Balance Discussions Part 2

[alvac2012]

I am NOT in favor of making jailor execute himself, allowing vigi to live after shooting a townie, not allowing jailor to rejail same person.

how can you simultaneously be not in favor of making jailor kill himself for executing wrong and be in favor of making vigilante suicide guilt for shooting wrong

suicide guilt shouldn't be existent in either case because it punishes inaccurate play far too harshly, creating significant swing that doesn't need to be there at all

one of the main issues of killing town roles in general is swing even without things like suicide guilt; killing someone of your own alignment is already punishment enough for being wrong, especially if they're also going to lose their other shots/executes

Because the suicide balances out witch killing vigi. If a witch finds vigi and vigi can't suicide, witch gets 3 shots to kill townies. If they remove witch from the role list then fine, vigi gets 3 shots and won't suicide, but there's witch in the game

If Vigilante loses their other shots after shooting incorrectly, which is the likely implementation if vig suicide guilt is removed, then that wouldn't be the case

that is a good reason to argue against the idea of a Vigilante with no suicide guilt that doesn't lose shots after shooting incorrectly though

thinking about it the best solution is probably to have vigilante lose their other shots after shooting incorrectly with no suicide guilt

Ok. Wasn't too sure what you were arguing. If vigi just loses shots, I'm ok with that

[Joacgroso]

I'm pretty sure witches can only win if all town members are dead. If there are only townies and a witch, the game will continue until all vigilantes are dead and then town will win unless there is no town left.

[Joacgroso]

Solo witches shouldn't be as rare in Dracula's palace, since witches can go for them in a 1 vs 1 vs 1 scenario with the vampire hunter, and since the witch is the only evil besides the jester who can kill the vh, this scenario is quite likely.
Even then, I agree that balance is more important. I just wanted to point this out.

edit: what should really be done to witches is letting them know wheter they are doused (this should be done to survivors too) so they are more likely to side with arsonists in kingmaking scenarios.

[Achilles]

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=108300

[orangeandblack5]

I am NOT in favor of making jailor execute himself, allowing vigi to live after shooting a townie, not allowing jailor to rejail same person.

how can you simultaneously be not in favor of making jailor kill himself for executing wrong and be in favor of making vigilante suicide guilt for shooting wrong

suicide guilt shouldn't be existent in either case because it punishes inaccurate play far too harshly, creating significant swing that doesn't need to be there at all

one of the main issues of killing town roles in general is swing even without things like suicide guilt; killing someone of your own alignment is already punishment enough for being wrong, especially if they're also going to lose their other shots/executes

Because the suicide balances out witch killing vigi. If a witch finds vigi and vigi can't suicide, witch gets 3 shots to kill townies. If they remove witch from the role list then fine, vigi gets 3 shots and won't suicide, but there's witch in the game

If Vigilante loses their other shots after shooting incorrectly, which is the likely implementation if vig suicide guilt is removed, then that wouldn't be the case

that is a good reason to argue against the idea of a Vigilante with no suicide guilt that doesn't lose shots after shooting incorrectly though

thinking about it the best solution is probably to have vigilante lose their other shots after shooting incorrectly with no suicide guilt

also drop them down to two shots to compensate

[orangeandblack5]

plus

it evens out the best and worse case scenarios somewhat

Right now it goes all the way from killing three scum to killing two town

With this nerf and the removal of suicide guilt, that swing is greatly reduced, with a maximum kill potential of two scum or one town on the extreme ends of the spectrum.

[orangeandblack5]

Nobody commented on these, like, at all, and I don't want them to just get buried, because I can't see/fix flaws if they do.

Spoiler:

Sorry for being so late to the party, but I've been busy finishing up my semester and moving back home, so couldn't immediately respond.

First off, I will point to my ToS 3.0 post as what I feel to be the best possible massive update that could help draw in players that may not have been around for a while by bringing in some exciting new roles and major reworks. As such, I'll probably spend the rest of this analysis focusing on the idea of a smaller balance patch - although I strongly believe that a larger "3.0" patch is the best way to reignite interest going forward, from the sound of things the devs are looking to patch in only some of the most necessary changes alongside Town Traitor and the web Unity port, so I'll keep things relatively small and simple.

