Patch 3.2.4 The Retributionist Reborn

[HAWAIIANpikachu]

Ironic. The Retributionist could revive others from death, but not themselves from their death by rework.

There we have the Starwars meme.

[OreCreeper]

It says 'your targets defense was too high' which isnt immune. Doctor gives defense, the rolecard has been that way since the keyword rework but it didnt act like it on the server side.

I know but this change makes it harder for evils to find allies (between hitting witch/NK for mafia) and impacts town less (only affects one town role + town will likely question why a "doc" was on a random player instead of the confirmed townies).

[TrollXDee]

It says 'your targets defense was too high' which isnt immune. Doctor gives defense, the rolecard has been that way since the keyword rework but it didnt act like it on the server side.

I know but this change makes it harder for evils to find allies (between hitting witch/NK for mafia) and impacts town less (only affects one town role + town will likely question why a "doc" was on a random player instead of the confirmed townies).

So? That's an NK buff and in 1/2 of ranked games their will be a vigilante excluding random town. So what's your point?

Also, due to the retri rework, Jailor will be less likely to reveal. Meaning, Docs can be on anyone. Especially from N1-4

[Brilliand]

Also, due to the retri rework, Jailor will be less likely to reveal.

Why is this? I didn't notice anything in this patch that would affect the Jailor meta.

[EmeraldCake]

It says 'your targets defense was too high' which isnt immune. Doctor gives defense, the rolecard has been that way since the keyword rework but it didnt act like it on the server side.

I know but this change makes it harder for evils to find allies (between hitting witch/NK for mafia) and impacts town less (only affects one town role + town will likely question why a "doc" was on a random player instead of the confirmed townies).

So? That's an NK buff and in 1/2 of ranked games their will be a vigilante excluding random town. So what's your point?

Also, due to the retri rework, Jailor will be less likely to reveal. Meaning, Docs can be on anyone. Especially from N1-4

That's not really an NK buff. That's a mafia/SK nerf, and a nerf to killing roles in general, which are majority evil. Jailor still comes out on D1, and if not, there will be a TP/LO request. There is no reason for a Doctor to heal the same person that a Vigilante shoots. And Vigilantes cannot shoot N1 anyway, further reinforcing that idea. It helps evils more than it helps town to tell if a person was healed/witch/an immune evil. Vigilantes are usually shooting quiet non-claimers or suspicious people, and there is no reason for a doc to be on either. The idea looks good on paper but practically it's not that good.

[mdb1023]

Came back just to say:

THANK YOU ret was so broken before!

Ok, that is all. Back to my hybernation.

[MysticMismagius]

In the patch notes:

• Game - Amnesiac has been reworked to allow remembering unique Town roles, now that a Ret can't revive a unique role at the same time, or after an Amnesiac remembers it.

In the game's code:

yes, this is the xml file from the update that got dropped today

Oopsie

[ZedKiller13]

Basically that just means the Amne role card was not updated to match its new ability.

Retributionist remains unique.

Note that the immunity description change is so attacking roles don’t immediately know their target was healed or protected, only the attacked person and the person protecting them knows. It nerfs the Vigilante, but I’m thinking it was specifically to give a night result for attacking roles in general, as previously attacking targets that were healed or protected wouldn’t produce a message for the attacker, only if the person being attacked actually had a form of permanent defense (or used a Vest in BG/Surv cases).

I don’t see it as much of a nerf considering anyone attacked and healed will still announce they were actually attacked and healed/protected anyway, I’d say it was simply to deliver a message to attackers instead of receiving nothing at night and having to figure it out yourself if they don’t announce it.

[MysticMismagius]

Basically that just means the Amne role card was not updated to match its new ability.

Retributionist remains unique.

Yes exactly
that is the point of my message, to display that they forgot to update the role card

[TrollXDee]

Also, due to the retri rework, Jailor will be less likely to reveal.

Why is this? I didn't notice anything in this patch that would affect the Jailor meta.

If jailor dies there are no second chances, so while the TP/LO meta continues, Jailors may want to stay hidden.

[Brilliand]

If jailor dies there are no second chances, so while the TP/LO meta continues, Jailors may want to stay hidden.

The TP/LO meta protects the Jailor. How does having no second chances imply going without protection?

[ZedKiller13]

The TP/LO meta only works if there’s actually a Lookout, and better with a Spy as well.

