Post Restriction/Limited Posts Mafia

Hello. I was reading this thread the other day - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/very-limited-communication-noc.3570687/

And started thinking that a mafia game, specifically an noc, with some kind of posting restriction similar to what was proposed in the thread would make for an interesting challenge. The restrictions I've come up with are:
- A word restriction. Every player can only make posts that have, at most, 100 words (not characters). Pretty self explanatory
- A posting cap. Players can make, at most, anywhere between 30-50 posts during a day phase. This one is actually taken from mafiauniverse, where their light games have a 50 post cap. I broadened my range a bit because I don't think any individual person tends to post even 50 times a day phase in your average game on this site. I personally think 30 or 35 is probably the most reasonable for smogon activity, though I can leave this one is up for negotiation. This cap would be lifted an hour before deadline, where people may then most as much as they please. However, if enough people wish it, I may be willing to lift the cap earlier, at most probably 3 hours before deadline

The first one is the easiest the keep track of, there are websites that let you check your word count. The second is a bit trickier, since mu has the mafiabot that naturally counts everyone's posts, though it still shouldn't be too hard. I mean, we do have an iso feature. I would expect people to keep track of how often they've posted on their own, in whatever way they have to. I would, of course, keep an eye on how often people are posting as well, though I would say to not expect me to do everything for you

So basically, I'm just trying to see if anyone's interested in playing an noc with these restrictions. I would ideally like to do both in the same game, though if people generally favor one over the other I might just do one of them. Like I said, these are negotiable within reason, so feedback on what people would want if they're interested is appreciated
 

vonFiedler

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Lol I said this on discord the other day. But I was thinking in the ballpark of 3-5 to posts (not counting ones with just votes), not 30-50. What's the point of "limiting" to a number as big as 30 or 50?
 
Lol I said this on discord the other day. But I was thinking in the ballpark of 3-5 to posts (not counting ones with just votes), not 30-50. What's the point of "limiting" to a number as big as 30 or 50?
Oh whoops, I legit didn't see that. I feel like 3-5 posts would be too limiting, and not very easy to get legitimate reads out of? Especially since I want to do it in tandem with a word limit. I feel like 30 posts is a reasonable limit on smogon with the word limit factored in
 
Oh whoops, I legit didn't see that. I feel like 3-5 posts would be too limiting, and not very easy to get legitimate reads out of? Especially since I want to do it in tandem with a word limit. I feel like 30 posts is a reasonable limit on smogon with the word limit factored in
Though some people already base their whole play around one liners so. Maybe I can be convinced to lower it to 20?
 

Pidge

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I'm not NOC player, but think it's idea worth trying. Don't understand cap lift hours though. Would that not defeat some of the purpose? Also people not able to play during cap lift time because varying times available could be issue.

Keep mind this favors mafia team. Would mafia power be reduced and/or village power increased?

As for keeping track restrictions; require players post at end:

Words: 67
Post: 1/x
 
I'm not NOC player, but think it's idea worth trying. Don't understand cap lift hours though. Would that not defeat some of the purpose? Also people not able to play during cap lift time because varying times available could be issue.

Keep mind this favors mafia team. Would mafia power be reduced and/or village power increased?

As for keeping track restrictions; require players post at end:

Words: 67
Post: 1/x
I don't really have a justification for lifting the cap restriction other than "mu does it" and I blatantly took the idea from them with my only modifications being potentially lowering the cap from 50 and changing how many hours before deadline the cap gets lifted. My best guess as to why they lift the cap eventually is so people who hit the cap at some point have a chance at taking part in eod. Also, different time zones/availability is actually part of the reason I posed the possibility of making the cap lift happen earlier before deadline

Idk how exactly this favors mafia, they have the exact same restrictions, though I am playing with the possibility of them having no daytalk in the game, which I do consider to be a nerf to them. I haven't picked a setup yet though

Hm, that could work, if people can remember
 
Actually wait no, I think I see how this can be scumsided. Lowering scum power roles or getting rid of daytalk for them I think are decent solutions
 

Pidge

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More talking means more chances for mafia slipping and less post analysis to get reads on who is mafia. By limiting posts, you limit the ability to scum hunt this way. A more silent village is weaker than a more silent mafia. Again, I could be completely incorrect given my limited NOC experience.
 
