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NeoGAF Mafia Season 7 |Review Thread| In Memory of Byron J Crabbington

cabot

Member
I will say I disagree on the meta ruling but whatever. Not my place to rule. Felt that was a pointless sidestep during the game, you can call out players using meta against you quite easily if that's all they are relying on for their arguments.


I also agree with Swamped, posting restrictions should be decided by moderator, not universally applied.


I personally think moderators should be more vigilant and hard stanced in games going forward.
 
i also don't know that I agree with the sentiment that the overall Gafia scum game has just swung ahead of the town game and that it'll swing back of its own accord.

Almost all of the games weren't even close. Of the ones that were close you have stuff like Persona or DR3 but thinking about it, those games both featured scum dying before D2 and had teams that didn't have a ton of scum experience.

I think ultimately it's a mix of town having players that end up not playing much (whether that's inactivity or only shitposting), more games that ask town to find scum through traditional means (which is harder when the previous point is occurring), and then in general a town meta that is a bit weak (I'm guilty of this myself - go find my reads in any game lol). It's not JUST a matter of game balance or JUST a matter of town needing to play better. It's several things.

all of this

I think we're kind of at the point where certain players are good enough at being scum that they're not really going to get caught out, aside from town paranoia or power roles. I mean a big part is poor town play (useful PR's suiciding, people not really trying, general apathy) too of course.

and this

My point was less about balance issues this season as more of someone somewhere is gonna complain about balance no matter what the setup is because its all subjective. My point was that reasoning was probably weaker in previous seasons, it was just scum tending to be poor.


There's no doubt Town wasn't great mostly this season, and Scum were pretty good.

and ... yeah, okay i got u now, bottie. agree.

wheee, i like quoting ppl and making green boxes :>
 

Ourobolus

Banned
On Meta-

We can't enforce this. I agree you shouldn't be directly quoting past games, but there is basically no way that you can really dissociate the player from their past plays. If Lone_Prodigy has the highest post count in a game, I'm just automatically going to think something is up. Same for if Splinter isn't tunneling
;P
.

Some players purposefully shake things up each game with how they play, and others don't. Either is fine. In the end though, scum is the one that is trying to manufacture a narrative, while Town is flailing about trying to make sense of everything, so it just comes down to the content that people post given what side they are on.
 
k, I know I usually never give back when Review Thread time comes around--but like my WIP games, I've got something cooking for y'all that just might do the trick for issues of player malaise.

*chalks 1 more promise on Blarg's Promises tally*

yep
 

*Splinter

Member
I genuinely thought scum play outshone town a few times this season (e.g. vampire scum team, pop scum team, mini3 scum team, gafia 3 scum team)...
They made one good claim (Kawl's) and two of them suicided for no reason. I'm not saying town deserved to win but the game wasn't decided by amazing scum plays.

Which reminds me we seem to be getting more ordinaries lately, to the extent that scum claims ordinary 90% of the time as it's such a big field to hide in. I swear old seasons used to have roughly equal numbers of town PR and ordinaries, but that ratio seems to have changed?
 

Kawl_USC

Member
They made one good claim (Kawl's) and two of them suicided for no reason. I'm not saying town deserved to win but the game wasn't decided by amazing scum plays.

Which reminds me we seem to be getting more ordinaries lately, to the extent that scum claims ordinary 90% of the time as it's such a big field to hide in. I swear old seasons used to have roughly equal numbers of town PR and ordinaries, but that ratio seems to have changed?

I think that is focusing on the big flashy plays (which are far more likely to lose you the game on either side than win it) and not on the small quiet grind it out type plays. Gorlak's play was probably the most impressive (even if i feel it went a litle far, that's just the nature of being on the other side of a bus) and feel he was guaranteed to make it to final 3 at the very least no matter what happened to me and Fran.

It's the small plays that are winning the game for scum and losing the game for town. Not the flashy lies and big plays.
 

