[Advanced] Settlers of Catan Mafia - Game Over

[GoldeneyesND]

GG everyone! Pral, I don't really dislike you!

[Verbal32]

LOL

 

You could rival Des with the emo display if you chose to.  hehe

[Nolder]

Even with the win, I'll say it one more time:

 

I hate Cults.

Ditto.

If you read through the Graveyard you'll see a lot of my decisions that the Werewolves were upset about were designed from the very beginning with the intention of mitigating the cults powers. This was basically my (admittedly flawed) attempt at making a balanced cult game coming from the POV that vanilla cults are inherently OP. I may take a stab at this again in the future but not for a long time.

[dapianoplay3r]

Just thought i should say Nol was well within his rigjt to modkil me

im not contesting the decisiom or anything

[GoldeneyesND]

I had a bunch of fun Nol, that was a great game regardless of any perceived issues. Thanks for modding

[Nolder]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

[John E. Kelley]

Just read the dead thread, didn't realize I did so well with the potions the first two nights.

 

And how badly I did with them the next two.

[Nolder]

Yeah heh. You got pretty lucky.

And I can't believe Wombat used his potion on the night he was attacked.

Just blind luck on that.

[WWWwombat]

Once Hoof flipped town, I was confused as hell about the game but had a gut feeling I might be going down that night.  Which is why I went all-in and drank the potion risking possible autoloss.  So yeah, I kinda had reasoning behind it, but it was pretty lucky lol.

[hazelkrs1]

You're talking about my Kingdom Hearts game.

Let me remind you it was originally designed as a 14 player game.

It was a VERY vanilla game, aside from the random variables which pretty much all went in mafia's favor.

IIRC in order to compensate for the extra players I added 1 or 2 Goons to the mafia.

It was that simple. The fact that a VT dropped out was not a big deal. Did it put a little extra pressure on town?

Of course it did but it wasn't an unbalanced amount pressure. We had 4 and 1/2 (symp) mafia vs 12 townies.

That's about 25% scum which is roughly how the numbers should be balanced in a vanilla game. In fact most people err on the side of 30% IMO.

I said this before and I'll say it again, I don't think a symp should count as a "1/2" when determining balance. They don't get half a vote, they count towards the mafia's numbers to win as a whole unit, not a half. Not being able to communicate with the members can actually be a benefit at times even.

 

And no, dropping one vanilla doesn't add an inordinate amount of pressure to town, but in a game which was already slanted so heavily against town (mostly due to the poll choices being phrased the way they were), I think that was a very poor choice to make. Should have dropped a goon if anything.

 

Now, coming back to this game, I don't know what you expected me to do.

Balance was already shot due to the swingyness of yours and Ishy's roles.

Did my little attempt at trying to correct that just a little bit even matter in the long run?

No one got the Diseased role like I wanted and in fact you got a powered up infection attack...which was foiled.

So it didn't make any tangible difference on the game.

 

Unless you're talking about the modkills?

I address that with Pral lower in this post but if you are I don't know what else you expected me to do when my rules, put in place to protect the scum team, were violated.

I think giving me a more useful item or something when I hit the trigger would have been nice, but my problems are more with the game's balance before it started, not necessarily once it had already started. I do think you should have designed it for a certain number of players tho, then stuck with that number or tried to keep close to it.

 

As for the modkills, you didn't need to include that flavor bit in town's pm's. You could have just made a generic vanilla role pm. "You're town. You have no special abilities. You win when all enemies to the town are dead". This way no one can try and hint at their pm to look better. Granted, not all fault is with you here, as AJ and Dap shouldn't have tried that sort of thing.

 

 

Also, if I was town, I would have def been genuinely pissed with that really short deadline day 1. I know activity up to that point wasn't great, but town had just had a replacement, so def could have used more time imo.

Yeah well I didn't expect Leelou to drop.

She had some sudden family issues and had to be replaced at the drop of a hat.

She had an important role so I couldn't just modkill her and move one.

So when Goldeneyes replaced in I didn't think it was fair to anyone to have him come in with all those votes on him.

So I removed them. I see now that that, in conjunction with the deadline wasn't the best of ideas.

On the other hand I have seen people rise to the occasion with 24 hour deadlines in the past. I'm not going to tolerate inactivity from a town.

If townies are going to squander what time they've been given then they are going to get strict deadlines yes and if they miss those the mafia is going to tear them apart. I don't feel bad about this at all. It's unfortunate that the Goldeneyes thing happened at the same time and looking back I would have given town a little extra time (even though they didn't deserve it) but I didn't so we'll just have to live with that mistake.

 

And to be clear what I am saying here is that I feel my methods are justified.

In this specific case I messed up a little bit. Sorry.

 

And yet the flip side to that was that town got WAAAAY too much time on another day, when GE was lynched, and the deadline extension for them was gross considering it had already been such a long deadline and they hadn't done anything with it. You pretty much prodded town there Nol, and I don't like that at all, made you seem impartial for a moment. Like you didn't want town to lose because of a missed deadline, when that would have been their fault.

It was one hour.

One hour in which I was busy/away from my computer IIRC.

And, IIRC, the final vote came within 1 minute of the new deadline.

I know that sucks for Goldeneyes and for the scum team but considering the state of the game yes I did throw town a small bone there while I was away and they barely made use of it. And look what happened anyway, your team won in the end.

