mastina's Mini Normal Review

[Nexus]

I'm having trouble sending this PM so I'm breaking it up into multiple parts, which might mean some info gets missed.

OPENING POST:

Mini Normal Numbers:

Your Average People, in a Normal Game

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Current Game Status.
Current Game Deadline.
Players.
Basic Rules.
Game Events.

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Current Gamestate

Status

:

Pregame

Deadline

:

N/A.

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Moderator Background

This game is moderated by mastina.
This game was designed by mastina.
This game was reviewed by *Reviewer*, *Reviewer*, and *Reviewer*.
This game's backup moderator is (well I don't have one right now--I don't strictly speaking need one, but it'd be nice)

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Players

Players

:

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2. 
   
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. 
   
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. 
   
9. 
   
10. 
    
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Spoiler: Alive (13)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

Spoiler: Dead (0)

None yet!

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Rules

:

• Standard site rules are in place; you should REALLY know these by now.
  
• Deadlines:
  Days are three weeks (or until lynch); nights are three days (except weekend-nights which're four). Failure to submit an action or obtain majority on a lynch, and it is forfeit.
  
• Voting
  must be bolded or in vote tags to be counted. If I recognize who it's for, it counts.
• I'll send out
  Prods
  after three days, but will poke players on request before then. They must post within two days and cannot let themselves receive five prods, or they'll be replaced.
• Have fun, but
  don't be a jerkass
  . Seriously, I'll force-replace you if you prove toxic to the game's atmosphere.

MISCELLANEOUS:

1. I do allow contentless "
   bah
   " posts with no restriction other than lacking game content.
2. <<< Pure, bolded black within these marks is my modding color. There's no way to accidentally use these; DON'T USE THEM. >>>
3. Golden rule? ASK! I'll do what I can to answer. Got a complaint? Raise it, and I'll do what I can.
4. Loophole abuse
   will be treated just as seriously as (if not moreso than) the actual crime. Seriously. Just don't. The game's meant to be FUN, and if you're seeking loopholes, you're not in the right game. (For instance, I take
   very
   poorly to prod-dodges. Just announce V/LA.)

GAME SPECIFIC:

1. This game is explicitly 10:3 town:mafia.
   
2. Any and all game topics will remain open the entire game.
   
3. The mafia may both kill and action.
   
4. This game was reviewed for normalcy/balance by *name*, *name*, and *name*.
   
5. The following is the same town PM:

   Welcome to Mini Normal *Number*,

   Playername

   .
   You are a

   Vanilla Townie

   .
   Your only weapons are your voice and your vote.
   
   You win when all threats to the

   town

   are eliminated, and at least one member of your faction is alive.
   
   The game thread is here.
   Please confirm your role via PM.
   
   Good luck and have fun!

[Firebringer]

Haven't looked at it at all.
So I am going to start with saying worst setup ever, even if i haven't read it

[Firebringer]

Okay now that I looked at it for even a few seconds. I am shocked about it.
I don't know what to think with all the JOATs.

First and probably obvious question: These are all 1 shots?

[Firebringer]

This I definitely think is townsided, and think a few roles need nerfs:

Town:
JOAT (Cop, Gunsmith, Neapolitan)
JOAT (Tracker, Follower, Motion Detector)
JOAT (Doctor, Jailkeeper, Bodyguard)
JOAT (Vanilla Cop, Rolecop, Neapolitan)
VT x 6

vs.

Mafia:
JOAT (Ninja, Strongman, Roleblocker)
Goon x 2

First town JOAT gets essentially two clears s there is no false positives for the game though some might think the doctor might have to be scum given how many JOATs town has.

The last JOAT is very odd placed, I don't think you should have that many ways to confirm if someone is vanilla (even though thats generally not powerful), also how would rolecop work in this? Do they get full roles of these JOATs or just that they are JOATs?

If Rolecop gets every part of role than the role cop can essentially get guilty on the scum JOAT.
The second JOAT has no major issues since scum can ninja and follower and motion detector aren't inherently guilties (follower can be kind of).