*Splinter

Member
I think that is focusing on the big flashy plays (which are far more likely to lose you the game on either side than win it) and not on the small quiet grind it out type plays. Gorlak's play was probably the most impressive (even if i feel it went a litle far, that's just the nature of being on the other side of a bus) and feel he was guaranteed to make it to final 3 at the very least no matter what happened to me and Fran.

It's the small plays that are winning the game for scum and losing the game for town. Not the flashy lies and big plays.
The "quiet grind" is always going to be in Scum's favour. There's a reason we only had one vanilla game.
 

RetroMG

Member
Okay, I actually rarely chime into the review thread, because I believe that my job is largely to facilitate the will of the community.

But here are my thoughts.

1. Seasons are too long. This is mostly my fault, because I can't seem to say no to an interesting mid-season setup. We should put a limit on how many mid-season games run. I'm thinking three, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

2. So far, I'm standing firm on the no quoting other threads rule. While the meta is unavoidable, (and discussing previous games IS permitted,) directly quoting a player from another thread is just going to confuse people.

If I see a quote where Sorian was super ultra Scummy in WWE Mafia while we're playing Legends of the Hidden Temple Mafia, I might be confused and think Sorian is definitely scum. This is unfair to Sorian, and we certainly wouldn't want that. However, saying, "Sorian made a similar scummy move in WWE, and he was scum then," allows me to still give Sorian the benefit of the doubt. It's a subtle distinction, but I think it's an important one.

I have more, but I have to run, so I'll throw more in later.
 

Sawneeks

Banned
Kinda feel like that second neutral was Sawneeks trolling me hard. I refuse to believe it as a concept. REFUSE.

Only for you, friendo. <3

1. Seasons are too long. This is mostly my fault, because I can't seem to say no to an interesting mid-season setup. We should put a limit on how many mid-season games run. I'm thinking three, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

3 - 4 Mid Season games sounds like a good ratio to me. Are we counting Mini Mafia games in that or do they fall into their own separate category?
 
They made one good claim (Kawl's) and two of them suicided for no reason. I'm not saying town deserved to win but the game wasn't decided by amazing scum plays.

Which reminds me we seem to be getting more ordinaries lately, to the extent that scum claims ordinary 90% of the time as it's such a big field to hide in. I swear old seasons used to have roughly equal numbers of town PR and ordinaries, but that ratio seems to have changed?

I think even if blarg and dragi accidentally suicided, they were playing pretty well up to that moments of OOPS

scum team had good teamwork and they also were able to hold their own in the main game thread. i think gafia 3 had a good scum team.... in my opinion, at least :3

idk about more ordinaries, i can do some analysis once i am back from vacation. or ouro can, he has all the stats, i think.

Only for you, friendo. <3

3 - 4 Mid Season games sounds like a good ratio to me. Are we counting Mini Mafia games in that or do they fall into their own separate category?

i'm counting mini and pixar at the moment (they are 13 and 11 people playerbase)... basically im counting everything that dips into the player population of our community.

i think 4 mid-season games is a good number? i agree with swampie that the main recruitment thread, which is on OT, is a great benefit to shorter seasons. it's how we attract new joiners and all that.
 

Sawneeks

Banned
i'm counting mini and pixar at the moment (they are 13 and 11 people playerbase)... basically im counting everything that dips into the player population of our community.

i think 4 mid-season games is a good number? i agree with swampie that the main recruitment thread, which is on OT, is a great benefit to shorter seasons. it's how we attract new joiners and all that.

If that's the case then 4 sounds good. 3 Non-Mini and 1 Mini game and the Mini can always be swapped out for another if nobody is willing to run it. :x

Can always test it for S8.5 and see how we all like it too.
 

RetroMG

Member
If that's the case then 4 sounds good. 3 Non-Mini and 1 Mini game and the Mini can always be swapped out for another if nobody is willing to run it. :x

Can always test it for S8.5 and see how we all like it too.