Either way, if there’s an Arsonist in-game, that protection means absolutely nothing and Town loses their Jailor Night Two.
If there’s a Werewolf, Werewolf most likely ends up dying but takes down all Lookouts, Spies, and TP on the Jailor, leaving them open to the Mafia.

Death is now permanent, and dying too early, especially as an important role such as Jailor, will be heavily costly to Town.

[Brilliand]

The TP/LO meta only works if there’s actually a Lookout, and better with a Spy as well.

The Jailor-protecting part only requires TPs.

[OreCreeper]

The TP/LO meta only works if there’s actually a Lookout, and better with a Spy as well.

Either way, if there’s an Arsonist in-game, that protection means absolutely nothing and Town loses their Jailor Night Two.
If there’s a Werewolf, Werewolf most likely ends up dying but takes down all Lookouts, Spies, and TP on the Jailor, leaving them open to the Mafia.

Death is now permanent, and dying too early, especially as an important role such as Jailor, will be heavily costly to Town.

Only the TP is required to protect the jailor. Also LOs usually dont go on jailor n2 in ranked, unless there are 4+ visits N1, and spies should never be on jailor N2, most not bugging on even nights in general unless NK is revealed as not WW.

[Freechancer]

Was gonna say spies generally should almost never bug jailor n2, even though I'm personally of the opinion that los should visit n2 too. I thought arso was the reason some cowards stopped claiming jailor d1, then people tell me lo should NOT see arso NOT visit n2, 'cause there might be a (suicidal) ww. Most of them are, it's the same thing as what most arsos used to do before the change, risking there not being any bgs, which is about 50% of the time. I remember the same townies who went along with a fairly obvious d2 mafia push and mislynch criticize me for dying to ww n2 and town coming close to losing majority (I think we actually had a spy on jailor n2 too, not sure). In another recent game, the arso stayed on jailor n3 because he knew there was a lo and wanted to not be busted, meanwhile a real tp wandered off where he pleased, and town actually hanged the arso (by virtue of "too many tps", he even pointed out an obvious maf with no claim; I think maf was pushing him, not because they thought he was arso, I reckon).
Having a spy is not nearly necessary, it's mainly to reveal when rm claims tp/spy/(consort claiming escort, though I hardly ever see that anymore) and it's doubtful how useful that is for the mafia. Mafioso, gf, nk (with the exception of arso) and ne can't normally visit jailor, but some of them are likely to risk claiming tp anyway.
It's not like nk always lives to d3. They often don't claim until asked to, and if you let mafia influence the votes it's not uncommon to hang nk (or ne) d2.
Jailor dying n2 isn't as great a tragedy as people make it out to be either. The big advantage is having a "confirmed" townie people can and should (and don't) claim to. Which is supposed to lead to hanging evil d2 and exeing evil n2. If there are any competent confirmed (ts, tk or lo) or trusted (sheriff or invest) townies alive, town can go on without a problem. Town only needs to keep their majority and hanging every day is more than enough for that, having a jailor just makes it easier. The only problem is if you let nk live too long and mafia is usually more then happy to vote nk up. If it was arso and they killed jailor n2, however, they can't kill n3 and they either kill just one townie again n4 and then being harmless for a day again, or they douse n4 and then you can hang them d5. The point is, arso is a slow killer and if they spent two nights killing jailor, you will have ample time to hang them.
My favorite was when lo took it upon himself to "arrange the tps" starting n2, meaning they asked the arso to douse the real tps (arso did not ignite n2, some prefer n3 or n4). I don't see why that should be allowed.
People generally fear for their lives more than they should and that goes for jailor too. "I'm not gonna claim at all OR even whisper jailor because maf might kill me. I'd rather be hanged/exed/shot by a vigilante and at that time I'm gonna flame town/jailor/vig for not KNOWING I was a townie." This is less common in ranked, but I just fail to see how jailor not revealing is supposed to help. Town does not need an alive jailor, town needs an informed and confirmed leader.
I would, I do and I will continue to take risking dying n2 to arso and having done something constructive d2 (provided townies claim and aren't sheeped by the mafia but follow jailor in the voting) and n2 over risking dying n1 to maf (admittedly less likely), staying "hidden" and waiting for a miracle that's something like someone claiming sheriff or invest and having come up with a "lead" and hoping it's not exe or mafia bussing, sure, it's a "1v1" either way and some people are happy with that, but THEN what? I will also keep hanging/exeing and reporting all the tps saying "jailor is never attacked n1, so I'm just gonna go do a good deed and save this jester here from maf" and "I don't meta".

