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Digital Devil [Phalla]: Rebirth - Final Cycle: Future

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    I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    personal highlight:
    discrider wrote:
    Ok, first, this was the -last- bit of information I found. It's the piece that proved the deduction.
    Second, whilst hit squads are standard MO, what makes this important is it sounds like Turkson declined because he would have had no say in the attack targets. Now there are only 2 reasons why someone would agree to this:
    1) It was arranged a priori through Egos being a respected hit squad leader / working with friends.
    2) There are in-game justifications for the behaviour, such as specials being able to confirm their abilities.

    It sounds like Turkson didn't trust Egos enough for the first reason to be legitimate, and he didn't hang around long enough for the second reason to stick.

    Now I am 99% certain that Egos is the seer. If you want to wait until a couple of days down the line so that we lose, then I guess that's something I'll have to deal with.
    Otherwise, I still say we sun Egos and I'll go looking at 38 to ensure that the only other contender for seer can be eliminated as well.

    :P

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    DrezDrez Registered User regular
    m-vibe m-vibe m-vibe m-vibe m-vibe m-vibe m-vibe

    Too bad I couldn't bonk Locus on the way out.

    Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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    SepahSepah Registered User regular
    Winner!

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Am-D6BqQiIk4dDFTV0d1T1ppOTdMM2o1N1JFbl9RcHc&usp=sharing

    Link to our actions spreadsheet.

    RGG made the proboard, so up to him to open it up to people.

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    MrBlarneyMrBlarney Registered User regular
    Host Proboards
    Master Spreadsheet

    Host Development Notes and Game Remarks

    Before I start into things, I want to give thanks again to cj iwakura for his help on scenario creation and his work on narrations. It really helped relieve a burden off of me once the game was in motion. Special thanks as always to Infidel for continuing to allow me use of his webspace and personal pages framework code. The game wouldn't have been nearly as smooth without the support.

    The idea for running a Digital Devil Saga game came after running Persona: Hall α in 2010 and PHA/LLA in 2011; the setting seemed ripe for adaptation into a forum game. But I didn't have the experience to do the work on it, and as time passed and other projects were completed, it passed into the pile of things to eventually get around to, always in the back of the mind but never at the front of the line. Fast forward a couple of years and the spring of 2013, where I was planning on running another game. I had intentions of running .phalla, based off of the .hack series of games, but my ambitions got ahead of me and over the course of a number of months, I got heavily into development, but ultimately stuck on getting the game's economy to work out right. I won't go too into the details, but mathematically, things would not, or rather could not, align in a sensible way.

    By the end of summer, I was getting frustrated at not having completed the game and wanted to run something, and looking at my other projects, I came back to Digital Devil Phalla. To my surprise, it was actually in a mostly finished state. In addition, with a few more games' experience of modifying Infidel's statblock pages, I felt like I had enough knowledge to actually implement the game. All of the components were there, but they needed to be balanced and refined. The hit and damage formulas were simplified so that the primary attributes could be more even in terms of power. These simplifications also made it easier to see how skill strengths could be tweaked. There were a few components built for the forum game version that were taken out to better fit the phalla framework: there was originally a Junkyard map for movement (a la Phalla Royale) and Macca (money) earned from survival and claiming kills to be spent on one-time use items and equippable Karma rings. Perhaps if the game is revisited in a general forum game environment, I'll put these features back in.

    Of course, there will always be mistakes and places for improvement, and certainly this game is no exception. One of the areas for better balancing is that I made the instant-death and almighty abilities too powerful, and they were accordingly quite popular goals for a large number of players. While I did go in the right direction in making them more expensive in terms of AP, HP, and MP, for the ability to subvert the need to gain information about or otherwise guess other players' resistances, these skills needed to be less efficient in terms of effect to cost ratio. Compared to standard elemental spells, Megido and Megidola had a 20% increase in power for a 33% cost increase when I should have priced them at least 50% higher (18 MP and 36 MP, respectively). Post-hoc calculations based on the ratios between tiers on the direct-damage skills for standard elements support the 50% increase even before elemental considerations, so 20 MP and 40 MP costs (a 67% increase) may not have been out of the question. Hama, Hamaon, Mudo, and Mudoon could have also done with a similar increase in use cost. Interestingly, Devil Feast and Ingest were priced at 50% higher than the other Tier-2 and Tier-3 physical skills, respectively, though they should have been made weaker for superseding elemental resistances and having an AP hunt bonus. With these changes, I think there would have been more collaboration in use of standard element skills as intended by the design.

