by Poirot633 » Tue May 05, 2020 8:00 am
Here are my two cents. I hope you'll read my ideas (especially those about the NK roles), even though I'm not one of those self-centered high ELO players who think their opinion matters more than the majority of the player base. I really love the game and have been playing on and off for 5 years.
As a general feeling, Maf/NK is definitely harder to play than town, but that's how it's supposed to be, and as a result it should be more fun to play. In reality, it is not as fun at the moment because town can confirm too many roles too quickly, especially wth the TP/LO meta. As a result, a lot of players leave day 1 when they get an evil role, and it drastically lowers the winning chances of other evils, who will be more tempted to leave as well. A first step to prevent this from happening would be to punish in some way or the other players who leave the game day 1. I'm not talking about making those people actually banned (I'm aware of the reconnection system BMG is working on), but maybe add something which prevents from entering a lobby for 10 minutes after leaving a game while alive. It wouldn't be unfair to people who actually get disconnected, while salty leavers would have to wait 10 minutes before hoping to get a role they want.
Also, I think a good way to balance the game would be to buff the NK roles, and give mafia more ways to decieve town.
Werewolf : WW should be able to interrogate people just as a Sheriff on odd-numbered nights. Thematically I like the idea of the WW living a normal life, until the full moon comes in when he becomes a killing machine. It would help WW play the usual Sheriff card, by getting semi-confirmed to town if they manage to find a suspicious target, while also helping their chances late game by making them find mafia members to get rid of when mafia starts getting majority. Optional : make it so WW genuinely thinks he's a Sheriff from day 1 to day 2, until he realizes the monster he is !
Arsonist : - There should be no remaining trace of people who died because their house burned down, so we should not be able to determine the role and the last will of people who died of arsonist. It would work like when a janitor does his cleaning, but they would appear (Ashes) instead of (Cleaned). I've seen this change suggested in the previous thread and I absolutely love it. Thematically it makes perfect sense, and it would also buff Arso which is the weakest NK currently (slow killing, and strategy easily thrown off by the death of doused targets). It would also incentivize arsonists to scumread mafia more, as the confusion created by unclaimed roles helps them, but also mafia a lot.
- I've also seen people suggest that players visiting the person arsonist decides to douse the same night should get doused as well. I like that change too, as it would counter the TP/LO meta and help arso find maf members, but it would need testing to see if that's not too OP.
Serial Killer : SK is currently just like a godfather on his own. His only strength is that he's night immune. Thematically, I see this as the fact that SK is a cunning man (or woman) who anticipates attacks against him. That's why I could definitely see SK not getting killed by bodyguards protecting his target. Of course, to make this not OP, SK would only kill the bodyguard and not his initial target. This would counter the TP/LO meta as SK could try their luck against the person asking for TP/LO night 1. In the worst case (for SK), TP is a doc and no harm is done to said townie, and in the best case, SK gets rid of a TP.
As for mafia roles, here's what I think :
Mafioso : I personally don't think buffing mafioso would be productive, the role is fine as it is, I like the current dynamic with gf. The unstoppable attack was a terrible idea as it made NK even weaker, and I'm not too fan of the astral attack thematically. There are other ways to counter the TP/LO meta as suggested above and below.
Framer : Everyone agrees it needs a buff, as it is mostly just an additional maf vote at the moment. This role really should be here to mess with TI's. I really like the idea of having the ability (a limited number of times) to make a fellow maf member appear innocent to sheriff and choosing what appears to invests. To make this efficient, Framer visits shouldn't appear to spies. Maybe the framer could make the selected maf member not appear as a visitor to lookouts as well, but that wouldn't make much sense thematically and would be a bit too strong mid game IMO.
Disguiser :- Someone suggested that disguisers should be able to visit twice during a night. The first visit would make them disguise as their target (and should be seen by spies), as it currently is, but the second visit (invisible to spies, as the disguiser is now disguised) would allow the disguiser to make it look like their first target visited their second target. That would be very good against the TP/LO meta, as you could frame a townie in the eye of a lookout.
- Making disguisers revivable by retributionist is a nice touch also. Making the disguiser know the role he disguised as is too strong and makes Consigliere obsolete, so that shouldn't happen.
- Choosing what to disguise as in the current role list would make the role very fun to play, but it would make it so disguiser never visits anyone so this is a bit too strong IMO.
Forger : It definitely needs a buff. Someone suggested that the forger should have access to the will of his target as it was saved at the beginning of the night to help him do a convincing forge. I really like this idea, but the decision to forge a particular target should be final (otherwise the forger could read every will of every player and that would be insanely OP).
Janitor : They should be able to visit other mafia members ! If a vigi or a jailor is going to shoot/execute a mafia member and the janitor is sees it coming, he could add to the confusion by making the mafia role not reveal. I see a lot of situations in which this would cause confusion, at least for a day (as vigi/jailor would realize by the following night if they indeed executed a town member or not).
Blackmailer, consig and consort are fine as they are. If I could suggest a new role, it would be a mafia transporter. Mafia has consort which can mimick an escort and consig which can mimick an invest, why not a Swapper ? This would probably be too strong as is, so maybe it should only be possible to swap a maf member with a non-maf member (otherwise if TP is on 1, just swap 1 with 2 and send mafia killing on 2).
For town roles :
Jailor : I don't think nerfing jailor is the right move here, as there should be a strong town role leading town, and I find it fine as it is. If we get rid of the TP/LO meta, this is a perfectly fine role.
Retributionist : - This one definitely needs a nerf. I like the idea of making the revived target of the retri die if the retri dies. It would make it possible for mafia to get back the time lost by the revival, while making retri harder to confirm (screaming out loud "I'm retri, I revived X" would be a terrible idea). It can also counter the jailor TP/LO meta as retri becomes a very high value target to maf after a revival. Thematically, this can be explained by the magical bond formed between the retri and his target, which keeps the target alive.
- An alternative to this would be to make the reviving procedure take two nights instead of one, so that reviving a target wouldn't be as easy. Any roleblock, transportation or attack (even if healed) during one of those two nights would stop the procedure. As above, this would make the player want to stay hidden as long as possible, but the retri would also want to warn his fellow townies not to interfere with him at the same time, which would make the role more interesting to play than saying "jailor don't leave" and then clicking a button.
- Also, as said above, make it so a retri can revive a disguiser disguised as a townie at the time of his death.
There have been suggestions on changing the role list of ranked to make it impossible for town to have mayor + retri or too many TS. I don't think it's a good idea, because even though games with those roles are easier to win for town, I think everyone agress that a game with a janitor and a blackmailer becomes easier to win for maf. There should be random factors in the difficulty of a game for both sides. Changing the mafia roles to GF + Mafioso + Mafia Deception + Mafia Support may help mafia not to get stuck with 2 framers, 2 forgers or other bad combinations.
These were my ideas, I'll be happy to discuss with anyone about those.