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Post by Planetbox on Aug 9, 2022 21:25:14 GMT
Welp that’s the end of that one. Welcome to the first post-game thread on Cox Studios. Glad you could make it here.
First off, a very special thank you to Doctor Nanjo for helping get this game off the ground, and another to Knor424 for providing a lot of inspiration. I’d like to thank my cops, BP, Iago, Collin, and Panda, for sticking it out this whole time despite all the gameplay issues. And of course another thank you to the players for your fun characters and bringing the world of BF4 to life.
I’m most interested in hearing feedback on the gameplay design. I won’t lie, I learned a lot from running this, especially as someone who's never run a mafia game before and decided starting with this beast was a good idea. Still, I would be more than happy to run another game like this in the future if there’s enough of a playerbase, but I think there are a lot of flaws in the structure that need to be ironed out.
Also I can’t believe Scrappy-Doo is dead forever.
Anyway, if you’re reading this, all the private threads for the game are open. You can find the dead threads, Cop private thread, and Izza’s messages in CoxTopics, while the Role PMs are (obviously) in the Role PMs section. Go give those a read, do some posting here, I don’t know. I can’t stop you anymore.
Thanks again for playing. I’ll catch you on the flipside.
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Post by Kachu on Aug 9, 2022 21:48:27 GMT
Very VERY fun game. Glad I got to play! Thank you for hosting and thanks to everyone else who made it a good time!
and CURSE Mercy for STEALING MY NOSEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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Post by Neotelenta on Aug 9, 2022 21:55:17 GMT
This was a wild time. Honestly, I think the biggest thing would be to make sure to have an Order-of-Operations when it came to all the wacky role interactions. The first night of arc 2 is probably evidence enough and I don't need to even bring it up, but I felt the same pain trying to take my OWN notes.
Other than that, this was an incredible time. The music, the setting, the fantastic characters everyone brought, and the complete nonsense we got up to.
*Dances like mad*
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Post by Pierre on Aug 9, 2022 22:00:15 GMT
Thanks very much this was absolutely great! Sorry if I wasn't always as present as I'd have liked to be, life is busy.
The writing on this was really incredible. Your little ad-breaks and chapter intros were actually incredible and I really dug the atmosphere you laid down.
Good game everyone!
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Post by Panda on Aug 9, 2022 22:13:19 GMT
Thank you for running this, PB! It was a very cool game all-round. I had fun even if there were gameplay issues thanks to everything else being so good.
GG to all. Missing noses can be retrieved from the Lost and Found on your way out of the building.
I wrote up some mechanics feedback during the game. Wall of text incoming:
[#spoiler=Feedback] The main issue, which PB himself brought up, is the win condition for each arc. I'm not sure what it should be, but it definitely shouldn't be whoever has the majority. Witches are incentivised to do strange things purely to avoid the final survivor list serving as a clue to their identities. Ideally Witches should be able to focus purely on doing everything they can to win an arc (so long as it doesn't look suspicious).
However, Mortals/Mobsters still need to be incentivised to lynch as many Witches as they can, and Witches still need to be incentivised to kill as many Mortals as they can. So the arc win-con needs to account for that.
A separate idea I had, which is more novel but I think important, is that the Witch kill power should rotate between arcs. Different Witches should start with it each time. This way no individual Witch can spent the whole game just doing mob things and get away without ever being discovered. Every Witch has to, at some point over the course of the game, put themselves at risk. This creates a more dynamic and active experience for both factions. Witches are forced to use their powers more aggressively to actively mess with the Mortals (they can't just get away with wasting them on more plausibly-deniable targets), which also means the other Witches are also putting themselves at more risk, again to the overall benefit of the game.
Ideally "everyone just reveal your roles" should not be an effective strategy, at least during the first half of the game. It's better if instead roles naturally reveal themselves steadily during the course of the game. However, I do think this is partly just a player issue. There was a lot of pressure for everyone to role-reveal this game, but a lot of that actually worked against the mobs in the end. It meant we cops knew what they could do and could plan around them. Which we very much did, all the time in the later arcs.