 

I'm not referring to how long the extension was, I'm referring to how long that day was in general. It started on a Wednesday if I'm not mistaken, maybe Thursday. The deadline wasn't until Tuesday Morning. That's 5-6 days! Normally, past day 1, day phases last 48-72 hours. Granted, there was a holiday not too long before that, plus a weekend that came in the middle. I'm not arguing so much that the deadline should have been shorter. I'm saying if town has close to a week to secure a lynch and is unable to, they simply don't deserve a prod from the mod and deadline extension. Only times I normally see extensions granted is if there was a recent replacement (ironic), or if people seemed to seriously be working at getting a lynch, but there are too many inactives (which is sort of the mod's responsibility to oversee, so understandable). 

 

Despo is insane.  Didn't think I'd see him complain about balance when he won, but here he is.  This game was swingy, but did not lean town at all.  It actually leaned scum a bit.  Town had to go up against a cult without a dedicated Cop or Vig.  Without a vig, the best you can hope to do is keep pace until you kill the CL.  Without a cop, even that is extremely hard.  Against a cult, everything you do except for lynching the CL is one step worse than against a mafia.

I actually forgot to mention that I also don't think there should have been a backup recruiter. I think backup recruiters are extremely unfair to town. It's already tough enough working against a cult, you can't just find scum, you have to find the CL. It's unfair imo to ask town to find a needle in a haystack so to speak, just to backup the role anyways. And I already made my feelings clear on a town PR switching himself to scum.

 

So yes, you're right, with the setup as it is, I think it was slanted towards scum a bit. But I don't think there should have been a backup recruiter or so much negative utility for one of the two town PR's. I was referring to the setup without those two things, because I am strongly against the concept of both (really I'm not fond of cult games either, but eh every once and again a mod gets a bug up their butt and does one /shrug). In that scenario, it would be near impossible for scum to win imo.

 

Something you're not really taking into account is the multitude of recruit restrictions we had this game. First off there's the 50/50 shot, which is a big thing on it's own. Obviously it would be much better for scum if each shot recruited instead of killed. Then there's the fact that the recruit wasn't instant, it took several phases to kick in. This is a giant impairment imo, granted that didn't show as much this game. Let's check this scenario out to see what I mean:

 

Let's say it's endgame, I'm the CL, and all my recruits have been killed. There's 4 people left, and it's nighttime. Say my shot lands and I get lucky and it's a recruit. Under normal circumstances, my team would win in such a scenario, since our numbers would equal the town's. However, since the recruit isn't instant, town could instead lynch me the next day and town would win before my last recruit got recruited. Make sense?

 

Then there's the fact that BOTH town PR's counter the recruitment ability in their own ways. During the window before a recruit is fully transformed, they could have been "cured" by the Priest, negating my recruit ability anyways even tho I got ucky and it landed. This in effect completely nullifies my previous NA, yet instead of stuffing the NA the same night it happens, which takes a lot of skill and mebbe luck to do, a PR is afforded the ability to stuff it after the fact. This is a cool flavor mechanic, but overall kind of a huge obstacle to the scum team. Luckily, Verbal didn't really catch all the particulars about his role initially.

 

As for there being no cop, imo the Apothecary was a sort of glorified cop. Is he as effective an investigative role as a normal cop in a normal game? Obviously not. But in a cult/recruitment game, cop views actually aren't ass effective as normal anyways. It only helps a lot if you view the CL. In this circumstance, if Ishy had used the potion he used on you the first night on me instead, he would have seen I was the CL and my team would have instalost.

 

Lynching a regular cultist is equivalent to no-lynching against a mafia.

No-lynching against a cult is equivalent to mislynching against a mafia.

Mislynching against a cult is equivalent to mislynching and then no-lynching against a mafia.

Again, none of this makes any sense at all given all the recruitment restictions there were in the game. All these scenarios are made on the assumption of no recruitment restrictions, and instant recruits each time.

 

Despo's recruit may have been unpredictable, but all that requires is a switch in strategy from targeting people you want to have to targeting people you don't want the town to have.  In the end, there were 4 cult members in a game which lasted 5 days, and in which the cult leader had been lynched on D3.  Des would like to ignore the Ishy thing because he thinks it shouldn't have existed, but it did exist, so you can't ignore it in analyzing the game.

I did use that strategy when picking my targets btw, I chose those who would be my biggest obstacles, not those who would make the best teammates. I'm not ignoring the Ishy thing, I just greatly disagree with a town PR turning himself into scum without scum doing anything to effect that. That's just SUCH a giant swing in balance it's insane, and it's not coming from any scum strategy or anything. In fact, in most recruitment games certain town PR's aren't even recruitable at all; making them convert on their own is kinda crazy. Again, it's a cool flavor mechanic, just not very easy to balance for imo. Maybe in a bigger game with more town PR's.

 

As for deadlines, Nolder gave us a 6 hour deadline while some townies were asleep on D1.  On one of the other days, he inexplicably moved the deadline up 12 hours.  And Despo is complaining about him moving a deadline back an hour while he was AFK?  Unbelievable.  Deadline inactivity works both ways.  Nolder is right that a town shouldn't expect a deadline extension if they aren't active, but neither should a scum team expect to win by stalling the game until deadline.  That is not only boring, but it is crappy scum play and one of the reasons I prefer not to set deadlines if I can.

Lol the scum team stalling? The scum weren't doing anything to stall that day, they were simply sitting back and waiting on Verbal. He was the one who hadn't shown up in days, and you and Pray weren't talking much anyways. If yall had missed the deadline, it wouldn't have had anything to do with scum stalling. I can't even believe you're trying to sell that nonsense. Missing the deadline would have been completely on Verbal not checking in for a while.