I think major issue here is that if scum say lose their JOAT day 1, they are really going to be hurting with a Doc who can help make sure town gets at least 2 clears and the Tracker/Follower/MT can PoE people who possibly performed kill. Not to mention the Vanilla checks and a MT/Follower on them makes someone instant guilty.

Too much power in town hands.
divide up scum power and nerf town a bit here.

[Cheery Dog]

I believe your modding colour is going to be almost impossible to read for people using MafBlack.

and I think you probably do need to drop one of the town joats, too much investigative power and not enough leftovers for mafia to fakeclaim as their joat.
I don't really know which joat would be good to drop though, they're all got their own uniqueness. Although I'd possibly think friendly neightbour instead of neapolitan for joat one. (but that's also overboard and just something different than having two with neapolitan)

[mhsmith0]

A bit unusual setup, need to null it over.

I'm really not worried about "what if scum joat dies d1". If scum can't protect their pr at least through d1 then they probably deserve to lose, so the idea that it put them in a tough situation doesn't really bother me.

[mastina]

First and probably obvious question: These are all 1 shots?

That generally goes along with being a JOAT, yes. (Also laid out in the role PMs: "Each is one-shot".)

also how would rolecop work in this? Do they get full roles of these JOATs or just that they are JOATs?

As I said here:

Rolecop gets the information which would flip.

...It's the full-flip. However, I did also say:

If the town is too strong as-is, I can drop the Vanilla Cop JOAT. I wasn't quite sure whether the town would be too weak against the scum, so I threw that in as an extra; if you think the town's better without, I can drop that role.

divide up scum power and nerf town a bit here.

Nerfing town I can do (see also, I only included the Vanilla Cop JOAT as a role if the game would be scumsided with only three town JOATs), but I am against the idea of dividing scum power up.

I believe your modding colour is going to be almost impossible to read for people using MafBlack.

Known issue, but not usually problematic. I usually reserve the mod color for important announcements (which in a Normal are hopefully rare) and for editing posts when the need arises to do so.

and I think you probably do need to drop one of the town joats, too much investigative power and not enough leftovers for mafia to fakeclaim as their joat.

I would MASSIVELY prefer the dropped JOAT to be the Vanilla Cop JOAT, since that JOAT was not part of my original idea. I added it as a last-minute "in case I need the extra town power". It was not intended to be a core aspect of the setup.

The core aspect of the setup as I saw it was: strong investigative JOAT, protective JOAT, and a weak investigative JOAT to back them up, with the mafia having whatever power level they needed in order to provide a reasonable defense. I estimated ninja/strongman/roleblocker as a JOAT would give them freedom of movement in terms of allowing them to break town synchronization, while not offering a counter to every situation and not dominating the PRs.

[mastina]

^Basically, the way I see it: if it's the tracker-JOAT + the vanilla-cop-JOAT + the protective-JOAT, you've got three very weak PRs. Short of the tracker getting a guilty or the neapolitan getting a(n ambiguous) guilty or the rolecop clearing/condemning a player (rolecop, by the way, would get "vanilla" on a goon, forgot to mention that earlier, but that's the standard in place last I knew), probably the best the town can get is a single innocent in the form of finding a vanilla townie with the neapolitan. If the scum had no power, that could maybe be acceptable (though I'd still see the scum winning the game more often than not), but with the scum power there's a 0% chance town wins that game.

If it's the tracker-JOAT + the vanilla-cop-JOAT + the cop-JOAT, the town is left completely and entirely at the mercy of nightkills. (Also makes the strongman shot on the mafia JOAT redundant.) The game enters into ridiculously-swingy territory: a mafia roleblocking one JOAT and killing a second N1 leads to a near-guaranteed scum victory. That same game where two or three of the JOATs get guilties N1 leads to a town steamroll. I simply don't see that as being comfortably balanced.

