Mini Normal 2170: Stuff I’m Listening To [Game Over]

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

ouch that scum pt. phewwwww. this game was a once in a lifetime experience where the scums didn't really even have to try :/

we were really confused! =/

we spent a lot of time trying to figure out who the traitor was. We never suspected Kasu ~.~

[Noraa]

pfft they thought I was the traitor

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

we thought everybody was the traitor except Kasu :3

We r really not very good at the game

[Noraa]

I mean y'all won with zero casualties :/

[Noraa]

which is p good O_O

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

it was not for lack of trying ~,~;;

imagine how kasu felt when he found out we tried to murder him ^_^

[MURDERCAT]

It should have been a 1shot bp on the traitor

[Noraa]

it was not for lack of trying ~,~;;

imagine how kasu felt when he found out we tried to murder him ^_^

Umlaut knew this would happen so he made Kazu bulletproof. not even one shot. not two shot. infinitely bulletproof.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

in case we like kept shooting Kasu and Bulge kept protecting him

^_^

[Kasumeat]

it was not for lack of trying ~,~;;

imagine how kasu felt when he found out we tried to murder him ^_^

I figured that was pretty likely actually given how hard I pushed you early. I figured it was okay because:
a) I was BP
b) one missed NK doesn't really cost us much as long as it's only one
c) I thought the odds of town having a strong protective role was relatively low since our scumteam was presumably pretty weak

[callforjudgement]

Hi I reviewed this game.

hello
was it picked up on that there was the potential to clear the traitor and that the checker was a really abstract way to balance around that?
was it noted that the checker & loyal jailkeeper should have confirmed each other as town via setup?

in general i just think i really strongly dislike the design concept, i'm curious to see what approach was taken to reviewing it

I was the backup reviewer, so can answer these questions:

- We missed that the Jailkeeper could soft-clear the Traitor. Umlaut was concerned that the setup was townsided, so it may have been allowed unmodified anyway. That interaction was hard to fix, I suspect; if you make the traitor non-Bulletproof, then we end up with scum being killed accidentally overnight even though they're massively winning, which is probably an even worse interaction.
- It was intended that town would confirm at least one player from setup clues. We weren't entirely sure which (it depends a lot on who dies first and who targets who), but it's the sort of interaction that typically exists in Normals and helps to balance them. (One of the things I look for when checking for setup balance is that there's neither too little, nor too much, of this sort of thing in the setup.)

I should note that I'm not confident in my ability to balance traitor setups, and pretty much said as much in the review. In retrospect, the setup might have been a little scumsided. The players seemed to think it was townsided during the game itself, although I'm not sure how much of that sentiment was genuine and how much was scum blowing smoke in order to cast doubt on the Jailkeeper's claim.

[Kasumeat]

It should have been a 1shot bp on the traitor

I feel like this is pretty unlikely to come up since BP is quite common on traitors and barring something absurd happening like having a Claimed Loyal Jailkeeping making the scumteam think the Traitor is conftown, scum would be fairly scared to shoot twice.

[Thestatusquo]

That interaction was hard to fix, I suspect; if you make the traitor non-Bulletproof, then we end up with scum being killed accidentally overnight even though they're massively winning, which is probably an even worse interaction.

I strongly disagree that giving scum the ability to misplay and kill badly is as bad mechanically as the mod actively misleading the town by giving them bad information. In the former the scum have agency and the traitor has agency. They can both play well to avoid negative consequences. Town can theoretically play well, as bulge did with the protect, and get punished maximally by it.

[Thestatusquo]

I should note that I'm not confident in my ability to balance traitor setups, and pretty much said as much in the review. In retrospect, the setup might have been a little scumsided. The players seemed to think it was townsided during the game itself, although I'm not sure how much of that sentiment was genuine and how much was scum blowing smoke in order to cast doubt on the Jailkeeper's claim.

Wrt this eh I don't really think it was super slanted one way or the other. I think the town played bad and lost because of it.

[MURDERCAT]

I feel like this is pretty unlikely to come up since BP is quite common on traitors and barring something absurd happening like having a Claimed Loyal Jailkeeping making the scumteam think the Traitor is conftown, scum would be fairly scared to shoot twice.

If it did though

[Not_Mafia]

In the immortal words of DGB; please stop having neighbours

[PJ.]

So what? The neighborhood wound up being completely useless aside from pissing shea off, who was town.
Maybe a neighborhood could be useful in certain circumstances but this game definitely wasn't it.

Neighborhood is a mastina pet role,she wants to normalize neighborhoods and normalize fake claiming mason so her playstyle becomes meta instead of game ruining. That's actually part of why I was like"oh neighborhood is 100% real" cause..its a mastinaset up. W/e bad down. Yeeted me instead of nm. Gg.

