The start of balance discussions

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The start of balance discussions

Postby Achilles » Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:45 am

Hey everyone,

Along with the coming Town Traitor game modes we are looking at doing a balancing patch when we take ranked into off-season. This will allow us to test the balance changes and propose ranked practice role lists for what will be the fifth season of ranked. The goal of this post is to open up communication and brainstorm on potential changes while we are still early in the process so that there will be time to make adjustments. Please feel free to discuss any thoughts you may have about issues with the current meta and what you would like to see going into Season 5.

Current Thoughts
Town is stronger than Mafia, especially at higher ELOs.

Here are some Mafia buffs I have been brainstorming.

Mafioso
Allow a 1 time use per game Unstoppable Attack.

Thought process: In the current meta the Jailor has no fear of announcing himself on day 1, knowing that Town Protective's and the Lookout will guard him, making it impossible for the Mafia to deal with them. If the Mafioso has 1 Unstoppable Attack per game it would give the Mafia an opportunity to bypass Town Protective's on a priority role. Potentially this could be a 2 for 1 kill in the event of a BodyGuard. An added bonus is that this gives the Mafioso something unique to help the Mafia outside of just following the Godfather's orders. The Lookout would still be an issue but that is potentially addressed in an another change below.

Framer
Limited number of uses to target your own Mafia members, making them appear innocent. Additionally we want the Framer to be able to mess with the Lookout's results. Potentially Framing your own teammates makes them invisible to the Lookout or framing non-Mafia makes them show up on the Lookout's results.

Potential future changes
These are changes that are up in the air still. Some of these changes are not trivial and will delay how long a balance patch will take.

Disguiser
Instead of taking on the role of your target, you can select from a list of all possible roles to disguise as for the night.

Retributionist
Can resurrect a Disguiser who had disguised as a townie upon death.
Resurrects a town member as a Citizen/Townie (vanilla town member with no abilities).

This nerfs the power of a Retributionist substantially but doesn't necessarily make the Retributionist more fun to play. Perhaps another option would be to give them 2 resurrections but the vanilla Townie will die the following night.

Edit:

Jailor discussion:
Jailor cannot jail the same person twice.

Effects: This stops permanent role blocks or permanently protecting another Town member. This will make a Jailor think twice about randomly jailing someone on N1. This forces the Jailor to make a permanent decision on executing or not since they can't just jail again the following night.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Superalex11 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:56 am

Sounds good overall. Only main problem I have is that the Mafioso proposal doesn't seem like it would fit thematically.

And a question: Is your goal to balance solely around ranked (or at least its role list)?
Last edited by Superalex11 on Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby CrimsonKatana » Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:57 am

I like framer and Disguiser but these proposed ret and Mafioso changes are wack
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Hiway202 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 1:04 am

First of all, I want to start off by saying that I only play All Any (specifically Coven All Any) and not ranked, so I can't really speak for ranked itself.

I'd assume all of these buffs/nerfs would be in all modes, and not just ranked, so I'm going to give my feedback on them from an All Any standpoint. If these would only work in ranked, then feel free to disregard. :P

Achilles wrote:Mafioso
Allow a 1 time use per game Unstoppable Attack.


Like I said, I can't speak for ranked. I've only played 6 games or so of it, but that seems crazy powerful from an All Any standpoint. If it was just going to be for ranked, I wouldn't mind but if this would work in All Any too, I feel like that could be insane.

Achilles wrote:Framer
Limited number of uses to target your own Mafia members, making them appear innocent.


I like this.

Achilles wrote:Additionally we want the Framer to be able to mess with the Lookout's results. Potentially Framing your own teammates makes them invisible to the Lookout or framing non-Mafia makes them show up on the Lookout's results.


I feel like that could be super OP and basically make it so that a framer could potentially always make their mafioso invisible and essentially make lookouts worthless. I feel like I might be more onboard with this if framers could only use this a limited amount of times.

Achilles wrote:Disguiser
Instead of taking on the role of your target, you can select from a list of all possible roles to disguise as for the night.