This one's obvious now, but Witch roles shouldn't clearly label them as Witches. It's perfectly reasonable that their roles be a bit suspicious, and it's bad design to go too far and E.g. have the Doctor be a Witch, but there were definitely moments this game where Witches got outed (or could have) just because their role was so clearly Witchy. Obviously in particular, the kill power shouldn't be an identifiable part of a Witch's role at all. One solution would be to have the names be reasonably neutral, but have the actual powers be more Witchy. I would say Rob and Austin were good in that regard due to their extra powers. There was an emergency rule adjustment mid-game to make it so that their roles weren't fully revealed on the role list, though, as that would just immediately label them both as Witches. Instead the solution was to simply state that the Witches had the two additional abilities, so mobs were aware they existed but couldn't easily pinpoint who had them.
Though counter to the above, having a clearly Witch-aligned role exist is fine too if the role is really strong. Then it's a sub-game for the Witches to try and protect the strong role. Witches have to play more aggressively to protect the role, and Mortals have a high priority target to search for. This has potential to make the game play better. (Lucine's role fits this. It's very strong, but also clearly paints her as a Witch if she were ever exposed. By contrast, the Chief role didn't do much and yet clearly painted Countess as a Witch.)
For good game design, there needs to be counterplay to most things. If there's a role list like BF4 had, there need to be spare roles so that Witches can try to claim them to cover up what they can really do. This can then be countered by a Detective exposing their lie. As a basic second example, the Doctor can block kills, but if the Witches ever discover them, they become a high priority target so it balances out. Then as a counter-example, Lucine's role in isolation is bad. Her ability is to visit people undetected, which by its nature means there's no way to catch her, and no counterplay. However, if the Mortals have a Detective, the Detective could potentially expose Lucine's power, and then we're in a situation where it's quite clear she's probably a Witch. So at that point, it balances out again. A high risk, high reward role.
To be clear, the counterplay only needs to be potential counterplay. It's very reasonable that one faction might no longer have a counter if the person with the counter role is dead. The cops had zero counterplay against Leslie blocking them over and over, but that's only because of the way things worked out during the game, which is perfectly fine from a gameplay standpoint (within reason). (Though maybe Rob should have been lower on the kill order to give the cops more of a chance.) We only ended up in that situation because we happened to kill Leslie n1 in the first arc, and I didn't steal her power because stealing Leo's was about as important.
Some roles in the game are clearly Mortal-aligned, such as Doctor. These roles should also be roles where the player is disinclined to reveal what they can do, otherwise they just reveal their Mortal-ness early on (which is bad gameplay). Usually there's overlap here, at least. Roles that seem very likely to be Mortal are such because of the fact that they're so strong for the Mortals, so in turn they're roles that they don't want the Witches to discover. When it comes to role names, the only roles that should have very Mortal-sounding names are the strong Mortal roles. (Same logic as very Witchy names being used only for the strong Witch roles.)
Lastly, personally I feel like maybe lynching should just be mandatory. It leads to a more dynamic game. Alternatively, if the arc win-con for instance involves lynching a certain number of Witches, then the Mortals are already incentivised to lynch a lot of players. So if lynching isn't mandatory, it should at least be heavily incentivised by the game mechanics. (It technically was encouraged by BF4's rules, but it's too easy to just No Kill a lot like that.) [/spoiler]
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Post by Planetbox on Aug 10, 2022 1:33:08 GMT
Okay yeah there’s some good interesting stuff there. I particularly like the idea of the Maf with the killing power changing each Arc. And The stuff with the roles is cool cause admittedly I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into some of them lol
But yeah I think the win conditions are the sticking point. I was also thinking something about the win condition being based on town killing of executing witches, though I wonder if that might provide too much information too—or just be too difficult. It would also lower the incentive of Witches actually killing people aside from it just being what they do. If killing townies doesn’t advance the Witches toward winning, and actually just makes it easier to identify them, then I worry we’d get back into the doctor hell of this game
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Post by Kachu on Aug 10, 2022 1:39:57 GMT
I agree with almost the entirety of Panda's comments. So what I'm saying following this isn't meant to be a counter, but to promote more discussion in general.