 

Overall, I think that besides the D1 deadline, Nolder ran this game well.  And even that wasn't a huge deal imo.  The game was a bit swingy, but I expect that from Nolder's games and often enjoy it.  Comparing this game to Nolder's KH game does him a disservice.

 

I think the proof that Despo is wrong lies in the fact that he said that the town outplayed the scum until near the end of the game and the scum still won, but he still thinks the game was slanted against the scum.  A statement like that is clearly indicative of bias.

My whole argument about the setup being slanted against scum was predicated on the removal of the negative utility of the Apothecary role and the removal of a backup recruiter, two things I am intrinsically against this game. Town did outplay us overall this game I feel. I think we won because of Ishy's role's mechanic. If we're talking about with the inclusion of those two things, yes, I feel the game was slanted in scum's favor. Without them, scum has no chance of winning pretty much. And yes, very swingy, but overall it's nowhere as near as bad as the KoH game, I agree with you there.

 

I think Nol was inconsistent in his deadline enforcement, but the modkills were completely understandable. The trigger thing was meh. Overall my main complaint is that Nol scolding other mods for not being more fluid with their setups, when he might have been a little too fluid with this one.

[Nolder]

I said this before and I'll say it again, I don't think a symp should count as a "1/2" when determining balance. They don't get half a vote, they count towards the mafia's numbers to win as a whole unit, not a half. Not being able to communicate with the members can actually be a benefit at times even.

Ok that's noted. I count them as half mainly because the MafiaScum Wiki counts them as half and it makes sense to me.

 

Traitors are used to provide "half-Mafia" in games where they are having a hard time deciding whether they want to include an additional Mafioso. They can also be used simply to give scum someone to look out for in single-faction games. Their power depends on what combination of the above variations is employed and how quickly the scum find their Traitor. If the Mafia know who their Traitor is, they arguably have gained another member, even if they can't speak to them.

http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Traitor

 

As for not being able to communicate, well I think at least some of your teammates would disagree with you there.

And I have to say so would I. The ability to communicate privately and make plans and keep each other in check is a HUGE benefit to any team/players. I can't really imagine a situation where I'd rather not have the ability if I could have it.

 

 

And no, dropping one vanilla doesn't add an inordinate amount of pressure to town, but in a game which was already slanted so heavily against town (mostly due to the poll choices being phrased the way they were), I think that was a very poor choice to make. Should have dropped a goon if anything.

You know, you're probably right.

At the time I was thinking balance in terms of numbers.

And if that's all that game was dropping a VT was the right decision.

But the variables added by the polls slanted the game in mafia's favor a little bit and they probably could have stood to lose a goon more than town could stand to lose a VT. But again in pure numbers I know I made the right decision.

You can run that vanilla setup without any special variables or polls or whatnot a thousand times and you'd see the win rate would be roughly 50/50.

 

 

I think giving me a more useful item or something when I hit the trigger would have been nice,

I was tying to weaken your team further.

I was extremely reluctant to give you anything at all when you hit the trigger.

You're honestly lucky that I gave you what I did because it went against the stated goals of the trigger thing in the first place.

 

but my problems are more with the game's balance before it started, not necessarily once it had already started. I do think you should have designed it for a certain number of players tho, then stuck with that number or tried to keep close to it.

Yeah maybe.

There are some other roles and considerations I could have made had I capped the game at a certain number of people but I don't like doing that anymore. IMO that's balancing with training wheels and it really limits a lot of interesting things you can do not to mention the amount of people that can join. I also hate waiting for games to fill when people aren't around or aren't interested.

 

As for the modkills, you didn't need to include that flavor bit in town's pm's. You could have just made a generic vanilla role pm. "You're town. You have no special abilities. You win when all enemies to the town are dead". This way no one can try and hint at their pm to look better. Granted, not all fault is with you here, as AJ and Dap shouldn't have tried that sort of thing.

Yes I agree entirely.

But the flavor and theme is why most of us enjoy mafia games.

If we were just "Godfather" instead of Darth Vader or "1 shot Vigilante" instead of Han Solo it would make games a lot more boring. People like the characters, they like the flavor. And yes you can also make the argument that I cut a corner and should have typed a unique message for all the Villagers but honestly I never took the time because I didn't know how many were going to play until the game was pretty much set to go. I still could have done it but I didn't want to take the time and I think it sucks if mods HAVE to take these measures just to prevent players from abusing the spirit of the game.

 

I'm not referring to how long the extension was, I'm referring to how long that day was in general. It started on a Wednesday if I'm not mistaken, maybe Thursday. The deadline wasn't until Tuesday Morning. That's 5-6 days! Normally, past day 1, day phases last 48-72 hours. Granted, there was a holiday not too long before that, plus a weekend that came in the middle. I'm not arguing so much that the deadline should have been shorter. I'm saying if town has close to a week to secure a lynch and is unable to, they simply don't deserve a prod from the mod and deadline extension. Only times I normally see extensions granted is if there was a recent replacement (ironic), or if people seemed to seriously be working at getting a lynch, but there are too many inactives (which is sort of the mod's responsibility to oversee, so understandable).

