Trepa Mayfield
FGM
Does Not Follow Directions
The only kind of panda worth preserving.
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Post by Trepa Mayfield on Feb 8, 2009 23:03:22 GMT -5
...this thread is rather self-explanatory.
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Post by NAF1138 on Feb 8, 2009 23:35:18 GMT -5
Both sides start with an equal chance at winning and there are no elements that would give one side an unfair advantage over the other that will spring up mid-game.
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Post by Mister Blockey on Feb 9, 2009 0:10:53 GMT -5
That's fine, except what happens when you have multiple factions.
Most balancing ideas balance the town vs everyone else. But if you have town scum and another scum or another group of some sort, do you balance town v everyone or do you have a three way balance.
I prefer the latter but I know that everyone will feel that the game's been stacked against them. (my three clan is an exception of the each side has the exact same set of roles variety, what I'm referring to is three distinct sides with different roles and conditions)
What about third parties, like serial killers. I find they just get the shaft when balancing the game.
In standard games they're placed with the scum, and they do aid the scum and hurt the town for the most part, however they can win with neither side.
I think the only reason that people don't hate third party roles is because they are usually the most interesting roles to play. I doubt however, that anyone with a third party role ever thinks they have a realistic chance of winning compared to town or scum.
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Post by tdpatriots12 on Feb 9, 2009 1:02:36 GMT -5
I find it distressing that the current mod is asking this question.
/drinks another shot
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Post by KidVermicious on Feb 9, 2009 1:23:57 GMT -5
To me, a game is balanced when all factions have a roughly equal chance of winning.
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Post by Paulwhoisaghost on Feb 9, 2009 2:28:27 GMT -5
I find it distressing that the current mod is asking this question. /drinks another shot I have a hard time discerning sarcasm over the internet, but if you are joking ignore this post. I believe Pede is mainly making this thread because I have been asking how to balance a game, and what all goes into making a game. I have seen a lot of post will people saying it will take them appoximately a month to go from idea to having their game ready. Why is this? I came up with an idea for a game and have the character list and their roles laid out after only 2 hours of work. Just need to fine tune it so that I am sure ti is balanced. Am I missing something?
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Post by KidVermicious on Feb 9, 2009 2:49:55 GMT -5
The more intricate the game, and the more involved the color, the longer it will take to build.
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Post by Paulwhoisaghost on Feb 9, 2009 3:00:38 GMT -5
but how can you make the color for anything more than day one ahead of time? you have no idea what will the players will do.
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Post by Mister Blockey on Feb 9, 2009 3:05:34 GMT -5
To me, a game is balanced when all factions have a roughly equal chance of winning. really I feel that that should read "except pfk's" there's a very clear dynamic of the more interesting a role is, the less important it is that the role has a good chance of winning. Yes a pfk won in our gastard game, but that game was really balanced as town v pfks and I'd say that town had the same chance of winning as all of the pfks combined, but the pfks were pretty much all in trouble since they certainly didn't each have the same chance to win individually as the collective town did.
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Post by Mister Blockey on Feb 9, 2009 3:06:50 GMT -5
but how can you make the color for anything more than day one ahead of time? you have no idea what will the players will do. color isn't just the dawn and night posts, but also the role descriptions and how they tie in with the powers, the rules, etc. In addition you can do a lot of planning without knowing what will happen, it just means 90% of your planning never sees the light of day.
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Trepa Mayfield
FGM
Does Not Follow Directions
The only kind of panda worth preserving.
Posts: 989
[ Exalt | Smite ]
Karma:
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Post by Trepa Mayfield on Feb 9, 2009 7:49:28 GMT -5
I find it distressing that the current mod is asking this question. /drinks another shot I have a hard time discerning sarcasm over the internet, but if you are joking ignore this post. I believe Pede is mainly making this thread because I have been asking how to balance a game, and what all goes into making a game. I have seen a lot of post will people saying it will take them appoximately a month to go from idea to having their game ready. Why is this? I came up with an idea for a game and have the character list and their roles laid out after only 2 hours of work. Just need to fine tune it so that I am sure ti is balanced. Am I missing something? Yeah, this is why I'm asking. Another question: How do you account for the inherent randomness of role assignment. Like, say you're modding a largeish game, with six scum, and the RNG comes up with a scum team of RoOsh, Blaster Master, Storyteller, NAF1138, Bufftabby, and Sachertorte. Right out the gate, the scum would have a huge advantage. Is that a bad thing? Should that be accounted for? Should the mod re-roll, or not? If the assignment is not completely random, is it a lie to tell the players that it was? Etc, etc.