[#spoiler=stuff]>I think that it's a very fine line to balance out. Of course this wasn't actually suggested, but actually lynching witches for Mob victories to me smells like we'd never actually have a Mob victory. I think their win con can be something a little more different- Ideally preventing the Witches from reaching their win con. Maybe that'd work? Though it'd depend on what the Witches need to win in the first place.
Not to say that the game was balanced, as it wasn't particularly fair at times, but it's also still interesting to me how close the game was still in the end. I have a rather good feeling that we would've lost had I not gotten a miracle in ignoring the thread like a moron and also picking Austin. The game was against the Witches somewhat, but you all still played it well up until the very last moment. Though some of it in the middle admittedly was us being unwilling for whatever reason to confirm something with the game mechanics. (Though that also would've been the prime time for Kolton to come clean too, I think?)
Regardless Witches should strive for a witch victory, I think we can all come up with something that'll seem fair for all of us with some discussion.
>I like the killing power rotating! But I also feel like it requires some sort of role list with actions defined as well. After all it'd be hard to catch something when you're not even that sure if their role lets them do those kinds of visits anyways, or something like that. I do sort of like how the power is passed along as well, further putting the other witches in the line of fire as the Mob inevitably figures SOMETHING out, but I don't really know where I'm going with this train of thought. I think it's a neat idea, though. Worth a try.
>I think the logic behind those roles having those witch-y parts in them was because it was sort of not the intention to have all of us role reveal like we did? I suppose PB would have to confirm with that, but I think the change in the end was good. A part of me still scratches my head at Countess having a witchy role, because I still forget that the killing was just a part of her role. Was really weird to me!
I will also slip in that fudging the role list, while it didn't actually end up changing anything, left me with a bit of a weird feeling. I think stuff like that can get out of hand easily. Especially going most of the game without knowing it exists.
>Was there really nothing to counter Leslie? I believe you guys went over going Athena Kill -> Leslie Kill. But that also does mean you're blocked for 2 nights which could reveal 2 cops. I think we just had a series of things that sorta just ended up happening in the game. I'm not too sure about the idea behind pushing Rob further down the killing power list, other than to directly go against what ended up happening during the game, but I might be way off the mark here I'm a bit drained and running on little sleep. You also mention other counters to Leslie, so maybe I'm just running with something that's not really relevant.
>I am really racking my brain for anti-reveal ideas. I didn't want to reveal doctor, but it didn't take very long for that to become apparent. And it might've come out sooner if I wasn't dead all of arc 1. Everyone just started flooding out with what they can do. I have no idea where to begin to have measures against doing that.
>Lynching being mandatory I am not really sure about. But I agree it's probably a good idea in the end? But here and BF2 the Mortals get nothing out of a lynch. And our reckoning guesses Arc 1 were all totally worthless. I'm not really sure what, but it might be better to have some other way of giving the Mortals info that's reliable. When the role list can be messed with, a lot of our basis for ideas and things can be tossed out the window. If Rob managed to fudge roles in Arc 1, I imagine that'd have really messed with us and would've taken Lancer using a few actions just to confirm if someone's role is what they say it is. Reliable information like that I think goes a long way. If we're just lynching like no tomorrow, and Witches end up having an easier way to win arcs, it might be too lopsided? But there's no actual plan or system in place yet, so it's of course too early to make any kind of judgment.[/spoiler]
I really do think new ideas like that should be explored though. It was a close game, but it can be a lot more balanced. Again, not to go against any of these points, just to talk about all of it. Playing this made me interested in trying to manage one myself, despite the pretty terrible time NGXI ended up being for me (mostly due to outside circumstances, but a lot on my own end as well.) But who knows maybe instead I'll run that fabled Scooby Doo 2 game.