There's a line I walk between punishing town with strict and severe deadlines to try to motivate them to play and just punishing them out of spite. I don't want to just be mean to players I want them to want to participate. That said, knowing that Verbal is usually absent on weekends, and knowing he had one of only two town power roles I tried to ignore weekends when it came to activity. I felt if I didn't, town would suffer way too much. As much as I'd love to just throw deadlines on weekends or at 4AM when I am awake because screw you guys I have a weird sleep schedule I can't because that impacts the game too much and definitely wanders off that line on the wrong side.

 

As for there being no cop, imo the Apothecary was a sort of glorified cop. Is he as effective an investigative role as a normal cop in a normal game? Obviously not. But in a cult/recruitment game, cop views actually aren't ass effective as normal anyways. It only helps a lot if you view the CL. In this circumstance, if Ishy had used the potion he used on you the first night on me instead, he would have seen I was the CL and my team would have instalost.

On the other hand Ishy could have made a death potion and killed himself the first night as well and made his entire role irrelevant. It was a very swingy and random role. I know that is bad for balance and I accept that criticism here. But some people, like myself, are fans of such things even if it negatively impacts their chances of winning. This role was for those people and I hope they can appreciate it even if they weren't directly impacted by it.

 

But really, as far as Ishy's role goes I think you can maybe equate it to a Vigilante in part if not power.

The Apothecary, like the Vigilante, had the power to do a lot of good for the town or a lot of harm.

You can make the argument that the Vigilante knows what his powers does, picks his shots, can holster, etc and yes those are all valid differences but in terms of the harm or benefit they give to town I think they are nearly equivalent.

 

My whole argument about the setup being slanted against scum was predicated on the removal of the negative utility of the Apothecary role and the removal of a backup recruiter, two things I am intrinsically against this game. Town did outplay us overall this game I feel. I think we won because of Ishy's role's mechanic. If we're talking about with the inclusion of those two things, yes, I feel the game was slanted in scum's favor. Without them, scum has no chance of winning pretty much. And yes, very swingy, but overall it's nowhere as near as bad as the KoH game, I agree with you there.

If we remove apothecary entirely, the backup, maybe change the priest to a pure cult doctor, and make the CL vanilla we'd have just a vanilla cult game. I think that kind of setup is overpowered in cults favor. I think the cult is inherently broken. Again this was my attempt at making a balanced cult game. Maybe I went too far in certain parts like allowing limited communication on QT but it was always aimed at making the cult a force town could deal with and on reflection I even executed that poorly. And you guys still won. No offense to you, Leelou, Goldeneyes, BFG, or Ishy because I do think there was some really excellent play that came from your team but there is a part of me that thinks your team won because I failed to properly balance cult. I think you guys won because converting town to scum is such an OP mechanic and even my limitations weren't enough to counter that.

 

Overall my main complaint is that Nol scolding other mods for not being more fluid with their setups, when he might have been a little too fluid with this one.

Since when does anyone give a hoot what I have to say?

Being bitter for a sec here, I've also said mods need to stay on top of inactives in games and modkill them more not just replace them. But this isn't really happening. We still see 4+ replacements for games and replacements for replacements. That's out of hand IMO but no one cares that I've said it. And when I say it as a player about my fellow players and not as an observer I get jumped on and treated like I'm the scum of the earth for pointing out someone else's inactivity when it is RELEVANT TO THEIR (lack of) GAMEPLAY IN THE GAME. When you guys do this know that it is infuriating and frustrating and is a huge part of why I've dialed back the games I play on DM by a lot. If I comment on inactivity as a mod I'm a bully abusing my powers, if I do it as a non participating observer I'm a meddler and it has nothing to do with me and when I do it as a player I'm the bully again but this time without power or authority. If what I scold people for has any relevancy here or matters at all then please take this one as important above all others. Start punishing people for continued and repeated inactivity. It's rude to mods, it's rude to other players, it is just a slap in the face to the whole community when someone does it again and again and again. This is the biggest thing that brings down games and if people are properly shamed and scolded for it and if it stops happening you'll see the quality of games go up a lot.

[hazelkrs1]

As for not being able to communicate, well I think at least some of your teammates would disagree with you there.

And I have to say so would I. The ability to communicate privately and make plans and keep each other in check is a HUGE benefit to any team/players. I can't really imagine a situation where I'd rather not have the ability if I could have it.

Oh don't get me wrong, communication is one of the key advantages scum has over town. However, they can sometimes get wrapped up in their plans, and overexpose themselves somewhat. I don't know how many times I've seen a symp sort of outplay his companions, as far as escaping the town's attention goes. How many times has a scum team been close to eliminated just to have the symp come back and win it. The point is, not being able to communicate doesn't hamper them so much that they should only count as 1/2.

 

 

I think giving me a more useful item or something when I hit the trigger would have been nice,

I was tying to weaken your team further.

I was extremely reluctant to give you anything at all when you hit the trigger.

You're honestly lucky that I gave you what I did because it went against the stated goals of the trigger thing in the first place.

 

True, good point.

 

I also hate waiting for games to fill when people aren't around or aren't interested.

I suspect this is a huge reason you feel the way you do about being fluid with game setups btw hehe. I'll get back to this later.

 

But the flavor and theme is why most of us enjoy mafia games.

If we were just "Godfather" instead of Darth Vader or "1 shot Vigilante" instead of Han Solo it would make games a lot more boring. People like the characters, they like the flavor. And yes you can also make the argument that I cut a corner and should have typed a unique message for all the Villagers but honestly I never took the time because I didn't know how many were going to play until the game was pretty much set to go. I still could have done it but I didn't want to take the time and I think it sucks if mods HAVE to take these measures just to prevent players from abusing the spirit of the game.

