Cult vs Mason Stalemate Needs Faster Tiebreak

[The Cheat]

Alright, you could say I'm raging a little about this, but I feel this needs to be fixed. I just got out of a Mafia game where the game had been whittled down to 2 Masons, 2 Cultists (myself being the original Cultist) and 1 remaining Mafia. The Masons decided to give Cult the win by voting up the Mafia with us. So, the night passes, I'm expecting a tiebreak win because there are no killing roles left, no Mason Leader to bludgeon Cultists, and no one for the Cult to convert. No one could take any action at night, so the game should have been over.

First night passes (this is Night 7 at the time, I think). Nothing happens. Trial is still public majority+vote, so no one is getting voted up. Night again. Same scenario. No one can take any action.

Second night passes. Game still not over. One of the Masons goes AFK, as he didn't vote this time around. Still no one put up on trial. Night again, same shit different night. No actions possible.

Third night passes. Game defaults to stalemate tiebreaker scenario, even though the game obviously isn't a stalemate because 2 Cult override 2 Masons. Regardless, the mode gets enabled and ballot changes to Anonymous Lynch. I end up getting lynched. Why? Because my other Cultist decided he'd take over 2 minutes to get a slice of pizza from the last day, so didn't have the second vote to cancel out the votes on me.

For all intents and purposes, Cult should have won this game and I'm really frustrated that I lost due to this. A tie-breaker scenario with no killing roles active should not force people to sit around for 8-10 extra minutes just to finish the game (and trying people's patience after already trying their patience with what are typically retards the majority of the game). I feel it's pretty lame to expect people to sit at their computers paying attention to the obvious "x wins because no killing roles and equals or outnumbers Town" scenario for 8-10 full minutes. There should be a special version of the tiebreak check to check for no killing roles left in the game.

I don't think this is quite a bug obviously but since I don't see a postable Suggestions forum around here, this is the only place I could think of to post. Replay is attached, although I somehow can already feel the "your idiot teammate shouldn't have gone AFK" posts coming. For me, I play Mafia because it's fun and the game is pretty fast-paced with most setups. Forcing the 3-day wait and swapping to Anon Lynch in a scenario where no one can do anything detracts from that experience (and ruins my achievements I need apparently, since I hardly ever get Cult). I'd like to be able to get the win I justly deserved and get straight in to a new game instead of being forced to wait and hope my teammate's patience is the same as mine. The Masons (and some dead chatters) even agreed that Cult should have gotten the win, with some people completely dumbfounded that they were getting a Town win.

[Ash]

Nice find and good point, I support this.

[BorkBot]

The same thing occurs if you have 2 remaining townies and 2 remaining mafia players (or 1 maf and 1 witch) and there's a jailor who just keeps on jailing the mafia player without any executions left or an escort using roleblocks to the same effect. Or if mafia doesn't auto convert to a killing role if there is none.

Stalemates aren't isolated to cult vs masons and I don't even find that it occurs most frequently with the cult. It would be fairly complicated to cover all such incidents I fear.

[The Cheat]

This is the second time I've seen this type of stalemate actually, but one of the Masons left the other time (I was already dead as another town) and handed Cult the win. In all the PUG games I've done, I've never seen a 2v2 Mafia (or Maf+Witch) vs Town stalemate where the Jailor was out of Executions. That's the type of scenario that can happen if the host picks bad settings, but the scenario of Cult vs Mason is something that could happen in *any* game with at least one Random or Basic Neutral and two Random Towns.

I realize the map is already very script-intensive (as evidenced by the constant laggers in PUG matches), but you also have to realize that the Jailor jailing killing Mafia role still means there's one to two killing roles in the game, whereas the scenario I described has absolutely no killing roles. I feel that's the major difference that can warrant a seperate check.

[Yayap]

I completely approve that cult should have won as soon as it had = or more members than the remaining town with no killing roles alive.

[Dark.Revenant]

Imagine coding in raw C without being able to use any of the features that make C decent. Such as pointers.

That's what I have to deal with here. Making a solution to this is actually much harder than it appears.

[Nick]

Stalemate tiebreaker. In what scenario will this actually be useful? Will removing it help?

How about vote to end day? Surely this should help reduce with wait.

[BorkBot]

That'd actually be somewhat useful, Nick. Basically just skip discussion and voting time.

I can't think of any potential scenario's in which it could be abused right now.. though they might exist.

Like some really rare instances where one could dodge a mayor reveal by quickly ending the day.

[The Cheat]

DR, I kinda figured that's part of where the difficulty lies. It sucks that despite the advancements of WC3 over SC and SC2 over WC3, we can't always accomplish what we would otherwise think is possible. That's just Blizzard being cautious. *shrug*

That's actually an interesting idea Nick. It certainly approaches problems similar to this in a much different way and would help speed up these scenarios so everyone can move on with their playtime and not risk the ninja AFK screws a win scenario. Bork's point about abuse regarding a Mayor reveal could possibly be fixed by making the Mayor's reveal disable any current "end the day" votings going on, although I'm not sure if the code for that is possible.