I assume this would be out of all roles in the whole game and not just ones that are in the current game you're playing, otherwise that would be super OP for the mafia to know exactly what roles are there. With that assumption, I really like this.

Achilles wrote:Retributionist
Can resurrect a Disguiser who had disguised as a townie upon death.
Resurrects a town member as a Citizen/Townie (vanilla town member with no abilities).


I like this too. This could be really fun!

Anyways, that's my feedback and like I said, it's mostly from an All Any standpoint. Overall, I'm really excited and I like most of these suggestions!

EDIT: After reading Flavorable’s edit, I just want to say I also didn’t realize that a ret would revive a townie that then couldn’t use their powers and I want to say I don’t really like that idea either. I feel like it being able to revive a disguiser is enough, but like I said, I don’t play ranked.
Last edited by Hiway202 on Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Flavorable » Thu Apr 30, 2020 1:29 am

I 100% agree with Hiway's post above my own here ^

And I want to put an extra point into the mafioso change proposed here that it would completely nullify the BodyGuard in a Coven All/Any setting. A role that is already quite weak and situational compared to its counterpart: the Crusader.

If these changes are specifically only for Ranked, then pretend I didn't say anything.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Flavorable » Thu Apr 30, 2020 1:54 am

Flavorable wrote:I 100% agree with Hiway's post above my own here ^

And I want to put an extra point into the mafioso change proposed here that it would completely nullify the BodyGuard in a Coven All/Any setting. A role that is already quite weak and situational compared to its counterpart: the Crusader.

If these changes are specifically only for Ranked, then pretend I didn't say anything.


Edit: I just noticed I'd read over the Retri proposed change on reviving a townie as someone without abilities and I want to say:
No, no, no, no, no. no, no, no, no.
Ret is already not that highly rated a role in a Coven All/Any setting, since it's not even that common, plus the fact that there's still a majority of townies that leave straight when they die, so giving players even more incentive to leave immediately when they're town, because who would want to be revived just to no longer do anything and sit there being completely useless for the remainder of the game?
And in a setting where town can already be vastly outnumbered by evils in an All/Any setting, I don't think it's right to intentionally make a highly situational town role effectively useless.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby TurdPile » Thu Apr 30, 2020 1:56 am

Personally, would like to pitch in the idea again of shuffled results for Framer to get people's take on it:

If a name-listing TI (such lookout or tracker) targets the person who the Framer also targets, their results are shuffled to include random names. IE Tracker visits PlayerA who got framed, Tracker would potentially see them visit someone that they didn't actually visit. Alternatively, a Lookout would see, for example, 2 people that never visited them, rather than the 2 people that actually did. This would also help with the Jailor meta issue as mafioso + framer could tag team and not be immediately exposed in their attempt.

--- regarding rest
I think mafioso bullet penetration could be OP in other game modes, but hard to say. Could work, could not work. I guess that's what mid-season is for... testing.

An overhaul of the ret I don't think is necessary. I feel like to make Ret more balanced is to just give it a 1 or 2 night expiration, so even if they revive jailor, the jailor has one or two nights to redeem themselves before expiring again the next night.

I like disguiser role, and with hiway, agree if it includes all roles possible; which I'm assuming is the case.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Flavorable » Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:04 am

TurdPile wrote:Personally, would like to pitch in the idea again of shuffled results for Framer to get people's take on it:

If a name-listing TI (such lookout or tracker) targets the person who the Framer also targets, their results are shuffled to include random names. IE Tracker visits PlayerA who got framed, Tracker would potentially see them visit someone that they didn't actually visit. Alternatively, a Lookout would see, for example, 2 people that never visited them, rather than the 2 people that actually did. This would also help with the Jailor meta issue as mafioso + framer could tag team and not be immediately exposed in their attempt.


This is also still something I could see as a viable and valuable framer change.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby LevinSnakesRise » Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:16 am

I've always stayed away from balance posts cause usually it just devolves into bickering and nobody really seems to agree, but I figure I'd give this a shot;

Mafioso - I believe this is too OP. Rather than two kills, keep it at one, and just have the BG protection be pierced, and Lookout fail to see the kill. Think of it as Mafioso attacking from the shadows. Even with protection, anyone skilled enough (i.e: Mafioso or Godfather) would be able to sneak through and kill their target. I think this would be better to get the meta changed for D1, rather than getting rid of two Town with one stone.