Oh you can still have flavor and theme. I just don't think it should be used as a means of "clearing" people for town or anything. I don't think role pm's and their wording or phrasing or anything like that should come into play in the game. Just seems to be outside the scope of what you're trying to do. I like it when mods either quote a sample vanilla town role pm, that's a fairly effective deterrent. I also fully support mods who don't allow character claiming or hinting at their role pm (not the role, the pm itself).

 

There's a line I walk between punishing town with strict and severe deadlines to try to motivate them to play and just punishing them out of spite. I don't want to just be mean to players I want them to want to participate. That said, knowing that Verbal is usually absent on weekends, and knowing he had one of only two town power roles I tried to ignore weekends when it came to activity. I felt if I didn't, town would suffer way too much. As much as I'd love to just throw deadlines on weekends or at 4AM when I am awake because screw you guys I have a weird sleep schedule I can't because that impacts the game too much and definitely wanders off that line on the wrong side.

I'm gonna come back to this because I think you kinda set a double standard here.

 

 

As for there being no cop, imo the Apothecary was a sort of glorified cop. Is he as effective an investigative role as a normal cop in a normal game? Obviously not. But in a cult/recruitment game, cop views actually aren't ass effective as normal anyways. It only helps a lot if you view the CL. In this circumstance, if Ishy had used the potion he used on you the first night on me instead, he would have seen I was the CL and my team would have instalost.

On the other hand Ishy could have made a death potion and killed himself the first night as well and made his entire role irrelevant. It was a very swingy and random role. I know that is bad for balance and I accept that criticism here. But some people, like myself, are fans of such things even if it negatively impacts their chances of winning. This role was for those people and I hope they can appreciate it even if they weren't directly impacted by it.

 

But really, as far as Ishy's role goes I think you can maybe equate it to a Vigilante in part if not power.

The Apothecary, like the Vigilante, had the power to do a lot of good for the town or a lot of harm.

You can make the argument that the Vigilante knows what his powers does, picks his shots, can holster, etc and yes those are all valid differences but in terms of the harm or benefit they give to town I think they are nearly equivalent.

 

Oh yeah as far as effectiveness goes, he's similar to a town Vig, in that both roles have negative utility as well as positive. Speaking of the Vigilante knowing what his power does, and being able to pick his shots knowing what might happen, I think a way of making the Apothecary a lot less swingy is making him sort of like a glorified JOAT. Like for instance he could either create a potion for himself that gives investigative properties, or he can send a potion to someone else that blocks a kill, and another that can "cure" someone before they transform into a werewolf. He can choose which action he does each night, but can only do one a night and cannot do the same action in consecutive nights. That would be pretty cool. Doesn't have the negative utility, but I don't think that was needed for one of town's few PR's (especially if the Thief still existed and disrupted his actions).

 

If we remove apothecary entirely, the backup, maybe change the priest to a pure cult doctor, and make the CL vanilla we'd have just a vanilla cult game. I think that kind of setup is overpowered in cults favor. I think the cult is inherently broken. Again this was my attempt at making a balanced cult game. Maybe I went too far in certain parts like allowing limited communication on QT but it was always aimed at making the cult a force town could deal with and on reflection I even executed that poorly. And you guys still won. No offense to you, Leelou, Goldeneyes, BFG, or Ishy because I do think there was some really excellent play that came from your team but there is a part of me that thinks your team won because I failed to properly balance cult. I think you guys won because converting town to scum is such an OP mechanic and even my limitations weren't enough to counter that.

Oh no I wouldn't want to remove the apothecary entirely. I would make it less swingy in some way, possibly how I mentioned above. Def don't let him convert himself to scum. Mebbe even make him unrecruitable since his role is so invaluable to town. I would prob make the Doc a regular doc, not allow him to stop recruits. Doing so would prob make the delayed transformation kinda unnecessary but eh you could leave it in there without causing too much harm. I would take out the backup recruiter, but let the Alpha Wolf start out with a Wolfmate. She could be either a goon or ... hmmm, even better, they could both be Lovers, but she has a vengeance kill (I think I'm obsessed with vengeance kills lately lol). That way it doesn't impact the game as much that the cult starts out with two, and in fact town could lynch either one and the recruiter would still die. Hmmmm that would be pretty nice actually...

 

And you could either leave the 50/50 mechanic in for recruit/kill, or make it so they have to alternate (have to try and kill one night, can try and recruit the next). I remember someone's game, can't remember if it was Darthe and Wombat's game or one of DPR's or something, but it had this mechanic where a team or person could submit a certain type of ability in one phase, but still be able to use a different ability in the next phase, but have to wait an extra phase after that to use the first ability, it was something like that. Can't quite remember.

 

So yeah, a less swingy Apothecary, a more normal doc, take out the backup but put in a Lovers vengeance role Wolfmate, include the Thief and mebbe even the Diseased one depending on how big you wanted it, and voila.

 

Being bitter for a sec here, I've also said mods need to stay on top of inactives in games and modkill them more not just replace them. But this isn't really happening. We still see 4+ replacements for games and replacements for replacements. That's out of hand IMO but no one cares that I've said it. And when I say it as a player about my fellow players and not as an observer I get jumped on and treated like I'm the scum of the earth for pointing out someone else's inactivity when it is RELEVANT TO THEIR (lack of) GAMEPLAY IN THE GAME. When you guys do this know that it is infuriating and frustrating and is a huge part of why I've dialed back the games I play on DM by a lot. If I comment on inactivity as a mod I'm a bully abusing my powers, if I do it as a non participating observer I'm a meddler and it has nothing to do with me and when I do it as a player I'm the bully again but this time without power or authority. If what I scold people for has any relevancy here or matters at all then please take this one as important above all others. Start punishing people for continued and repeated inactivity. It's rude to mods, it's rude to other players, it is just a slap in the face to the whole community when someone does it again and again and again. This is the biggest thing that brings down games and if people are properly shamed and scolded for it and if it stops happening you'll see the quality of games go up a lot.

