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@Voss recently thought about the hypothesis that voting systems have a significant impact on balance by their nature (and not only through the experience level of the players with the specific vote system in use, like I think). I would like more thoughts on this, because it's an interesting idea, although I don't really agree with it.
There are different sub-mechanics at play in voting systems used in all types of mafia, so this thread is kind of open ended. I fear the risk of it devolving into something not useful.
The following two questions are different.
If you're looking to answer whether vote system mechanics affect balance at all, I have a no brainer example for you.
If you're looking to answer to what extent vote system mechanics affect balance, like in terms of saying whether hammer voting is more scum sided than majority vote, that's a much more interesting question. But if you don't believe that vote system mechanics affect balance in the first place than we really need to just discuss the no brainer example.
Significantly affecting balance by their nature? Mmmm, I don't think so, but I'm ready to hear your example. If they do though, the extent of their effect is very interesting indeed; I'm asking both questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Voss
Define significant?
I do think voting plays a non-neglible role in balance.
At the same time, it depends on the setup.
Putting birdbot slot machine and anon votes next to each other, you have something completely random on one side, and something easily manipulable by organized teams on the other side. That's gonna lead to completely different players getting lynched
bird vote isn't random, but this is also a very appropriate fantastic example that doesn't rely on setup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenny
To be fair, manipulating Condorcet isn't too hard when you understand how it works (and you can't be blamed by most people for "steering the lynch" because they don't get what you're doing, unlike in other systems). However, it's true that different people will be lynched. But is that more pro-town or pro-scum?
All setups that aren't purely mountainous are balanced around the scum winning when voting is done entirely randomly, by statistics. A vote system is pro-town when it leads to the town having full knowledge over who they are lynching. It becomes pro scum, on the other hand, whenever it makes the town know less. A higher lack of knowledge and a larger amount of additional knowledge for the team with private chat make the significance of the balance difference.
If I had to rank vote systems from towny to scummy I'd probably go something like:
Majority with trial phase towniest > random bird slots > completely anon without revealed vote counts scummiest
my lesser, but still appropriate example: hammer votes
it's considered scummy to hammer vote yes to the point that it's within the sc2mafia meta to not hammer vote early. however, if you're in an Eliminate or Lose situation and someone's at L-1, the informed, minority team can hammer the voted individual for a win, even if other people on the train might not have wanted to vote with someone. They can't do anything about it, because they aren't around 24/7.
as a result, we have these silly dances where votes are 'pressure' but quickly pulled off if things build up too quickly because people are afraid of scum using their advantage to end day and discussion early. so town, in addition to having to find scum by interacting with people, also have to multi task and make sure that pro-scum mechanics aren't being exploited.
manipulation because people can't strategize and understand something (arguably not) complex is very different than if the rules are understood, but the rules are not objectively complex. rules that make eliminations harder to use is lessening the only mechanic that town has.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall
I'm trying not to derail the thread into how condorcet actually works, but it is neither random, nor manipulatable. any problems with it are a result of forum medium and have been addressed in the updated condorcet thread 1.1
we can however talk about easier vote systems like single vote plurality, multi vote plurality and ranked choice voting.
I think a balance needs to be sort of struck tbh between the ability to lynch people prior to EoD and preventing an (accidental?/scum-driven) early lynch. I like the mod’s trial mechanic a lot, and I think it would fit quite well, although it requires the host to br online pretty much 24/7.
Actually, anon bird slots is the scummiest vote system. And it's significantly more scum-sided than something towny like full public plurality with all votes in, and maybe even additional trial phase.
Personally i think plurality is totally fine with 48h days; people generally dont lynch early anyways so the influence of plurality is barely felt in normal games.
Its a different story for games with longer days: plurality forces people to use the entire day, even if they’ve more or less made up their minds and want to see flips. I find that annoying as a town player.
Its not the scummiest IMO. Plurality or even worse, majority with secret ballots is significantly worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenny
there are different ways to slice and dice this, but i 100% agree with oberon here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
in a world where we weren't limited by the forum tech, I could see us having two sorts of votes.
1. A pressure vote that turns into a real vote when time runs out.
2. A "locked in vote" that would trigger a hammer if you got to 51%.