    On the other hand, I was pleased to find that status ailments and enhancers were appealing enough for people to actually purchase and use them. There was a deliberate effort in making these skills viable, giving them relatively cheap AP and MP costs and, for ailments, potential for more XP than other actions. The way I designed the ailments may have desired better implementation, as it could be quite annoying to be afflicted by a particularly debilitating effect such as Silence, Panic, or Sleep for multiple days with no guarantee of natural relief. This was not helped by the fact that Amrita was on the outermost ring of the Mantra Grid, and thus difficult to access until the late game. A kinder way to handle ailments would be to fix them at a three-day duration, eliminating the random chance of extension. This reduces the utility of the status ailment skills and Amrita, but would be better for the sake of fun.

    I had a difficult time figuring out how to set the mafia's power level. It was a deliberate design decision to make the mafia's main group attack almighty-element and provide no almighty-guard to the village. Considering the fact that in previous battle phallas, hit groups and information sharing with a revealed network leader were so powerful for the village, I wanted to provide a small advantage to the mafia's group kill as a small protect against these plays. When the game size doubled on the extended day of signups, I gave the mafia a second group attack consisting of a set of attacks of each basic element at a medium power level. This ability was meant to be a kill with high certainty in the early game, but decreasing in potential towards the late game. In a way, the two mafia group attacks are analogous to the group attacks from Skies of Phalladia, only this time contained within a single entity.

    Each mafia member also received a small starting advantage in stat points and Atma Points. With this power the mafia could try to push their strength in the early game, before the village's mid- and late-game information advantages kicked in. When the game was only 30 players, it was sensible to give all mafia members the bonus, but in the expansion to 63 players, I didn't think to only give a partial bonus in consideration of the second group attack given to the mafia. So at the start of the game, I thought that the mafia was going to be overpowered.

    Unfortunately for them, they were unlucky in the early game from Buddha73's death to a village hit squad on the first day and kime's elimination by vote on the second day. Instant-kill and other non-standard elemental effects provided a huge variable in the outcomes of each day's results. There were a few points where the scale could have tipped over into the mafia's victory or heavy into the village's favor - I'm actually surprised that the game ended up being so closely matched all the way down the line. (That's not to say at all that the game was actually balanced, however! Luck works in unexpected ways.) In the end, despite getting whittled down by the mafia's Black Sun kill, the village network remained strong enough to systematically root out and take down the mafia. It was a tricky decision to limit the amount of death information given in the results; given the amount of information available to the village from daily actions, I thought it fair to be less explicit regarding kill and death attributions. I understand it to have caused a bit of confusion among the village, to which I apologize.

    I also had quite a bit of trouble selecting the serial killer's abilities and stats. I wanted to balance the role such that they would almost certainly be able to manage a kill with the use of exclusive abilities, but not so powerful that there would be little risk of being eliminated through player attacks. In the end, I think the role ended up a little too weak; giving them another point to each of the starting stats and giving them a bonus to resistances would have made the role more viable. I probably could have also made their unique abilities cheaper for sustainability into the long endgame. Then again, DasUberEdward did himself a disservice by exposing his power, making him a prime target for the mafia's Black Sun attack.