I'm inclined to run with this, assuming no one has any more comments. But just be advised that once we have filled up midseason, I'm going to announce that there won't be any more, and I'm going to turn everyone else away until the next midseason. So if you've got a super crazy game you want to run for 8.5, you'd better present it early in the season. (Depending on how S8 goes, we might already be full.)
 

Ty4on

Member
Could we set the next session date or season review date when a season has ended and then run whatever games fit within that gap instead?

I feel like mid season especially could benefit from being run on a less strict schedule, but without delaying the next season.
Maybe, it could mean all the games are run early in a rush.
 
If that's the case then 4 sounds good. 3 Non-Mini and 1 Mini game and the Mini can always be swapped out for another if nobody is willing to run it. :x

Can always test it for S8.5 and see how we all like it too.

I'm inclined to run with this, assuming no one has any more comments. But just be advised that once we have filled up midseason, I'm going to announce that there won't be any more, and I'm going to turn everyone else away until the next midseason. So if you've got a super crazy game you want to run for 8.5, you'd better present it early in the season. (Depending on how S8 goes, we might already be full.)

I might have a thing or two for mid season... But depending on the mix of standard v crazy on offer, I am happy to host a mini mafia anytime :)

My other thingys are also more of the noncray variation. One of them is a simple matrix game but done as love boat pairings... So 9 players times 2... 18 players.

I am a very standard spoder, I guess .__.
 

CzarTim

Member
re: town sucking

Reason I said wait it out is this has been happening for one season, not really a lot of time for a pattern to form. Mods are learning what works just like players, I expect we'll see town a bit beefier to compensate (hopefully not too much, though.) Town players who want to get better are learning what to look for. Town players who aren't improving... well that goes back to the conflicts thing. You should know who these players are, avoid them if they are going to make the game unfun for you.

Could we set the next session date or season review date when a season has ended and then run whatever games fit within that gap instead?

I feel like mid season especially could benefit from being run on a less strict schedule, but without delaying the next season.
Maybe, it could mean all the games are run early in a rush.

I'd prefer this. Or specifically having a date for the season's GAFia game to start, and no game can start after. Would allow more small games if that's what people end up running, or fewer long games.

I'm against night only chat for main season when we have a lot of new players. Mid season sure.

Yeah. I think this is important to retain newbie scum.

Also, while I don't mind people trying night only chat, I'd never join a game like that. Scum chat is the only fun part of being scum for me. I don't really care if it gives scum an advantage when I'm town either.
 
Could we set the next session date or season review date when a season has ended and then run whatever games fit within that gap instead?

I feel like mid season especially could benefit from being run on a less strict schedule, but without delaying the next season.
Maybe, it could mean all the games are run early in a rush.

A viable alternative, for sure. Usually Retro sets the pace of the seasons, so, maybe if yonyon can illustrate with an example (with dates and stuff), maybe Retro can take it into consideration?

re: town sucking

Reason I said wait it out is this has been happening for one season, not really a lot of time for a pattern to form. Mods are learning what works just like players, I expect we'll see town a bit beefier to compensate (hopefully not too much, though.) Town players who want to get better are learning what to look for. Town players who aren't improving... well that goes back to the conflicts thing. You should know who these players are, avoid them if they are going to make the game unfun for you.



I'd prefer this. Or specifically having a date for the season's GAFia game to start, and no game can start after. Would allow more small games if that's what people end up running, or fewer long games.



Yeah. I think this is important to retain newbie scum.

Also, while I don't mind people trying night only chat, I'd never join a game like that. Scum chat is the only fun part of being scum for me. I don't really care if it gives scum an advantage when I'm town either.

again, i just want to reiterate that i think balance-wise, S7 games were fine*... (maybe with the exception of quarantine). i dont think mods should beef town up in future set ups :3

i do think quality of town play from gafia members can be improved, though...



restricting scums to night-only chats seems a drastic measure. i think mini 3 had rolled experienced scums, so it felt as if the chat was very useful (more so than usual). for the moment, i'd think keeping things as is for scum chat is my preference. of course, i will defer to the community's opinions should everyone think we are at the stage where we should restrict scums to night-only chats.