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Post by storyteller0910 on Feb 9, 2009 8:55:29 GMT -5
How do you account for the inherent randomness of role assignment. Like, say you're modding a largeish game, with six scum, and the RNG comes up with a scum team of RoOsh, Blaster Master, Storyteller, NAF1138, Bufftabby, and Sachertorte. Right out the gate, the scum would have a huge advantage. Is that a bad thing? Should that be accounted for? First of all, that team above would most certainly not be at an advantage. I think the hypothetical "we" would get our asses kicked, unless we all played a very focused game. That's six players with incredibly different playstyles and philosophies, all very vocal; a team like that one would struggle to blend and function cohesively, creating a big challenge. I don't think you can account for it, because I don't think you can accurate gauge how a team will play together. I thought the Scum team in the SDMB Evil Dead game, which included JSexton, Mhaye, and bufftabby, among others, was going to dominate in epic fashion, but (to this point) they have struggled. I would not re-roll. As a mod, I have never actually stated aloud that role assignment was random, though. If I ever decide to do a game with non-random assignment, the players will never know it, because I'll remain tight-lipped on the subject.
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Post by tdpatriots12 on Feb 9, 2009 10:37:33 GMT -5
Yeah, I was joking. Edit: I hate HATE the default smilie being a snowman.
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Post by NAF1138 on Feb 9, 2009 11:29:23 GMT -5
To me, a game is balanced when all factions have a roughly equal chance of winning. really I feel that that should read "except pfk's" there's a very clear dynamic of the more interesting a role is, the less important it is that the role has a good chance of winning. Yes a pfk won in our gastard game, but that game was really balanced as town v pfks and I'd say that town had the same chance of winning as all of the pfks combined, but the pfks were pretty much all in trouble since they certainly didn't each have the same chance to win individually as the collective town did. Hmm, well I think you know that I disagree. It's harder to balance PFKs but I really believe that every player needs to have a fair shot at winning for the game design to achieve the prime driective. In the case of mafia the prime directive is: The game should always be fun for the players. That should always be the ultimate goal, a fun game for those playing. To that end you want a game where no one feels useless and no one has a seriously longshot chance of winning. Yes, this does mean that PFKs are harder to balance. As to Pede's follow up about random role assignments, I think if you go with random assignments (and I think that it is the best choice in 99% of the cases as it eliminates all sorts of other bad things that you don't really want to deal with as a game designer) and if your game is well designed there will never be a team that can overwhelm another team by sheer talent of the players. There may be times (such as Evill Dead) where one team messes up so badly and repeatedly that they can't recover, but that isn't the fault of the game design and it would be unknowable at the time of role assignments.
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Post by Hawkmod on Feb 9, 2009 13:06:40 GMT -5
To me a well balanced game doesn't require everyone to have the same chance of winning. What is more important is that there is a strong correlation between strong play and winning and conversely poor play and losing. In my Dope game both PFK had hard roles, certainly lesser odds than an average player, but they still had a chance to win if they played really well. It is a fine line though. You need the roles to not be hopeless and and fun to play. What I don't like is information that is unknowable, randomness that is too prevalant, rules that reward poor play, and overly powerful PFK's who can determine which side wins.
With multiple factions you need to be very careful to look at things from all sides, and just the town side. Remember it easier and more beneficial for third parties to help town than it is for them to help each other. If anything I think town should be the weakest of all sides.
I don't like picking sides before hand. You don't want players thinking Story might be scum, because the mod has said he enjoyed his play as scum. I also don't know that we have a good idea who are best players are. Those players mentioned are prolific, but it wouldn't shock me if they lost to a group of newbies.
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Post by Høøpy Frøød on Feb 9, 2009 13:36:53 GMT -5
I also don't know that we have a good idea who are best players are. Those players mentioned are prolific, but it wouldn't shock me if they lost to a group of newbies. The only doper scum group to not lose a single member consisted of all first-time scum with a total of 4 games previous experience between the 4 of them, and one of whom was a true newbie. Granted town had some newbies as well, but overall had considerably more experience. My opinion is that town wins when the strong players play strongly. Scum wins when scum work as a coordinated team. Granted strong play is still important to scum, and coordination is still important to town, but they are absolutely vital in the vice-versa sense. So I agree with the points both you and story made.
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Post by KidVermicious on Feb 16, 2009 12:51:03 GMT -5
To me, a game is balanced when all factions have a roughly equal chance of winning. really I feel that that should read "except pfk's" there's a very clear dynamic of the more interesting a role is, the less important it is that the role has a good chance of winning. Yes a pfk won in our gastard game, but that game was really balanced as town v pfks and I'd say that town had the same chance of winning as all of the pfks combined, but the pfks were pretty much all in trouble since they certainly didn't each have the same chance to win individually as the collective town did. Thats actually a very good point, if you consider that the end goal is that everybody have fun. Winning is fun, but so is playing a rockin' role.
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