Okay so first off, I completely agree with you in general about how frustrating inactivity is overall. And I do kinda wish it wasn't such a sore subject, but the fact is, while I'm not trying to sound elitist here, there are some players who are just more casual about mafia than others, and it ruffles their feathers when they feel like they're being persecuted for something that they just don't hold as high a priority of as others. And here's the thing: I don't personally think DM has the player pool usually to support as many games as are sometimes running. You can have 4 games at once on just the main board, not to mention BT mafia or mafia on one of the other boards like SG and the Aiel and stuff. Players like playing with certain other players, and some players are straight up mafia junkies (myself included). This creates the situation where a lot of players are in too many games at once, and I think they all sort of suffer because of that. You can't force someone to sign up for less games, but you can offer less games at the same time.

 

What if they brought back the "standard" category and just allowed one of each type on the main board? One basic, one standard, one advanced. Could even make some leeway to allow 2 of either basic or standard (to allow 2 standard games at once, or 2 basic). I think just this alone could improve the inactivity problem. Much stricter mods would help even more tho, you're right. I think too many mods are a bit too timid with the modkill button. Another benefit to this could also be shorter wait times for signups to fill up btw.

 

But I do have to bring up the contradiction you have here. You talk about how you get demonized for pointing out someone's inactivity, yet earlier in your post you were making excuses for Verbal's inactivity on the weekends. Why is it okay to excuse his inactivity, but not okay to excuse it from someone else? That's a double standard there man, just because you've played a lot longer with Verb I think you feel he should be cut more slack, but it shouldn't really be like that imo. Inactive play is bad no matter who it comes from, but at the same time it doesn't mean you have to come down too hard on that person. Sometimes it really is just bad timing with other stuff, or things come up that they couldn't foresee when they signed up.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

there's a difference between ppl being active according to their schedules (ie some ppl have jobs where they can't play mafia, some have home lives that take precedence over the Internet, and therefore can play at certain times and not others), and those who sign up for games and disappear.

 

I don't mean for a work day or a sleep cycle or a weekend.

 

some ppl sign up for a game and everyone knows they'll need to be replaced because they will disappear.

 

you suggest mod killing for that, but to me that punishes the rest of the players, not the recidivist absentee. cause the absentee don't care. they left the building. mk them, they'll sign up for another game and still not care. and whatever team they're on is punished, not them.

 

I'd say, and if I ever modded this is how I'd deal with it - if a known poofer tries to sign up for your game, bite the bullet, understand you'll wait longer to fill your game, and tell them no. thanks but no thanks.

 

I know nothings going to be done site wide or even board wide, so it'd be up to individual mods, but if someone disappeared on me without a good reason, or with a good reason more than once or twice... I'd tell them to chill for six months, enjoy the vacation from mafia, and try again later on.

 

oh, and good game, really nice gameplay here

[Nolder]

 

But the flavor and theme is why most of us enjoy mafia games.

If we were just "Godfather" instead of Darth Vader or "1 shot Vigilante" instead of Han Solo it would make games a lot more boring. People like the characters, they like the flavor. And yes you can also make the argument that I cut a corner and should have typed a unique message for all the Villagers but honestly I never took the time because I didn't know how many were going to play until the game was pretty much set to go. I still could have done it but I didn't want to take the time and I think it sucks if mods HAVE to take these measures just to prevent players from abusing the spirit of the game.

Oh you can still have flavor and theme. I just don't think it should be used as a means of "clearing" people for town or anything. I don't think role pm's and their wording or phrasing or anything like that should come into play in the game. Just seems to be outside the scope of what you're trying to do. I like it when mods either quote a sample vanilla town role pm, that's a fairly effective deterrent. I also fully support mods who don't allow character claiming or hinting at their role pm (not the role, the pm itself).

 

Well that's exactly my point.

It is outside the scope of the entire game.

The game is, essentially, a whodunnit.

Using your role PM's, specifically flavor text/grammar/etc, to confirm people and figure out the game is cheating to be blunt.

It is not an intended use for that information. So telling me I didn't need to put flavor, when flavor is a big part of what draws people to the game, is really just excusing inappropriate behavior. The onus is not on me to close every loophole. And even if it was, I did. I explicitly stated in my rules not to discuss PM's.

 

Don't paint my putting flavor in the game as a justification for their actions.

 

I think a way of making the Apothecary a lot less swingy is making him sort of like a glorified JOAT. Like for instance he could either create a potion for himself that gives investigative properties, or he can send a potion to someone else that blocks a kill, and another that can "cure" someone before they transform into a werewolf. He can choose which action he does each night, but can only do one a night and cannot do the same action in consecutive nights. That would be pretty cool. Doesn't have the negative utility, but I don't think that was needed for one of town's few PR's (especially if the Thief still existed and disrupted his actions).

That's really an entirely different role tbh.

It's a JOAT with a "potion maker" skin on top of it.

Which is fine but it's not really an improvement on the Apothecary role.