*splinter, i will do that analysis about the ratio of ordinary roles. but my feeling (flawed they may be) is that S7 had balanced games, for the most parts. but i haven't forgotten about your inputs, so i will revisit this when i am back home o7
 

cabot

Member
Also, while I don't mind people trying night only chat, I'd never join a game like that. Scum chat is the only fun part of being scum for me. I don't really care if it gives scum an advantage when I'm town either.

Aw no, I had you pencil'd in for that game you help me design!

Shocking, Timothy.


Night only chat for main games because it tends to have more new players makes sense. I want night only chats because I want people on teams to not rely on them during the day time.

I've seen scum hold back from posting during day phases to wait until they see what their team mates think of their pending posts/reactions to others pressuring them. I also think it could help individuals since they wont feel as binded by their mates, allowing them to act as more of a lone agent (which is townier)

Throw their arses on the fire. They need the spotlight to truly learn.

Midseason is the time to do it.
 

cabot

Member
I will highlight I'm not just restricting scums, any other out-of-game-thread chat in my game will have the same restriction.
 

Faddy

Banned
I played 3 mid season games and found them quite enjoyable. I don't take anything said in game threads too seriously and would like to think other people do the same.

Minimum post count increasing to 5 is a good idea. Too many players in gafia were happy to coast and not be part of the game. It is much better to play with people who are actively participating.

Balance has been fine imo. Scum has won games due to bad town play rather than unbalanced games. Gafia 3 and DR3 had high activity scum teams and they won with good play. So the issue is town need to get better than tilting the games. The less said about Quarantine the better although Day 1 was really fun.
 

Verelios

Member
Quarantine was awesome, and I'm not only saying that because it was but also because the first two days were a shit posters wet dream.
 
I think Gafia 3 was more about bad town than good scum.

Contrast that with Mini 3, which was fairly well played by both sides, but scum got a bit of luck and won.

Zelda, too, was a bit of bad luck with role assignments.

I don't think there's a balance issue, and the winning ratios will correct themselves when players acquire more experience.
 
ok so i dids the analysis for splinteroo. here is the stats:

EzSWUTd.png


so my take is that i can't see a strong correlation between ordinary town composition vis-a-vis town win ratio. if there was an increase in the numbers of ordinary towns, then it has been marginal and its effects seem negligible for town win ratio.

however, there are a few observations that i perceived:
1. mid season games (with scum winningz) are mostly done at a faster cycle
2. there have been more mid season games run since S5
3. mid seasons are not particularly vetted for balance
4. mid seasons are taking longer to wrap up (due to the increased numbers of games ran and the pace of scheduling)
5. mid seasons are usually populated by veteran players, with a few regulars signing up multiple times

my feel is that maybe the mindsets engaged for mid-seasons have been spilling over to main season games? possibly since there have been an increase of mid-season games AND the length it takes for main season to roll by again?

i get the feeling that mid-seasons are treated more as fast and loose, but idk. this is just my observation, of course.

summarily: i dont think there is proof that ordinaries have been on the increase. and if they have been, the increase has been negligible.

of course, your take on this is welcomed :>
 

Sawneeks

Banned
I will highlight I'm not just restricting scums, any other out-of-game-thread chat in my game will have the same restriction.

While I really do want to try out a game with Night Only chats I think it's probably a safer move to leave that to a Mid Season game. If we want to keep New Scum I think it might be better for them to have someone else to talk to during their first game then just throwing them into the fire.

Quarantine is the new Volcano Island

When's the Quarantine x Volcano Island crossover game?
 

Natiko

Banned
I actually have an idea for a game that combines those two concepts.
Where do I sign-up?

