Resistance VI: Avalon (Assassination - Resistance 3-1 Spies)

[FrostyFireMage]

Rein was far too obvious to be the Merlin, and Bluedoom had pretty much the same opinions as him.

Meanwhile, Kay and Eury each thought I wasn't entirely scum. They would KNOW I was scum if they were Merlin.

Now instead of winning the game with my deduction skills, I'm now the player who ended up SCREWING UP EVERYTHING

B-e-a-utiful. *flips table*

Edited May 19, 2014 by Pascal

[Eurykins]

Rein was far too obvious to be the Merlin, and Bluedoom had pretty much the same opinions as him.

Meanwhile, Kay and Eury each thought I wasn't entirely scum. They would KNOW I was scum if they were Merlin.

Now instead of winning the game with my deduction skills, I'm now the player who ended up SCREWING UP EVERYTHING

B-e-a-utiful. *storms out*

1. Agreed with Rein logic, and somewhat with Bluedoom's.

2. However, I will say: Had I flipped Merlin, I don't think I'd instantly paint out/make it seem obvious that I knew what people were from the get-go/throughout the game. Because that's asking to get nailed/assumed as such, and recklessly crumbing/saying that sort of info striaght off the bat would be a no-go (at least from my perspective). I'd find it safer to have "I'm about 90% sure X = scum" reads than saying flat out/implying that someone's scum/town for sure. So, though the logic makes sense to some degree, I wouldn't agree that it'd necessarily be the strongest to apply (depends on how the players chose to say/do things in-game).

3. Well, your gameplay was a bit shakey from the start, but I don't believe that you were the cause/blame of scum team losing by any means. You just happened to be the one people caught onto/decided to highlight first, which made a lot of your posts more questionable as the game went on.

Imo, Kay should've posted more as a townie (seemed pretty quiet in terms of gameplay as a whole), and Kop himself took a really big risk with the Mission 1 Sabotage. Refa was playing off of making you seem all the worse in terms of scumminess, and that probably didn't help him blend in more as townie (despite me recklessly proposing him for Mission 2.1, which I'm glad that people rejected).

All in all, it wasn't a bad game I felt. A bit too much finger-pointing on the scum side, I feel, but not really my place (as a Resistance player) to say much about it.

[FrostyFireMage]

the game doesn't really seem balanced to me, but whatever

Edited May 19, 2014 by Pascal

[SB.]

If anything, it's slightly scumsided. It's just really swingy.

[Refa]

I don't think it's THAT swingy...

[Scarlet]

the game doesn't really seem balanced to me, but whatever

Speaking as an impartial observer, I am actually tempted to agree with this.

I've never actually played this game, but it seems pretty Spy-sided in general. They have two ways to win, both of which are, as far as I'm concerned, a lot easier to achieve than the Resistance's (getting one of your known members into three missions is most definitely easier than getting a full Resistance team into three missions, even considering that spies' chances to get sent onto those missions decrease as the game goes on).

[FrostyFireMage]

^ That basically.

[Refa]

So basically the opposite of normal Mafia, right?

[BBM]

I actually think Avalon is not that badly balanced if Merlin and Percival play well, although the original Resistance is definitely scumsided as all hell.

I also think that Percival claiming is a legit strategy but he has to play really well to not make it obvious who Merlin is.

[Zkirsche]

I've played avalon a lot, so I've had the whole "to sabotage or not to sabotage D1" argument lots, and my entire group decided that sabotaging D1 is better for almost any set of numbers.

I mean, you found out that one of two players is a spy, cool. However, you have to choose one of them for mission 5 anyway else you are going to fail that mission. Additionally, resistance has a greater chance of picking a spy for missions 2 and 3 if they exclude the two people in mission one (as you're picking 3 players out of 3 res/2spy instead of 4res/3spy) so that'll probably hurt. Merlin's mission was passed though and that's kinda the killer.

I wish I could've played in this but EXAMS.

Edited May 19, 2014 by kirsche

[Tables]

Based on some slightly out of date data, the win rate for Resistance in 7 player is roughly around 40%. The spies do win more often than Resistance - but that's fine. It's not necessary for the game to be completely balanced, just as long as it isn't completely lopsided. The Resistance win percentage does actually rise more as you play more games and start to get better at the game - learning how to play Merlin well, how to hide Merlin in the crowd well, learning the power of just voting No, learning to read mission results and voting patterns and various other things.

[Scarlet]

While I agree that a game doesn't need to be completely balanced to be fun, I'm starting to have my doubts once the win rates start to dip so low that one side literally wins twice as often as the other. 30% overall for the Avalon variant and 33% for the vanilla game is... ...not very encouraging. xD

The 9 player variant seems perhaps the most reasonable, all things considered. A 6-3 split with none of the missions requiring the full 6 man team to pass seems quite a bit more lenient (if still slightly Spy-sided) than the other variants.

[euklyd]

I...didn't actually see the issue with Percival claiming, here.

I also feel like the game is definitely scumsided because the scum - in addition to any actual good play they may have been able to pull off - also have a 25% chance to win through sheer luck.

[Grace]

if percival claims scum have a better chance of hitting merlin, for one

also percival needs to simulate merlin where possible to divert the shot (like what happened)

[euklyd]

Actually yeah. A flat 1/4 chance to win is bad enough, bumping it up to 1/3 is definitely bad.

Edit: ...especially if there's no way to misdirect scum from the guy who knows what's going on.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Euklyd

[Refa]

I was only misdirected because I thought Kay was Perceival though lol. Otherwise I would've shot Bluedoom.

[BBM]

if percival claims scum have a better chance of hitting merlin, for one

also percival needs to simulate merlin where possible to divert the shot (like what happened)

1/3 over 1/4 is not a huge difference (1/12 higher chance). Comparatively a confirmed townie on every mission decreases the sabotage chances there by more than 1/12 I think. It requires Percival to play well so that him claiming only increases the odds of hitting Merlin by 1/12 and not more by him giving away who Merlin is.

[Tables]

This is all assuming the spies simply pick for the assassination randomly, and don't counterclaim Percival. In reality, the assassination is very rarely if ever random, spies can often narrow it down to one of two or three candidates and then go on a mix of gut feelings, hard evidence (vote patterns etc.) and soft evidence (things people said). A good Percival can actually get himself assassinated pretty often, if his Merlin plays well, which often means the chance of an assassination win is probably not too much higher than the random chance pick (maybe say 40% if it's down to three candidates, about 65% if it's down to two?) If the groupthink was that claiming Percival was a good idea, then one of the spies would do well to counterclaim it. That means that, yes, you get information, but you also increase the chance of an assassination victory considerably.

I don't know exact figures, but I'd say the majority of Avalon games go down to an assassination. It only makes sense that the spies should be able to pick out the correct person moderately often considering that. If I had to guess, the figures for experienced players might well be something like: Assassination spy win: 35%, Mission spy win: 25%, Resistance win: 40%. It's all an estimate though, and it does depend a lot on what things you play with - adding Lady of the Lake in increases the Resistance win rate considerably, and I think I might throw it in during the next game I mod.

Speaking of which, I should go add that to the queue - or even ask to start another ASAP, considering it's technically not mafia.

[Refa]

Please make me not a Spy.

[Eurykins]

Please make me not a Spy.

Don't kid yourself Refa- you're destined to always roll scum in some way, shape, or form. =P

[FrostyFireMage]

Please make me not a Spy.

Hopefully you'll get Morgana and do a better job with it than I did.

[Refa]

Don't worry FFM, you did guess Merlin at the end. Sorry I fucked things up for you. ;_;

[FrostyFireMage]

s'okay