    Overall, I'm fairly pleased with how the game went. I had to make a few corrections in resolution after the game started, and some of the special ability costs got swapped around (I noticed too late to fix, but I don't believe it would have made a difference), but things otherwise went smoothly. Thanks to everyone for joining up and participating in my game; a game is nothing without players to experience it. I've already got ideas for the next game I want to run - those of you waiting for .phalla will unfortunately have to wait a bit longer - so hopefully it won't be as long a gap to wait for games as it was between Skies of Phalladia and this one. Please look forward to it, I'll be happy to see as many of you join up as possible.

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    PredaPreda Registered User regular
    Damn! I was paranoid! Played good sepah, ZH seriously got me doubt in the end...

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    I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    @SaberOverEasy WHAT THE FUCK

    @Mill WHAT THE FUCK

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    discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Oh WTF Blarney

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    discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    I WAS NOT DONE

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    discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    I was still trying to see if I could convince Preda to change his mind :(

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    cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    I was totally rooting for you, Edward.

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    Sir FabulousSir Fabulous Malevolent Squid God Registered User regular
    I played terribly this game.

    Congrats to the village.

    Huge props to Discrider.

    He's a cool dude.

    pickup-sig.php?name=Orthanc

    Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
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    Rawkking GoodguyRawkking Goodguy Registered User regular
    Discrider newbie mafia 2013 :^:

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    discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    I was going to let Preda stew for a couple of hours and reflect on the good times of Tiph's healing team. But no. Seer gets to kill the game.

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    SepahSepah Registered User regular
    edited November 2013
    I wish I had been a God SK, playing everyone like a fiddle. This game would make me a legend if that had been the case.

    Edit: Oh my god this day 12 title, ahahahaha.

    Sepah on
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    EgosEgos Registered User regular
    good job @discrider and @preda for your first game. I thought you had been seered long before you apparently were, @preda

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    JaentherJaenther Registered User regular
    Ladies and gentlemen, a hand for the world's most suspicious seer. So suspicious he was the runner up like 3 days in a row. SO suspicious, his own network doubted him in the end. Grats, Sepah.

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    MrBlarneyMrBlarney Registered User regular
    discrider wrote: »
    I was still trying to see if I could convince Preda to change his mind :(

    I got affirmations from both Preda and Sepah to end the day through private messages. Besides that, Preda used his final action and target to try and consume Sepah using Ingest (which would have been about a 60% kill chance) so I took the initiative to close things early. I apologize for closing things out early, but it did not appear to me that things were going to shift. Take pride in surviving to the end and putting in a good try!

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    SepahSepah Registered User regular
    Thank you, thank you. *bows*

    I kinda think that might've saved me though. Tell me, mafia, would you have killed me if I wasn't such an easy bandwagon?

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    SaberOverEasySaberOverEasy Info Broker Registered User regular
    SaberOverEasy WHAT THE FUCK

    Mill WHAT THE FUCK

    You admitted to attacking the mafia day 1 target and then ask WTF when you get targeted? You should know better INANTP.

    It wasn't JUST that you hit spoit (though that did play a big part), it was also the ailment build. I figured you were going for bad breath, which really only made sense if you were working with someone else. I knew that someone else wasn't Langly, so I figured there was a decent chance it was the mafia. On a bit more cynical side, poison was one of the weaker status effect. If I was wrong and you were village, I wasn't taking out a damage dealer, healer or buffer.

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    I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    Jaenther wrote: »
    Ladies and gentlemen, a hand for the world's most suspicious seer. So suspicious he was the runner up like 3 days in a row. SO suspicious, his own network doubted him in the end. Grats, Sepah.
    to be fair it's decisively that "continually almost dead" fact that allowed the mafia to ignore him

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    DrezDrez Registered User regular
    Good game, MrB.

    Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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    I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    SaberOverEasy WHAT THE FUCK

    Mill WHAT THE FUCK

    You admitted to attacking the mafia day 1 target and then ask WTF when you get targeted? You should know better INANTP.

    It wasn't JUST that you hit spoit (though that did play a big part), it was also the ailment build. I figured you were going for bad breath, which really only made sense if you were working with someone else. I knew that someone else wasn't Langly, so I figured there was a decent chance it was the mafia. On a bit more cynical side, poison was one of the weaker status effect. If I was wrong and you were village, I wasn't taking out a damage dealer, healer or buffer.

