Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Skeletor » Sun Sep 06, 2020 5:38 pm

I watched some streams of this

First stream: when a body is discovered there's a bunch of discussion of who went where and general mafia vibe and games are great

Second stream: basically every kill is in plain sight of another person and they're like 75% to get the imposter every time because the killer rarely takes the initiative to accuse the other guy first

Third stream: they're just all on some out of game voice chat the whole time and the imposters have no chance and nobody seems to care
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 5:57 pm

All I know about this is about LSV discussing it with Marshall in Limited Resources, and it sounds like babby's first mafia, and also incredibly skewed towards town in a billion ways.

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:00 pm

Like imagine Mafia, only town are given special tasks to do by the mod (that they can then describe in detail) and the scum aren't. Also, the game is in an actual map, you can ask people where they were at any given time and if anyone saw you anywhere else, whoops! And town can just randomly stumble across scum performing the murder, or randomly see scum emerge from the vents (town can't do that).

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Skeletor » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:17 pm

The town is given information roles in mafia, and people have to claim and justify actions

Your description isn't remotely convincing to me
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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:20 pm

Sure, I dunno, I haven't played it or even watched it.

Although LSV did say that it was very rare for impostors to win but that was fair because you're only impostor 20% of the time (???)

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by pterrus » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:28 pm

You can tweak the rules so balance isn't a really a big deal. Playing scum is hard but not impossible. I feel like once people get used to the sabotage abilities it gets a lot better. Also, and I was thinking about this this morning (the fact that I was thinking about the game outside of the game is usually a good sign): our games never went all the way to task completion. This probably indicates we weren't being patient enough as scum. It's probably like BSG where the game gets better once everyone knows what they are doing.

But it's still fun even when nobody knows what they're doing and it's a chaotic mess so, yeah. Play with us next week!

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:31 pm

pterrus wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:28 pm It's probably like BSG where the game gets better once everyone knows what they are doing.
I actually disagree with this, mostly. BSG gets better once everyone has a basic facility with the game, but once everyone actually gets good, it gets much LESS interesting, because you can no longer get away with anything as a Cylon. Like, once everyone knows which play you're supposed to make in a situation, any other play will get you airlocked. Eventually it just becomes correct for Cylons to reveal immediately, because there's so little you can do while disguised.

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by pterrus » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:40 pm

Ashenai wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:31 pm
pterrus wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:28 pm It's probably like BSG where the game gets better once everyone knows what they are doing.
I actually disagree with this, mostly. BSG gets better once everyone has a basic facility with the game, but once everyone actually gets good, it gets much LESS interesting, because you can no longer get away with anything as a Cylon. Like, once everyone knows which play you're supposed to make in a situation, any other play will get you airlocked. Eventually it just becomes correct for Cylons to reveal immediately, because there's so little you can do while disguised.
Hm, I'm not sure I agree with this. Sure you can't get away with very bad plays in the open but you can still contribute bad stuff to skill checks, fly to shitty places as admiral, and generally just stir shit and waste resources (convince humans to help brig humans, for example).

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:43 pm

Cylon admiral is an exception yes. Otherwise, I dunno. You can still hurt skill checks as a Cylon (though not as much), and the shit-stirring becomes way way harder when people really understand the game.

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Rylinks » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:43 pm

whether or not it's correct to reveal immediately, everyone discussing the best play and then dictating the consensus best play on pain of being airlocked is not great gameplay

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:44 pm

Rylinks wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:43 pm whether or not it's correct to reveal immediately, everyone discussing the best play and then dictating the consensus best play on pain of being airlocked is not great gameplay
Yeah, agreed, that's pretty much why I burned out on BSG (which was my favorite board game for years).

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by pterrus » Sun Sep 06, 2020 7:13 pm

I see. Probably there's a sweet spot between total chaos and stale meta.

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Khaos » Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:50 pm

all i know was that i had a lot of fun

calling out rylinks before he killed anyone felt great

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:58 pm

sounds like you had wrongfun, and you need to stop having it

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Skeletor » Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:27 pm

Ashenai wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:20 pm Although LSV did say that it was very rare for impostors to win but that was fair because you're only impostor 20% of the time (???)
I've thought about this a bit and kind of had a similar conclusion at one point

But I mean, how often do you want a 100 person game with 1 scum to go to the scum? It's not 1% but it might be less than 50%

With mafia I think the balance question isn't "what percent should the scum win?" but more "how much should you value a scum win?" which are kind of the same question, except that in mafia you can establish a metagame for yourself that affects your win rate as one faction in favor of your win rate as another faction -- for example you might Never Lie, basically just giving up your scum wins for more town wins. And that's tempting because you're town 80% of the time. So that makes me think a scum win should be worth 4x as much, and then that's what finally makes me conclude it should only happen 20% of the time

