Mafia Discussion: Game Balance

Alanna · February 14, 2011

I love this thread too. Every time I'm planning a new game I check over this thread again LOL.

Kivam · February 14, 2011

See? I'd love to mod eventually but the idea of balance? I'm at a total loss for it. I get it in a general sense, but no matter how many wiki pages, or forum discussions I read, I still don't quite get it. How do you even know if a game is balanced? Bleh!

If you want, I can mentor you through it. The most basic piece of advice is this:

Look at your setup - number of players, roles, etc. Now imagine you were playing the game, were scum, and had lost. Badly. And now you're reading the recap from the mod. Would you be thinking "seriously?! How were we supposed to win against a town with that much firepower?!"

Do the same thing as a townie who lost, or any other alignment you're using.

If the answer, from any of those alignments, is "yes" (that is, at least one alignment would be saying "how could we have ever won!") . . . odds are it's unbalanced.

On a more practical level, build out from the standard game (12 players, 3 mafia, 1 cop, 1 doc, no other roles). Now . . . have you changed the ratio of scum to town, in either direction? If so, what did you do to offset that (if there's 1 scum for every 5 town in your game, instead of 1 for every 4 in a standard game, the scum will need some serious firepower to make up the difference. If you went the other way, and made scum 1/3 of the player pool to start, the town will be in serious trouble). Same thing for additional roles. Giving the town a few extra powers? You need to make sure the scum team gets extra powers, too, or more players - something that will approximate the advantage you are giving the town with its new roles.

One other thing - don't start messing around with new roles (i.e. self-created stuff like Wes, Lily and I like to use) until you've got a pretty good feel for balancing a game with more standard roles. Once you've got the feel for that, it becomes pretty easy to get it at least close to perfectly balanced.

alannalynn · February 14, 2011

See? I'd love to mod eventually but the idea of balance? I'm at a total loss for it. I get it in a general sense, but no matter how many wiki pages, or forum discussions I read, I still don't quite get it. How do you even know if a game is balanced? Bleh!

I just ask Kivam xD

Hello, my name is Alanna, I'm kinda slightly scared of Kiv and DPR? Oh yeah, that's right. And like I just told Lily, I hate to be judged. LOL.

Edit: I just got confused because Alanna posted, great. *losing her mind*

Kivam · February 14, 2011

See? I'd love to mod eventually but the idea of balance? I'm at a total loss for it. I get it in a general sense, but no matter how many wiki pages, or forum discussions I read, I still don't quite get it. How do you even know if a game is balanced? Bleh!

I just ask Kivam xD

Hello, my name is Alanna, I'm kinda slightly scared of Kiv and DPR? Oh yeah, that's right. And like I just told Lily, I hate to be judged. LOL.

Edit: I just got confused because Alanna posted, great. *losing her mind*

*jumps out from behind a tombstone*

Boo!

Kivam · February 14, 2011

How can you be scared of me? Is it my avatar?

alannalynn · February 14, 2011

Eeek!

>_> No.. I've seen you play and feel inadequate. haha

LilyElizabeth · February 14, 2011

They're not that intimidating, AJ. Honest. They only spank once in a while. :P

I like what Kivam just said. I'm pretty much done modding big, complicated games for a while. I'll still come up with crazy roles and things, but I don't see myself straying as far from the basics as I have until I get a good feel for balancing.

I should add that my game coming up in queue is a crazy one, but I expect it to be my last one of those for a while.

alannalynn · February 14, 2011

Intimidating... that's a better word for it. I'm sure you're lovely people, but ~intimidating~ ... yes. Definitely.

/endspam.

Verbal32 · February 15, 2011

To add to what Kivam said, another way to gauge your game is to look at the quickest route to victory for all alignments. If a bloodbath could easily ensue and decimate the mafia on night 1, then perhaps your game isn't balanced.

Btw, if Kivam is willing to help mentor you on game setup, and you're really interested in modding, I suggest you take him up on it - you won't regret it.

alannalynn · February 17, 2011

I may have to poke him a few times and assure myself he's human, but probably yes, I may have to.

aemonkristen · February 17, 2011

To add to what Kivam said, another way to gauge your game is to look at the quickest route to victory for all alignments. If a bloodbath could easily ensue and decimate the mafia on night 1, then perhaps your game isn't balanced.

Btw, if Kivam is willing to help mentor you on game setup, and you're really interested in modding, I suggest you take him up on it - you won't regret it.

