zorbees
Chwa for no reason!
There has been a lot of talk in the past couple topics about keeping the game balanced. What I would like to know is, what are the best ways to go about trying to measure balance before a game has started?
One way I could think of is trying to emulate the way the game would play out by yourself/with cohosts/etc, but this would be very difficult for big mafias and even for basic mafias, you don't know how people are going to play their roles and interact with others. I mean, a mafia can play out so many different ways just based on the random targets of killers and inspectors early.
Do you just sort of "guess" and hope it is balanced? Is it possible to make some sort of mathematical formula assigning "power values" to each role, adding them together to get the total power of each faction, and try to make each faction's power level equal as close to each other as possible?
I suppose a start to answering my question would be to address #fluodome mafia. How did each iteration become defined as they are now? For example, how did Inspector/Bodyguard/Hooker/Twin/Twin/Rogue/Wolf/Russian/Russian/Russian Silencer/Sheriff/Villager (I think that is what a 12-man Russian game looks like) come to be? Was it always formatted that way, or were there previous, unbalanced versions that were ruled unbalanced and thus changed? Though, #fluodome mafia can have extensive playtesting, whereas forum mafias only get one shot and have to figure out the balance before it hits the stage, so to speak.
Forgive me for rambling on, I'm just trying to input as much thought as I can because it is an important issue to me, especially because I (and some others that I've talked to) considered my first two forum mafia games (Carnage and DotA) unbalanced.
Perhaps once people start using better neutral characters and once two mafia / one village starts to fade, things will be more balanced, but who knows. Perhaps I am making too big a deal of this and am just frustrated over personal experiences. I would just like some input from the more experienced and understanding players and viewers because I don't/shouldn't have as much knowledge on the subject as others.
One way I could think of is trying to emulate the way the game would play out by yourself/with cohosts/etc, but this would be very difficult for big mafias and even for basic mafias, you don't know how people are going to play their roles and interact with others. I mean, a mafia can play out so many different ways just based on the random targets of killers and inspectors early.
Do you just sort of "guess" and hope it is balanced? Is it possible to make some sort of mathematical formula assigning "power values" to each role, adding them together to get the total power of each faction, and try to make each faction's power level equal as close to each other as possible?
I suppose a start to answering my question would be to address #fluodome mafia. How did each iteration become defined as they are now? For example, how did Inspector/Bodyguard/Hooker/Twin/Twin/Rogue/Wolf/Russian/Russian/Russian Silencer/Sheriff/Villager (I think that is what a 12-man Russian game looks like) come to be? Was it always formatted that way, or were there previous, unbalanced versions that were ruled unbalanced and thus changed? Though, #fluodome mafia can have extensive playtesting, whereas forum mafias only get one shot and have to figure out the balance before it hits the stage, so to speak.
Forgive me for rambling on, I'm just trying to input as much thought as I can because it is an important issue to me, especially because I (and some others that I've talked to) considered my first two forum mafia games (Carnage and DotA) unbalanced.
Perhaps once people start using better neutral characters and once two mafia / one village starts to fade, things will be more balanced, but who knows. Perhaps I am making too big a deal of this and am just frustrated over personal experiences. I would just like some input from the more experienced and understanding players and viewers because I don't/shouldn't have as much knowledge on the subject as others.