[Gamma Emerald]

As much as I don’t like you as a player that’s a very valid take
I deserve punishment for trying to feed that foolish ambition

[Umlaut]

Actually mastina didn't suggest the neighborhood, I did. (Its main purpose mechanically was to lower the number of VTs to weaken the Neapolitan.)

[the worst]

Hi I reviewed this game.

hello
was it picked up on that there was the potential to clear the traitor and that the checker was a really abstract way to balance around that?
was it noted that the checker & loyal jailkeeper should have confirmed each other as town via setup?

in general i just think i really strongly dislike the design concept, i'm curious to see what approach was taken to reviewing it

I was the backup reviewer, so can answer these questions:

- We missed that the Jailkeeper could soft-clear the Traitor. Umlaut was concerned that the setup was townsided, so it may have been allowed unmodified anyway. That interaction was hard to fix, I suspect; if you make the traitor non-Bulletproof, then we end up with scum being killed accidentally overnight even though they're massively winning, which is probably an even worse interaction.
- It was intended that town would confirm at least one player from setup clues. We weren't entirely sure which (it depends a lot on who dies first and who targets who), but it's the sort of interaction that typically exists in Normals and helps to balance them. (One of the things I look for when checking for setup balance is that there's neither too little, nor too much, of this sort of thing in the setup.)

I should note that I'm not confident in my ability to balance traitor setups, and pretty much said as much in the review. In retrospect, the setup might have been a little scumsided. The players seemed to think it was townsided during the game itself, although I'm not sure how much of that sentiment was genuine and how much was scum blowing smoke in order to cast doubt on the Jailkeeper's claim.

I definitely see how this setup came about actually. I haven't really sat down and thought about how I would balance a traitor in a closed normal and it is *not* easy at all.

Thanks for replying, thanks mastina for swinging in as well.

[Gamma Emerald]

also I think I should be able to 100% peg tw's alignment any time he replaces in since there was such a disparity between this and betrayal mafia

[MURDERCAT]

The worst, can you confirm whether or not you replaced in thinking it was a scum slot?

[mastina]

Neighborhood is a mastina pet role,she wants to normalize neighborhoods and normalize fake claiming mason so her playstyle becomes meta instead of game ruining. That's actually part of why I was like"oh neighborhood is 100% real" cause..its a mastinaset up.

I believe you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way reviews work if you're of the belief that a reviewer has this strong of a pull in terms of setup design where a reviewer will introduce a fundamental mechanic of the setup that was absent from the design--
We don't.

The only way a neighborhood is introduced by me is if I was the designer of the setup, and notably, it's been at least two years since I've designed a setup; I am, exclusively, a setup reviewer.

A reviewer may may may

may

, under very specific circumstances, suggest a neighborizer, if that role fits with the already-generated setup.
A reviewer may suggest turning masons into neighbors, if masons provide the town with too much power.

But mostly, a reviewer will, if anything, take neighborhoods out of setups--not insert them in.

Thus, if you see a neighborhood in a Normal, or for that matter if you see a Neighborizer in a Normal--it was almost certainly design intent from the setup creator. Who in this game was Umlaut, not me.

Also, as an aside: reviewers also should not let their personal playstyle philosophies/beliefs influence their reviews. If my beliefs were to influence my review, then I'd have axed the traitor due to my hatred of that role. But I didn't, because that's overstepping my boundaries as a reviewer; my job is to take what the designer gives me and fine-tune it into passable form, not fundamentally change core aspects of the setup.

It was intended that town would confirm at least one player from setup clues. We weren't entirely sure which (it depends a lot on who dies first and who targets who), but it's the sort of interaction that typically exists in Normals and helps to balance them. (One of the things I look for when checking for setup balance is that there's neither too little, nor too much, of this sort of thing in the setup.)

I should note that I'm not confident in my ability to balance traitor setups, and pretty much said as much in the review. In retrospect, the setup might have been a little scumsided. The players seemed to think it was townsided during the game itself, although I'm not sure how much of that sentiment was genuine and how much was scum blowing smoke in order to cast doubt on the Jailkeeper's claim.

Pretty much this. Town roles leading to the confirmation of other town roles is pretty commonplace in Normals, to the point of being borderline-standard, as it is one of the main ways to give the town a needed boost to their chances, so long as it is in moderation.

I, personally, do not like traitors as a role, and they are pretty hard to balance and even harder to maintain the integrity of being fun in the generated setup (because they are, inherently, a role that reduces the amount of fun for at least one faction, possibly two if the town has to witch hunt when they see the traitor). The original setup was definitely scumsided, and we balanced it to be closer to balanced, although in hindsight we might not have done enough, in spite of the player sentiment of the game being townsided. We did also miss the jk-bptraitor interaction, which, while a fringe case that's statistically an anomaly, when it happens gives incredibly strong swing towards a scum win.

[the worst]

The worst, can you confirm whether or not you replaced in thinking it was a scum slot?

i read nothing, i wanted to play with these ppl

[MURDERCAT]

fair enough