[Dark.Revenant]

That was something on my backlog for a long time. I never got around to it because it requires making more interface art. I might give up and just make it a chat command, like -skip or something.

[Nick]

As long as there is a notice to tell them -skip exist, such as no lynch/deaths for 1 or 2 days, chat command is good enough. I really don't think -skip will be used that frequently to warrant interface art, just like -jail which is exclusive to jailor only.

[BorkBot]

Some sort of feedback on the screen to display who voted to skip would be nice as well. It would quickly give away people who are intentionally making coordinated and unsportsmanlike use of -skip to avoid interference from something like a mayor. Receiving a bad reputation could be an effective deterrent.

[Nick]

Voting to skip is also a strategy. A mafia strategy. Question now how many votes of -skip to skip day?

[BorkBot]

It has to be a majority vote, obviously. Just like lynching...

[Nick]

It just has to be a majority vote obviously. Just like lynching...

I agree. One and only way to ensure that -skip is not abused.

[The Cheat]

I agree. One and only way to ensure that -skip is not abused.

Yeah, it sounds fine to me that way as long as a Mayor reveal would prevent the vote for that day.

[BorkBot]

Yeah, it sounds fine to me that way as long as a Mayor reveal would prevent the vote for that day.

That doesn't seem necessary. There's already a variable that keeps track of how many votes are needed to lynch someone and it takes having a revealed mayor in the game into account. If the same variable is used to determine if there are sufficient -skip votes, it just means the mayor's vote counts for the same amount as if he was voting to lynch someone. It's not possible for the mayor to abuse this. If his vote is needed for a majority to lynch and he doesn't want to lynch, nobody is going to get lynched anyway.

I would like to suggest that the -skip command should not be usable until 10 seconds after the day has started and deaths have been announced. That way, mayors and jailors who are in a minority position (3 maf or 2 maf and witch against 2 town with unrevealed mayor and/or jailor) have sufficient time to perform their daytime action without the bad guys jumping to the opportunity to skip the day as soon as possible.

[Yayap]

If there was still a mayor in play, the chances that the town would skip even one day is next to null. The mayor would reveal before skipping day would be considered an option. If town still skip day, they are just being stupid.

[Nick]

I agree. One and only way to ensure that -skip is not abused.

In case you didn't notice it. I was trolling. Majority -skip vote will not solve the Cult Mason stalemate.

At least 50% votes should.

[Dimwit]

I would suggest it require a super majority (60-80%) to ensure that its not used as a tactic but instead used only when there really are no more moves to make.

[BorkBot]

I would suggest it require a super majority (60-80%) to ensure that its not used as a tactic but instead used only when there really are no more moves to make.

Any majority vote is sufficient for that.

[The Cheat]

Well, there's only one way to find out. Implement it, get feedback, see if it helps this specific scenario and others that involve non-killing role stalemates. If abuse reports roll in, pull it.

EDIT: Also, are you sure on that Mayor thing Bork? I've seen a 3-Mafia 2-Town with Mayor game get lost because the Mafia voted up the Mayor since he was too slow (or AFK, he said nothing on the stand) to react but had already revealed. Maybe that was in an older version.

[Nick]

Depends on who voted first. Still true now. Anyways...

3 mafia and 2 town at Day1. Lets say mayor wins.
2 mafia and 2 town at Night1. And 1 townie died.
2 mafia and 1 town at Day2. And mayor wins.
1 mafia and 1 town at Night2. Town still lose.

[BorkBot]

Well, there's only one way to find out. Implement it, get feedback, see if it helps this specific scenario and others that involve non-killing role stalemates. If abuse reports roll in, pull it.

EDIT: Also, are you sure on that Mayor thing Bork? I've seen a 3-Mafia 2-Town with Mayor game get lost because the Mafia voted up the Mayor since he was too slow (or AFK, he said nothing on the stand) to react but had already revealed. Maybe that was in an older version.

Now that you mention it, I confess that I might be mistaken. Still it stands to reason that mayors and jailors should be given some time to type their commands before evils can jump to the opportunity to skip the day. There are also (next to) no situations where a mayor benefits from skipping a day. He's better off voting someone suspicious on trial.

However, it does seem that there might be a problem then if a -skip is called during the discussion time, before a mayor can vote someone on trial. If there are only 5 players left (2 town with a mayor and the rest evil) and only 3 votes are needed, the evils could still abuse -skip.

Unless a skip during the discussion time will not skip straight to night time, but to the voting part of the day instead (except on the first day if voting is disabled). And then another skip at least 10 seconds into the voting part of the day is required to skip to night time.

Or another variable for day skipping can be used to take revealed mayor votes into account.

Anyway, I'm sure DR knows what would work, as he had already considered the idea himself.