Epicmafia

Minimum Play Number for Comp Setups

almost 5 years

In my opinion, we should lower the required amount of minimum plays for competitive setups.

I've tried to get more setups plays through my weekly setup feature but it hasn't really worked at all (betmen's setup "Are You The Bad Man?" has had 3 plays since being featured and my setup "Watch Yourself V3" had I think 4 or 5 in a week); nothing new gets 200 plays (unless it's quick, easy, and has a gun--in other words, not great for competitive anyway), people in red hearts just like playing G&H, FP, Reverse, JFK. Most red heart players like playing the same things (nothing wrong with that, FTR). For something normally designed for competitive play to get 200 plays in red hearts can take months.

The point payouts of a setup deter from 60/60 when a setup reaches 50 plays. This sample size is fine. I don't know who exactly decided it should be 200, but that's way too many; you're never going to get more than one or two new setups played in gold hearts over a long period of time having that number in place. There's a reason the payouts change at 50 plays and not 200--for almost 10 years 50 plays was the recommended sample and was okay, and there was no minimum number required to have your setup in Competitive. For over 250 rounds of competitive mafia, this was fine. Many setups were comped with 0 plays and were fine as well (off the top of my head--Cry N' Oh, SDS w/ML and no Whispers, O2R, STBS, GAI, KWTH 2.0, TSIB). And if a setup got skewed too far one way or another, it was simply decomped. If it only became skewed later in the round (Days 5-10) then you removed it then. If there weren't that many plays in it (<20), it doesn't matter (you could even refund the few if you wanted), and if there were a lot... well I don't believe this has ever happened.

Setup testing is obviously a great thing to do but you can tell with your eyes how a setup is going to be sometimes. For example, Johneh tried making a setup https://epicmafia.com/setup/1486164 but I recognized right away that town can just Massclaim D1 for a pretty easy game most of the time, and Johneh is working on balancing it now. We didn't need to play the setup 200 times to figure that out.

I can understand the reasoning behind making the rule and this isn't directed at anybody in particular, but it deters anything new from being comped; it does the opposite of what it wishes to achieve in some ways (i.e. having new setups in competitive)

Kindly post below what you think the minimum number should be if you selected "Yes, lower it to (some other number, incl. 0)" in the poll so that we know what you think is a good number. Personally, I think 0 is fine. There's a round moderator for a reason, and they're not alone. They can be helped by fellow moderators and the community. We're all mafia players after all.

Should the minimum number of setup plays for competitive setups be lowered?

Yes, lower it to 50

Yes, lower it to (some other number, incl. 0)

No, 200 is fine

alexandra

almost 5 years

the round mod is allowed to make exceptions to the rule (i did it for shamu when i was round mod), so i don't really think the rule needs to be taken away. it's just a guideline of "around 200 plays, it's pretty clear if it's balanced or not". if it appears balanced with less i don't think leb would be against approving it for competitive tbh

Memoji

almost 5 years

50 is enough to qualify the setups' balance.

Giga

almost 5 years

Just bumping this to see if other people have things to say

justin

almost 5 years

50ish plays at least to showcase its not broken

0-25 is to few plays

Songin

almost 5 years

You have my vote in regards to lowering it to something around 50.

deletedalmost 5 years

shot in the dark, who shot first, don't up
any of those would also be great to comp

deletedalmost 5 years

hey one of yall need to comp jingle all the way

DiSoRiEnTeD

almost 5 years

Moldyches

almost 5 years

Lower it to 50 games. DarkB's "Prince Charming" setup is amazing, but it will take over a month and more for it to get 200 plays.

VanityPrime

almost 5 years

https://epicmafia.com/setup/1399240

I'm going to keep shilling for moar guns.

iMADBRO

almost 5 years

it is literally the same as fj

just one blue replaced with miller and lawyer replaced with scout.

