Spy Nerf

[Villagerlover]

The mafia is still suffering from having the spy act as a direct counter to their random mafia roles in ranked games. I think Spies should avoid having their mafia visits spoonfed to them every night, and I found a way for them to earn their results just like anyone else. So how about this...

Changes to the Spy:
1) Remove the direct information automatically given to the spy every night.
2) When the spy visits someone at night, not only are they bugging their house, but they will be able to know if the person they choose to visit has ever been visited by a member of the mafia throughout the course of the game.

For example:
William hobbs gets visited by a disguiser on night 1.
A spy visits William hobbs night 3, and receives the message "Your target has been visited by a member of the mafia!"


Sure, it's not a proper fix to an entirely flawed concept, but now it forces the Spy to actually earn their findings instead of receiving the information for freeeeee......

Thoughts?

[Mikemk]

So, instead of spying, the spy now magically knows anything that's ever happened.

[Villagerlover]

So, instead of spying, the spy now magically knows anything that's ever happened.

Yeah.
Maybe the spy can spy around the house they investigate, and find evidence of previous mafia presence or something. It doesn't have to be "magical". And even if it was magical, it's lore. Lore shouldn't be determinant in making a role better for the sake of gameplay. Did you even bother reading any of the rest of the post? What are your thoughts on the actual idea?

No papa

UwU Yes son. Shhhh

[zzjay]

Cool idea...but i think it'd be pretty useless,as information.

How about the spy only gets if this person was visited by a member of the mafia ,THAT particular night they bugged them?

I know it's a huge nerf,but as it is right now,spy is useless in low elo (ie: ranked practice,dead Spy reaults+ LO found out who the random mafia was,but tye medium wasn't able to combine the results xD),but OP in high elo.

So i think it's the sbility in itself that is what is wrong.
Yet still only the bugs,it'll just be a situational TI,with no real impact on the game,except when 2 vigilantes are told to shoot each other.

So spy borders on useless TI ,if nerfed,but OP if left like it is.

[Villagerlover]

Cool idea...but i think it'd be pretty useless,as information.

How about the spy only gets if this person was visited by a member of the mafia ,THAT particular night they bugged them?

I know it's a huge nerf,but as it is right now,spy is useless in low elo (ie: ranked practice,dead Spy reaults+ LO found out who the random mafia was,but tye medium wasn't able to combine the results xD),but OP in high elo.

So i think it's the sbility in itself that is what is wrong.
Yet still only the bugs,it'll just be a situational TI,with no real impact on the game,except when 2 vigilantes are told to shoot each other.

So spy borders on useless TI ,if nerfed,but OP if left like it is.

I disagree and agree with you at the same time tbh.

I disagree on the part about making it to where it's only by the exact night because that's gonna be a rare occurrence. It's not gonna be as useful if you see a member of the mafia visit someone that particular night because that particular night, it's highly likely the mafia is gonna kill that person.
But if we made it to where the Mafia always leave a detectable mark on whoever they visit for the rest of the game, then it opens up more opportunity for evil roles to claim spy, and doesn't make it difficult to claim when there's more than 1 spy because from now on, not every spy would have the exact same results.

But yeah I do agree with the part about the spy's concept itself being flawed cause it's a hard counter that is solely a hard counter and not really that much useful outside of that field. But I do believe implementing this suggestion would be a good way to give spies a goal to work for instead of get spoonfed.

[xTiffanyyx]

i've really wanted to see a nerf to spy for a long time, but then you've got people who still think the old spy nerf made it useless. anyway, the ability spy makes it so hard for mafia members to mislead town. get a good spy in ranked and RM is screwed.

i like the idea of removing free information. it hardly takes skill to play the current spy, all players have to do is bug the jailor and make a list of all visits. mafia claiming spy would definitely test town's ability to see through deception, as now mafia members can claim that their teammates were visited without the interference of spies.

i think this would still make spy op. i saw another reply saying that spy should only be able to see the visits of the night they "spy" on them, but a spy and mafia member visiting the same person on the same night is very unlikely. maybe make them able to see visits from the past 1-2 days? mafia would not stand a chance late game with a spy alive.

also, shouldn't this be in role ideas?

[Villagerlover]

i've really wanted to see a nerf to spy for a long time, but then you've got people who still think the old spy nerf made it useless. anyway, the ability spy makes it so hard for mafia members to mislead town. get a good spy in ranked and RM is screwed.

i like the idea of removing free information. it hardly takes skill to play the current spy, all players have to do is bug the jailor and make a list of all visits. mafia claiming spy would definitely test town's ability to see through deception, as now mafia members can claim that their teammates were visited without the interference of spies.

i think this would still make spy op. i saw another reply saying that spy should only be able to see the visits of the night they "spy" on them, but a spy and mafia member visiting the same person on the same night is very unlikely. maybe make them able to see visits from the past 1-2 days? mafia would not stand a chance late game with a spy alive.

also, shouldn't this be in role ideas?