Framer - I'm going to assume the limited number of uses will carry over to messing with results, to calm Hiway's concern. I feel like this would be a nice change to Framer, however the amount should be limited to 2, or 3 max per game.

Disguiser - As long as this is based on a "vague" list, i.e: using the Role Alignments, I think this would be alright. As long as that Alignment is in the game, the roles included in the alignment is available for choice. However, it's rare Disguiser is rolled. In addition, Disguisers are usually easy to notice as Disguisers. I don't think this is exactly the correct solution. Maybe a step in the right direction, but definitely not the absolute decision.

Retributionist - I believe the most popular situation would be the Disguiser who disguised as a Townie. However back to the Disguiser change, they usually stick out as the Disguiser. While I'd agree with making them Citizen, several roles already are basically citizens once revived; i.e: Medium who has Seanced, Vig who has no more kills, Vet who has no more alerts, etc. I don't feel this will do much in the long run for nerfing Ret and is unnecessary in the long run. Of course, this is completely situational situation, and it isn't always going to be a "useless" role revived, but I think it'd happen more often than not, even if most Rets seem to revive early-on.

In addition, I'll throw in something a lot of people have suggested;
- Make Day 1 a non-discussion day. It'll prevent Jailors from claiming Day 1 and asking for TP/LO. This won't completely solve the problem, as they can claim Day 2, but it does give evils a chance to get rid of the Jailor prior to the first day of being able to chat, which would punish Town heavily. I personally don't think it's a one-in-all solution, and I've never exactly been a fan of it, but thinking about it, it wouldn't hurt to give it a trial run and if it doesn't work well, or isn't well-received, reverse it back to normal.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Royee » Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:19 am

giving mafioso 1x unstoppable kill will slay neutral killings' winrate by a lot with what is already left.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Flavorable » Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:21 am

Naru2008 wrote:In addition, I'll throw in something a lot of people have suggested;
- Make Day 1 a non-discussion day. It'll prevent Jailors from claiming Day 1 and asking for TP/LO. This won't completely solve the problem, as they can claim Day 2, but it does give evils a chance to get rid of the Jailor prior to the first day of being able to chat, which would punish Town heavily. I personally don't think it's a one-in-all solution, and I've never exactly been a fan of it, but thinking about it, it wouldn't hurt to give it a trial run and if it doesn't work well, or isn't well-received, reverse it back to normal.


To give my two cents on this: While this might be helpful to battle a jailor meta in Ranked, specifically, it's again very unnecessarily gamechanging for other modes. Again, of course, I can only speak from a Coven All/Any standpoint, but it'd remove a lot of D1 tactics from that gamemode that do actually work out, such as Vet baits, Medusa baits and Day 1 shoutouts to have something to base scumreading off of.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Ben4lyfe » Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:37 am

I would like to start off this post by saying some balancing changes are needed overall, but think of the changes it will have to every gamemode before. Yes, ranked is important but I dont think balancing the game around ranked is in the games best interests 100% of the time. That being said...

1. Mafioso change. I think this is horribly overpowered to have an unstoppable attack. Think about it if it came to the classic gamemode. Suddenly the SK can be killed, the vet can be killed while alerting and it completely bypasses the doctor's ability. I like the mafioso as he currently is, the godfather needs to be more powerful than the mafioso thematically but also for the balance of the game. I wouldn't change mafioso.

2. Framer buff. I like the idea of being able to visit your own mafia and making them seem like a innocent, it seems relatively inkeeping with the use of the framer for the game, however messing with the lookouts results in that way seems a little off, how about making it so the framer themselves dont visit the person but "spreads rumours" about the person but they choose the person at night. They then cant be caught by the lookout when framing someone (their own mafia or the townies) and they look like a non-visiting role. Something that the mafia do not have outside of a Godfather when there is a mafioso. Just a thought.

