Firebringer]

Wrong. D2 is before the even-night vig gets to prove their claim. A cop claim is not proof of alignment or role and in fact would be seen as suspicious in a vig game.

You aren’t going to lynch a cop who is getting clears or guilties.
And just because even night hasn’t yet proven role doesn’t mean they aren’t also essentially off the lynch pool as well.

Ur wrong.
You are bad at balance.

Resign from normal review group.

[Mulch]

“The cop is nerfed because they will get nightkilled if they get a guilty”?????


????????


?????


???
?

[Firebringer]

It is unquestioned that the town in a best-case scenario could with these roles STOMP the scum.
It is also undeniable that the game's results proved that in a worst-case scenario town would and was STOMPED by the scum.
But that is not called imbalance.
That is called swing.

The fuck
The roles scum got can’t even really impact games they are just dampeners for Town roles
They only change game when Town tries to interact with scum

This was like giving Town a machine gun and giving the scum a water pistol
The town used machine gun on themsevles and beat themselves to death and scum just managed to survive and distract long enough to win.

This wasn’t a real scum stomp and everyone has said so including yourself.

[Mulch]

Correct fire.

Town
Scum

Anything town gets is just a benefit to town
Anything scum gets would NEVER be useful unless they were there to counter Town things
The one exception is killpower roles but scum Kp is not allowed in normals
Thus, the only reason scum “power” is good is to negate town one


So the ascetic can negate the town watcher completely.

Ok??

If you took both of those out, it’s still cop-confirmed town odd night vig- confirmed town even night vig

against NOTHING

When a balanced setup is cop (with night zero peeek), ALONE

this is by far townsided.

And if the ascetic wants to try and negate the cop, then they risk being fucked by the watcher

So stop saying “they had ninja kill and also could stop cops.” no. They could choose one. And the right play is always to negate the watcher .

And stop saying “they were all strongman.” Because the scum didn’t KNOW this. So they still had to play around protective they didn’t know didn’t exist.

[mastina]

You aren’t going to lynch a cop who is getting clears or guilties.

You still have to get the clears or guilties when there are six ways for that to be prevented. (Town lynching the cop PRIOR to getting a clear/guilty, the cop investigating a vig kill which is significantly likely since cops and vigs have the exact same investigation pool, the cop investigating a scum kill which is a secondary option because cops can sometimes investigate townreads which scum are inclined to kill, the cop getting No Result rather than town/scum thanks to the asceticizer, the cop being nightkilled by the scum, or as it happened the cop being seen as vig-worthy and eating the bullet.)

This, not even going into town paranoia, about how the cop could be scum fakeclaiming an innocent, or scum fakeclaiming a guilty as a bus for the towncred. You think that doesn't happen? Well then you don't play town often enough because towns can, will, and DO in fact think that way and yes they DO in fact lynch the cop claim because of thinking that way.

And just because even night hasn’t yet proven role doesn’t mean they aren’t also essentially off the lynch pool as well.

This is only applicable in a town which carries the mindset of "Let them prove their role and if they don't, lynch them the following day". This is a common enough mindset, but is not anywhere remotely close to a universal mindset. In ANY other mindset, then no. They are not in fact out of the lynch pool, nor should they be.

Especially depending on the circumstances behind the odd-vig and what they've claimed or haven't claimed. (For instance, if the odd-vig doesn't claim the odd-night modifier, the even-night vig is less likely to be believed. Vice-versa, too. If the even-vig claims vig D1 and leaves out the even-night modifier, chances are the odd-night vig shoots them.)

You are yet again focusing on "what could go right on the town" while ignoring the situations where things go wrong for the town. The situations where things go wrong for the town are part of balance. Focusing on one extreme and saying that because of that extreme the setup was sided towards that side is pure ignorance of the facts.

The game was swingy.
It was POSSIBLE for the town to crush the game.
It was POSSIBLE and TURNED OUT for the scum to crush the game.

“The cop is nerfed because they will get nightkilled if they get a guilty”?????

