Big First Official Smogon Mafia Game: Metagame Mafia - Game Over - Anything Goes Wins!

[UncleSam]

Well a few comments:
1. Fake claims probably could've been given out better, but there were some truly random roles on the village as well as same-evo-line-as-mafia-mons to cover for the fact that some of the mafia only had a few decent claims based on how they might be checked. In the end it might've been better to just let people claim random mons that were more likely to be in the game.
2. I disagree 100% that the mafias and wolf played poorly, quite the opposite actually. Both OU and Ubers were highly active and so was Twin, they were all collaborating more than any of the villagers until mills started gaining control late game. I think that the OverUsed made some poor stabbing choices which meant they were pretty much never going to win in the late game and Ubers got some really poor luck, but if I had to rank play as factions I'd rank it as Ubers>Anything Goes>Village>OU, without significant differences between any of the factions tbh. All were active, none missed actions, everyone was thinking about the game. A few villagers missed some really crucial things but that's kind of expected, where the village really didn't do well was in actually utilizing all their killing roles. I was hoping that the village vigilantes would be used early and often to kill *mostly* mafia, but, just like in LOTR mafia, the vigilantes were used extremely sparingly for fear of hitting villagers.
3. I have no clue why people think the Ubers were weaker than OU; maybe they were more susceptible to luck fucking, but so is any smaller faction necessarily. The Ubers had Factional/Kyogre/Darkrai/2x Flare Blitz and potential Geomancy kills, while OU had only Faction/Status Killer/2x Flare Blitz kills, the OU had to idle two of their best roles every night, and the OU didn't have an inspector 'in' with the village. Now I realize that many of these (Kyogre losing vigilante, shade dying so early, etc.) were lost super early on and so it's hard to see just how badly luck factored into this, but I really don't think that Ubers were weak in the slightest. Even things like Blazade's role or Mage Vulpes' role were better than anything the OU had; there's a reason that the Ubers and Twin held all the items in the game at the end while OU had nothing. The Ubers were generally faster, had really strong roles, and were tactically a lot stronger.
4. I stand by what I did (requesting that Yeti actually get the new players involved) because I don't agree at all with the philosophy that the host shouldn't have 'any influence' on how people play the game. For example, if people are being toxic the hosts have every right to let them know that and to tell them to stop it, and vice-versa I have every right to request that Yeti share some information with newer players (I did not mention anyone in particular, and I said specifically to make a secondary sheet without super sensitive information on it, which was ignored). I'm sorry that Yeti feels this overstepped bounds of a host or w.e but I am 100% comfortable with that and am never going to fault a host for stepping in when newer players are complaining about not being involved in a game meant specifically to try to get newer players involved in the first place.

 

[Agape]

I think that the design of this game succeeded because it was fun to play, was enjoyable by newer players and maintained (the illusion of) competitiveness to the end. The perfectly balanced game is a holy grail that doesn't exist. Billy is just salty because he lost the game.

blazade mvp new-ish player

running the OU after LW's death from behind the scenes was fun and I just might return from retirement for the big games

funniest moment of game was billy thinking that my first anonymous convo with him was the OU talking to him collectively, also trolling twin

 

[Yeti]

you didn't give us enough info roles to justify vigging early nor did you make it easy to confirm due to mafia sgs and crap

unless you wanted me to vig people for not claiming to me and get billy yelling at me for being a meta-enforcing douchebag
or
vig newbies who have shoddy claims and make it unfun for them

you made this game difficult to involve people in because it was difficult to clean people. i don't particularly agree with giving people info, real or fake, if they don't seem to be clean. i ONLY did it because you kept telling me to.

i should have just ignored you but you power played me you'd support me losing my badge if i didn't. so meh.

 

[JALMONT]

Jalmont I know I made mistakes but I'm curious what from your perspective was obviously bad about our play as the Ubers. I want to learn for next time.

honestly, i'd have to wait until postgame to actually see the exact moves you guys made and what occurred as a result (im lazy x_x) but the big one that comes to mind is that you had basically a filled out sheet at what? cycle 3? and you didn't manage to do anything with it. like that's just such a huge advantage that you had, and I don't think you nearly used it as well as you could've. poras never claimed which was bad, of course you guys didn't work with the OU very well which put in a spot where you ended up having to kill OU to balance out kills.

to me it felt like you guys put yourself in such a bad position late game where you were forced to work with the wolf to stay in the game even though you had such a huge advantage early.