    I SAID BEFORE THE GAME I WAS GONNA DO STATUS EFFECTS > : (

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    PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    edited November 2013
    Damn you mafia! I was just about to start magic charge & megido killing people!

    Seriously though, going almighty damage with physical immunity was a bit powerful, you mostly ignore all the non-insta-kill str-based attacks and nobody can resist your damage normally, so you can just pump the two stats

    Phyphor on
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    EgosEgos Registered User regular
    personal highlight:
    discrider wrote:
    Ok, first, this was the -last- bit of information I found. It's the piece that proved the deduction.
    Second, whilst hit squads are standard MO, what makes this important is it sounds like Turkson declined because he would have had no say in the attack targets. Now there are only 2 reasons why someone would agree to this:
    1) It was arranged a priori through Egos being a respected hit squad leader / working with friends.
    2) There are in-game justifications for the behaviour, such as specials being able to confirm their abilities.

    It sounds like Turkson didn't trust Egos enough for the first reason to be legitimate, and he didn't hang around long enough for the second reason to stick.

    Now I am 99% certain that Egos is the seer. If you want to wait until a couple of days down the line so that we lose, then I guess that's something I'll have to deal with.
    Otherwise, I still say we sun Egos and I'll go looking at 38 to ensure that the only other contender for seer can be eliminated as well.

    :P

    Turkson never explained what was going on in Turkland :rotate:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3abPnEEGE

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    I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    i told like almost 0 lies this game

    other than "i'm not mafia" my first was having to abruptly cover for one of gg's lies

    and yet everyone STILL THOUGHT I WAS MEGA SUS

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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Discrider newbie mafia 2013 :^:

    Own-horn toot: I did bring Noir home on my first go as mafia earlier this year, but had significant help!

    Discrider, you did a hell of a job but you do over-think a bit. Was very glad to have you around for this one.

    It is freaking hard to play support mafia if someone ( @schuss !) keeps randomly attacking you. Would've bailed inantp out immediately otherwise and I believe I saved him from the second attack-wave.

    Should I assume that was your Mudo that missed me, Sepah?

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    EgosEgos Registered User regular
    yeah I was curious why Mill bw'd Baidol instead of you and asked him :)

    so confirming the MEGA SUS part.

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    Rawkking GoodguyRawkking Goodguy Registered User regular
    edited November 2013
    Proboards:

    1 ) Super Special "Pregame" Hit Squad Proboards consisting of all the former mafia members of Blarney's afformentioned Persona: Hall α that played in this game.

    We violated the RULE OF FIVE by inviting Infidel (honorary persona phalla mafia host), and paid the price! :rotate:


    2 ) And I guess network proboards are: http://ddfinale.proboards.com/

    I was doing well in the game (missed GG with silence & pushed a bandwagon on him which might have got him mudooned, killed The Dagon with Egos, and got Jaenther to get 38th to mudoon Aura). Then I went kinda crazy when I became head and convinced myself the mafia were doing a lot better than they were for some reasons I might elaborate on tomorrow when I get some sleep. Welp, sorry guys :[

    I totally don't regret calling @I Needed a Name to Post a SK though, that was great 8->


    Learned to trust my gut more, take phalla easy, etc. Thinking the mafia were superchatty at the level of persona phalla and the village was entirely disengaged was dumb, that happened not just due to the complicated battle mechanics but because the village had had terrible luck in eliminating mafia in that game and were very demoralized. Things were going a ton better here.

    And hey @Kay was right about Discrider too!

    Rawkking Goodguy on
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    AssuranAssuran Is swinging on the Spiral Registered User regular
    I'm used to being ignored, so I went for an insta kill build, which worked.

    Unfortunately, I handed myself over to INANTP because I thought there was no way he wasn't seered being as loud as he was about being silenced.