If it's the vanilla-cop-JOAT + the cop-JOAT + the protective-JOAT, well, this one against the scum JOAT I can see as balanced, though it does hold a slightly higher chance of confirming players in my opinion. (The extra Neapolitan shot > the tracker/follower/motion detector powers, whereas the vanilla cop/rolecop ~= tracker/follower/motion detector powers. So the vanilla-cop JOAT is slightly stronger than the tracker-JOAT. The only counterbalance to this is that a vanilla-cop JOAT is less likely to be believed when paired with a cop-JOAT.)

So I suppose I can do that combination. But my preference WOULD be the tracker-JOAT + cop-JOAT + protective-JOAT, because that combination was what I originally envisioned the setup to be, and runs by my mental math to be about the same as the vanilla-cop/cop/protective one would.

[mhsmith0]

OK so starting from conceptual framework...

6 VT, 4 PR
vs 2 goons, 1 PR

Spoiler: town wins

1560 *
1689 *
1707 *
1720 *
1734
1757
1767
1787
1833 *

Spoiler: scum wins

1499
1570
1609 *
1655
1699 *
1708
1719
1728
1805

Throwing out the games where the scum PR was an encryptor (the * ones), you get a town record of 5-7. Looking at what are IMO the most comparable setups (tossing mason setups, as well as 1499 and postie's open setup 1791) you get:

Spoiler: comparable setups

1570 scum win
2-shot JK, tracker, doctor, 1-shot day vig
vs 2-shot rb

1708 scum win (iffier comparison)
1-shot GS, even cop, backup, JK
vs 1-shot tracker

1728 scum win
motion detector, follower, 1-shot neighborizer, 2-shot cop
vs odd night role cop

1787 town win (a bit underpowered for town compared to some others here)
macho, bodyguard, macho cop, voyeur
vs tracker

1805 scum win
3-shot vig, role cop neighbor, role cop neighbor, 1-shot BP backup miller
vs 1-shot power absorber

So as a concept, town is relatively more powered than the typical 6 active town PR, 1 active scum PR setup we've seen, but at the same time I don't think the difference is massive, and scum are 4-1 in those setups.

So off the cuff, I'm thinking it ought to be close to balanced.

You have:
1 not quite full cop (limited shot AND gunsmith/nea are not hard results, as far as the player knows)
1 not quite full tracker (essentially a 3-shot tracker with follower better than tracker and motion detector worse)
1 not quite full protective (doc/JK are 1-shots, and the BG is nearly useless other than protecting a hard clear for an extra day, since by the time you use it on N3 or N4, everyone's shots are probably done anyway)
1 pretty meh PR with limited shots
vs
1 scum PR that's pretty helpful, all things considering

Like, if you had
3-shot cop
3-shot tracker
3-shot doctor
3-shot rolecop
vs
2-shot roleblocker

That seems reasonably balanced for the most part. Highly swingy on whether the roleblocker is caught early on, since that role can really do a number on town PRs, including via strongman shot and resulting WIFOM about for real PR claims.

[mhsmith0]

I suppose I could be a wiseass and suggest that you flip the motion detector and the rolecop, so that you now get two town PRs that get a gunsmith "guilty", but I'm not sure that's a meaningful difference.

You basically have gunsmith/tracker/doctor/rolecop (3 shot each) against a roleblocker (3 shot ish - ninja works a bit weirdly with it). It's extremely unlikely that you'll have town PRs making an active difference in late game (and late game town derp is definitely a thing once the PR gifts stop raining down from the sky), and you have a pretty strong scum PR that can do a lot of damage.

I don't mind tweaking along the edges, but I don't think that it really requires a fundamental redesign.

[Cheery Dog]

Tracker/Cop/Protective looks okay to me.

It possibly also is fine with all four as well, I just don't like the view of two joats having Neapolitan, but then that's actually just a visual issue and nothing on balance/normality.

[Firebringer]

Mastin even in reviews you can't keep responses down to a few sentences

[mastina]

Mastin even in reviews you can't keep responses down to a few sentences

Okay, how's this for a response: I'm getting rather a few mixed signals for my review.