Now, what I actually meant to write about is how, as of this patch, it seems one can no longer whisper at the end of the night, which was a nice feature if odd and definitely looking like a bug and will be dearly missed. And it really should have been mentioned in the patch notes even if as a bug-fix. I guess my problem is, if it has been deemed an exploit, that it has not been exploited enough. It could have resulted in a higher level of play. Unfortunately, we never got to "townies claim as soon as possible" leading to "evils have to figure out a claim before they even learn what exactly happened during the night". What we are at is "claim if you absolutely have to, like on the stand, and make sure you act appropriately bewildered and offended and your maf buddies (if any) who have not claimed either scream INNO a couple of times; otherwise if anyone dares question your role, you are to claim 'exe much?'" Mafia just relies on their informed minority and town not doing anything other than waiting to be killed and the occasional mislynch with the help of the obedient herd of sheep every town has. Imaginative and coordinated plays are few and far between. Even bussing is pretty rare. I have seen a double med claim ONCE. One thing that does infuriate me every damn time it succeeds is a fake trans claim. Let's be real, that's not something anyone is supposed to get away with in the long run (after 2-3 nights). Right now the winrate of town is limited only by the stupidity of the people playing this game, while evil roles could definitely be played better, if the players improved, town's winrate would be higher still. And it seems to me that the average player does not get much better at all or the game doesn't keep any players and we have newbies all the time. The ret change will certainly hurt town and hopefully get people to improve at playing town (and evil roles) even though it remains a unique role that is somewhat easy to confirm.

I will take this opportunity to suggest you fix vigilante being the only role now that is confirmable as not tt, as it is near the same level of bullshit the old ret was, even though very few people have caught on to this (or they just think it's not important in which case they better not have complained about ret). (Unless I'm wrong about tt vig not being able to shoot members of the mafia as I'm not certain.)

[Brilliand]

vigilante being the only role now that is confirmable as not tt

What, you mean by it dying of guilt? Every role can be confirmed as not TT by killing it and then checking the graveyard.

[BasicFourLife]

wtf actual balance changes

im in disbelief, what is going on?

[Freechancer]

vigilante being the only role now that is confirmable as not tt

What, you mean by it dying of guilt? Every role can be confirmed as not TT by killing it and then checking the graveyard.

No, I mean by shooting maf, which is something tt vig can't do.

wtf actual balance changes

im in disbelief, what is going on?

They finally finished porting to Unity.

[Freechancer]

I have remembered a couple more things I wanted to mention.

The countdown in tt mode incentivizes leaving. With your policy of not punishing almost any of that it happens at least every 4th game mafia decides they are not going to get majority. If it gets even more common, it's only a matter of time before townies start leaving too. Your first option is to start punishing leaving the game but it would probably be better to (also) remove the countdown. That would give tt more reason to lie/use their night ability for the benefit of the mafia/vote with maf (I'll admit the average player probably does not look at the votes at all, but that's just sad; hell, did you think of making votes anonymous?) as they could only win "the majority way". As it is maf only wins with majority if town is very bad and/or some townies leave, otherwise tt is best not giving any sign whatsoever of being with maf with the added luck of jailor having left, somehow died or having exed a townie or otherwise coming under suspicion, town having no ret(formerly) or vet and no somewhat trusted townie ever voting them because the way hanging goes during the countdown is very much like in ranbow (as there isn't much to go on). This also means witch hardly ever wins, their best chance is if tt is jailor or mayor. It has been said the idea behind this mode is town having to employ scumreading to identify the traitor but tt's best strategy is to be perfectly normal. Certainly, tt does sometime more or less obviously side with mafia (mostly voting) but that's a bad attempt and if town falls for it that's just worse. If town is any good evil roles are discovered by d5 the latest.
Some seem to believe jailor not being able to jail the same person twice in a row would solve this problem. If there is an escort, it comes down to the same thing. If there isn't, jailor can still halve the kills and at that point town is probably more concerned with not letting last maf suicide to bg or vet and thus start the countdown than another townie dead. Granted, mafia threatening to kill jailor might be a problem if the tp(s) is/are bgs, if that actually becomes a problem town can just learn to not stomp maf so hard and balance hanging maf with hanging people they believe are a town role but have reason to suspect might be tt. For those of you who believe keeping the mafia killing role jailed is such a big problem, sure, not being able to kill sucks, but try NOT killing when you are NOT jailed starting somewhere n3-n4 (with one (or both) of the mafia killing roles already dead obviously). Watch people jump to conclusions. It can even work if rm/witch/tt is kept being jailed.
I suggest removing the countdown and swapping a town role (doc or ts perhaps) for ne to turn it into a 9v6 like ranked, with maf killing at most 1 during the night that should be quite alright (town wouldn't have to hang quite so many townies either).The way it is, maf gets destroyed early on and if tt is not jailor or mayor it's an automatic victory for town (or it should be, but some people just like hanging jailor for no reason other than "if he is tt he can exe town and win").