Also just occurred to me with the new method for mid-season games I'm going to miss out on more of them. Kinda sad, hopefully the gaps in-between are short to make up for it.
 
ok so i dids the analysis for splinteroo. here is the stats:

EzSWUTd.png


so my take is that i can't see a strong correlation between ordinary town composition vis-a-vis town win ratio. if there was an increase in the numbers of ordinary towns, then it has been marginal and its effects seem negligible for town win ratio.

however, there are a few observations that i perceived:
1. mid season games (with scum winningz) are mostly done at a faster cycle
2. there have been more mid season games run since S5
3. mid seasons are not particularly vetted for balance
4. mid seasons are taking longer to wrap up (due to the increased numbers of games ran and the pace of scheduling)
5. mid seasons are usually populated by veteran players, with a few regulars signing up multiple times

my feel is that maybe the mindsets engaged for mid-seasons have been spilling over to main season games? possibly since there have been an increase of mid-season games AND the length it takes for main season to roll by again?

i get the feeling that mid-seasons are treated more as fast and loose, but idk. this is just my observation, of course.

summarily: i dont think there is proof that ordinaries have been on the increase. and if they have been, the increase has been negligible.

of course, your take on this is welcomed :>

Just to make it clear that there is no visible correlation (I think it's pretty hard to see from numbers alone):


Lfi6Npp.gif
 

Ty4on

Member
Danganronpa 3: Metagaming and Linking Previous Games
The discussion of metagaming arose during Danganronpa 3. In this instance, the Season 7 Mod Conclave* has come to a decision. Metagaming is unavoidable to an extent. People will always use past behaviors to justify future decisions, because that is what people do. However, going forward, directly quoting a player, (including yourself) from a previous game (or any other post in NeoGAF, Outer Gafia, or Discord) will not be permitted. You may paraphrase things in your own words, but you may not directly quote. If it helps, think of this as being similar to the Role PM rule.

Before answering this I think it's important to define what metagaming is; I don't think the aforementioned example is an example of metagaming. Metagaming is going beyond the ruleset of the game. Kinda vague, but I think there are some clear Mafia examples like using something elsewhere on Gaf, Discord or maybe even real life to read players.
You are saying I am lying about real life stuff? Fuck off with that shit. I need to work at 6 pm, I have to leave at 5.50 pm. So I would need to eat/shower starting at 5 pm. I made that post a bit beforehand so that I could respond to any quick responses. I can keep an side eye on the thread at that time, but don't really have the time to post anything substantional. This post has to be written in a hurry. But a vote switch would be possible if I saw the need until about 10 minutes before days end. Which it is now, so I have to go.
Doubting real life excuses - and by extension faking them - falls under that. You're looking into someone's life outside the game.

Moving into more grey territory I'd argue the analysis of Sketch' pregame post was borderline metagaming.
-laughs her ass off at her role PM-
The post does raise some attention, but the game hasn't started. I feel that the pre-gama chatter should stay as a bit of a buffer and always try to avoid reading into posts there. I think it's best to also avoid game related posts here like commenting on your role so this can be kept outside the game.

On the surface it can look like the same thing reading into posts of older games. You're reading into something outside of the game. An important distinction to make is that you're still reading into the posts of the present game like normal; you're just using the old game to gauge how someone behaved in the past. You can't read into the posts of the old game as that game has finished. It also goes against the premise of the game in my opinion. Reading into someone's behaviour is a big part, arguably the main part of the game and using older games to find patterns can be one of the most powerful ways of figuring out an individual's play style. Trying to regulate it feels like an impossible task because you'll always have a feeling of how someone used to be.