The cop is nerfed because there are SIX different ways for their investigation to be nullified: the lynch, the scum nightkill on the cop's target, the vig kill on the cop's target, the scum asceticizing the cop's target, the scum nightkilling the cop, and as it happened, the vig killing the cop.

SIX different ways for the cop investigation to fail.

Most games with cops barely feature two or three.
To emphasize. Most games with cops barely feature two or three ways the cop investigation could fail.
This game had double that. SIX ways for it to fail.

The cop wasn't just nerfed because claiming a guilty gets it nightkilled.
The cop was nerfed because there were four or five death methods which would interfere with the cop giving utility, along with a sixth role-based method to interfere with the cop's utility.

The roles scum got can’t even really impact games they are just dampeners for Town roles

That's exactly what scum roles should be--dampeners for town roles. That's exactly what they functioned as. They served their purpose in reducing the strength of the town roles significantly.

This was like giving Town a machine gun and giving the scum a water pistol

No it's like giving the town an AK-47 and giving scum a tool which can either be used as a bunker or an M-16, a versatile tool capable of both defense or offense depending on the usage of the role.

This wasn’t a real scum stomp and everyone has said so including yourself.

It was a town loss not a scum win, yes, but it was also still a mafia win with the results which could not have gone worse for the town. But the fact that the town used the machine gun on itself, as it were, demonstrates that it was not in fact townsided.

Because of one simple factor.

Towns are the uninformed majority.
BOTH of these factors contribute to how they use their roles.
Because they are the majority, they are statistically speaking more likely to use their roles on town than on scum.
Because they are uninformed, they are disproportionately likely to make mistakes because they work with imperfect knowledge and thus perform consistently below statistical probability.

By that metric, the town was more likely to have this outcome than any other.

But let's play theoretical stats.

Assume a mislynch D1.
The odd-vig has a 3/11 chance at hitting scum, and a 3/11 chance at hitting a town PR. Equal odds of hitting scum and a town PR. The odd-vig has a 8/11 chance at hitting town--disproportionately favoring hitting town rather than hitting scum.

The cop has a 3/11 chance at hitting scum, and a 3/11 chance at hitting a town PR.

The scumteam has a 4/9 chance at hitting a town PR with their nightkill.

The cop has a 1/9 chance of being the scum nightkill, PLUS the 1/11 chance of being the vig kill, PLUS the 1/99 chance of their cop investigation target being the scum nightkill, PLUS the 1/121 chance of their cop investigation target being the vig kill, PLUS the 1/121 chance of their cop investigation target being the asceticizer target. It adds up: 22.86501377410468% chance of the cop investigation failing to produce a useful result D2.

Is a 22% chance of the cop investigation failing to produce a useful result D2 such a large number that it means the cop's use is zilch? Why no. No, it is not. That still means that the cop statistically speaking by the numbers has a little under a 4/5 chance of getting an investigation off.

But is a 22% chance of the cop investigation failing to produce a useful result D2 enough of a number where I can say that the role is not nearly as strong as you are giving it credence for in this particular setup? I would say so, yes. Especially given that, once again: towns never perform as optimally as stats suggest they theoretically will, because being the uninformed majority is inherently a disadvantage; scum being the informed minority is inherently an advantage which is massively underrated.

If you took both of those out

, it’s still cop-confirmed town odd night vig- confirmed town even night vig

Yeah stopping you there because if you took both of those out, what you'd get is...

...A setup we didn't actually approve and never would have.

The asceticizer is not just a counter to the watcher.

It is ALSO a counter to the cop.

It cannot be both at the same time, much in the same way a mafia JOAT with 3/4 standard scum powers of ninja/strongman/roleblocker/rolecop cannot be both possible uses of its role at the same time. This is true!

But it CAN be EITHER.

And the asceticizer as forcing the cop to get No Result was a valid use of the role you are throwing out. In that sense it is a more defensive-oriented roleblocker.