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Post by Doctor Nanjo M.D. on Aug 10, 2022 2:52:53 GMT
GGs! Some good feedbacks that Panda has. This is why the fake kill is good actually.
I enjoyed the game a lot and the casts was very funky!! Lots of fun moments.
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Post by Bad Player on Aug 10, 2022 4:06:00 GMT
>Was there really nothing to counter Leslie? I believe you guys went over going Athena Kill -> Leslie Kill. But that also does mean you're blocked for 2 nights which could reveal 2 cops. I think we just had a series of things that sorta just ended up happening in the game. I'm not too sure about the idea behind pushing Rob further down the killing power list, other than to directly go against what ended up happening during the game, but I might be way off the mark here I'm a bit drained and running on little sleep. You also mention other counters to Leslie, so maybe I'm just running with something that's not really relevant. Arc 3 night 1 we couldn't kill Athena or Leslie or Leo. Aust's witch power was super strong but couldn't actually stop Leslie. We were a bit iffy on totally throwing Rob under the bus, otherwise he could've swapped Leslie off me. But those 3 were the most problematic mobs (Lancer as well, when we discovered that our witch powers were contained in our roles, although it was a bit iffier on whether he'd actually investigate Rob or Aust twice), we couldn't kill any of them, and Mercy could only pickpocket one of them. Yes a big part of moving Rob down is just what happened in the game, but if we want to give an actual argument, it'd be that Rob is the cops' only guaranteed defensive tool (with Mercy being the only other potential), but because you can't visit yourself it means the cops lose that as soon as the head cop falls. So moving Rob down would've made the cops a bit more resilient.
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Post by Bad Player on Aug 10, 2022 4:06:35 GMT
and thanks PB for running the game and, more importantly, giving me a custom title when I asked for it
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Post by Kachu on Aug 10, 2022 4:50:33 GMT
>Was there really nothing to counter Leslie? I believe you guys went over going Athena Kill -> Leslie Kill. But that also does mean you're blocked for 2 nights which could reveal 2 cops. I think we just had a series of things that sorta just ended up happening in the game. I'm not too sure about the idea behind pushing Rob further down the killing power list, other than to directly go against what ended up happening during the game, but I might be way off the mark here I'm a bit drained and running on little sleep. You also mention other counters to Leslie, so maybe I'm just running with something that's not really relevant. Arc 3 night 1 we couldn't kill Athena or Leslie or Leo. Aust's witch power was super strong but couldn't actually stop Leslie. We were a bit iffy on totally throwing Rob under the bus, otherwise he could've swapped Leslie off me. But those 3 were the most problematic mobs (Lancer as well, when we discovered that our witch powers were contained in our roles, although it was a bit iffier on whether he'd actually investigate Rob or Aust twice), we couldn't kill any of them, and Mercy could only pickpocket one of them. Yes a big part of moving Rob down is just what happened in the game, but if we want to give an actual argument, it'd be that Rob is the cops' only guaranteed defensive tool (with Mercy being the only other potential), but because you can't visit yourself it means the cops lose that as soon as the head cop falls. So moving Rob down would've made the cops a bit more resilient. aahhh okay gotcha gotcha. So a lot of it was just how the game played out too. I see I get it now. I agree on the defensive tool situation as well, now, actually. I think swapping Aust and Mercy would make sense.
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Post by pancakes on Aug 10, 2022 7:36:19 GMT
The best way to counter role revealing (in my opinion) while keeping roles is basically what Panda said, I think. A good way I think is having two roles that can counter each other, i.e. having two Investigator roles so that they can counterclaim each other. ToS often has multiple roles that have different names but have the same effects, i.e. two Investigators (Investigator + Consig) or two Escorts (Escort + Consort). They also have some roles that players can fall back on as a claim. A Blackmailer will fall back on Spy often because Investigator results will mark them as a potential Spy.