Being active =/= playing well, AG won as a result of being non-factors the entire game. acid probably should've been lynched over macle, twin was almost lynched and I should've vig'd him c1. they played way too aggressive but then weren't even willing to talk about the game lol. twin blew his shot at getting on the sheet by playing too aggressive and then rand-hooked LN for whatever reason causing him to be found out. the only reason he survived was because the Ubers needed him to not get eliminated from the game and so everyone else couldn't agree to eliminate him from the game.

the insistence on things that fuck with lynches is what i personally find to be not very good for the game, but i think most people will probably disagree with me on that. personally i wish there was more of a focus on playing stealthily and blending in. i don't think you should be able to go "hey im wolf who needs my help" and then just win because you have every item in the game that fks up the lynch. okay.

e: Blazade u guys i think did a lot better than the OUs in retrospect and you did get luckfucked to some extent, but i still do feel that you guys didn't capitlize on the advantages you did manage to get

 

[Yeti]

the only reason i don't lynch acidphoenix c1 is f oh ex asks me to let him live to c2 so he can check him first and then praj.pran comes forth and does this crap

otherwise i was going to switch off macle onto acid which allows shade to live and quite probably mole me

so Eh

 

[UncleSam]

you didn't give us enough info roles to justify vigging early nor did you make it easy to confirm due to mafia sgs and crap

unless you wanted me to vig people for not claiming to me and get billy yelling at me for being a meta-enforcing douchebag
or
vig newbies who have shoddy claims and make it unfun for them

you made this game difficult to involve people in because it was difficult to clean people. i don't particularly agree with giving people info, real or fake, if they don't seem to be clean. i ONLY did it because you kept telling me to.

i should have just ignored you but you power played me you'd support me losing my badge if i didn't. so meh.

A. I never said I'd support you losing your badge wtf, mills did
B. The entire point is that you can't just wait around for people to be cleaned 100%, you have to go with your gut. That's the entire point of the setup being this way. You know that if you'd killed all the sketchy claims early on you'd have hit mostly mafia, you even told me that you wish you had just killed everyone you suspected initially when it was more likely to work
C. It's true that it's hard to fully trust anyone, that's part of the game (and I was kind of hoping people would point out that it's hard to trust you fully either) but I also never said you ought to fully trust anyone...

billy yelling at you as a non-player wasn't super appropriate though he was acting in roughly the same capacity I was which was as a moderator trying to make sure the experience was a positive one, particularly for newer players.

Also ya f-oh-ex saving acidphoenix for a night killed shade and probably lost the Ubers the game tbqh

 

[JALMONT]

UncleSam the problem is that it's not yeti's job to involve new players it's your job. if you want new players to be involved then you give them roles that are easily proved, or more alliance checkers so that yeti doesn't have to be paranoid about adding a new player. if you need to rely on suggesting players to do things then you didn't a good job spreading out the roles or designing a game where players can readily get involved. i have no problem having our ominguards get dropped to have two more alliance checkers. it's healthy for the game if the village leader is constantly be killed so you consistently get new people involved.

 

[UncleSam]

The point of the game was that you shouldn't trust people, the fact that newer players trusted Yeti because Yeti was the only person talking to them was sort of taking advantage of the meta and being more experienced tbqh, no one should've been claiming in this game precisely because of how hard it is to check people

I was never going to include more alliance checkers or inspectors on the village because I think they are low-skill roles. People should be forced to interact with one another (not necessarily gather around one person but have a commune) to get the most out of their roles. I liked the village setup a lot, though if I had to go back I think I'd replace the Life Orb on either Bibarel or Arceus with something else, maybe another Iron Ball (I also probably should've let the village have two Iron Ball vigilantes who could fling anything to get rid of bad items for the village but use iron balls as kills, basically item destroyer + vig in one).

 

[Agape]

oh also congrats Aura Guardian for winning the game

 

[Blazade]

Yeti you told me to target not kill imanalt, I didn't know he was scum, and when I told you I was harmful you backed off.

Jalmont we did a ton of fucking damage conrol when we got sheet it was really overwhelming but we killed all the info and all the vigs but yeah there was probably more that could be done. I'll talk more in postgame.

The only thing stopping us from working with the OU was the OU lol.

 

[rssp1]

As far as I know, the OU/Ubers factional communication got disabled pretty badly after all of the outed scum were killed, although it may have been a little later.
Not having a specific person we could communicate with sucked.

 

[Wayan Vistar]

Welp, this has been fun. Congrats to AG, and i'd like to thank US and Walrein for giving me the Pokemon I requested :P

 

[6tennis]

Yeah even with our fatal misplay, I had a blast. Thanks US and Walrein.

 

[Yeti]

I was never going to include more alliance checkers or inspectors on the village because I think they are low-skill roles. People should be forced to interact with one another (not necessarily gather around one person but have a commune) to get the most out of their roles.

