[Saboteur] 7 players game

[pejsek2]

I strongly agree with Kevin, 2 v 5 games are boring and mightily disadvantage the unlucky ones who draw saboteur role card.

Alternative solution is to change the rewards in 2 v 5 rounds

[auuron]

I would suggest the game authors to add a small variant, when you have 7 players and more.

For instance, the rule for 7 players would then be :

4 diggers & 3 saboteurs
or
5 diggers & 2 saboteurs
or
4 diggers & 2 saboteurs & 1 selfish

The same idea would also apply for more players.


Following this idea : random selfish would add some suspense and suspiciousness.
If admins can read this and eventually add a new variant, this would be great !

Regards,
Y.

That sounds nice.


Returning to the topic, i think 2vs5 or 3vs4 can be good, if players don't play very good... If we have good players, 2 vs 5 is almost sure disaster for sabs, they can win only with VERY EXTREMLY ENORMOUS (:D) good cards.

[nxou]

Once again a "very rare" game with 2 set of 2v5 sabs.
http://fr.boardgamearena.com/#!table?table=5780266

really if that was RARISSIME I wouldnt complain but it is not. And games are made for fun, not for random jackpot.

[Yorgad]

HAHAHA beat it !

This one was a game with three times 2vs5:
http://fr.1.boardgamearena.com/saboteur?table=5819258
And guess who was sab all the time?

Yes I confirm, nowadays the 2vs5 occurrence is higher than usual. But this is the beauty of statistics.

Gruuumph,
Y.

[drflops]

Personally, I do not think 2 sab games should be eliminated. But I do think it would be nice if BGA lowered the ratio of 2:3 sab games so that 2 sab games occurred less frequently. It is rather annoying when you play 3 rounds in a row of 2 sab games, especially if you're the sab every time!

[Yorgad]

Hi again, according to the rules, the odds to have 2 saboteurs versus 5 diggers in a 7 players game is 3/8 that is to say 37.5%
Indeed 5 digger role cards and 3 saboteur role cards are shared among 7 players.

This implies that statistically there should be one "2vs5" round per game (= three rounds).

I think most of regular Saboteur players would agree that 2vs5 is really unbalanced. From my experience (over than 2000 rounds), in a 2vs5 situation, the saboteurs win when the following happens :
- a digger is thought to be saboteur and is broken by his fellows (generally due to a bad move and/or mistakes) : not likely to happen with experienced players
- saboteurs have over-powered hand (actions cards and all the rockfalls cards) : not likely to happen and it is all about random
- sometimes bad coordination among diggers : not likely to happen with experienced players
- awesome psychology to confuse players : very not likely to happen due to the fact it is an online game

In my opinion, the ratio of 2vs5 should be lowered: e.g. less than 20% (statistically once every 5 rounds).
In consequence, you can increase suspiciousness of diggers : they are more likely to think there could be a third saboteur, and preventively break an innocent digger.

In addition, i agree saboteurs players should be rewarded 4 golds instead of 3, at least to compensate the unbalance.

And last but not least, you could implement the variant I suggested in my previous post :
- 2 saboteur & 5 diggers or 2 saboteurs & 1 selfish & 4 diggers or 3 saboteurs & 4 diggers


Thanks for reading me,
Y.

[EDIT]
PS: As far as I remember, over approximatively 600 rounds with 2vs5, sabs did not win more than 15 times, that is to say less than 3%. That is very far from 50% (= balanced).

[dreams11]

Hi again, according to the rules, the odds to have 2 saboteurs versus 5 diggers in a 7 players game is 3/8 that is to say 37.5%
Indeed 5 digger role cards and 3 saboteur role cards are shared among 7 players.

This implies that statistically there should be one "2vs5" round per game (= three rounds).

I think most of regular Saboteur players would agree that 2vs5 is really unbalanced. From my experience (over than 2000 rounds), in a 2vs5 situation, the saboteurs win when the following happens :
- a digger is thought to be saboteur and is broken by his fellows (generally due to a bad move and/or mistakes) : not likely to happen with experienced players
- saboteurs have over-powered hand (actions cards and all the rockfalls cards) : not likely to happen and it is all about random
- sometimes bad coordination among diggers : not likely to happen with experienced players
- awesome psychology to confuse players : very not likely to happen due to the fact it is an online game

In my opinion, the ratio of 2vs5 should be lowered: e.g. less than 20% (statistically once every 5 rounds).
In consequence, you can increase suspiciousness of diggers : they are more likely to think there could be a third saboteur, and preventively break an innocent digger.

In addition, i agree saboteurs players should be rewarded 4 golds instead of 3, at least to compensate the unbalance.

And last but not least, you could implement the variant I suggested in my previous post :
- 2 saboteur & 5 diggers or 2 saboteurs & 1 selfish & 4 diggers or 3 saboteurs & 4 diggers


Thanks for reading me,
Y.

[EDIT]
PS: As far as I remember, over approximatively 600 rounds with 2vs5, sabs did not win more than 15 times, that is to say less than 3%. That is very far from 50% (= balanced).

I agree with this 100% with the exception that there should be a variant where you could choose to set the sab/digger option as I think that would lead to abuse. Between 15-20% 2 sabs would work very well with an additional emphasis on the randomization of the sabs as I think there may be a bug in this aspect of the game. (ie the same people tend to be made sabs in subsequent rounds of the same game.)

[Een]

Hi guys,

To sum up on this thread (and also this one http://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewtop ... f=9&t=3702 and this one http://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewtop ... f=9&t=1318)

Variants implemented on BGA are the designer's choice:
- Official gameplay variants (direct link)
- Gold sharing variants proposed by the designer but which didn't get included by the publisher (new mine and old mine, described in the rules summary on the game page).

Also, in the designer's opinion, the best way to fix the imbalance existing with a specific number of players is to use the "selfish dwarf" variant (which was created for this).

I took a look at the statistics, and these variants are in fact rarely used:
- Old mine: 1% of games
- New mine: 3% of games
- Competitive: 1% of games
- Selfish dwarf: 7% of games.

This feels strange, as all of these variants go in the sense of this thread of rebalancing the game towards saboteurs:
- Old mine & new mine give less gold to diggers when they win, which is about the same as giving more gold to the saboteurs when they win;
- Competitive & Selfish dwarf creates more competition between the diggers which makes the saboteurs more likely to win.

@Yorgad: when selecting the selfish variant, you can get "1 selfish & 3 sabs & 3 diggers" (probability 4/8) or "1 selfish & 2 sabs & 4 diggers" (probability 3/8) or "3 sabs & 5 diggers" (probability 1/8). This is pretty close to your proposal.

So my advice would be to test thoroughly for example "New mine + Competitive" and "Old Mine + Selfish dwarf" as a means to balance your games against the "2 sabs & 5 diggers" configuration to your taste.
Tell us how it goes!

Cheers,
Een

[THU6]

In my opinion, the ratio of 2vs5 should be lowered: e.g. less than 20% (statistically once every 5 rounds).
In consequence, you can increase suspiciousness of diggers : they are more likely to think there could be a third saboteur, and preventively break an innocent digger.

but u must remember its still better to break innocent digger then waiting for DE 2v4 its stille better option...

@Een: but its look like selfish is in 100% games... not 7/8

[Een]

but its look like selfish is in 100% games... not 7/8

I don't understand, what do you mean exactly?