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[QUOTE=yzb25;906558]Obviously in all games there's going to be a degree of ambiguity about how you measure the best player (i.e. winrate or wins in major games or tournaments etc.). So, to flesh out the question a little, I think mafia has many more subjective aspects than many other games.[/QUOTE]

Strongly agree. I played competitive Siege for a while and learned that rank doesn't mean shit. You can get a good rank by being on good teams and having people carry you consistently. I think something like the big multi-site Mafia tournament is probably the best way to accurately measure skill but even then the environment of those games could easily lend itself to favoring particular playstyles.

Part of what I love about Mafia is how complex it is. Logical reasoning is huge but so is the social aspect. You have to read and make logical deductions about individual behavior in a complex and curated social environment. I think there are indicators of a highly skilled player, such as finding the optimal read for yourself and then making other people have that read. You have to logically reason out what the best position for yourself would be and then make other people put you in that position. In Siege you just click heads and win, but in Mafia you have to manipulate other people into seeing you how you want to be seen.

Accuracy of scumreads is another potential indicator of a skilled player. But saying in daychat "I think x is scum" and then checking the flip is the only real way to measure a player's reads, and that action alone is ideally filtered through how the player believes giving those reads is going to affect the game so it's not particularly accurate. You'd almost have to make players lock in who they think is scum before the beginning of each day to get even a somewhat close idea of who's right.

But even looking at a bunch of potential indicators of skill isn't an accurate way to know who's better at Mafia. Winrate is largely affected by teammates and accurate scumreads at any given time aren't even necessary to be good at the game. You have to put each player in a vacuum to see the position they were in and see how their reactions to events in game either further their win condition or work against it. That whole process would be subjective as hell.

I don't think there's a truly accurate way to objectively measure skill in Mafia.

Originally Posted by yzb25

Obviously in all games there's going to be a degree of ambiguity about how you measure the best player (i.e. winrate or wins in major games or tournaments etc.). So, to flesh out the question a little, I think mafia has many more subjective aspects than many other games.

Strongly agree. I played competitive Siege for a while and learned that rank doesn't mean shit. You can get a good rank by being on good teams and having people carry you consistently. I think something like the big multi-site Mafia tournament is probably the best way to accurately measure skill but even then the environment of those games could easily lend itself to favoring particular playstyles.

Part of what I love about Mafia is how complex it is. Logical reasoning is huge but so is the social aspect. You have to read and make logical deductions about individual behavior in a complex and curated social environment. I think there are indicators of a highly skilled player, such as finding the optimal read for yourself and then making other people have that read. You have to logically reason out what the best position for yourself would be and then make other people put you in that position. In Siege you just click heads and win, but in Mafia you have to manipulate other people into seeing you how you want to be seen.

Accuracy of scumreads is another potential indicator of a skilled player. But saying in daychat "I think x is scum" and then checking the flip is the only real way to measure a player's reads, and that action alone is ideally filtered through how the player believes giving those reads is going to affect the game so it's not particularly accurate. You'd almost have to make players lock in who they think is scum before the beginning of each day to get even a somewhat close idea of who's right.

But even looking at a bunch of potential indicators of skill isn't an accurate way to know who's better at Mafia. Winrate is largely affected by teammates and accurate scumreads at any given time aren't even necessary to be good at the game. You have to put each player in a vacuum to see the position they were in and see how their reactions to events in game either further their win condition or work against it. That whole process would be subjective as hell.

I don't think there's a truly accurate way to objectively measure skill in Mafia.