I am unfortunately not yet finished with my move, so I haven't really been able to read over all of the posts on this thread and the prior one, but I am more than happy to discuss any points people bring up!

For the changes suggested in the OP:

[spoiler]Mafioso
First off, Astral and Ninja are not synonyms, and the difference is actually very key! I am not a huge fan of this (although I wouldn't cry if it were implemented), mainly because the difference between how this interacts with a Doctor and a Bodyguard is so large as to make attacking a Jailor N1 with this potentially very harmful. If a Lookout sees a Doctor heal the Jailor N1, that's three town confirmed in one go, so it's probably best for the Mafia to not even take that coin flip. I just think there are better ways to deal with this meta, mainly Osservatore.

Framer
I've supported being able to Tailor your fellow Mafia members in the past, but I have fallen pretty far out of favor with this idea over the past few years, so a few reasons. The second-most-important one is that investigatives should be rewarded for choosing good targets, and the Mafia should be rewarded for killing people who might investigate them. This change means you can never really trust an innocent result. The primary reason that this should not be the fix we go with, however, is that it amplifies the swing already inherent to Framer. Consider a game that rolls Lookout/Lookout, and compare it to a game that rolls Sheriff/Sheriff. In the latter game, the Framer has a decently high chance of framing somebody already, and if it can tailor its teammate it's very likely to have a large impact on the game! However, when Lookout/Lookout rolls, the Framer is literally negative utility, as it will never get a frame off. Although I can see the idea that this is now a further (necessary) nerf to Spy being sold as a positive, I fear that we will reach the point where Spy is too weak and considered not fun enough to cause issues with players who roll it. All in all, I much prefer focusing on making Framer more reliable, regardless of which Town Investigatives roll, to making it stronger IF the roles it can affect roll. The easiest way to do this is to make it so people who are framed are seen to be visiting the Mafia kill target by Lookouts and Trackers, and so their real visit target is seen as being visited by the Mafia to the Spy.

Jailor
Non-consecutive Jailor is great, suicide Jailor is just... no thank you. Suicide guilt is a super swingy mechanic that I strongly feel should be removed from the Vigilante, so to see it being suggested for Jailor is honestly a bit frightening. Much better to reduce executes to 2 or even 1 than to make it so a misstep on an execute kills TWO town, including the Jailor, in one go. Personally, I'd go non-consecutive, 2 executes, and downgrade its protection to Basic, nerfing it a bit in every area rather than gimping it if and only if it executes a Town.

Disguiser
I think giving this a Spy-like bug for some information gathering and letting it maintain a Disguise rather than losing it is the best simple change here. The proposed change really only affects games with Investigators, while simply changing how it works a bit allows it to fake-claim Spy perfectly and also allows it to have an easier time against every TI role, not just Investigator.

As for other changes along these lines I think should be considered:

Spoiler: Osservatore
Basically the best defense against the TP/LO meta. It both makes LO claims untrustworthy, and also makes finding the Town Protectives extremely easy for the Mafia, which will likely kill the Jailor meta outright. Kinda hard to keep the Jailor alive when the TPs are all dead.

Blackmailer
The main issue the Blackmailer has is that using its ability reveals it exists and makes its passive whisper-reading useless by virtue of players knowing their whispers are 100% open to the Mafia. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this is best fixed by removing the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers. In return, it should be buffed such that blackmailed targets can't change their vote once placed for eight seconds, and they shouldn't even be able to say "I am blackmailed." when voted to the stand. This allows the Blackmailer to more aggressively pursue mislynches without their target vote-spamming to indicate they have been blackmailed.

Forger
It should inherit the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers, helping it to construct believable fake wills. It should also now have its fake wills carry over into the day, allowing the Forger to push mislynches onto a "Disguiser" or erase critical will information more flexibly than a Janitor can. Lastly, it should be able to forge four fake wills rather than three, giving it more uses than a current Janitor if it does decide to go for purely wiping information from wills.

Retributionist
I don't think Retributionist is too strong overall - I think it is too strong in the context of spawning into a game randomly. Removing it from Ranked does indeed seem like the best option.