Hmm, a cap on the days themselves seems worthy. Maybe it could last 2 days in advance? Keep in mind that hypothetically, it would be a lot easier to fake claim spy as any evil role besides the mafia itself. It would be easy for anyone to say "Person X was visited by mafia!" while a real spy says "Well the mafia also visited Person Y...hmmm"

I just don't think a role which decreases the incentive for Mafia to visit is mechanically sound

The same applies here, just to a lesser extent than the current Spy

Do you agree then that this idea could be a little bit better?
Just seems like the Spy has been dying for a rework forever now and I feel this suggestion could serve as a good placeholder until something completely new happens.

[Atalanta8]

The mafia is still suffering from having the spy act as a direct counter to their random mafia roles in ranked games. I think Spies should avoid having their mafia visits spoonfed to them every night, and I found a way for them to earn their results just like anyone else. So how about this...

Changes to the Spy:
1) Remove the direct information automatically given to the spy every night.
2) When the spy visits someone at night, not only are they bugging their house, but they will be able to know if the person they choose to visit has ever been visited by a member of the mafia throughout the course of the game.

For example:
William hobbs gets visited by a disguiser on night 1.
A spy visits William hobbs night 3, and receives the message "Your target has been visited by a member of the mafia!"


Sure, it's not a proper fix to an entirely flawed concept, but now it forces the Spy to actually earn their findings instead of receiving the information for freeeeee......

Thoughts?

I agree spy is OP. It kills RM functions. I like this idea.

[Villagerlover]

Removal > Rework > This > Current

Remove Removal and it's good to go

[Mikemk]

I would support the following changes:
1) Bugs are persistent. The entire game, you know everything that happens to the person.
2) You only get 3 bugs.
3) If mafia visits the person AFTER being bugged, you'll know, but not visits from before they were bugged, because spy isn't a magic role.

[Villagerlover]

Removal > Rework > This > Current

Remove Removal and it's good to go

No papa

Yes.
BMG has already stated they won't be removing roles. It's not something to consider anymore

[MoustachioMario]

I would support the following changes:
1) Bugs are persistent. The entire game, you know everything that happens to the person.
2) You only get 3 bugs.
3) If mafia visits the person AFTER being bugged, you'll know, but not visits from before they were bugged, because spy isn't a magic role.

Changes to this:

You get infinite bugs, but can only keep 3 active at a time
If a member of the mafia visits a bugged person, the spy will see: "One of your bugged targets was visited by a member of the mafia!"

Your bugs happen before any night actions. (Not vet or ww immune)

[Mikemk]

Your bugs happen before any night actions. (Not vet or ww immune)

That's a pretty bad idea, + that would make it control immune

[MoustachioMario]

Your bugs happen before any night actions. (Not vet or ww immune)

That's a pretty bad idea, + that would make it control immune

Witch
Escort
Trans
Consort
Vet
Werewolf

roles like that go first

[Mikemk]

Exactly

[zzjay]

You must not forget that spy is a town investigative.

It cannot have vague informations, or only limited/situation info ( like one of your 3 targets was visited by mafia,roleblocked...)

It also is better when easily fakeable.

The bugs imo are a good ability on its own.
Add to the bug if the person is visited by mafia or not.

Tye spy will then be able to find immunes if they bug them,which is a good information for town.

[generalgratitude]

Usually player-called balance tweaks arent worth shit, because even though a role dominates the playground, changing that role up might not actually invoke the effect we desire.

It is obvious so far that a single spy in the game can force the mafia to Play a lot more conservatively.

How so?


1. The spy sees whoever was visited by the mafia; also, the mafia cannot visit itself -> Players who are visited are (if no one was tranported) guaranteed to not be mafia. Given some time, and some dead People, the spy will be able to make out a couple of suspects, especially when considering that the spy is not the only Player Routing for town. Only moving the Mafioso at night thus will reduce the certainty amongst town members given a dead spys will, making the conservative playstyle more viable among mafia.

2. The spy has the ability to bug a Player at night, giving him opportunity to observe and thereby confirm / deconfirm (some) claims that are made during the day. This Forces unconfirmed Players into the foreground, as the amount of confirmed Player is proportional to the amount of distrust Players have towards unconfirmed Players. This Acts like a downgraded Version of the lookout ability.

3. Because of Points 1.) and 2.), mafia are bent on removing spy Players if they can. however, removing said spy Players results in their will being posted, or potentially a bg kill, which is likely going to cost the mafia alot. faking spy, which is sometimes seen as a viable strategy, can have devastating results. telling the truth about mafia visits invokes the effects mentioned in 1.) . telling lies about mafia visits automatically schedules you for execution or lynching, should a real spy be uncovered, making the only viable counter to this a disguiser that dies, and a forger to wipe the original spies will (if needed). This severely limits the scope at which the mafia can operate, given just one spy. a second spy can easily deconfirm even a complex mafia Combo (like disg/forger) and render them effectively harmless.


