Newbie Data

[Netopalis]

I'd also like to point out that removing the 2 mafia, 7 vanilla eliminates a powerful scum strategy. If the scum have a roleblocker, one of them is forced to claim, that person claims cop and is not counterclaimed, then the other partner knows that he can safely claim doc. Although this is a rare strategy, the elimination of it may help shift things in the town's favor.

[Netopalis]

Can ANYONE please show me a newbie game that was won through follow-the-cop? Anybody? I really think that this is an imaginary problem, as I've said before.

[Netopalis]

*shrug* F11:C has the best tested value of any Newbie Setup we've run, 44% vs. 56%. And I still think (open) 2M7T is demoralizing and a good way to lose players/ICs. All kunkstar's data shows is that Town can manage not to do any worse than random in an environment where Mafia teams self-destruct on a fairly regular basis (most games, the IC is not going to be Mafia).

I'd be happy either eliminating F11:D or going to a straight F11:C (Pie E7++) setup.

Neto: I assume you're talking about in F11/Pie E7? It was pretty common in the original newbie setup.

I'm talking about right now. It may have been a problem with the original setup, but we no longer have the original setup. That fixed the problem. Let's stop trying to fix a fixed problem.

[Netopalis]

I'm a bit concerned that eliminating the vanilla setup will emphasize focus on the prs and result in lower level play. (scum hunting in a mountainous setup is the best way to learn how to play mafia. IMO)

2) Vanilla games would take out the reliance on power roles and blind faith in claims that seems to be festering on the site and would teach actual scumhunting values.

This was also brought up in a similar thread posted recently.

[Netopalis]

Counterpoint: Mr. Flay's position seems to be that without power roles Towns are successful at finding scum more through blind luck than hunting. (Is that right?)

This is a statement that bothers me somewhat so I want to ask about it.

I think we are much worse at 'scumhunting' than we think we are (people like to claim absurdly high accuracy rates, when in truth most "good" players get maybe 5-10% better than random). I also think it's easier overall to scumhunt in larger games, like nhammen says. The lynches can make smaller games extremely swingy; look at the first post for perfect examples. In a bigger game, you get more 'misses', and it comes down to that 5-10% skill, more than random chance.

An interesting idea might be to see how individual players do at scumhunting vs. towns. I wonder if perhaps something in the debate process is hurting our success rates. Perhaps we could run a test where we survey players in between day/night phases and see where their head is at, and how accurate each individual is vs. the crowd.