What I could have done is explained how the potions worked while still keeping the ingredient types a secret.

So the Apothecary knows that his potions could be corrupted. And/or I could also use more obvious and descriptive ingredients.

 

But, really, the easiest way to balance the Apothecary is to limit what kinds of potions they can make. 

If any potion is too powerful or too swingy replace it or get rid of it altogether.

 

Okay so first off, I completely agree with you in general about how frustrating inactivity is overall. And I do kinda wish it wasn't such a sore subject, but the fact is, while I'm not trying to sound elitist here, there are some players who are just more casual about mafia than others, and it ruffles their feathers when they feel like they're being persecuted for something that they just don't hold as high a priority of as others.

I would have less issue with these statements if it wasn't for the fact that the people who seem to cause the most trouble, the repeat offenders, they are not "casual" players in the sense that they only play from time to time. It may be true that they do not get as competitive with mafia o take it as seriously as some but they play it just as much as any other addict.

 

And here's the thing: I don't personally think DM has the player pool usually to support as many games as are sometimes running. You can have 4 games at once on just the main board, not to mention BT mafia or mafia on one of the other boards like SG and the Aiel and stuff. Players like playing with certain other players, and some players are straight up mafia junkies (myself included). This creates the situation where a lot of players are in too many games at once, and I think they all sort of suffer because of that. You can't force someone to sign up for less games, but you can offer less games at the same time.

I agree with that completely.

People can just go off site and sign up for more games if they want to.

That's not going to stop me from calling out inactivity and attributing it to the fact that the person is in so many different games though.

As an aside, it would probably help if the social groups didn't allow mafia games and forced all games to be held on the main board.

That would limit the amount of possible games on this site to just 4 at a time which IMO would probably run like clockwork as opposed to what we have now where it's practically a "stop and go" situation because games barely fill. It's just kind of stupid to split the community up like we do. The only somewhat reasonable argument I've heard in favor of games there is that it brings new blood to mafia which is probably true to a certain degree but IMO people would wander into the mafia forum anyway if they were interested.

 

What if they brought back the "standard" category and just allowed one of each type on the main board? One basic, one standard, one advanced. Could even make some leeway to allow 2 of either basic or standard (to allow 2 standard games at once, or 2 basic). I think just this alone could improve the inactivity problem. Much stricter mods would help even more tho, you're right. I think too many mods are a bit too timid with the modkill button. Another benefit to this could also be shorter wait times for signups to fill up btw.

Well I've made my position on that subject clear to Verbal.

He doesn't like the idea. Maybe if more people petitioned him he'd give it a trial period or something idk.

But yeah I agree with including some kind of "third" category.

 

But I do have to bring up the contradiction you have here. You talk about how you get demonized for pointing out someone's inactivity, yet earlier in your post you were making excuses for Verbal's inactivity on the weekends. Why is it okay to excuse his inactivity, but not okay to excuse it from someone else? That's a double standard there man, just because you've played a lot longer with Verb I think you feel he should be cut more slack, but it shouldn't really be like that imo. Inactive play is bad no matter who it comes from, but at the same time it doesn't mean you have to come down too hard on that person. Sometimes it really is just bad timing with other stuff, or things come up that they couldn't foresee when they signed up.

Yeah that is absolutely true.

You got me there. But in my defense it's not as black and white as it seems in this situation.

To be honest I think this is more to do with the fact that I'm closer to Verbal ( ) than I am with a lot of other people here.

And I don't mean to say that we are BFF's but I do know enough about him that he is almost always absent on weekends.

Just like I know that you are a late night poster because of work. I don't know many other peoples schedules tbh.

So, knowing that Verbal is basically MIA on the weekend I'm left with a choice here.

I can be completely impartial and set deadlines just when I like them and what suits me best (which you've objected to both times I did that) or I can try to place deadlines which I feel helps the flow of the game and doesn't cripple any team. Verbal was the Priest. Probably the most important town role in the game. If I'd set deadlines on weekends more than likely I would have been skipping his action almost every time. I already did it the first night and even though it didn't make a difference I didn't want to repeat that. You can see that I also tried to do this for BFG there at the end of the game because she was going to be flying somewhere.

 

So yes you can say I cut Verbal slack because I know him but it's really kind of the other way around.

Because I know him I was able to cut him, and by extension town, some slack.

Should I not have done that? Maybe. But I'm not sure that you hold the high ground to tell me off for it in this case considering you don't seem to like how I handle deadlines either way.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

nol, there's only one social group atm that regularly does mafia, often great mafia, and very different in flavor and tone from what you do on the main board.

 

I would not want to see it stopped.

 

it'd be as easy to limit the number of games on the main board or just readjust to a slower pace.

 

I'd much rather play in the BT than anywhere else on DM. and you and many others like main mafia better.

 

it's a self limiting thing, and boards that don't get the traffic and activity eventually stop running games.

 

I don't think you'll find an admin willing to shut down an sgs mafia. hope not anyway.

[Nolder]

it'd be as easy to limit the number of games on the main board or just readjust to a slower pace.

That makes little sense though.

The entire purpose of this board is to play mafia.

It is dedicated to that sole purpose.

 

If anywhere was to take a hit this would logically be the last place for that to happen.

 

And I appreciate that you and others enjoy mafia games in the social groups but to be honest those same games can be ran in the main board.

The "location" doesn't really matter all that much. A forum is a forum isn't it?

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

a forum is not a forum, or ppl wouldn't be drawn to some more than others.