Giga13

almost 5 years

DiSoRiEnTeD says

https://epicmafia.com/setup/1514611# better version i deleted whispers. Upvote pls. Good setup

This looks and goes a lot like Frontier Justice 2.0, but it is better than FJ for sure

DiSoRiEnTeD

almost 5 years

https://epicmafia.com/setup/1514611# better version i deleted whispers. Upvote pls. Good setup

Giga13

almost 5 years

Soluciones says

mods are ugly waste of oxygen

Negged, they're ugly but they aren't a waste of oxygen

Trees need CO2, so the mods still have value lol

deletedalmost 5 years

mods are ugly waste of oxygen

Johneh

almost 5 years

Agreed, it literally took us 6 or so plays to get my setup (version 4 now...) to a place where I'm happy. I'm comping it.

Giga13

almost 5 years

iMADBRO says

personally i reckon it'd be cool if the competitive requirement for setups was changed to 55/45. ban setups like vdli and jan 2.0 which are too close to 50/50. when classic was banned from comp ppl would try to bypass it by comping classic-esque setups like Evil Mans and Alcoways still not the tracker.

Comp would be better if all the setups are slightly scum-sided imo. like when bv or bsh got comp'd it'd usually be a good player trophying rather than some randomo who got lucky

Sure but if you ban anything closer than that it doesn't really make much sense since you want that type of parity in a setup.

Also doesn't leave much room for many setups to be comp eligible

iMADBRO

almost 5 years

personally i reckon it'd be cool if the competitive requirement for setups was changed to 55/45. ban setups like vdli and jan 2.0 which are too close to 50/50. when classic was banned from comp ppl would try to bypass it by comping classic-esque setups like Evil Mans and Alcoways still not the tracker.

Comp would be better if all the setups are slightly scum-sided imo. like when bv or bsh got comp'd it'd usually be a good player trophying rather than some randomo who got lucky

Bogmire

almost 5 years

iMADBRO says

" And if a setup got skewed too far one way or another, it was simply decomped. If it only became skewed later in the round (Days 5-10) then you removed it then."

I don't think it's a good idea to decomp a setup midway in the round - it really messes with the competitive atmosphere as it basically means the setup wasn't competitive in the first which is no different from playing gold heart classic mafia for 5 days and then switching to something else

I agree and this is the only downside but it can happen anyway when the 200 games to give the setup its sample are all done in red heart anyway

In any case, this is a rare issue and I only ever recall it happening once.

Imo, it didn't make sense to change the rules to 200 plays; the circumstances in the reasoning behind changing the minimum number was rare enough to begin with, and should be able to survive an eyetest with a 14-member moderator staff (not to mention the players on the site).

VanityPrime

almost 5 years

Rather that approaching this in a positive condition we should flip it into a negative condition, to allow setups to thrive.

VanityPrime

almost 5 years

Different way of thinking about the issue:

If a setup has a mafia WR greater than 57% or less than 43% after 200 plays, it cannot be comped.

If the WR for mafia during a comp round violates this while in rotation after 25 plays, it is decomped from the round.

iMADBRO

almost 5 years

if the threshold is lowered to 0 then some coinflip setup that doesn't require much scumhunting will get comp'd.

not that there's much integrity left in comp but why take away the little integrity that is left

iMADBRO

almost 5 years

" And if a setup got skewed too far one way or another, it was simply decomped. If it only became skewed later in the round (Days 5-10) then you removed it then."

I don't think it's a good idea to decomp a setup midway in the round - it really messes with the competitive atmosphere as it basically means the setup wasn't competitive in the first which is no different from playing gold heart classic mafia for 5 days and then switching to something else

Giga13

almost 5 years

Personally, I think 0 is fine. There's a round moderator for a reason, and they're not alone. They can be helped by fellow moderators and the community, as decisions on if a setup is good for competitive or not has always traditionally been done as a group effort anyway. We're all mafia players after all.

Giga13

almost 5 years

Just as a thought: How fun would it be if the three winners were all able to comp new setups; we wouldn't have to deal with 1 commonly comped setup dominating a round

Nothing in the OP guarantees this, obviously