Mayor
The Mayor is a god with a Bodyguard and extremely weak with a Doctor. In general, it shouldn't be this reliant on what the TP slot rolls, so I'd give it back its ability to be healed, and its ability to whisper (which was never the real issue anyways), and then take it out of Ranked. As long as it is made so there can be either a Jailor, a Retributionist, or a Mayor in any given game, never more than one, it's probably fine to leave it there - after all, you're trading a Jailor and a Retributionist for its existence, and the current Jailor meta is just the old Mayor meta, so if we successfully kill the Jailor meta, the Mayor meta won't return (as I'm sure some will claim).

Serial Killer
Just make it so that when the Serial Killer attacks a roleblocker, the roleblocker's death message will now be "You were stabbed by a Serial Killer!" instead of "You were stabbed by the Serial Killer you roleblocked/jailed!" In a game with the Medium, there is zero reason to 100% confirm that.

Janitor
2 cleans down from 3, bring it more in line with the others, but it shouldn't lose a usage unless the clean is successful

Bodyguard
Letting it be healed when it is sacrificed protecting somebody enables TP chains that help to propogate not only the Jailor meta, but also allow a Doc/BG combo that really has no reason to exist. If it loses its life protecting someone, it should die.

And that's pretty much it for the very simplest version of changes I'd suggest. I still strongly support adding Tracker/Hypnotist to the base game for the easiest "new content" you can use to get old players to come try them out, either reworking Vampire Hunter into a new Town Protective or just adding it on its own, completely overhauling Neutral Evil as a category, reworking Spy, reworking Werewolf, buffing Arsonist, and someday adding Mafia Tactical Kills - but that can all wait, these small tweaks are needed sooner rather than later.

For reference, the Osservatore:

Spoiler: Osservatore

Alignment: Mafia Support

Abilities: Watch one person at night to see who visits them or Track one person to see who they visit.

Attributes:
-If there are no kill capable Mafia roles left you will become a Mafioso.
-You can talk with the other Mafia at night.

Special Attributes: Ignores Detection Immunity

Goal: Kill anyone that will not submit to the Mafia.

Win Conditions:
Wins with the Mafia
Wins with Witches
Wins with Survivors
Must kill the Town
Must kill Serial Killers
Must kill Arsonists
Must kill Werewolves
Must kill Vampires

Investigative Results:
Sheriff: Your target is a member of the Mafia.
Investigator: Your target has an extremely keen eye for detail. They must be a Lookout, Osservatore, or a Witch.
Consigliere: Your target is a master at stalking people. They must be an Osservatore.

If this single role, which shouldn't be hard to program as it is a Lookout/Tracker combo, doesn't outright kill the Jailor meta, it will at least make it risky enough as to be squarely bad for the town overall (which it arguably already may be at higher elo).

[MysticMismagius]

Nobody commented on these, like, at all, and I don't want them to just get buried, because I can't see/fix flaws if they do.

Sorry for being so late to the party, but I've been busy finishing up my semester and moving back home, so couldn't immediately respond.

First off, I will point to my ToS 3.0 post as what I feel to be the best possible massive update that could help draw in players that may not have been around for a while by bringing in some exciting new roles and major reworks. As such, I'll probably spend the rest of this analysis focusing on the idea of a smaller balance patch - although I strongly believe that a larger "3.0" patch is the best way to reignite interest going forward, from the sound of things the devs are looking to patch in only some of the most necessary changes alongside Town Traitor and the web Unity port, so I'll keep things relatively small and simple.

I am unfortunately not yet finished with my move, so I haven't really been able to read over all of the posts on this thread and the prior one, but I am more than happy to discuss any points people bring up!

For the changes suggested in the OP:

Spoiler: Mafioso
First off, Astral and Ninja are not synonyms, and the difference is actually very key! I am not a huge fan of this (although I wouldn't cry if it were implemented), mainly because the difference between how this interacts with a Doctor and a Bodyguard is so large as to make attacking a Jailor N1 with this potentially very harmful. If a Lookout sees a Doctor heal the Jailor N1, that's three town confirmed in one go, so it's probably best for the Mafia to not even take that coin flip. I just think there are better ways to deal with this meta, mainly Osservatore. All well and good, but I'd still want this to be implemented anyway, purely because removing the change means something else needs to be done to make Mafioso not just worse-GF, and this is the best way I've seen that does this.
Edit: Also, I think we should take the Dev's word for it when he says that Astral and Ninja are going to functionally be the same in this game.