Let me comment on the generalized attack message change. The only mode it might help evils in is all any. Mostly because tps protecting some random guy aren't immediately suspected (this made me remember an all any game where 2 amnes remembered vh and 3 bgs killed 3 vhs, that hurt) and mafia, vamps and even sks occasionally claim vig (and shooting someone). In ranked the doc would be immediately ordered to claim. Nk can only really rely on opportunistic ne and possibly maf but that would be odd. Experienced players will recognize maf backing each other up. It might help if the doc is rm who visited jailor n1 (spy and obviously, lo are a factor here) but tps really should just stay on jailor so you will remain suspected. Not to mention gf needs to have a really good claim to not be immediately hanged. The worst part is probably that you confirm the vigilante, meaning a confirmed townie suspected you. You are probably better off denying having been shot, this could fly if you both claimed tk the day before and you were told to shoot each other (you would then claim vet, obviously, or possibly rbd if there are no spies), you will still be hanged/exed but there is reasonable hope they hang the vig first. Or if ne is not known and there are other tk claims (you or someone else, doesn't matter) provided vig is not trusted any more than you are. It will, however hurt mafia to not be able to tell the difference between witch and nk, nk and a healed townie. They are supposed to attack a confirmed townie, so you could argue they screwed up, but still. Overall, this change does not help evils, certainly not in ranked anyway.

An interesting side-effect of the double targeting ui improvement is that witch and cl can no longer control someone to target themselves. It may or may not have been intentional and it's dubious if that is ever more desirable then sending them to someone else but I feel like there might be such a situation in coven at least. Okay, here it is, it's down to cl and vig n2. Not very convincing, I know. Or witch without their barrier and vig at any time. Little bit better.

One final mad suggestion. Remove abstaining from the game. Have a default option for not choosing (I think I'd go with guilty). Encourage people to have an opinion and take responsibility for it. Some people think it's okay to abstain on a townie and if they are hung it's not their fault. It's not okay and it is their fault.

fun fact:
There always has been a situation where leaving the game could help you win, just not the status quo it is in tt now. Can you think of it?
(If it has been discussed before then never mind me.)

[Brilliand]

I suggest removing the countdown and swapping a town role (doc or ts perhaps) for ne to turn it into a 9v6 like ranked,

Please read this thread: Lone Town Traitor needs to be able to kill

That's where the decision to create the countdown was made in the first place. If you want to remove the countdown, you need to address the problem considered in that thread somehow.

[Freechancer]

So you thought of the countdown. I'm a bit disappointed you have nothing to say about all the rest of what I've posted.