YOU GAVE LIKE 5 NEWBIES PICK UP/STICKY HOLD
THEY COULDN'T
DO
ANYTHING

honestly dude? if this was supposed to be a beginner-friendly game meant to get beginners involved, you SHOULD have made it extremely easy to clean villagers. imagine how many more newbies i sheet if i get cop results they are clean and they can be way more involved.

it feels good to be a cop and get a guilty. it feels good to be told "great work you cleaned X dude and you're both on the sheet!" those roles would have made newbies feel involved and valuable a LOT more than those useless no night action pick up roles you gave to them.

i simply disagree with your design philosophy. if you want people to be involved and get info, give the village roles that can clean them and give them useful roles. it doesn't matter if a role is low skill if it lets them feel relevant and involved. if i can say "great job you let us find a scum" then the newbie feels valued... versus "great job you voted faster than the other villagers with your role?"

i dunno. i hope the next official doesn't take village design cues from this game because i think it was antithetical to easily involving newbies. i tried to talk to everyone and pm them, discuss the game, answer questions, see what they wanted to do about the c1 lynch.

and that STILL wasn't good enough for you. you wanted me to do more, involve more people, share more info, spend my own time and energy into MAKING fake info TO share.

THAT WAS NOT MY JOB. you had no place to tell me to take more time out of my day (even if i have no life) to falsify information to share with people to "make them feel involved" unless i was the one who wanted to do that and suggested it first. my job was to help the village win. not to be a cruise ship director ensuring everyone on the boat has enough fun they book my cruise line again when they next want to cruise. i did try to do that and make sure everyone was involved/talking to me if they wanted to be, but you wanted me to be doing things that your game design should have prompted, NOT your unsolicited advice.

 

[Agape]

omnom smogdrama like old times

 

[Ampharos]

help why are mommy and daddy fighting

 

[UncleSam]

I'm not fighting because I've already responded. I explained why what I did was 100% within the rules, Yeti can build a mountain of salt all she likes but it was her own damn fault.

 

[LonelyNess]

I had fun.

Shoulda lynched him when i caught his hand in the cookie jar billy.

 

[Lrr]

It was insanely easy to find the mafia fake claims and I could infer their roles based on their claims since all of them claimed the same type as their actual mon only person I was wrong on was former hope

and steeledges who you owe money to

 

[TheWhoDoctor]

What the fuck was that?

 

[TheWhoDoctor]

Why the fuck is Bibarel AG like fuck that he can accurately flavor claim and still be scum. V poor theme.

 

[Lrr]

Anyway: I understand that simpler roles are lower skill. As a game meant to attract beginners, though, it doesn't need to be Metroid Prime 2 or Card Game Mafia to be considered successful. I think it's much more beneficial to keeping people entertained when they understand what is going on. With that lowered complexity we could've added in aliases, which I think are beneficial in that villager veterans don't just get namekilled (look at C1+2 deaths holy shit). That's kind of selfish of me but I think aliases or something more universal and worth introducing to newbies, plus I really don't think they are that complicated.

I've already said my peace on the host influence stuff in private.

 

[jumpluff]

Fwiw I was really impressed from the sidelines with the standard of play and involvement from the new players we had, and really hope to see you guys again so I'll have the opportunity to play with you. Some of the mods here used to be considered the worst players on the site actually, so please don't feel too bad about any errors. I'd say many of you did better than we did in our first games tbh

 

[jumpluff]

I'd like to apologize to everyone. I was just not expecting this to be as complicated as it was, couldn't really lead at the point I got sheet access, thought the game would end much sooner and that my role was much weaker than it was, thus focusing on self-preservation until I could get a better understanding of the game state.

The biggest outside chat town-mafia game I've been in (and succesfully lead as town at some point) was 20 players big. I was used to games with 50+ people that are over in around a week etc with much more killing going on straight from the beginning.

Anyways, after all that, I realized I couldn't really keep up with it all so I asked to be subbed out as soon as I was prodded for inactivity. Sorry for being quite the important part of things getting messed up -_-

Our games are pretty complex but we do play smaller games like this with less complexity and sometimes nocs more like you're used to

Lmk if you ever host that game btw

 

[Ditto]

Fuck that! jumpluff is weak like the pokemon she's named after! Not me! I'll tell you the truth. Every mistake you make will follow you for the rest of your life. It will keep you from getting into college. It will keep you from getting your dream job. It will send you into a spiral of self-loathing and depression that leads only to the bottom, which is where you belong! SMOFIA IS SERIOUS BUSINESS! So if you want to make it in this dog eat dog subforum, you gotta get tough! You gotta get rough! You gotta get Ditto!