[mastina]

Correction on my numbers. I stated that it was 22.86501377410468% of a non-useful cop investigation.
That's not accurate.
The actual number is higher, because I forgot to account for the cop investigating one of the PRs in there.
There are two metrics you can use for the math including them--a metric for just the odd-vig (wherein investigating the even-vig is not a waste and is actually a useful result) OR a metric where investigating either vig is redundant and a waste (what you seem to think to be the case, Firebringer).

If you include those factors?

31.95592286501377% chance of the cop investigation being worthless if it's JUST THE ODD VIG.

41.04683195592286% chance of the cop investigation being worthless if as you say investigating the even vig is a waste.

That'd be only a 3/5 chance at best of getting a good cop shot off, in the BEST of circumstances, by the numbers as stats show them to be.

Factor in the aforementioned uninformed majority vs. informed minority inherent disadvantage vs. inherent advantage, and I stand by what I said:

Swingy, but not townsided, not even remotely.

Feel free to check my math if you don't believe me but the numbers hold.

[mastina]

(I am leaving out from the above the cop investigating the watcher because I am classifying that as a useful result. Unless you want me to run the math for it which would weaken the cop even further.)

[mastina]

(For the curious, the math when including the watcher is almost 50%--49.31129476584022% to be precise--chance of the cop investigation being worthless, but again I wouldn't say investigating the watcher would be worthless, so.)

[Mathdino]

Okay you know what
Tl;dr this game is equivalent to cop+vig+d3 innocent child vs 3 goons (watcher/asceticizer cancel)
That setup is considered balanced on MS because majority lynch hurts town

So yes this setup was balanced
If you disagree that cop/vig/D3IC is balanced, you disagree with most I think
Setups like Stack The Deck consider that exact setup balanced

[Not_Mafia]

I think people are underestimating scum ascetisiser, that's an incredibly powerful scum role

[mastina]

this game is equivalent to cop+vig+d3 innocent child vs 3 goons (watcher/asceticizer cancel)
That setup is considered balanced on MS because majority lynch hurts town

Asceticizer does not quite cancel with Watcher because it can be used in a way beyond just countering the Watcher (it also exists as a counter to the cop, albeit not at the same time as it'd be a counter to the Watcher and the scumteam must choose which counter to use but this is no different between choosing between a ninja to counter a Watcher and a strongman to counter a protection more or less), but I'd say your comparison all the same would still hold regardless.

Cop, Vig, D3 Innocent Child would be approximately balanced versus three goons. You've got two very strong town roles and a third which is very strong in certain conditions, but the town lacks any defense whatsoever and their roles are incredibly limited, vulnerable, and have negative synergy. (As in, vig and cop actively sabotage one another because of either targeting one another or overlapping on their targets; both can target the D3 inno child if that isn't claimed early-on.)

And this setup, while more intricate and elaborate, has much the same aesthetic. The town's roles had little synergy and were incredibly vulnerable, exposed, and while individually incredibly powerful, situationally they were such that their utility was weakened to acceptable levels, more or less. I'd call this game more swingy than Cop Vig D3 Inno Child vs goons (although that in of itself I would still consider a swingy setup, but for opposite reasons as to why this setup was swingy), but I'd still call both close to the balance mark.

[mastina]

I think people are underestimating scum ascetisiser, that's an incredibly powerful scum role

That's what I've been saying!

Well one of the things I've been saying, I've been saying a lot.

[mastina]

You also have to keep in mind that not only did they HAVE that super-mega-powerful scum asceticizer (that was the role we had the most trouble with during the review process), they had a UNIVERSAL BACKUP in case they lost said scum asceticizer...which would create a situation where town would see it, think they were in the clear because surely the scum with that role wouldn't have another...except they did, allowing them to continue to fuck the town over and not even understand why they were being fucked over. ("Scum couldn't have that role AND a roleblocker!" is a sentiment I'd expect to see after the backup-asceticizer causes a town action to fail and the townie claims the failed action.)