Role-revealing is always powerful in a role-based game tbh but it's stronger when there's a role list that spells out the roles. ToS usually just marks them by category, such as having "Town Investigator" or "Town Support," just so players are aware of the distribution.
Personally, I don't the town should have a role that can kill on demand without any penalty, most town-killing roles come with a price if you guess incorrectly, so I think that role was a bit of a misfire. Generally, though I think the balance was fine and cops just got kinda unlucky idk. And honestly, because of BF2 I still believe any role can be any role, like Pickpocket equivalent was town-aligned in BF2, so I don't think this game really had this problem.
GG, was a fun time! Thanks to PB for hosting! Hope to see more games soon, missed playing these :3
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Post by Panda on Aug 10, 2022 8:54:24 GMT
I'm definitely most happy about the "make the kill power rotate" idea. It's simple but seems like it would be very effective.
I would say BF4 was reasonably 'balanced' in some sense, it's just it promoted the wrong gameplay. The cops should not have been incentivised to try and counteract their own kill power every single night, and they should not have been incentivised to lose every arc. Conversely, the mobs were in a situation where they'd probably have benefitted from lynching anyone who's confirmed mob, to round down the suspect list. It's all backwards. (I had to fight hard against the idea people had that maybe they should just lynch Bones for that very reason. Would have been a disaster for us cops XD)
It's probably fine if mob victories can lead to mob confirmations though. That's more incentive for cops to try and actually win an arc. (So like how in arc 1, after Countess was revealed as a cop, that cleared Kolton and Bones.)
One idea that was suggested before is that arc victories are hidden, at least from Mortals. Instead, at the start of the Answer Arc they're told how many arcs they won (but not which). This avoids the problem, mechanically. However, it also feels like bad gameplay if most of the game's players don't actually get feedback on how well they're doing during the course of the game. Maybe it's still the best solution though? The reality is, Mafia's base mechanics work very well. Mafia are incentivised to kill because their win-con is killing enough Town they they can match their number. Town are incentivised to try and lynch Mafia because their win-con is lynching all the Mafia members. It might not be possible to come up with an alternative win-con that still promotes the same gameplay.
Granted, with the above solution, cops want to avoid winning all three arcs (otherwise its the same problem as BF4 had) which is a bit weird. Though at least there they probably don't need to prevent kills all the time, they only need to kill their own members, which is something they kind of want to do anyway to avoid having it look suspicious that their own members never got killed by Witches.
Edit: Nanjo mentioned a 1-in-3 rule before, that is, cops would have won if it was 1 cop vs 2 mobs at the end. I think this could actually be a good idea. In the arc 1 situation, it would mean the mobs know one of those three is a cop, but that's enough lee-way that cops aren't screwed by the reveal. If every arc had ended that way, the mobs would only know that at least 3 of 9 players are cops, which is absolutely ideal. It's much better than knowing at least half of a group of players are cops. This way cops could actually aim for a cop victory without worrying so much about what it would reveal. If we extrapolate the idea, maybe the cop win-con just needs to be like, I dunno, 2/5 of the survivors are cops or something. Though that might just be too difficult for the mobs to achieve victory with. Or maybe it's like, cops win so long as they match or exceed the half the number of survivors rounded down instead of up. So 1 in 3, 2 in 5, 3 in 7. Evens can still just be 2 in 4, 3 in 6 e.t.c. as it's not terrible to have at least one "half these players are cops" situation. It's also fine if cops are incentivised to kill cops sometimes if they don't like what the final lineup would be. The main issue is cops outright preventing their own kills and trying to lose every arc.
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Rosa
Full Member
Newton. But where is Oldton?
Posts: 232
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Post by Rosa on Aug 10, 2022 10:55:23 GMT
Cool game guys! RIP Scrappy Doo. I have no huge thoughts to add mechanics wise but from my monkey brain POV I thought it was balanced fairly well and it ended up feeling close in the end despite everything so yeah. Panda's idea is cool though yeah.
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