[mastina]

Just a note in case it becomes relevant: I'll be V/LA from the 23rd through the 27th for Christmas-related reasons. During that time, I won't be able to do much.

[Firebringer]

What are we at with the setup currently?

[mastina]

That's my question.
I've gotten a different answer from each reviewer; there seems to be no consensus.
You want one JOAT removed, from my understanding--I have stated that I would drop the vanilla cop JOAT. You also suggested distributing the scum power, but mhsmith disagreed with you on that. (It is also against my preference.)
Cheery Dog either wants one removed, or thinks the game is fine with all four (hard to tell, his post was ambiguous), and hasn't clarified that.
mhsmith has said it doesn't need to be fundamentally redesigned, but hasn't weighed in on what he actually thinks, as far as I know.

If it were left to me, I would run it as EITHER:
JOAT (Cop, Gunsmith, Neapolitan)
JOAT (Tracker, Follower, Motion Detector)
JOAT (Doctor, Jailkeeper, Bodyguard)
JOAT (Vanilla Cop, Rolecop, Neapolitan)
VT x 6

JOAT (Ninja, Strongman, Roleblocker)
Goon x 2

OR

JOAT (Cop, Gunsmith, Neapolitan)
JOAT (Tracker, Follower, Motion Detector)
JOAT (Doctor, Jailkeeper, Bodyguard)
VT x 7

JOAT (Ninja, Strongman, Roleblocker)
Goon x 2

...But I haven't gotten clear feedback on you from whether this would be acceptable, and if it was, which of them would be better balanced.

[Firebringer]

Well the first one is probably better, but I think as someone else said 2 Neapolitans is odd.

[mhsmith0]

Plan b is unacceptable for me, far too much scum power against two useful joats and a tracker joat that is basically junk. Even with zero scum power I'd be hesitant.

Plan a is I think in the ballpark of right, but it's getting pushback from other reviewers. If there's a fundamental disagreement about balance I don't mind subbing out, but I will not approve a substantial town nerf compared to that setup.

[Firebringer]

I am not very sure what needs for this setup, but I think JOAT 4 needs to be changed. Not removed.

[Cheery Dog]

I'm pretty sure first glance was just telling me I didn't like two things of Neopolitian.
But it also needs that to be correctly balanced, so meh.

Having the two options lined up iked that definitely makes me feel like the first option with all four town joats is the better plan.

I think there was still a quwestion of whether the mafia joat has enough things to plausibly fakeclaim if required, but I think they would be able to get away with a 'general joat'.

It's just a tough things to really get a clear picture of how it will play out.

[mastina]

I'd be fine with tweaking the vanilla cop JOAT. (Which seems to be the closest we've gotten to consensus--"first with four would be fine, with a minor tweak".)
Honestly I put in the Neapolitan mainly because I couldn't think of a third power to give that JOAT other than Neapolitan.
I'd be open to suggestions. The best option I can think of would be to use my non-normal role on a "weak hider":
-When hiding behind a target, has effectively commuted. (And is thus immune to the roleblock.)
-If the target is shot at (regardless of whether this shot would kill the target), the hider dies.
-If the target is not town, the hider dies.

...But that's just the best I can think of.

Alternatively, the third shot could be a Friendly Neighbor (or even just a Fruit Vendor).

Like I said, if you've got ideas...open to them. What would your preference be? It basically seems like you want all four JOATs, but want that third Neapolitan power to be something else.

[Firebringer]

Weak hider no
Friendly neighbor is too much.

Maybe just remove the third ability for it?
Or change role or vanilla cop to have 2 shots instead of one.

[mastina]

To me, it goes against the spirit of a JOAT to have the JOAT
-have less than three abilities
-have more than one shot of an ability.

I feel like if you do that for a JOAT, it stops being a JOAT. A JOAT, to me, means 3-4 abilities which are all one shot.

[mhsmith0]

I mean if you just want to have a random something you could always give a crappy power for the 3rd slot like voyeur, fruit vendor, motion detector, etc

[Firebringer]

Fruit vendor I guess is fine if you need to have some ability for its third for your OCD here