3. Disguiser. I honestly love the old disguiser and this current disguiser but I'm not overly a fan of the suggested change, only because it would fall into the same problem the hypnotist falls into of needing more information early game or it just falls under being quite underpowered overall. If he tries to disguise as a role that then becomes impossible on the role card or through the latter confirmation of the other townies in the game, their play is ruined. I think it's relatively balanced as it is for the disguiser in the gamemode for the ability to cc a role on the field.

4. Retributionist. When it comes to any other gamemode, the retributionist isnt really that overpowered, honestly. However, if there is one thing I have seen complaints about throughout the games is the fact the retri is too overpowered for confirming 2 townies so fast. I would like to suggest a completely different nerf which is as follows: the retri can bring any townie back on a full moon night and the person they bring back from the dead (Their zombie) comes back with the same abilities but only until the next full moon when they die again. I think that this takes the ability away from the retributionist to freely reveal his role and bring someone back whenever they like, it also doesn't mean you will have 2 confirmed townies for long. Perhaps long enough that a well put together town can act upon the townie coming back to swing the game, but not long enough to be a permanent benefit.

There are some really good ideas in this main post though, especially the framer and, to an extent, the retributionist. I hope you do the things that will keep the balance of the entire game though, not just ranked.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Aureolin1 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:46 am

Flavorable wrote:
Naru2008 wrote:In addition, I'll throw in something a lot of people have suggested;
- Make Day 1 a non-discussion day. It'll prevent Jailors from claiming Day 1 and asking for TP/LO. This won't completely solve the problem, as they can claim Day 2, but it does give evils a chance to get rid of the Jailor prior to the first day of being able to chat, which would punish Town heavily. I personally don't think it's a one-in-all solution, and I've never exactly been a fan of it, but thinking about it, it wouldn't hurt to give it a trial run and if it doesn't work well, or isn't well-received, reverse it back to normal.


To give my two cents on this: While this might be helpful to battle a jailor meta in Ranked, specifically, it's again very unnecessarily gamechanging for other modes. Again, of course, I can only speak from a Coven All/Any standpoint, but it'd remove a lot of D1 tactics from that gamemode that do actually work out, such as Vet baits, Medusa baits and Day 1 shoutouts to have something to base scumreading off of.

I am in complete agreement with Flavorable. Removing the D1 chat for Coven Chaos modes would be disastrous. It is a necessity in VIP Mode so both Town can organize their TPs and for Coven to either get their own fake claims in or strategically kill off these TPs. Attacking randomly as Coven is a very poor strategic move to make, and many times it results in the death of a Coven member because they just so happened to visit the VIP that night. Removing the D1 chat would essentially force Coven to attack at random, and this would be more hurtful than helpful. Town (or Coven) coordinating TPs on Day 2 is not good enough. There may have already been a Crus on Crus kill, and at this point it's too late to completely recover from that loss. Most Lovers first communicate on Day 1, and in many cases, coordination is crucial. Evil pairs need to make sure they do not target the same people and evil x Town pairs need to decide if they're going to be killing at all. I cannot speak to the impact of this change in classic Ranked because I do not play it. I assume these changes would take place over the entire game, so we need to consider impacts on the other gamemodes as well.

Royee wrote:giving mafioso 1x unstoppable kill will slay neutral killings' winrate by a lot with what is already left.

I do agree this change would be extremely unfair to NK's. Perhaps this unstoppable kill would be better if it only ignored Town Protectives, similar to the way Hex Master with the Necronomicon is able to successfully kill the Bodyguard's target.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Royee » Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:56 am

Aureolin1 wrote:
Royee wrote:giving mafioso 1x unstoppable kill will slay neutral killings' winrate by a lot with what is already left.

I do agree this change would be extremely unfair to NK's. Perhaps this unstoppable kill would be better if it only ignored Town Protectives, similar to the way Hex Master with the Necronomicon is able to successfully kill the Bodyguard's target.

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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Creedastic » Thu Apr 30, 2020 6:19 am

Achilles wrote:Mafioso
Allow a 1 time use per game Unstoppable Attack.