Framer
I've supported being able to Tailor your fellow Mafia members in the past, but I have fallen pretty far out of favor with this idea over the past few years, so a few reasons. The second-most-important one is that investigatives should be rewarded for choosing good targets, and the Mafia should be rewarded for killing people who might investigate them. This change means you can never really trust an innocent result. The primary reason that this should not be the fix we go with, however, is that it amplifies the swing already inherent to Framer. Consider a game that rolls Lookout/Lookout, and compare it to a game that rolls Sheriff/Sheriff. In the latter game, the Framer has a decently high chance of framing somebody already, and if it can tailor its teammate it's very likely to have a large impact on the game! However, when Lookout/Lookout rolls, the Framer is literally negative utility, as it will never get a frame off. Although I can see the idea that this is now a further (necessary) nerf to Spy being sold as a positive, I fear that we will reach the point where Spy is too weak and considered not fun enough to cause issues with players who roll it. All in all, I much prefer focusing on making Framer more reliable, regardless of which Town Investigatives roll, to making it stronger IF the roles it can affect roll. The easiest way to do this is to make it so people who are framed are seen to be visiting the Mafia kill target by Lookouts and Trackers, and so their real visit target is seen as being visited by the Mafia to the Spy. Framer needs to fool all TI, so /support.

Jailor
Non-consecutive Jailor is great, suicide Jailor is just... no thank you. Suicide guilt is a super swingy mechanic that I strongly feel should be removed from the Vigilante, so to see it being suggested for Jailor is honestly a bit frightening. Much better to reduce executes to 2 or even 1 than to make it so a misstep on an execute kills TWO town, including the Jailor, in one go. Personally, I'd go non-consecutive, 2 executes, and downgrade its protection to Basic, nerfing it a bit in every area rather than gimping it if and only if it executes a Town. If it's removed from Vigi I agree, but as things stand there's no reason why Vigi should have both relatively low power and relatively high stakes compared to Jailor. I wanted the punishments to be swapped at first but I'd also be cool with neither role having suicide guilt.

Disguiser
I think giving this a Spy-like bug for some information gathering and letting it maintain a Disguise rather than losing it is the best simple change here. The proposed change really only affects games with Investigators, while simply changing how it works a bit allows it to fake-claim Spy perfectly and also allows it to have an easier time against every TI role, not just Investigator. The point of the first proposed change is that it doesn't require as much Consig support to pull off a successful disguise, as you're disguising as a role and not a person. As it SHOULD be. This means you can actually muck up the role list or orchestrate mislynches with Disguiser much more effectively than you could before. IDEK what's up with that second change though. As for other changes along these lines I think should be considered:

Spoiler: Osservatore
Basically the best defense against the TP/LO meta. It both makes LO claims untrustworthy, and also makes finding the Town Protectives extremely easy for the Mafia, which will likely kill the Jailor meta outright. Kinda hard to keep the Jailor alive when the TPs are all dead. I like.

Blackmailer
The main issue the Blackmailer has is that using its ability reveals it exists and makes its passive whisper-reading useless by virtue of players knowing their whispers are 100% open to the Mafia. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this is best fixed by removing the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers. In return, it should be buffed such that blackmailed targets can't change their vote once placed for eight seconds, and they shouldn't even be able to say "I am blackmailed." when voted to the stand. This allows the Blackmailer to more aggressively pursue mislynches without their target vote-spamming to indicate they have been blackmailed. *Vietnam flashbacks to games where I was constantly blackmailed and couldn't speak until I died*

Forger
It should inherit the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers, helping it to construct believable fake wills. It should also now have its fake wills carry over into the day, allowing the Forger to push mislynches onto a "Disguiser" or erase critical will information more flexibly than a Janitor can. Lastly, it should be able to forge four fake wills rather than three, giving it more uses than a current Janitor if it does decide to go for purely wiping information from wills. Yes, I would rather have BM's ability to read whispers transferred than removed, but... why Forger specifically? Is it just to make it not Diet-Janitor, or is there a reason why Forger would benefit the most from the transfer?

Retributionist
I don't think Retributionist is too strong overall - I think it is too strong in the context of spawning into a game randomly. Removing it from Ranked does indeed seem like the best option. Unfortunately Achilles doesn't like that option...