 

BT mafia is very different, and the staff at the BT doesn't tolerate the same kind of aggression that's acceptable here. among otter things. it's just a whole different ballpark.

 

I don't really see how cutting or mods self limiting this board to two or three games at a time is that much of a hit but I'll likely never play on the main board so ...eh none of it's my call.

 

I play very little anyway so my opinion counts for very little, but I don't think most of the mafia community would want to see BT mafia shut down.

 

nor do I think the policy of letting SGs run themselves is going to get thrown out, so. yeah.

[BFG]

I've been on my mobile for a couple of days and it's awful with the internet so I haven't been posting.

 

I enjoyed the game and learned a lot, I'm sorry my play was so bad. Think I'll stick to basic until my reads are better

 

I was relieved Ishy converted, there was no way cult would have won without that. And despite the fact he says he hate cults I'm glad he played anyway. I was also ready to switch to Golden for an hour or so prior to the deadline, so I don't know about Verb but it may not have made that much difference. And in this case the delayed recruit may have helped, it meant Ishy was strongly town day 3 and I lucked into Town day 4. I find it ironic that the switch was the right move for town followed by my conversion...

 

And Golden, I'm always Town, especially when I'm mafia.

 

I apologise for my awful presence day 1, it was mostly because of the stage the walking dead was at and time available. I knew it would be bad but not that bad. But with regards the day 1 deadline, well that was harsh. Given that it's an international group a 12 hour deadline makes it likely that some of the group will miss it.

 

But anyway, thanks again Nolder it was fun.

[Verbal32]

But I do have to bring up the contradiction you have here. You talk about how you get demonized for pointing out someone's inactivity, yet earlier in your post you were making excuses for Verbal's inactivity on the weekends. Why is it okay to excuse his inactivity, but not okay to excuse it from someone else? That's a double standard there man, just because you've played a lot longer with Verb I think you feel he should be cut more slack, but it shouldn't really be like that imo. Inactive play is bad no matter who it comes from, but at the same time it doesn't mean you have to come down too hard on that person. Sometimes it really is just bad timing with other stuff, or things come up that they couldn't foresee when they signed up.

 

 

I can't believe you have the balls to say the words "inactivtiy" and "Verbal" in the same sentence.  Take a look:

 

Nolder 118 WWWwombat 115 Verbal32 102 BFG 78 Ishmael Forsaken 76 Despothera

68

 

 

Only Wombat and the mod out-posted me.  I had about 150% of your posts.  Being away Sat/Sun is NOT inactivity.  I'm not gone for entire phases - I'm aware of Nolder's deadlines (except for N0) and don't miss them.  Cut them close?  Perhaps.  But don't ever use my name in the same sentence as inactivity in a game only 1 player out-posted me.

 

Ridiculous.  Take your win and move on.  You want me to complain?  Even if I knew my role from the beginning perfectly, I'd still have NO idea who to try and "cure".  Shots in the dark, all game.  Needles in the haystack.

[Nolder]

Well that's not technically true. You can make educated guesses.

If you think you know who will be targets and better yet who the CL might be you can at least narrow down some of the hay from the needles.

 

Edit: You could also have used your power as a way to be "sure" of someone.

If you alternate using the power on yourself and one other person you can basically make a Mason team...if you can trust them in the first place.

There are a couple different strategies you could use with that power tbh.

[Verbal32]

True, but that assumes I know the incubation period of bites, which I didn't.  Too many variables at play for me to make an educated decision.  I mean, I should have taken some chances, but I didn't even know where to start.....even though it was pretty much too late anyway by the time I got my head out from my @$$, lol.

[hazelkrs1]

I wasn't talking about inactivity for the whole game Verbal, I meant inactivity during that period. Had Nolder not extended the deadline, you would have missed it. You posted a lot for the game sure, but you survived till endgame and spammed a ton at the start. Post count is a lame thing to try and point to to prove how active you are when most of your posts are fluff. You disappeared from a game for more than 2-3 days, to me that's pretty much a sign of a player going inactive.

 

You do make a good point about your role tho, not knowing the mechanics of the conversion process limited your ability to decide who to try and "cure". However, telling you more about those mechanics would have confirmed a cult=like presence in the game, which wouldn't have been good. Hence, my idea of making the Priest pretty much a normal Doc would prob work fairly well in that setup I described.

[hazelkrs1]

To be clear tho Verb, I def don't think that you're one of the major transgressors of the inactivity thing at all. I have noticed that you can occasionally disappear from a game at inopportune times, I know it's frustrated me a bit in the past.

[Verbal32]

Bull.  I'm not around on weekends.  That's it.  I don't know where you get your "more than 2-3 days" crap, but you can sit on that and spin.

 

If Nolder had not moved deadlines, I would still have met them.  I was following the game.  When a deadline comes over a weekend, I try to pop on for a min to do whatever I need to (PM the mod, post on the QT, whatever).

 

Of course I'm not a major transgressor.  I'm not a transgressor at all.  You might want to stop now before you make a greater fool of yourself than you've already done in this thread.  Jesus, just when I start to like you again.......you pull crap like this.

 

Amazing.  Like you're actually trying.

[Nolder]

If Nolder had not moved deadlines, I would still have met them.  I was following the game.  When a deadline comes over a weekend, I try to pop on for a min to do whatever I need to (PM the mod, post on the QT, whatever).

Oh, well FU then lol. 

Next time you can find the time to pop on over the weekend.

I just assumed you were gone.