It's an ok idea, but it can potentially decrease the chances of NK winning, since NKs have Basic, Powerful and only Arsonist has Unstoppable attacks.
Another minus that I see is than even with Unstoppable attack, Mafioso will still die to BodyGuard, or ignore the Doctor's heal and staying alive. Killing both the Jailor and the BodyGuard will increase the Mafia's chance of winning significantly. But to also give him an opportunity to not be seen by the Lookout if no TP is on the Jailor, that would ruin it completely for Town. They can just surrender the following day(s). I will talk about how Framer should work next. I would like to see this in effect, but if it's that strong, NK should also be buffed in some way.

Achilles wrote:Framer
Limited number of uses to target your own Mafia members, making them appear innocent. Additionally we want the Framer to be able to mess with the Lookout's results. Potentially Framing your own teammates makes them invisible to the Lookout or framing non-Mafia makes them show up on the Lookout's results.

It's a desirable change, since Framer is almost useless, all you do is you pray that someone will investigate your target that night and be found suspicious. And also you have to pray no Lookout was on them to see you. Making Mafia seem innocent is good, but I don't necessarily agree with messing with Lookout's results that much. What would be better is maybe adding random names, like TurdPile suggested, instead of covering the Mafia. Lookout should be a role which still must retain some strength, since it's a very high priority role for Mafia to kill if discovered.

Achilles wrote:Disguiser
Instead of taking on the role of your target, you can select from a list of all possible roles to disguise as for the night.

This is something extremely powerful for Disguiser. I don't think Disguiser is a role that needs buffs at the moment, since I have seen lots of games where Town gets confused by another Town dying, which happened to be a Disguiser, and then went down to lose the game because they never figured it out. The Town's save here would be a Medium that will warn them, but I have almost never seen that happen. So, in the current conditions, a Disguiser who knows how to play his role will still be contributing a lot to winning for his team.

Achilles wrote:Retributionist
Can resurrect a Disguiser who had disguised as a townie upon death.
Resurrects a town member as a Citizen/Townie (vanilla town member with no abilities).

The first part is a nerf which could be good, but Retributionists tend to resurrect a Town member as soon as they can, to confirm themselves to the others. It's a nerf, but it might not be enough.
The second part however, is a huge nerf, because having for example a Jailor that does nothing makes Town very vulnerable. My initial take on this was to remove Retributionist completely from Ranked, but that would be an overkill, since they can also die Night 1 and be useless.
If both these changes for Retributionist were to be implemented, they would completely make the role unfun, or maybe even useless for others.
Overall, not both these changes should be in effect, because it would basically kill the role for good. You can choose just one of these. I would personally go with just the first one to start with, and see how it develops. If the role is still too good, you can start mixing it up by adding just the second part.

Achilles wrote:This nerfs the power of a Retributionist substantially but doesn't necessarily make the Retributionist more fun to play. Perhaps another option would be to give them 2 resurrections but the vanilla Townie will die the following night.

Having 2 resurrections which would kill the vanilla Townie the next night is also bad, because it's a very risky play with unknown effects. I see this being mostly a bad change since those Townies can contribute a lot to the voting process, which will give the evils too hard a time.

Now, my take on balance changes was this: Town has a 2 to 1 advantage over evils right now in Ranked, meaning they win 66% (or more) of the time. It's normal, since they are outnumbering the evils 2 to 1.The main problem is that there is very little claim space in Ranked for evils to take. That is simply because all Town Support roles require little to no effort to be confirmed: Escort is pretty easy to confirm with a Spy/Sheriff. Mayor is just one click away from confirming himself. Medium can just copy paste the chat, but that can also be faked. Retributionist is easy to confirm, the only way of countering it being that an evil claims he was the Retributionist, an argument which will definitely fall if they are investigated. Transporter is also very easy to spot, and Mafia claiming to have a Transporter and having only their members claiming transported might work, but on the long run, it's a strategy which I have seen rarely, and also failing.