So then back to the 100 person 1 scum example there's like this balance argument for a 1% scum win rate and an experience argument for 50% scum win rate

So I guess the extent that player metagame strategy matters pushes toward lower win percentage for scum that's valued higher, and the extent that players don't want to random into a highly lopsided team one way or the other pushes the other way
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Shiny Days » Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:34 pm

scum games plus town games into fifty percent

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Jeb Bush 2012 » Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:48 pm

Skeletor wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:27 pm With mafia I think the balance question isn't "what percent should the scum win?" but more "how much should you value a scum win?" which are kind of the same question, except that in mafia you can establish a metagame for yourself that affects your win rate as one faction in favor of your win rate as another faction -- for example you might Never Lie, basically just giving up your scum wins for more town wins. And that's tempting because you're town 80% of the time. So that makes me think a scum win should be worth 4x as much, and then that's what finally makes me conclude it should only happen 20% of the time
I don't think this is correct - the value of a scum win to you is inversely proportional to the number of them you get, which is already 1/4 as many as town wins if the scum-town win ratio is 50-50

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:50 pm

Skeletor wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:27 pm So that makes me think a scum win should be worth 4x as much, and then that's what finally makes me conclude it should only happen 20% of the time
That's an interesting perspective, but this part seems like a non-sequitur. Why should a scum win being worth more imply that it should happen less often?

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Crunchums » Mon Sep 07, 2020 5:45 pm

I once played BSG with someone who intentionally hurt a skill check as human and his justification was he didn't want the humans to be in too good of a position should he have turned into a cylon
u gotta skate

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Rylinks » Mon Sep 07, 2020 5:56 pm

gotta balance your range

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:12 pm

Crunchums wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 5:45 pm I once played BSG with someone who intentionally hurt a skill check as human and his justification was he didn't want the humans to be in too good of a position should he have turned into a cylon
Yeah I've heard that argument before, I always thought it was nonsense but people do make it in earnest.

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Khaos » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:20 pm

makes sense to me

gotta maximize your EV

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Rylinks » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:21 pm

the only way this maximizes your EV is if you are so good at the game you are confident of winning any reasonably close position from either side

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Khaos » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:34 pm

Rylinks wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:21 pm the only way this maximizes your EV is if you are so good at the game you are confident of winning any reasonably close position from either side
well, lets say you're only slightly better than average. doesn't that still mean you want the % chance scum win to equal the % chance you turn into scum?

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Rylinks » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:38 pm

no if you have a 10% chance of becoming scum you maximize your equity if towns winrate is 100%

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Khaos » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:44 pm

Rylinks wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:38 pm no if you have a 10% chance of becoming scum you maximize your equity if towns winrate is 100%
oh yeah

so i guess in this example you need to be able to turn an 82%(?) chance to win into a >90% chance to win for you not to just take the 100%

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Ashenai » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:47 pm

If you have a 100% chance to win as town AND an 82% chance to win as scum from the same position, you're the God of BSG, and certainly not "slightly better than average".

The reasonable calculus is that when you sabotage, any +EV you get as potential scum is equal to the -EV you get as potential town. And since you're much more likely to stay town, you should simply maximize the town win% and not try to get clever.

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Khaos » Mon Sep 07, 2020 7:49 pm

Ashenai wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:47 pm If you have a 100% chance to win as town AND an 82% chance to win as scum from the same position, you're the God of BSG, and certainly not "slightly better than average".
yeah i dunno what i was thinking :lol:

your explanation is good

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Skeletor » Wed Sep 09, 2020 3:50 pm

I've been watching xQc play Among Us and god damn that is a loud group. If you wanna watch 10 people shout at each other nonstop that's a good one

Overall the scum winrate is about 33% but xQc has been winning about 50% as scum as far as I can tell. Small sample but believable to me, a lot of the others just have bad scum games

Lacari also seemed to be playing better than the others as scum and also winning more for it. Although his town game is very terrible. Very lazy with tasks, often gets killed when he does do tasks because he does hard ones with nobody around, and also spends time gathering info in end games where it makes no sense, where even if he sees someone do it it's gonna be his word against theirs when he was already the biggest suspect

Watching the LSV/jorbs game now is a really chill group in comparison
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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Re: Saturday Night Grobot (PC) Games

Post by Skeletor » Wed Sep 09, 2020 3:58 pm

One big thing missing from the mafia analogy, Ashe, is lack of alignments on death, at least in the setups I've seen played, I'm sure that's an option as it's pretty customizable
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you

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