The biggest argument I have for using past behavior to read players is that you're reading individuals in Mafia. Generalizing will only get you so far, especially considering the huge spectrum of play styles.
Minimum Post Count
Discussion has arisen about implementing a minimum post count to ensure player activity. (Above and beyond the "one post per day phase" rule.) What are your thoughts on this?
Probably. Something like 5 posts would probably work fine and should be obtainable for most in regular games.
We've had some decent activity from newbies iirc, but should still be stressing that Mafia games require commitment.
Personality Conflicts
We have all sorts of players here in Gafia. We have serious scumhunters, malicious mafia, and then there are the jesters. (No, not that kind of Jester.) People who play roles, or are deliberately ridiculous as their way of enjoying the game. We do not want to discourage these people from playing the game in a way that they enjoy, but we also want everyone to remember that Mafia is, at it's core, a team game, and some players may be putting their own shenanigans above the well being of their team.
How can this balance be struck?
I don't feel this has been a particularly big problem lately, feels like it has been worse, but if it feels like an issue one could, say, advertise game #1 as serious and game #2 as less so and make players pick whichever they prefer, if any.
When it comes to personality clashes I think they need to be treated individually instead of a giant fix for all.
The Length of Seasons and Number of Games in Midseason
From Crab, via Ynnny
Ah, here we go.
A viable alternative, for sure. Usually Retro sets the pace of the seasons, so, maybe if yonyon can illustrate with an example (with dates and stuff), maybe Retro can take it into consideration?
I don't have any specific in mind. The thought was to look back at older mid seasons, see which length they were and choose one that felt about right. I think setting a date for when no more games can start is the best, maybe a later date for mini games or if there's a lot of demand. Games seem to take around a month to complete on average. With a 5 day complete cycle, 7 days take 35 days. Phases getting shorter plus turbos makes that shorter, but there's also the setup time. The lengths of the last two seasons' regular midseason games were (using scum chat to count):
TPiR: 33 days
Pokemon: 24 days
Overwatch: 18 days

Zelda: 26 days
DR3: 21 days
Gafia: 27 days

There's definitely some variance, but on the whole I think it's quite consistent. The Price is right went to final 3 while Overwatch ended... quickly. They're probably the more extreme examples of game lengths.
 

Sophia

Member
There's definitely some variance, but on the whole I think it's quite consistent. The Price is right went to final 3 while Overwatch ended... quickly. They're probably the more extreme examples of game lengths.

The Price Is Right was also fairly close to a vanilla style game too, so that gives you a good idea of where things stand length wise.
 
I'm mildy curious as to how play this (I know RNH played it as well) I saw it on the smaller forum I go to.

Is this a bad time to ask questions?
 
I'll guess I check this thread as much as often as I can remember, I've got like 10,000 fires to attend and not enough bucket for them rn
 

Sophia

Member
I'm mildy curious as to how play this (I know RNH played it as well) I saw it on the smaller forum I go to.

Is this a bad time to ask questions?

Never a bad time; ask away.

FYI, the Season 7 main thread is right here if you want to ask there. Tends to have more people at times. No harm in asking here too. This thread is more for reviewing the games that happened during Season 7. Season 8 thread will be up sometime in the next few months if you wanna play. There's also our Discord channel if you ever have any random questions.
 
Never a bad time; ask away.

FYI, the Season 7 main thread is right here if you want to ask there. Tends to have more people at times. No harm in asking here too. This thread is more for reviewing the games that happened during Season 7. Season 8 thread will be up sometime in the next few months if you wanna play. There's also our Discord channel if you ever have any random questions.

I would love an invite plz

ohai nomad! :>

welcome! and questions are good, ask us anything! :>

YASSSSSSSS
 

Natiko

Banned
Never a bad time; ask away.

FYI, the Season 7 main thread is right here if you want to ask there. Tends to have more people at times. No harm in asking here too. This thread is more for reviewing the games that happened during Season 7. Season 8 thread will be up sometime in the next few months if you wanna play. There's also our Discord channel if you ever have any random questions.
Wowee zowee. Ynnny I'm gonna need a mini maf or something in the middle of this if we're really waiting a few months to kick off more games :p
 
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