I do not agree with no chat Day 1 in Ranked, because people should still be given the freedom to claim what they want whenever. If the Jailor wants to claim Day 1, let him do it. If 3 people claim Jailor Day 1, that's also good. Now, what if the Mayor asks for TP/LO Day 1? And what if the Mayor wants to reveal Day 1 and ask to be protected/transported? He should not have this opportunity taken away from him.

Also, all these changes should be in effect only for Ranked, because tweaking everything in all modes could potentially ruin them.

To summarize, Town Support is very easy to confirm, and I would have liked to see changes which would make them harder to do so. I assume this wasn't done because the impact on the whole game would be too large to implement. Giving evils more space to claim would make the game more intriguing, and would encourage scumreading, which is not very prevalent in current matches. I think the only change that addresses this problem is the Framer change, which can help Mafia gain a little more claim space, but it's not really enough.
The idea is willing to achieve a percentage of winning for Mafia that is higher than 33%. It's an idea which I actually like, because Town having the majority of wins should still be in place, but 66% is too much. 55-60% in favor of Town is actually more decent. This also has to solve the big problem of leaving Day 1. People think: Do I want to play in a game where I am a 2 to 1 underdog? No, then I'm better off not trying.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Aureolin1 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 6:43 am

Royee wrote:
Aureolin1 wrote:
Royee wrote:giving mafioso 1x unstoppable kill will slay neutral killings' winrate by a lot with what is already left.

I do agree this change would be extremely unfair to NK's. Perhaps this unstoppable kill would be better if it only ignored Town Protectives, similar to the way Hex Master with the Necronomicon is able to successfully kill the Bodyguard's target.

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I am aware. Astral visits are not seen by some TI, and I wasn't suggesting that Mafioso should work the exact same way as HM.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby SwampRabbit » Thu Apr 30, 2020 6:47 am

Thanks for asking!

As an actual high ELO player (the first one to reply so far), town is absolutely not OP at higher ELOs. So I will start with disagreeing with your basic premise. When all evils play their roles and do not concede defeat on d1, then the current ranked role list is very balanced. No changes should be made to a role list based on the low-skilled wankers who do not even attempt to play their evil roles.

With that being said, Change to the mafioso--ABSOLUTELY NO--that would be OP and is unnecessary.

The framer does need some adjustments. I do not like them messing with LO results though unless they are UNABLE to frame their killing mafia into invisibility. Most ranked games are won or lost by the start of d3, especially at higher ELOs because on d3, evils who are smart enough to vote together are unable to be voted off (barring failures to kill on n1 or n2). Giving framer the ability to hide the killing role even twice would make it an OP role making town wins rare to never.

Instead, I prefer that the investigative results on framer change so that they have some town role option in their results (as of right now framer or jester) and perhaps make framer visits invisible to spies while leaving LO results alone. Making framer invisible to spy turns it into a useful role when both sheriff and spy are in games. The problem now is that there is a 33% chance in ranked of having a spy so framer visits are pointless. This would also enable a framer to hide behind a TP role, get confirmed by LO and a spy would not know a mafia visit occurred. I think this would be a much more useful adjustment to framer without making it OP.

I like your idea for changes to the disguiser, but perhaps limit the number of times they can disguise as each role from the role list (sort of like how necromancer can only use each dead person one time) but continue to allow them to disg as living people as well.

For retri, I have suggested that one before, so I like it. Retri is the only role that arguably gives town too much advantage. If retri could revive a disg, that takes away much of the perceived OP power it has. ofc low skilled disguisers will be so obvious that retris would not waste time on them........................see, it all goes back to having 6 players assigned evil roles actually trying to win, and that is the one thing that you cannot program into the game.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby DragonClaw66 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 7:22 am

Mafioso: Although it counters the Jailor meta, I'm not exactly a fan of this change. Don't get me wrong, Mafioso definitely needs to be given more incentive so people don't leave, but this just doesn't feel like the correct change. -1
Framer: I'll always be an advocate for the Framer in my signature, but this is a start. +1
Disguiser: Unsure how this would play out, but I like it. +1
Retributionist: The new Disguiser change would also make it harder to detect Disguisers, so I like the first part. While the second part does nerf the more powerful roles when revived (ex: Jailor and Mayor), the problem has always been autoconfirmability of the Retributionist and all living Mediums. Still, it's a nerf, I'll take what I can get. +1

Most of these changes are good starts to fixing the biggest problems with evildoers.

