The Future of Mafia

[Linkcat]

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?

[Kuroaitou]

Okay, time to add responses:

1). Never actually left, but I did leave the FGO position for many reasons (including, but not limited to, real life and other forum duties during 'war season).

2). I don't know what it would take for me to be -as- active as I was in the past, although I will admit that I'm a far better host than I am player, since my playstyle tends to usually be a disaster or a very "touch and go" success. I would probably be more active in the forum games section if... uh... I could come up with a new awesome game idea (not ESC). ^^;

[CleanOnion]

1. I'm much more of a casual player and reading many pages of discussion is a chore for me. I'm also not very skilled, crap at reading players, and rather gullible, so in a MU-style game I'm very easily overwhelmed and not likely to enjoy the game.

2. More casual games would make me come back, however, this would normally be by virtue of the players rather than by the host or the setup. Unless the setup is especially ridiculous or bastard, I don't think there's a way to guarantee a casual game. If a particularly "standard" setup comes along (a few mafia, a cop, etc, but mostly vanilla), designed to reduce distraction by roles and emphasise player skills and discussion, I probably wouldn't join.

[Calindu]

1. I enjoyed the more casual style of gameplay, based on roles and not on reading 25 pages per day. I didn't feel that it was a chore and it was actually fun and interesting. Once Linkcat participated in that mafia championship and we adopted their style of play, I stopped having fun, I had no idea what the hell was going on since I wasn't going to read that much and I was lynched on the base that I wasn't posting much.

2. Pretty much nothing, we'll still have 3-4 people that dish out 300 posts in a matter of days and I'll still be lynched because I don't post that much.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Completely agree with what's already been said. Mafia was much more fun when it took itself less seriously. See root's pokemon mafia, best one imo

[killsdazombies]

A few notes on my votes

1, I voted for the "I like crazy set ups" thing, but that is taken with a grain of salt. I like them /sometimes/ having crazy anything a few times in a row could easily make it beyond boring, and frustrating

2, I voted for the "im less interested if I have a vanilla role" Which again is taken with salt. I am less interested but /that doesn't mean Im not going to play/ I think its insulting when players drop after getting vanilla. Yes, I understand you have less forced impact on the game than someone else, but theres a certain amount of respect involved. Its respectful to read all the rules and ask questions if there are any. Its respectful to play to the best of your ability regardless of the circumstance.

Onto the questions link has asked

1st: I've left at various times, for one reason or another, but I always try to play when I can. After a particularly annoying death, or an annoying set up, or a role set where I simply had limited to no control of my fate Ive needed a break, but lord knows these games are better with more people, so I've made an effort to attend them all

2nd: Since the spark in my eyes has dwindled in relation to mafia, I'll answer this as well. It comes as no surprise my opinion on the hardcore play group that has taken up the elements mafia, while I use that opinion in game for various reasons, I really generally care very little. It came at a time where mafia was, and lets be honest here, quite stupid. We had dumb roles and dumb set ups, and really theyve added quite a bit to the mafia meta, and very little of it is bad.

That being said, the post count is a burden. I make a real solid effort to stay caught up, but if you miss a day, thats 10+ pages to sift through, and in addition, being gone a day is a oneway ticket to suspect city.

But without those players driving the game, the post count hits rock bottom and its like no one is playing at all. Take last game for instance, rob had more posts than I think half the players at day 2, and he wasnt even in the game. I get that some folks want to distance themselves from the intense play required for the serious players, but theres no middleground yet, we either get a full active, VERY intense game or we get 10 people who take turns shooting themselves. Frankly, I dont know how to help that

[ddevans96]

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.

I want to point out that even before Mafia Championships, there were players using high-level strategies. implosion (the best mafia player this forum has seen, prior to rob), Demagog (second best), karthikking (was active on mafiascum), Terroking, and...well, myself, honestly.

The divide between casual and hardcore existed before Championships - that just accentuated it.

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.

Talk outside the thread should exist on this forum, if we want mafia to be viable here in the future. We need to find a middle-ground between casual and hardcore. The first mafia community I played with was an irc channel with a mafia bot (yes, chat=/=forum, but the core is still the same), and it struck that balance well. Part of the reason for that was allowing discussion in PMs, it gave less serious players an avenue to develop strategies specific to that game.

