Mafia League?

[Army of GOD]

So I figure this might be a good way to get to play a bit more surriously (well, maybe just me). I personally am not a huge fan of arbitrary wins in anything...sports, vidjeo games, etc. I like it when wins count for something as a whole (like a championship or something of that sort).

Now, maybe I'm just an idiot and completely over-looked another thread of this sort, but why don't we make a sort of league so that we can keep cool/awesome statistics or something. We can keep track of wins, losses, games played, winning percentage, wins as mafia, wins as town, wins as 3rd party, etc. Now that mafia is official I think this would be even easier to keep track of.

Maybe an all-star game at the end of each "season" containing the best 15ish players?

Or maybe I should just shut up?

[strike wolf]

So I figure this might be a good way to get to play a bit more surriously (well, maybe just me). I personally am not a huge fan of arbitrary wins in anything...sports, vidjeo games, etc. I like it when wins count for something as a whole (like a championship or something of that sort).

Now, maybe I'm just an idiot and completely over-looked another thread of this sort, but why don't we make a sort of league so that we can keep cool/awesome statistics or something. We can keep track of wins, losses, games played, winning percentage, wins as mafia, wins as town, wins as 3rd party, etc. Now that mafia is official I think this would be even easier to keep track of.

Maybe an all-star game at the end of each "season" containing the best 15ish players?

Or maybe I should just shut up?

We do have a thread similar to this as far as counting statistics in a different forum. I like the idea of an All Star game actually but who would host it?

[TA1LGUNN3R]

In CC mafioso there's stats things some peeps are working on, but nothing like leagues.

-Tails

[strike wolf]

Oh and can I head my own league? I want all the experienced players.

[Army of GOD]

I suspected mafiaso did someting but now that mafia has its own forum I think we should have a public thread. And the allstar game could be an official CC game so maybe a mod (or an admin?) can host it?

[strike wolf]

Well we do have mods with prior experience hosting games so that could work.

[safariguy5]

I suspected mafiaso did someting but now that mafia has its own forum I think we should have a public thread. And the allstar game could be an official CC game so maybe a mod (or an admin?) can host it?

True, but different mods balance games differently, so wins and losses are not necessarily indicative of skill. I think it's definitely something nice, but the league should encompass active players with good reputations I think. New members would be added based on a voting process or something. Although I would love to see official win loss stats of everyone who's played, there's been quite a lot of turnover in the mafia forum since the beginning, and a good amount of abandoned games too. If there's an easy way of doing it, I'm all for it.

[got tonkaed]

I feel like the idea has actually been kicked around before. For me, a series of games would possibly work better than an actual league, especially if there is some kind of attachment to a theme.

There are a few problems with running a league, none of which for me are really very resolvable;

1) length of time - forum upgrade notwithstanding, mafia tends to be somewhat cyclical on the forums. At times activity is high, while at others it is less so. Running any series of games will require players to be active probably just as long as some of the longer tournaments in that forum, which can present a challenge for both mods and players.

2) evaluation - considering the wide variety of setups that are possible in mafia, there really is a great diversity in how the games can end up playing themselves out. Having said that it becomes very difficult to measure the top players in any systematic way. Would all players within a faction (assuming there is a single faction winner) be scored the same? Could individual players who were defeated still earn extra recognition?

3) metagaming - assuming a league was created and you were able to get consistent players you would run into the problem that each game should probably be treated as a separate entity in terms of play. Games that can already have delicate balances will very likely be thrown off if players make positive EV decisions regarding the overall league regarding lynching.

4) management - It would probably be somewhat difficult for an individual to run this by themselves, though it is certainly possible a motivated member could do so.

Each of these things would probably make it pretty difficult to set up a league. It could probably be done, but all 4 of those concerns would have to be discussed in all likelyhood.

[DoomYoshi]

Well we do have mods with prior experience hosting games so that could work.

Presumably many of them will be nominated to play in the game though.

To get tonkaed's suggestions
1) is not resolvable, but also isn't considered an issue by some (at least not by me).
2) scoring would be very vague and possibly subjective. However, the clan scoring is EXTREMELY subjective and yet 100s of the sites best and most active players still use it and trust it. Perhaps a non-scoring system would help, where players can nominate the all-stars
3) can't be stopped i guess. However, since usually you win with the faction whether or not you get lynched or NKed, i don't understand how that even applies
4) agreed. however most things on CC are run by teams, so I don't see this being any different

I don't mean to belittle your points gt. I only think point 1 is an actual obstacle though.l

[strike wolf]

Yes now that you've jostled my poor struggling memory...all this school work is pushing out the important stuff. I did run through a basic set up as a rough outline of something that could work with a group of single games decreasing in size and accumulating points varying on difficulty of win condition but as fircoal pointed out in another forum that still has some inherent flaws to it (some of which you've already pointed out)...haven't really gone back to see if I could correct them.