One change I feel could be implemented fairly easily is removing the Bodyguard's ability to counterattack a Werewolf or Serial Killer that counterattacks the player that roleblocks them. Neither is actually visiting the target (as proven through Lookout visits), so it shouldn't be considered a direct attack.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby ItsArteria » Thu Apr 30, 2020 7:46 am

I think all of these are pretty good. Only one I’d question is the mafioso one. Not to the fact that it cancels the TPLO meta, but it seems like it would be somewhat unfair for NKs. If mafia is in a 1v1v1 situation with this attack, it still would result in a mafia win in certain situations. I think if it had some type of risk to it, it would be great. Perhaps like an ambushers attack, it tells you who attacked and a medium can follow up.

The framer buff I like. Can’t say it’ll be amazing but it’s a start. I really like the disguiser buff though. Choosing from a set of roles is great. In late game TOS, you can see graveyard and check which two roles are dead and kind of make sense if there’s a disg or not but with that buff I generally enjoy.

Retributionist is a fair nerf especially with the new disg buff. Will allow some bad plays from retributionist even though they’re rare.

Any plans for a forger change or buff?
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby tom641 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:10 am

should be noted i'm solely thinking about normal non-coven ranked/ranked practice since that's the mode i play the most and the only one i can consistently find games on when i try.

One idea i could think of is that Lookout can't watch jailor for any reason. I don't know how you'd justify it logically, maybe the jail has no windows, but LO reports on Jailor would just say "Your target is jailor, you can't see anything!" I'd consider giving the jailor the "no doctors" quality that revealed Mayors get, but that might be too much given how it's one of the biggest targets in the game.

One more anti-jailor idea is to maybe give some common mafia role the SK "kill if not executed" ability, or at least an activatable version of it when jailed. Possibly Mafioso since you're considering buffing the class. Makes it a lot more dangerous later in the game to just jail someone and wait to see if mafia kills that night, and making it activatable means the inevitable doctor tending to you won't just make it a free hang every time.

A more radical change i had in mind was the idea that all evil roles know the other evil players, even if it's just "known as evil" and not the roles themselves. This would give evils more of a chance to kill early instead of bouncing off each other's invincible roles while town never has a wasted night just due to the design of the game.
Though when posing this idea elsewhere they figure it might hurt NK winrates disproportionately. I'm not so sure about that, but figured it was worth mentioning.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Doodel » Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:11 am

I'd suggest allowing mafia to know the NE since in most cases ranked players like to team with NE/NK as mafia.This would reduce chances of hitting an immune N1 or worse killing jester.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby EqsyLootz » Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:12 am

Yeah a Big problem with Retributionist is still how it automatically comfirms 2+ Townies. The Retributionist, the Ressurected player and any mediums. Overall, the entirety of TS in Ranked isn't exactly balanced with escort being the most balanced one.

Medium's can be comfirmed by Retri
Mayor is auto comfirm
Transporter is easily comfirmed
Retri is auto comfirmed
Escort can be comfirmed if there's a spy.

I think the entirety of TS In ranked gives Town a much stronger advantage

I like the framer and Disguiser change but Im gonna have to disagree bout mafioso due to obvious reasons.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Kingmaker9999 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:28 am

Hello everyone, Kingmaker9999 here.
For those of you who do not know me, I'm a high elo ranked player and former member of the church, which used to be a group for the best town of salem ranked players, so my opinion will probably weigh more in than all of the all any/coven players that have no idea of what's going on in ranked games and the ranked community right now.

Current Thoughts
Town is stronger than Mafia, especially at higher ELOs.


You are totally right. Town can do multiple mistakes during the game and still easily win, while the mafia has to play perfectly and even then, it's not even sure they will be close to winning.

