Scum Are Winning Large Themes More Then Town

[Alisae]

If you take the sample size of the last 10 games, you will find that scum's winrate is extremely high

Grand uPick - S
Baton Pass - S
AvP - S
Detective Penguin & City of Fogport - S
Magical Girls uPick - S
Project ARCH - T
Legends of the Hidden Speakeasy - S
Pokemon U-Pick - S
Revenge of Jingle - S
Another Grand uPick - S
Role Call - S
Gay Dance - S

That's 12 games. I added 2 more because I'm not sure how seriously people will consider Grand Idea Games.
That's an 8% winrate for town including the grand idea, if we subtracted the grand idea games, thats a 10% winrate for town, so still awfully low.
Discuss

[Ramcius]

Maybe it's time to abolish "meta" arguments and learn how to scumhunt properly and/or actually play games you sign up for?

[Something_Smart]

Abolish large themes.

[popsofctown]

I think it's maybe apathy/game tempo. Like, role call made this list but the town win in Starry Night did not specifically because even though role call started earlier, role call dragged out longer.

10 is not necessarily a convincing sample size, though. I won ten games in a row at League of Legends once but I'm definitely trash at it.

[Alisae]

I think it's maybe apathy/game tempo. Like, role call made this list but the town win in Starry Night did not specifically because even though role call started earlier, role call dragged out longer.

10 is not necessarily a convincing sample size, though. I won ten games in a row at League of Legends once but I'm definitely trash at it.

you can start up a game of league of legends anytime you want
There aren’t as many large themes as you think there are.

[Something_Smart]

In seriousness though, there are two possible distinct causes of this. Are the players playing badly, or are the setups poorly designed?

I can weigh in on the games I was in:

Baton Pass had pretty unacceptable play, but I think the consensus was that the setup was mildly scumsided but also degenerate in allowing the same person to be BP every night.

AvP was both bad play and scumsided, and it featured multiple design elements that encouraged town apathy and infighting.

Pokemon Fusion uPick was pretty scumsided.

Revenge of Jingle was designed to be 12:3 and then the mod accidentally ran it at 11:4. Let that sink in for a moment.

So I think it's actually more that people don't know how to DESIGN large games than that people don't know how to PLAY large games.

[popsofctown]

I think it's maybe apathy/game tempo. Like, role call made this list but the town win in Starry Night did not specifically because even though role call started earlier, role call dragged out longer.

10 is not necessarily a convincing sample size, though. I won ten games in a row at League of Legends once but I'm definitely trash at it.

you can start up a game of league of legends anytime you want
There aren’t as many large themes as you think there are.

I know there's not many. It's just very possible we have to say, "we don't know if large themes are scumsided because we don't have enough data".

[popsofctown]

Gay Dance and Fogport are very townsided, but I think the lost as a whole might be scumsided designs.

[Alisae]

The other 2 boon wars games - S
Gun show - S
Starry Night - T
Krazy uPick - S
Guns & Roses 2 - S
Everything is Normal - T
Non-reviewed game - T
Fire on a Mountain - S
SS’ Booneytoonz - T
MLP - S
Booneytoonz - T
Undertale - T
another Booneytoonz - S
Starcraft - T
Forkbomb - T
Anime uPick - T
Booneytoonz - S
Stellaris - S
Greatest Idea - S
Greatest Idea - T
Booneytoonz - T
Merchant’s Daughter - S
No deadlines - S

[Alisae]

34% win rate all of 2019
Yeah that scum win rate is still awfully high, I’m just saying.

[popsofctown]

34% is fine.
I don't take it as a given that 50% is the goal. It's not a symmetric game.

[Alisae]

In seriousness though, there are two possible distinct causes of this. Are the players playing badly, or are the setups poorly designed?

I can weigh in on the games I was in:

Baton Pass had pretty unacceptable play, but I think the consensus was that the setup was mildly scumsided but also degenerate in allowing the same person to be BP every night.

AvP was both bad play and scumsided, and it featured multiple design elements that encouraged town apathy and infighting.

Pokemon Fusion uPick was pretty scumsided.

Revenge of Jingle was designed to be 12:3 and then the mod accidentally ran it at 11:4. Let that sink in for a moment.

So I think it's actually more that people don't know how to DESIGN large games than that people don't know how to PLAY large games.

Side note: I think it would be really cool if at the end of the year, we could talk about the win rates of town and maf in each queue.

[Something_Smart]

Pops, do you think some other percentage should be the goal?

[Alisae]

34% is fine.
I don't take it as a given that 50% is the goal. It's not a symmetric game.

I actually do think that the target should be 50%, because the fact that its not 50% states that towns are performing way below average, either because of play or setup.

If you don’t think the target should be 50%, then what should it be?

[Alisae]

So I think it's actually more that people don't know how to DESIGN large games than that people don't know how to PLAY large games.

Who are the reviewers

[popsofctown]

I think ideal observed town winrate would be about 40%.
I have several different reasons for thinking this.
Some people think >50% town winrates are best. Winning is fun, there are more town than scum, more people get to win!

I have more in common with those people than the ones who say 50, 50, 50, though, because we agree it's an asymmetric game.

[popsofctown]

34% is fine.
I don't take it as a given that 50% is the goal. It's not a symmetric game.

I actually do think that the target should be 50%, because the fact that its not 50% states that towns are performing way below average, either because of play or setup.

If you don’t think the target should be 50%, then what should it be?

34% is well above average for "good people punish every member of evil conspiracy", though, Epstein didn't kill himself

[Alisae]

Even if you think the winrate should be 40% for town, 34% is still below what should be expected.

[Something_Smart]

Yeah I think it's just common sense that all players in a game should have an equal chance to win, or as close to equal as can be accomplished. That principle is kept for pretty much every published game, and I don't see why it should be broken here just because the game is asymmetric.

[Something_Smart]

Regardless, what the target SHOULD be is actually incidental to this discussion-- what we want to know, for all the games listed, is what the target actually was. I'll say the target for my BooneyToonz game was 50% and it probably came in around 60%.

[Ramcius]

Now we need statistics on how many times town loss was due scum efforts and how many times town just imploded and awarded free win for scum

[Alisae]

Now we need statistics on how many times town loss was due scum efforts and how many times town just imploded and awarded free win for scum

believe it or not, but I don’t actually care about that.
All I care about is “did town lose or did they win”

[popsofctown]

I agree 34% is low. Setup design might be a factor. It's possible we can do things to make a better match between the people that should be in large themes and actually are, also. Not locking people out of them, making it less likely it's the only appealing thing in queue and people play it when it's not their size preference. I've seen several people say "this kind of game isn't my preference and that's why I'm not at my best here."

[popsofctown]

S_S you can disagree with me but appeal to authority/bandwagon argument is a logical fallacy. If my position is so absurdly unorthodox you shouldnt need cheats to win.

[Something_Smart]

I don't think it's a fallacy in this case because my claim isn't "it's true because everyone does it," it's "it's common sense, and my evidence for that lies in the fact that everyone does it." Now something being common sense doesn't make it right, of course, but we're not doing scientific research over here, we're trying to make something that's fun. And most people have an intrinsic sense of fairness that makes games more fun when they have the same chance to win as everyone else.