This is how I judge every game I create. In fact, I think Verbal was the one who taught me how to test balance like this.

Alanna · May 14, 2011

Bumping cuz I have a question - how on earth do you balance a game with cult?

I actually had a cult in the first game I modded, and I look back on that and roll my eyes at myself LOL. Because I had no idea what I was doing. Anyhow, I recently was playing in a game with cult and it got me thinking about it again. So. Can anyone shed some light on this?

I think in that first game (which started out with just the Cult Leader, + a mafia team and I think an SK :rolleyes: ), I just counted the Cult Leader as one of 1/4 anti-town roles, but then, assuming the Cult Leader isn't killed early and is successful, those anti-towns build. Then again, Cult Leader could get killed early on, or have unsuccessful recruits. So how do you balance that?

Kivam · August 31, 2011

Bumping cuz I have a question - how on earth do you balance a game with cult?

I actually had a cult in the first game I modded, and I look back on that and roll my eyes at myself LOL. Because I had no idea what I was doing. Anyhow, I recently was playing in a game with cult and it got me thinking about it again. So. Can anyone shed some light on this?

I think in that first game (which started out with just the Cult Leader, + a mafia team and I think an SK ), I just counted the Cult Leader as one of 1/4 anti-town roles, but then, assuming the Cult Leader isn't killed early and is successful, those anti-towns build. Then again, Cult Leader could get killed early on, or have unsuccessful recruits. So how do you balance that?

Well, take a look at how I did it in GoT. I gave the cult a 100% recruitment rate - but didn't allow the cult to communicate with each other off-thread (or for cultists to know any cult member other than the cult leader), plus introduced a game mechanic (searching for a fellow cult leader) that ended up preventing the cult from recruiting until Day 4.

Of course, I balanced that by giving them a backup cult leader and making them NK immune until they could start recruiting. In the end, I think it ended up balancing fairly well.

Barmacral · August 31, 2011

What I've also seen done (by Kivam, acually) was a 50% conversion rate on town, 25% on scum. That way the cult can still grow effectively, but isn't completely unlimited.

LilyElizabeth · September 1, 2011

Then again, there is the conversion checker role....

WWWwombat · September 1, 2011

Lol Lily.

Kiv's cult in GoT was really good. It was fun and made it so that converted faction members couldn't completely decimate their own faction.

dapianoplay3r · February 18, 2013

bump

Im using this atm lol

lolguy26 · March 8, 2013

~bump~

I haz a question

I have a crazy idea(I think its a first)

The theme is the lorien legacies (I am number four etc)

So in the book we have the super power guy/gall and their keepers who are utterly loyal and are their mentors.

And now there are only 9 of them and 9 keepers and they have enemies surrounding them and all..(Now in the book they can't be killed except by order but that won't work that well in mafia)

Now I have an idea of having a total of 18 town and the rest mafia (I want the majority of the game to be mafia except the mafi don't know each other)

Now the 18 townies are each paired and given a QT (masons I guess but I'm wondering if I should make them lovers or make a couple body guards) and now comes the weird part, at any given day phase only 9 townies can play (or maybe ill do it like DPR's spider country game with two game threads?) Or with them switching..

Eg.

Let's say we have pair X and Y and we start D1, random.org picks which one starts first, let's say Y and the same for the rest of the pairs and then D2 starts with player X coming in instead of player Y and so on..

Now this where making one of the pair body guard or making the pair lovers comes into play

And what roles are best?

(Sorry if the idea isn't clear)

Darthe · March 9, 2013

18 town and still more mafia than town? You will have a tough time with that one Chuckles. Around here we don't have 40 that regularly play.

lolguy26 · March 9, 2013

Yep that's one of the main problems,

dapianoplay3r · March 9, 2013

Half it?

dapianoplay3r · March 9, 2013

How about swtichinng the idea. So a bunch of small paired mafia teams? With an alternating kill?

Darthe · March 9, 2013

^

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/69948-there-goes-the-neighborhood-game-thread-game-over-mafia-win/page-73?hl=%2Bwelcome+%2Bthe+%2Bneighborhood&do=findComment&comment=2313015

lolguy26 · March 9, 2013

I can change the number to make it 12 townies but I wanna try something new, less town but they have the fire power! What do you guys think of 24 players (6 townies the rest mafia) just for now...

Nolder · March 9, 2013

Sounds a little like BG's SSB mafia with the mason pairs.

Mafia Discussion: Game Balance

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