I think you'll agree the countdown encouraging leaving is not healthy for the game. You said as much in your last post on that thread. The idea to let tt kill is flawed and that's why I suggest abandoning the notion to let tt win on their own entirely and instead motivating them to actively help mafia and make it more realistic by tweaking the numbers and turning it into a 9v6. If that's not enough then surely, either removing jailor from the list or making it an 8v7 would do it.
The reason tt being able to kill can't work. As MysticMismagius said, you have two options:
a) Tt's attack can be seen, tracked, rbd, protected from in which case they are soon busted unless town happens to be full of sheriffs, spies, invests. This is essentially very close to tt simply turning into mafioso. And tt winning a 5v1 or worse is not very promising.
b) Tt's attack is unstoppable, unblockable, untransable, astral and untrackable. I guess you could make it into a basic or powerful attack but that too can cause problems if there is a doc or crusader. Removing anything else makes tt's success depend on what town roles are left, most notably lo and trans. You could make it so they have to choose between using their night ability and killing but then that would suck for escort, trans, lo, tracker and to a lesser extent, ret if they claimed their actual role, sure, that's not that big a gamble but it also increases the chance of them getting hanged early. Any such roles in the game can also confirm themselves by using their night ability the night tt kills. Regardless of what tt is, lo screws them up hard, and possibly tracker. So, again, tt winning or not depends entirely on town's composition. Or you could make it the ultimate attack that's completely independent of what tt is, does and what happens to them. Which then wouldn't be fair to town at all and simply turn it into a game of chance.
The difference between having a countdown or tt being able to kill is who chooses who dies. Just the town, or town and traitor too. The problem should not be (and should not have been) no one dying at all. It has come to be exactly as you feared (as we all know): mafia killing getting chainjailed. Not much different than how it used to be (though I did not play on the ptr myself). With the exception that mafia started leaving. The idea is to let tt kill those he thinks are less likely to be hanged that is who are trusted for some obscure reason or another. Now that ret has been reworked the only role that can actually be confirmed is the vigilante (if true, I had yet more people say tt vig can shoot maf and others say they can't, it would be nice to get a definite answer for this) but is not common knowledge. The next level of "confirmed" would be getting attacked by maf (if they can't have expected you to be protected, which is basically anyone but jailor; or maf could have taken a huge gamble attacking tt, in which case they deserve to win) and being pushed by maf (maf almost never votes tt but I can see this be a play, I tried it once, you could say it backfired but in the end town hanged tt because they trusted each other more for whatever reason, not even because two mafia innoed them and they basically just forgot all about me pushing them hard). These aren't rare, but don't happen in every game either. Awareness of tps' usefulness in confirming townies and the importance of keeping them alive could rise and the answer from the mafia would have to be to stop trying to kill anyone altogether. Not good. All the other kinds of "confirmed" are regularly utilized by maf to "confirm" tt and ultimately don't mean anything: "finding" maf, pushing a non-claimer (maf), healing mafia's target (this does not confirm you while it does confirm them but is still used sometimes), being visited by rm, roleblocking only mafia killing, claiming early, vet killing mafia, self-healing, not to mention exeing mafia. Jailor in particular isn't as inherently confirmed as you depict. I imagine most people were thrilled to be able to exe 3 townies but time went on and they realized they don't have to be bloody obvious. If jailor does not claim d1, the possibility of jailor tt is brought up. If they claimed, the moment they exe a townie, it's all but certain they are lynched (even though in my experience it's about 50-50 they are the traitor). In those games I've played where jailor tt won they usually exed 1 maf then a townie when they had the chance to reach plurality (works with last maf in fact being jailed and town hunting for tt, why wouldn't it). If town is good enough, neither obvious jailor tt that claims nor one that is "hiding" can win. A "proper" jailor tt lost only if there was a ret. Jailor is not so much confirmed as trusted so long as they don't exe a townie and exe/hang maf. Jailor is hanged only if they have done something suspicious (exed a townie or claimed late) or you have 2 townies you trust more (a tall order without ret). And the reason is (or should be) they are easily confirmed (as a town role) and they can 1v1 the traitor. Which means a good jailor tt wins 99% of the time and that's probably fine.

I see two outs to this: either make sure the Traitor has some motive about who to kill, so that the choice of kills can give hints as to who is doing the choosing; or make the Traitor's killing power so limited that they still have to rely heavily on causing mislynches (so the Town has a shot at seeing who is actively directing lynches to the wrong targets).

So much about how confirmed townies can be in tt. But let's say some do get "confirmed". Giving tt the ability to kill them for sure just turns this even more into a coin-flip than it already is. You said tt's choice of who to kill could give a hint as to who they are. This implies their killing is somehow detectable/preventable. In a weird and complicated manner? Otherwise they would just prioritize killing jailor, escort, lo, tracker, trans, whoever, no matter what role they are. As for your other suggestion. Certainly, there is a bit of a case of "vote first to not be lynched", but good luck to you trying to infer the tt's identity from the trials looking for tt. This can only really work if there are few townies alive yet last maf is still there for some reason (4-6 people) so there is hope of gaining plurality/majority and tt is stupid enough to vote with the by now "confirmed" mafioso/gf. It's certainly not required that tt "actively direct lynches to the wrong targets". And how often tt can kill should not matter at all. Town should still lynch every day. If you meant it in the context of tt's kill being detectable then tt having to rely on causing mislynches just shows how much they are in a bind, they are just a slightly better mafioso and I don't think that can ever end well for them.