Since mafia rely on getting enough kills before enough Information is out there, playing conservatively lowers their Chance at Winning.



So, what to do about it?


The spy's ability to track mafia is not inherently broken.
However, as mentioned above, the mafia has no answers to give to a decent spy player.
I would recommend adjusting certain RM roles instead.
A disguiser will not muddy the waters between the townies if he dies as a vigilante with the will of a doctor.

Proposal: Have the disguiser switch places instead. (Cotton is a disg and deodat is doc. cotton disguises, and becomes deodat. deodat becomes cotton. they retain their roles and respective abilities, but the town see them as having switched roles. If a disguiser dies, he dies with the name of the disguised person, but i shown as disguiser.)

A forger can merely erase the will if he doesnt have clear-cut specific information about the vicitm, making him an inferior janitor.

Proposal: Limit the amount fo forgeries to two (or Maybe one), and have that targets will show up as the forged one as soon as they die.This disregards whether the forger is alive, whether the target dies the same day as forged
or is even lynched during the day. the will will be the forged one.


In Addition, to maintain a certain amount of consistency in trying to balance the game, i would propose to remove the spy's ability to bug at night.


I would very much like to receive feedback to work with.
Thanks,.-

[MysticMismagius]

Proposal: Have the disguiser switch places instead. (Cotton is a disg and deodat is doc. cotton disguises, and becomes deodat. deodat becomes cotton. they retain their roles and respective abilities, but the town see them as having switched roles. If a disguiser dies, he dies with the name of the disguised person, but is shown as disguiser.)

This used to be the way Disguiser worked. It was bad. Everybody writes their names in their wills, so it is countered just by that if you don’t have a Forger or Janitor on your team. If you did have one of those, you were a really lucky bastard, since at the time we had the old Ranked list with 3 mafia and Any, which could only sometimes be Mafia and even more rarely be Forger/Janitor. Still, it wasn’t perfect. If you have a Forger, then disguising as a confirmed Townie was still really obvious because “oh would you look at that Cotton died and flipped Jailor when Sarah was the confirmed Jailor for 8 days. DISGUISER ALERT!” Disguiser and Janitor were a dream team put together, but even that had its weaknesses, and a role that relies on the existence of another role that might not be there to be decent is a bad role.

[Sylek]

What about making spy a unique role? No chance of having two spies to confirm each other.

[Villagerlover]

What about making spy a unique role? No chance of having two spies to confirm each other.

The last thing we need is another confirmed town role. I'd say no.

[Brilliand]

This thread is in the wrong subforum. It belongs in Role Ideas, alongside the several other spy rework suggestions there.

(This annoys me because I followed the rules with my spy rework suggestion, and why should you get to post yours in the subforum with higher visibility?)

For the benefit of curious people who haven't looked into Role Ideas for a while, here are some of the recent spy reworks suggested there:
Give the spy its old abilities back, with no bug
Make the spy a Tracker that targets roles instead of players
Make spy bugs permanent, and remove all the spy's non-bug abilities
Make the spy a Lookout that shows roles instead of players
Make spy bugs hear that player's whispers, and remove all the spy's non-bug abilities
Remove all the spy's non-bug abilities, without adding any buffs

[Brilliand]

Villagerlover can't move the thread independently. If the thread is in the wrong topic please report it instead of posting.

You, however, are guilty of breaking the rule of thread hijacking.

I see. My apologies, then. I'm... not quite sure I know which rule I broke here, but reporting is definitely a better response, now that you mention it.

[Sylek]

What about making spy a unique role? No chance of having two spies to confirm each other.

The last thing we need is another confirmed town role. I'd say no.

If spy is made unique, like mayor, jailor or veteran, then there can't be more than one. If there's only one, I'm not sure how it's a confirmed town. Not all games have a veteran, but if there is a vet there's only one. Spy could be the same.

[Villagerlover]

What about making spy a unique role? No chance of having two spies to confirm each other.

The last thing we need is another confirmed town role. I'd say no.

If spy is made unique, like mayor, jailor or veteran, then there can't be more than one. If there's only one, I'm not sure how it's a confirmed town. Not all games have a veteran, but if there is a vet there's only one. Spy could be the same.

The problem with unique roles is that evil roles can't risk claiming them. If the only unique spy comes out and decides to out everything the mafia are doing every night (which they usually do), then there's literally nothing that can be done about it for the mafia. They can't risk killing the spy too early without fear of getting caught/wasting time thanks to TP roles. They can't fake claim it because once there's a CC, town will know one of the two claims is lying. And there's enough roles that already do that.

The spy itself needs to be reworked or nerfed because it's entire ability to track every little thing the mafia does is absurdly unbalanced because it's just a hard counter to the mafia.

[shelboo]

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