    I died for my stupidity, since I was mostly flying under the radar until then (well, other than to Aura, who once again proves he can tell when I'm a special).

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    SepahSepah Registered User regular
    Auralynx wrote: »
    Discrider newbie mafia 2013 :^:

    Own-horn toot: I did bring Noir home on my first go as mafia earlier this year, but had significant help!

    Discrider, you did a hell of a job but you do over-think a bit. Was very glad to have you around for this one.

    It is freaking hard to play support mafia if someone ( @schuss !) keeps randomly attacking you. Would've bailed inantp out immediately otherwise and I believe I saved him from the second attack-wave.

    Should I assume that was your Mudo that missed me, Sepah?

    Nah I was seering every night but last and night 9. That was 38th Doe on Night 5.

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    The AnonymousThe Anonymous Uh, uh, uhhhhhh... Uh, uh.Registered User regular
    edited November 2013
    I'm still sad about dying on day 1. I was gonna be the most annoying vanillager ever, throwing all my points into Ag and spamming Sukukaja for all it was worth. I even anticipated everyone going for Hama/Mudo skills and set up my resistances accordingly (Null Phys, Frail Fire, Frail Ice, Neutral Elec, Frail Force, Null Earth). I was ready for this game.

    And then DUE OHK'd me. :(

    The Anonymous on
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    SeGaTaiSeGaTai Registered User regular
    Who was the other guard by the way, pieced together that they must have died the day they guarded me.

    Fun game, big thanks to MrB. Had a stressful time following this wondering if there were disconnected factions in the village that would take out Sepah early based on the number of votes he was getting. THink any game where the seer makes it to the final 3 people is going to favor the village.

    I love the idea behind all the resistances and powers in the game, I think because there were so many I'm wondering how much they really had an effect or were just something fun for us to mess around assigning points into

    PSN SeGaTai
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    JPantsJPants Registered User regular
    That's gotta be my most frustrating death to date.

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    MillMill Registered User regular
    As far as I know INANTP was the only person to come to Saber day 1, who claimed to attack Spoit. Since narration gave the impression that no villagers were involved in Spoit's death, we figured that warranted trying to see what color INANTP would bleed.

    Anyways, Blarney, thanks for hosting this.

    Also I feel bad for suspected Mikey and monorail as being mafia; especially, since the hit squad was clean. In my defense some people weren't giving me info and it always looks bad to miss getting orders in (even if there are justifiable reasons). Mafia just seemed to be doing a good job whittling down the squad, without knowing who all was in it outside of me, saber and premium.

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    JaentherJaenther Registered User regular
    I guess you were right, Rawkking, if I'd guarded, I might've survived the all-elements attack.

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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Assuran wrote: »
    I'm used to being ignored, so I went for an insta kill build, which worked.

    Unfortunately, I handed myself over to INANTP because I thought there was no way he wasn't seered being as loud as he was about being silenced.

    I died for my stupidity, since I was mostly flying under the radar until then (well, other than to Aura, who once again proves he can tell when I'm a special).

    If you guys would stop killing me every time I come up village I'd devote a lot less effort to getting into your heads!

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    I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    Mill wrote: »
    As far as I know INANTP was the only person to come to Saber day 1, who claimed to attack Spoit. Since narration gave the impression that no villagers were involved in Spoit's death, we figured that warranted trying to see what color INANTP would bleed.

    Anyways, Blarney, thanks for hosting this.

    Also I feel bad for suspected Mikey and monorail as being mafia; especially, since the hit squad was clean. In my defense some people weren't giving me info and it always looks bad to miss getting orders in (even if there are justifiable reasons). Mafia just seemed to be doing a good job whittling down the squad, without knowing who all was in it outside of me, saber and premium.

    i am known for going "hey you know that guy that the narration said mafia killed that's all me"

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    ZellpherZellpher Registered User regular
    Thanks for the game Blarnfidekura!

    I liked throwing rocks at people.

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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Also I am feeling pretty good about those mafia-board dunalists now.

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