Changing the countdown to your original idea would solve town avoiding killing mafia (and consequently leaving). So town has done well and it's a 5v1. Good job, guys, now you have a 50% chance to win. That's literally a flip of the coin. You'd prefer that? As it is now, mafia needs one of the following to win: jailor tt, mayor tt (the smart kind that does not claim mayor or at least does not reveal if jailor is stupid enough to let a mayor live long), town is horrible or some miracle happens. So they have decided they wanna improve their chances and leave. They usually do it d3-d4 and if there are enough townies alive that results in a 40% chance to win reduced to 10% if there is a vet. If they all left d1 (including witch) which is not happening (yet) tt has an 80% chance to win reduced to 10% if there is a vet. That's grossly unfair and unengaging and basically comes down to: is tt the jailor?, is tt a mayor?, is there a vet? and how good is your rng?
That's why the countdown can't stay. Many seemed to like the idea of giving tt the ability to kill. Turn them into a mafioso or otherwise let them be detectable and they won't last long. Give them the ultimate weapon and they will win every other game at least, they only need to make it into the final three after all with town literally having no clue who they are.

The problem is that while the idea is that traitor needs to be scumread, there currently is no reason whatsoever they should act scummy in the least. They often do, and everyone is free to enjoy those games but when they don't and last maf leaves it's pure rng. The possibility of gaining majority is supposed to be the motivation but that's so unrealistic good players give up on that from the start and act like a proper townie.

So my solution is to make gaining majority more of a possibility. Tt could turn into mafioso and probably have just a slightly better chance to win solo than some rm (which is still close to zero) but the countdown has to go.

About jailor not being able to jail the same person twice in a row. Why not take it a step further and make it so jailor can't jail anyone twice. That would reinforce the real purpose of jailing someone which is to kill them (while preventing them from killing at the same time) because you have decided they are likely evil. Or you conclude they are some stupid townie who thinks they can waste your time "because they are mayor or ret(mostly formerly)" in which case you don't want to jail them again either. It would also emphasize the importance of lynching, particularly if jailor was prevented from exeing.

[Brilliand]

So you thought of the countdown. I'm a bit disappointed you have nothing to say about all the rest of what I've posted.

Apologies; wall of text, hard to read. I actually didn't read all of it.

I think you'll agree the countdown encouraging leaving is not healthy for the game. You said as much in your last post on that thread.

Correct.

The idea to let tt kill is flawed and that's why I suggest abandoning the notion to let tt win on their own entirely and instead motivating them to actively help mafia and make it more realistic by tweaking the numbers and turning it into a 9v6. If that's not enough then surely, either removing jailor from the list or making it an 8v7 would do it.

Well, the idea of the TT is that the Town has to scumread to find them. If the Town wins by lynching all the regular evil roles and leaving the Traitor alive, then Town Traitor just becomes Process of Elimination. That's not good either.

Changing the countdown to your original idea would solve town avoiding killing mafia (and consequently leaving). So town has done well and it's a 5v1. Good job, guys, now you have a 50% chance to win. That's literally a flip of the coin. You'd prefer that?

If there's any sort of killing role alive at that point, then the traitor's theoretical odds are 33%, not 50%. And I think that's OK - good enough that taking that chance won't be the dominant strategy for evils.

As you just acknowledged, this mostly solves the "suicidal" aspect of the gamemode ("mostly" because townies still might need to nightkill one of their own to reduce the number of players to 5). Starting the countdown at 5 players remaining would remove the "suicidal" aspect altogether, and put more pressure on the TT to keep the Mafia alive that long.

The problem is that while the idea is that traitor needs to be scumread, there currently is no reason whatsoever they should act scummy in the least. They often do, and everyone is free to enjoy those games but when they don't and last maf leaves it's pure rng. The possibility of gaining majority is supposed to be the motivation but that's so unrealistic good players give up on that from the start and act like a proper townie.

No, they do have a motivation to act scummy. In the 5v1 you mentioned, the Traitor has a different motive than the other 5 townies: he, personally, needs to survive. The townies in the 5v1 ending don't need to personally survive, they just need the Traitor to join them in death. That difference is detectable, depending on player skill.