[got tonkaed]

3 is a major issue.

lets assume I end up with a third party killing role. Player A is ahead of me while Player B with a protective role knows player A is likely to be a target. None of these players actions are really going to be legitimate in terms of the game itself, rather they will all probably be dictated by the nature of the competition. On top of that, if you have a league format, should all members in a faction end up receiving the same result? Should a day 1 lynch get the same result as someone who is endgammed? Certainly there are ways to reduce this, but assuming players care about their league performance you will end up limiting the game types or having to make things somewhat complex in order to ensure a fair competition.

1 is an issue if games are ran one at a time. Mafia games can last into months of play, especially if they are larger sized games, which might not be inconceivable if a league format took off. Who is to say you can get 15 players playing at a quality level for over a year?

[strike wolf]

True that is a major concern and probably not resolvable...We could continue mafia as it is without a real league and still have some kind of all star game I suppose.

Edit: possibly with as previously suggested a group that is nominated by other players (and possibly some other qualifiers to make sure it's a good game)

[got tonkaed]

Honestly the way that you would resolve 3 is by making sure the mod(s) dont compete at all. Then once you figure out how you are going to score each particular game, you either have all of the players in the game or the mod vote a top x number of players in the game and those end up either added or makeup the players score.

In fact that is probably the best way to run any sort of scoring, is to have a post game vote for the top performances from either the group of players or from the mods (assuming they aren't participating). If it was secret or withheld you might be able to take out a lot of the meta aspect.

In a league where the entire series was being run concurrently, you might avoid meta until the very end if at all.

[DoomYoshi]

Oh ok, you are right there are some serious metagame consequences I hadn't considered. I don't think a Day 1 lynch is such a bad thing. For instance, if you are a Vanilla Townie, it's not the best result but still better to sacrifice yourself than have a mass claim or lose a power role. I see no reason lynches should be punished in principle. In practice, there are a lot of "poor moves" that can result in a day 1 lynch as well. Perhaps after every game, the players in the mafia game and the mod can vote on whether an individual player played poorly enough to lose his point. I am not proposing guidelines, as I think organically developed precedence is the best way for this to develop. This has the added bonus of individual decisions being subject to much more scrutiny, hence keeping the metagame cycling (like deciding what is a scumtell etc.) Also, the joy of mafia for some (once again myself) is in the argument. This will add a whole new dimension to the arguing and a platform on which to do it. On particularly nasty cases, we can have a tribunal and declare people in contempt of the court

Wow you replied so qucikly. This is in response to two posts ago. I will consider you new posts and reply later. Ciao

[Hank44Soccer]

love it!

[ga7]

I don't think a league taking in account all game results would make any sense, due to the variety of more or less balanced setups and the fact usually not all winning parties have a real claim at contributing to a win and some losing parties can lose with panache.
I used to think a serie of games with homogeneous setups could work towards an event ranking of sorts but Tonka brings good points about metagaming consequences. Regardless of how the actual ranking would be done I suppose metagame kills etc would be bound to happen, especially in the first nights. Simultaneous games could solve that but I don't think you'd find many people willing to play a representative number of games at once so not very practical. Ultimately I don't think it is a very good idea as Mafia is more akin to pnp RPG (in a non munchkin way ) than a competition game. So while it's perfectly fine to somehow pick the MVP in particular big games in case there are awards, there's really not much of a point else; in the idea of an "all-star game" (that used to be fairly common from time to time just called "invite-only") most experienced mods would be able to determine the best active players anyway.
I do want the records thing to come through tho, it's fun to look at individual records and would make it possible to have general silly stats. That and I have the best anyway

[Army of GOD]

got tonkaed, your logic is not welcome here! >=(

[TheSaxlad]

Would a Mafia Tournament work better then? 4 games for everyone different roles and mods, then a final game with the people who have racked up the most wins (stayed alive+fulfilled win condition?)

[DoomYoshi]

I think a tourney would be great although I think the roles should be randomized. If someone has the good luck to get the same role twice it would be good too. Or is that not what you meant by different roles?

[safariguy5]

Would a Mafia Tournament work better then? 4 games for everyone different roles and mods, then a final game with the people who have racked up the most wins (stayed alive+fulfilled win condition?)

Wouldn't be mods be in the games as well?

Also, win conditions are highly dependent on game size and mechanics, straight town/mafia/cult/third party wins are easier to balance.

[Hank44Soccer]

it would have to be only certain games and have a diffrent one each week like the tpa

[safariguy5]

it would have to be only certain games and have a diffrent one each week like the tpa

Mafia games don't move that quickly, I think if we were to set up some sort of circuit, signups for one should start after the previous one ends. And it would take months for a large one to end potentially.

[MeDeFe]

Real-time games in Livechat could be a possibility, but then some people will probably not be able to play because they're in a different timezone.

[Fircoal]

Real-time games in Livechat could be a possibility, but then some people will probably not be able to play because they're in a different timezone.

RT mafia games don't lend them to leagues as much. Due to time restrictions they tend to be more joking and less serious with day 1 bandwagons of me common

[Hank44Soccer]

I think we would need to do it like the TPA and set aside certaing games as sanctioned and then just let them play out