The Future of Mafia

[Espithel]

The problem is, there is no mafia that works for both sides.

I just fundamentally can't understand this being the case. Both earlier mafias here and newbie games at mafiascum strike this balance. Why can't we now?

Regarding newbie games at mafiascum, I assume that every new player contributes and there's very little flaking.
For whatever reason, that simply is untrue here. It's more untrue now, but it's never not been untrue.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

just make sure you don't have more than two of the same style in a row, don't call them different things

Oh, and i see absolutely no reason to not give the fun set ups MoG or MoM points. seems kinda elitist to me

[CleanOnion]

Oh, and i see absolutely no reason to not give the fun set ups MoG or MoM points. seems kinda elitist to me

Sure, but wouldn't that encourage the "pro" players to go all pro on the game and take the Light from Light Mafia?

[Espithel]

Oh, and i see absolutely no reason to not give the fun set ups MoG or MoM points. seems kinda elitist to me

Sure, but wouldn't that encourage the "pro" players to go all pro on the game and take the Light from Light Mafia?

Name one person who cares about MoG/MoM points.

[theelkspeaks]

I care about them enough that it occasionally motivates me to sign up for games, but not much more than that.

[Linkcat]

The problem is, there is no mafia that works for both sides.

I just fundamentally can't understand this being the case. Both earlier mafias here and newbie games at mafiascum strike this balance. Why can't we now?

We were able to do this earlier because post counts were lower. In an active game now, the people who post 20 pages per Day Phase can't coexist with the people who don't want to read 20 pages per Day Phase. Looking back at previous mafias, a 15 post limit shouldn't be a problem, and may even be too high.

Oh, and i see absolutely no reason to not give the fun set ups MoG or MoM points. seems kinda elitist to me

Light Mafias will give MoM points.

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Chat mafia is something to consider, but it's not a viable alternative to Light Mafia.

[ddevans96]

Barring input from players better than me, I don't have anything else to say. I'll play in a Light mafia or two just to see how it goes but I think the proposal at present is subpar for reasons I've already stated.

[rob77dp]

Elements Mafia has had an interesting history. When I returned in Mafia 46, we were consistently getting 20+ players per mafia, but due to its casual nature, post counts were low and individual players impacted the game with roles more than with reads. We had unbalanced setups, and even some broken ones. People still signed up, because it was fun. The waiting list for hosts was over a year long.

Ever since we were first invited to the Mafia Championships a year ago, a subset of players have been trying to emulate the play we saw there and slowly push Elements Mafia in a more discussion-heavy direction. Talk outside of the thread was banned. Roles were made more reasonable. This resulted in the highest posting games we've had on the site, but not everyone was happy with this direction. People stopped signing up for various related and unrelated reasons, but at the same time, setups were getting better. Mafia hit a slump for a while.

Then, Kuro hosted Mafia 68. With old players returning, it was the greatest game Elements Mafia had ever seen, both in gameplay and post count. Unfortunately, not everyone enjoyed the tremendous volume, and the general burnout resulted in Mafia 69 ending in less than 100 posts with half the players.

It was clear that we needed a break from mafia.

There has to be a balance. There has to be a way for people — most of them, at least — to be happy. I aim to find this balance, because it's my job to find it. Answering these polls and having discussions in the thread will help me with that. If none of the options in a poll fit your position, please explain why.

To all of the people who have lost interest in mafia, I have two more questions.

First: Why did you leave?

Second, and much more importantly: What would make you come back?

1. I sensed that many/most players here, whether stated outright or not, opposed a serious style of play which is really the only kind I intend to play with or enjoy.

2. This is the $1,000,000 question I think (in terms of processing how each respondent answers). I'll be honest -- I don't think Elements has the "serious" player base to support style of games that I enjoy and a "Light" type of game seems likely to attract way too many "I only like having some powerful role" / "I don't want to read anything" / "Quite voting me I don't like it but don't want to defend" / "I'll no post whenever I feel like it and you shouldn't be unhappy it ruins the game for everyone else" players for me to even be able to "not dislike it" let alone even hope to enjoy that Light game style.

Are we losing sight of the fact that mafia is a game of deception and detecting deception primarily and NOT "who can figure out a plan that maximizes power/roles/abilities the best to minimize how much 'true mafia game' playing is needed to win / not-lose"??

I digress but suffice to say that the optimist in me is unlikely to ever abandon trying/wanting to play or try to find motivation to play elements-mafia and the pessimist in me sees little chance a solution comes to pass near-term that leads me to believe I'll enjoy signing up and playing.

[rob77dp]

Based on the feedback I've received so far, the plan I'm currently considering goes like this:

Elements Mafia will be split into two types of mafia.

Normal mafias will mostly stay the same. Games will start on Day 1. Discussion will be limited to the thread. If there is a high post volume on Day 1, say 15 pages, players will not be allowed to talk during the Night for the rest of the game. Most or all players will be given a role, but nothing too crazy.

Alternating with normal mafias, we will have a new type of mafia called Light Mafia. These will be more similar to how mafia used to be played, but with more balanced setups. They will not be numbered mafias and will not count for Master of Mafia points. Discussion will be allowed outside of the thread. Each player will have a post limit of 15 posts every Day Phase, and 10 posts every Night Phase. The last 20 minutes of each Day Phase will be unrestricted. Attempting to get around the post limit by making very large posts will not be allowed. Everyone will be given a role, and expect to have more powerful and/or "fun" roles in the game.

Setups should be geared towards one of these types of mafia. There is a setup that was created a while ago by Coffee, kdz, and myself, that will act as the successor to the standard mafia setup that I tried to implement in Mafia 65. It can easily be modified to fit both types of mafia, and there are enough roles to pull from that each game will be different. The next mafia will be a Light Mafia run with this setup, and it will be used whenever there is no sufficient setup ready to be hosted.

This honestly seems like a better method than trying to please everyone with every mafia. Thoughts?

I'll provide my take on this suggested possible path forward...

a) As for my part, I'm highly highly unlikely to sign up for any Light style mafia games or role madness games. Not to say I _never_ would play them but it just doesn't have a good chance of tickling my competitive juices the way the real/actual mafia games do.

b) I would consider and read through each and every "real" game setup in a way that I could see myself joining some of those -- however my motivation would be heavily tempered by how many of the frequently-flaking and frequently-fussy players signed up for them too. That is, the small serious player base active here isn't likely to result in many setups or signup-lists that makes me want to sign up.