The countdown comes down on the "rely heavily on mislynches" side of my dichotomy.

So my solution is to make gaining majority more of a possibility.

I'm not sure whether this is needed or not, but either way it doesn't replace the countdown.

[Freechancer]

Above all, I like figuring out who is evil, I like winning with town. So I am biased. I like PoE, I like that a good town can win every game. I think it's fine that evils need coordination, taking risks and a bit of luck to win. It still sometimes happens in ranked that a trusted townie needs to choose last evil between 2-3 people but rarely and the suspicious townie(s) probably did something wrong. It's much more common that town wins with 3+ people left and with a good idea who the evils are at the end of the game. Or mafia wins with 2 or more members remaining. Or town loses majority and gives nk the win. So I dislike the idea that tt can perfectly blend in and turn it into a guessing game. I can probably come to terms with that 33% chance for tt you described when they don't do anything to stick out which should be close to the current games that end with looking for tt and have no vet. The thing is, the more townies town lynches (if they don't let maf influence it) the better chance they have at hanging tt so they are encouraged to smoke maf out asap. Or they would be if last maf didn't just leave and start the countdown at 7+ people. It's those games that I really can't stand and why I complained about the countdown.

As you just acknowledged, this mostly solves the "suicidal" aspect of the gamemode ("mostly" because townies still might need to nightkill one of their own to reduce the number of players to 5). Starting the countdown at 5 players remaining would remove the "suicidal" aspect altogether, and put more pressure on the TT to keep the Mafia alive that long.

That's assuming 5 and 6 townies die by that point, respectively. With mafia having no reason to leave it will be less common but still bound to happen that town hangs tt suspects before the countdown (after maf and witch are already dead).

No, they do have a motivation to act scummy. In the 5v1 you mentioned, the Traitor has a different motive than the other 5 townies: he, personally, needs to survive. The townies in the 5v1 ending don't need to personally survive, they just need the Traitor to join them in death. That difference is detectable, depending on player skill.

I don't think this makes any sense. What you are saying is, if tt is confident he can influence town he will suggest hanging 3 other people. If he miscalculated, he will be suspected for it. Or he can just take his 33% chance? If there is no clue who tt is whatsoever, all anyone knows is it's not them. So it makes sense they would want to survive. A townie is cool with dying only if they believe they know who tt is or there are 2 guys they trust more than the rest. Then they can say "hang me then..." Tt could take a gamble and say such a thing, however. A real townie won't actually insist they be hanged either. People are lynched for the smallest mistakes and weirdest reasons (and it does not have to be the tt who brings them up) so a good tt can about guarantee making it into the last 4.

So my solution is to make gaining majority more of a possibility.

I'm not sure whether this is needed or not, but either way it doesn't replace the countdown.

The difference is that you think tt has enough reasons to act scummy as it is, I think they don't. I'd be totally cool with tt turning into a mafioso if countdown were to be removed only I figured it would be so hopeless for maf it wouldn't make a difference. So long as the kill is detectable and preventable. And if it's not that's unfair for town. A possible middle-ground could be they get to keep their night ability, the attack can be performed even from the jail, can't be seen but can be healed and bg kills them. Tt having to kill (almost) all the rest of town instead of surviving for 3 days would solve the problem of leaving. So my suggestion fixes my biggest concern with the side-effect of making a tt win less likely and a mafia win more likely (partly to compensate and partly to motivate tt to show their true colors).

That said your idea of the countdown is perfectly fine and would retain roughly the same ratio of town vs tt vs mafia wins minus those games where maf leaves that annoy me so.

[BasicFourLife]

vigilante being the only role now that is confirmable as not tt

What, you mean by it dying of guilt? Every role can be confirmed as not TT by killing it and then checking the graveyard.

No, I mean by shooting maf, which is something tt vig can't do.

wtf actual balance changes

im in disbelief, what is going on?

They finally finished porting to Unity.

sig

[BasicFourLife]

vigilante being the only role now that is confirmable as not tt

What, you mean by it dying of guilt? Every role can be confirmed as not TT by killing it and then checking the graveyard.

No, I mean by shooting maf, which is something tt vig can't do.

wtf actual balance changes

im in disbelief, what is going on?

They finally finished porting to Unity.

sig

he's literally right tho and you are possibly the most pathetic loser of this forums. Grats on beating out "proportional winrate" for the prize.

???