Essentially, we should aim to be serious enough that people simply should not play if they can't skim a day's worth of medium posting, but that's really all we should require. Everyone who's posted in this thread is capable of what I'd like to see - check in every few hours, skim for a few minutes, comment for a few minutes, or check every day and skim for a bit longer and post for a bit longer. Even in my most active games I skim through the thread and only go back and reread when something important is brought up. My play in Kuro's mafia, for example, should be on the high end of activity here, not middling or low as it would be in high-level play.

Basically casual players need to put in some effort, because mafia is best that way, playing too casually has straight up thrown games here - but hardcore players need to realize this is not a high-level community and they need to tone their activity and expectations of casual players down to match.

Additionally, I think we need to make chat mafia (and call it that, because chatfia is such a stupid word...but that's an argument for another day) more official, because it's much easier to tailor to a casual audience, since the time requirement is condensed to 1-2 hours instead of weeks.

First: Why did you leave?

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

I moved in and out of mafia here for a while because I cherry picked games that I could either justify playing at my desired level (e.g. Kuro's), or games that were innately geared towards casual play so those players would remain engaged (e.g. sky's). I would continuing doing so if a good compromise is not found, but I expect such a compromise would lead me to play most mafias here.

even in meta threads I'm making walls of text

My votes:

Talking during the Night should be removed to give players a break during the game if there are a high number if signups or posts.
I prefer discussion to be allowed outside of the thread.
I prefer there to be a lot of impactful/interesting roles or mechanics.
I do not mind if there are ridiculous roles in the game.
I do not mind having a vanilla role.

I did not vote in 'Setups' because my answer is kind of the first two answers and kind of not. The current system is good, setups have vastly improved, both in engagement of gameplay and balance. Occasionally falling back on a familiar setup or archetype is good, but shouldn't be the norm, and when done something should be changed.

[MyNameIsJoey]

The biggest problem with forum mafia, is that mafia is made to be a chat game. You need interactions between players, and having it be instant makes for removing the ''I was away for 2 hours and now I got to read 10 pages'' factor.

[CleanOnion]

I think a new Blab room, active only during Chat Mafia and moderated solely by the FGO + game host + possibly a few others selected by FGO is the best way to go. But that sounds like a lot of effort to set up.

[Espithel]

Unless a game is filled with people who I know will reliably not flake and force me - filthy, incompetent me - to drive the game, I don't think I'll be playing a mafia on this site again. I'm tired of having to be the one who drives a team. Stop being scrubs q.q

You can cut away half of any given mafia game's players and the thread would look exactly the same; What I think would be productive is finding out how to solve that problem in particular. Some potential issues regarding scrubs being scrubs include but are not limited to:

(Note: I'm not saying any of these are true.)

- There are too many posts and too many things to follow.
- The games drag out for too long and I lose interest.
- There are too many roles/people to track (I hated role madness back in the day)
- My role is boring. I'm a scrub so I need a role to be useful.
- The community is too punishing. If I talk, they'll criticise me and then I'll be lynched for fumbling.
- The community is too harsh. They're so aggressive and it puts a dampener on my mood.
- The community doesn't talk. If they don't talk, I can't make opinions about them.
- Having discussion outside of thread makes it really hard for me to catch up if anything happens.
- Having discussion inside of thread makes it really hard for me to understand what's going on because I can't just ask someone for a quick TL;DR and get a quick answer in the chat.

If any of these resonate with you less active folk, please do speak up. I won't judge you.

[Linkcat]

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?

[CleanOnion]

Splitting up the game seems like an excellent idea to me.

Why not use a separate numbering system for Light Mafias?

I agree that they should not contribute to MoM points but I think that the post limit and ban on long posts is a little sketchy. Having said that, I know I'm unlikely to post 15 times a day but I feel like a better rule would be something like "one player can't have more than 30% of a day's posts" unless of course there aren't many players left.

Perhaps something like no more than 2/(number of players) with a 30% minimum, but now's no time for specifics

I don't think there should be a length limit