Mafioso
Allow a 1 time use per game Unstoppable Attack.

Thought process: In the current meta the Jailor has no fear of announcing himself on day 1, knowing that Town Protective's and the Lookout will guard him, making it impossible for the Mafia to deal with them. If the Mafioso has 1 Unstoppable Attack per game it would give the Mafia an opportunity to bypass Town Protective's on a priority role. Potentially this could be a 2 for 1 kill in the event of a BodyGuard. An added bonus is that this gives the Mafioso something unique to help the Mafia outside of just following the Godfather's orders. The Lookout would still be an issue but that is potentially addressed in an another change below.


As opposed to some of the others, I can really see this change going places. I would however limit the unstoppable attack to expire after n2 if not used. I think the biggest problems with jailor meta is the d1/d2 reveal. If the mafioso can hold on to the unstoppable attack throughout the game, it will be almost impossible for the jailor to survive through it. I could see this going places, as it would prevent jailor from revealing early on, and it might lead to the jailor having to fake claim the first 2 days to stay alive. This will change a lot of tactical approaches to the game, and I'm actually really excited to see this happening.

Framer
Limited number of uses to target your own Mafia members, making them appear innocent. Additionally we want the Framer to be able to mess with the Lookout's results. Potentially Framing your own teammates makes them invisible to the Lookout or framing non-Mafia makes them show up on the Lookout's results.


Any buff to framer is gonna be worshipped. My suggestion would be that you can frame a mafia member 1 time to make them appear inno, and make spy see that mafia member get visited for some confusion. This could be the ultimate change to get a higher wr as framer, as a succesful frame rarely ever happens.

Disguiser
Instead of taking on the role of your target, you can select from a list of all possible roles to disguise as for the night.


This is gonna be a bit hard, because it will not show to spy that someone was visited. However, you could do it so disguiser stays as it is, but 1 time during the game, the disguiser can take on any role in the game, without showing it as a spy visit. By doing this, if disguiser wants to die with a role thats not in the game, they have to time it, which adds another dimension of strategy/tactics.

Retributionist
Can resurrect a Disguiser who had disguised as a townie upon death.
Resurrects a town member as a Citizen/Townie (vanilla town member with no abilities).

This nerfs the power of a Retributionist substantially but doesn't necessarily make the Retributionist more fun to play. Perhaps another option would be to give them 2 resurrections but the vanilla Townie will die the following night.


I like the thing where ret can revive disguiser. Don't give ret another revive, however let the revived role die the following night like you said. It will make it a bit more hard to play ret, since right now the ret role is pretty much just pressing a button on n2 and then doing nothing. By doing this, the ret will have to reconsider if the bad role is gonna worth reviving.

It's been a pleasure to share my thoughts, and I hope you will consider taking some of these changes into acc.

Sincerely,
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby OreCreeper » Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:42 am

I like the Framer/Disguiser changes, although I feel like it would be better if Framer can swap the investigative results of two players, including their own mafia. Mafioso change is kinda dumb, ngl, Arso already does the job of countering the TP/LO meta, the unstoppable attack is just a huge middle finger to TPs. I don't really mind having Retributionist be able to resurrect a Disguiser, but not the other idea. 'Citizen' is just the worst idea that anyone has ever come up with in TOS.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Superalex11 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:59 am

Aside from the role-specific proposals, a balance change I'm not sure has been discussed is to create role list categories/groupings based on a role's power rather than type. I know there have been proposals in the suggestions forum for a while for things like town power, but even without regrouping roles based on those aspects I think it might be interesting to look at spawning roles just based on their overall power.
For example, rather than the ranked mafia lineup of GF/Mafio/RM/RM it could be something like GF/MafTier1/MafTier1/MafTier2, where MafTier1 might include consig and janitor and MafTier2 might include framer and disguiser.
Something like this could also make matchmaking and elo gain/loss more efficient as players' elo changes could be based on these tiers rather than just their alignments.

I'm sure some people who frequent the role ideas and suggestions forums can see what I'm getting at and may better describe it with more fleshed out ideas.
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