More talking means more chances for mafia slipping and less post analysis to get reads on who is mafia. By limiting posts, you limit the ability to scum hunt this way. A more silent village is weaker than a more silent mafia. Again, I could be completely incorrect given my limited NOC experience.
Yeah, I get it. Though I do intend for this to be kinda challenging. Still, lowering mafia power in some way is valid. I posted potential solutions above
 

Duskfall98

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I think this is an interesting thing to try out but it's also important to remember town just got its first convincing win in a long time. Smogon town already has a bad enough record without this kind of challenge. For any hope of town winning through skill and not just random luck I think scum would have to be super weak.
 
I think this is an interesting thing to try out but it's also important to remember town just got its first convincing win in a long time. Smogon town already has a bad enough record without this kind of challenge. For any hope of town winning through skill and not just random luck I think scum would have to be super weak.
I'm gonna take this as another point towards mafia having no daytalk and being low on power roles
 
I think this is an interesting thing to try out but it's also important to remember town just got its first convincing win in a long time. Smogon town already has a bad enough record without this kind of challenge. For any hope of town winning through skill and not just random luck I think scum would have to be super weak.
This is not a good reason (and a very arbitrary one at that) to make balance changes. I would be wary about making changes to game balance based on hand-wavy ideas that don't really have definitive evidence to back them up.

Personally, I'm not quite sure I see the draw of these restrictions. As in, I don't see why they would be a "fun" twist on NOC gameplay. I think there's already a struggle to get people to post period so a game built around limiting posting is only going to be appealing to people who really enjoy NOC games and post a lot.

That said, I think it's always cool to try new things so I would definitely encourage you to go ahead and draw something up and host it. Even if it ends up being a smaller game that appeals to the more hardcore NOC players I think it'll be interesting nonetheless both for the players and spectators.
 
i agree with jal in that i don't see why this would make a game more interesting

i am very interested in playing with a mechanic in OC where communication between all parties is not automatic, and you might have a village leader who is forced to choose between communicating only with the cop or only with the doctor. or, you might have a village leader collecting claims from a person X. village leader can't talk to X directly so asks Y to do it for him...then when X's role is disproven then village leader has to figure out if X lied to Y, or if Y lied to him. basically, make oc mafia but limit communication channels so that if town want to do a village leader setup then they're forced to play a big game of telephon.

i don't know how such a mechanic would work but it seems like it would be fun.
 
i agree with jal in that i don't see why this would make a game more interesting

i am very interested in playing with a mechanic in OC where communication between all parties is not automatic, and you might have a village leader who is forced to choose between communicating only with the cop or only with the doctor. or, you might have a village leader collecting claims from a person X. village leader can't talk to X directly so asks Y to do it for him...then when X's role is disproven then village leader has to figure out if X lied to Y, or if Y lied to him. basically, make oc mafia but limit communication channels so that if town want to do a village leader setup then they're forced to play a big game of telephon.

i don't know how such a mechanic would work but it seems like it would be fun.
this would also allow people outside of a traditional village leadership to be more involved with the game since it is no longer the case that one cleared person can just do everything for town
 

Nuxl

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in my curiosity, i recorded to see whether or not 50 posts a day actually affected most people
spoilers for noc games ig

Nuxl- 103
Apricity-174
Duskfall98- 89
Oddish., 43
OM Room: 59
vooper: 49
energy: 13
cantius: 22
whydon(jalmont/josh): 10
asek: 47
ID: 21
DLE: 39
martin: 9

Nuxl- 118
Apricity - 72
Duskfall98 - 56
Oddish., 18
OM Room: 29
vooper: 17
energy: 26
cantius: 11
(whydon)jalmont(josh): 15
asek: 8

Nuxl: 186
Apricity- 189
Oddish.: 55
OM Room: 67
vooper: 17
energy: 32
Cantius: 31
(whydon)Jalmont/Josh: 3/75

Asek- 42
Nuxl: 37
Jalmont: 36
apricity: 110
ifml/DLE: 2
drookez: 6
duskfall98: 60
energy: 18
FH: 87
ID: 16
viper: 32
texas: 78

Asek: 9
Nuxl: 7
Jalmont: 18
apricity: 74
ifml/DLE: 0
duskfall98: 38
energy: 15
FH: 31
ID: 9
viper: 18

Asek: 21
Nuxl: 8
Jalmont: 15
DLE: 48
duskfall98: 49
energy: 44
FH: 32
viper: 22

Asek: 11
Nuxl: 2
Jalmont: 8
DLE: 18
duskfall98: 9
energy: 30
FH: 31

Nuxl: 67
Apricity: 111
Texas: 32
Caff: 21
IFML: 19
viper: 20
dusk: 36
smogacc: 22
healndeal: 26

Nuxl: 67
Apricity: 47
Texas: 37
Caff: 48
IFML: 12
viper: 7
dusk: 56

Nuxl: 53
Apricity: 33
Texas: 14
Caff: 18
IFML: 3
viper: 3

in the average playerbase (disregarding stuff like invitationals/exception games ala greek myth) i don't think most people post enough in nocs for the 50 cap to affect much. could be interesting to see if the cap was lowered but then i wouldn't know how games would progress enough to see if people can make accurate reads. ofc this is w/o a word count or anything but I feel like one could easily put in 5000(50 x 100 words) a day and have it be fully contentful.

this would probably hit spamposty/wordy people the most but i think people would be able to pace themselves

personally i'd in if this was a thing due to seeing how i'd even out my usual posting scheme but i wonder if it'd change much(unless you lowered the cap heavily. made it a turbo maybe?)
 
in my curiosity, i recorded to see whether or not 50 posts a day actually affected most people
spoilers for noc games ig

Nuxl- 103
Apricity-174
Duskfall98- 89
Oddish., 43
OM Room: 59
vooper: 49
energy: 13
cantius: 22
whydon(jalmont/josh): 10
asek: 47
ID: 21
DLE: 39
martin: 9

Nuxl- 118
Apricity - 72
Duskfall98 - 56
Oddish., 18
OM Room: 29
vooper: 17
energy: 26
cantius: 11
(whydon)jalmont(josh): 15
asek: 8

Nuxl: 186
Apricity- 189
Oddish.: 55
OM Room: 67
vooper: 17
energy: 32
Cantius: 31
(whydon)Jalmont/Josh: 3/75

Asek- 42
Nuxl: 37
Jalmont: 36
apricity: 110
ifml/DLE: 2
drookez: 6
duskfall98: 60
energy: 18
FH: 87
ID: 16
viper: 32
texas: 78

Asek: 9
Nuxl: 7
Jalmont: 18
apricity: 74
ifml/DLE: 0
duskfall98: 38
energy: 15
FH: 31
ID: 9
viper: 18

Asek: 21
Nuxl: 8
Jalmont: 15
DLE: 48
duskfall98: 49
energy: 44
FH: 32
viper: 22

Asek: 11
Nuxl: 2
Jalmont: 8
DLE: 18
duskfall98: 9
energy: 30
FH: 31

Nuxl: 67
Apricity: 111
Texas: 32
Caff: 21
IFML: 19
viper: 20
dusk: 36
smogacc: 22
healndeal: 26

Nuxl: 67
Apricity: 47
Texas: 37
Caff: 48
IFML: 12
viper: 7
dusk: 56

Nuxl: 53
Apricity: 33
Texas: 14
Caff: 18
IFML: 3
viper: 3

in the average playerbase (disregarding stuff like invitationals/exception games ala greek myth) i don't think most people post enough in nocs for the 50 cap to affect much. could be interesting to see if the cap was lowered but then i wouldn't know how games would progress enough to see if people can make accurate reads. ofc this is w/o a word count or anything but I feel like one could easily put in 5000(50 x 100 words) a day and have it be fully contentful.

this would probably hit spamposty/wordy people the most but i think people would be able to pace themselves

personally i'd in if this was a thing due to seeing how i'd even out my usual posting scheme but i wonder if it'd change much(unless you lowered the cap heavily. made it a turbo maybe?)
You absolute madman, you actually did it

But that is interesting to keep in mind if I ever do go through with this. Though I don't know how well a turbo would work on smogon, I've only seen it happen once (with that one recent game. I think it was assassin? And that wasn't even intended to be a turbo)

Hmmm. Wonder if a post cap but no word limit is a viable option
 
In my lexicon, post restriction means the kind of thing everyone had in the latest BYO. Being forbidden from wallposting could shake things up, but I think that it could be cheesed by a player posting 4 or 5 times in a row. I recommend implementing a two post cooldown to counter that - once you've posted something, two other players must post before you can post again.
 
In my lexicon, post restriction means the kind of thing everyone had in the latest BYO. Being forbidden from wallposting could shake things up, but I think that it could be cheesed by a player posting 4 or 5 times in a row. I recommend implementing a two post cooldown to counter that - once you've posted something, two other players must post before you can post again.
Hmmm I might consider it
i still honestly dont see how this improves upon a standard noc game
Dude it's just meant to be a challenge thing lol. Idk if I'd necessarily call that an "improvement," it's just something I figured might be interesting to try out if enough people are down for it
 

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