Mayor
The Mayor is a god with a Bodyguard and extremely weak with a Doctor. In general, it shouldn't be this reliant on what the TP slot rolls, so I'd give it back its ability to be healed, and its ability to whisper (which was never the real issue anyways), and then take it out of Ranked. As long as it is made so there can be either a Jailor, a Retributionist, or a Mayor in any given game, never more than one, it's probably fine to leave it there - after all, you're trading a Jailor and a Retributionist for its existence, and the current Jailor meta is just the old Mayor meta, so if we successfully kill the Jailor meta, the Mayor meta won't return (as I'm sure some will claim). I'd really, really like a TL slot to work, but I worry about RT making it useless.

Serial Killer
Just make it so that when the Serial Killer attacks a roleblocker, the roleblocker's death message will now be "You were stabbed by a Serial Killer!" instead of "You were stabbed by the Serial Killer you roleblocked/jailed!" In a game with the Medium, there is zero reason to 100% confirm that. #HelpNKs, /support

Janitor
2 cleans down from 3, bring it more in line with the others, but it shouldn't lose a usage unless the clean is successful Is that really neccesary? Janitor's good, but I don't think it needs the nerfs that badly.

Bodyguard
Letting it be healed when it is sacrificed protecting somebody enables TP chains that help to propogate not only the Jailor meta, but also allow a Doc/BG combo that really has no reason to exist. If it loses its life protecting someone, it should die. Alternatively, you could give evils ways to counteract TP chains, as this only helps in the instance of a Doc/Crus + BG combo. Under this change, evils are still fucked if they encounter a TP healing circle not involving BG. (This includes double Doc healing circles, which are possible in Ranked) And that's pretty much it for the very simplest version of changes I'd suggest. I still strongly support adding Tracker/Hypnotist to the base game for the easiest "new content" you can use to get old players to come try them out, either reworking Vampire Hunter into a new Town Protective or just adding it on its own, completely overhauling Neutral Evil as a category, reworking Spy, reworking Werewolf, buffing Arsonist, and someday adding Mafia Tactical Kills - but that can all wait, these small tweaks are needed sooner rather than later.

[BasicFourLife]

cringe

[alvac2012]

Nobody commented on these, like, at all, and I don't want them to just get buried, because I can't see/fix flaws if they do.

Osservatore

Alignment: Mafia Support

Abilities: Watch one person at night to see who visits them or Track one person to see who they visit.

Attributes:
-If there are no kill capable Mafia roles left you will become a Mafioso.
-You can talk with the other Mafia at night.

Special Attributes: Ignores Detection Immunity

Goal: Kill anyone that will not submit to the Mafia.

Win Conditions:
Wins with the Mafia
Wins with Witches
Wins with Survivors
Must kill the Town
Must kill Serial Killers
Must kill Arsonists
Must kill Werewolves
Must kill Vampires

Investigative Results:
Sheriff: Your target is a member of the Mafia.
Investigator: Your target has an extremely keen eye for detail. They must be a Lookout, Osservatore, or a Witch.
Consigliere: Your target is a master at stalking people. They must be an Osservatore.

If this single role, which shouldn't be hard to program as it is a Lookout/Tracker combo, doesn't outright kill the Jailor meta, it will at least make it risky enough as to be squarely bad for the town overall (which it arguably already may be at higher elo).

[/quote]

For me, I think that if NK and maf receive considerable buffs this patch (as many people and I are suggesting) I do not think that town needs nerf although the suggested vigi rework from Flake would definitely be nice. Yeah, I agree that mayor can get his ability to be protected back. I don't think that it will revive mayor meta because there is only a chance that mayor does not come out. Also, in my past 2-3 games, jailor did not come out and while I think the record was 2-1 town, town had a considerably harder time winning (also b/c jailor would die n1 just unluckily). So yeah, jailor does have a huge impact on the game. However, I agree with what you said, where jailor should not be nerfed hard. I personally don't think that jailor needs any nerf besides the cannot jail the same target after jailing the same target for 2 consecutive nights in a row. On the same vein, can that also be a thing for both bm'r and escort? It's not fun to be bm'd or rb'd the entire game.

I like your proposed changes to mafia, although mafia would not need to have an Osservatore if LO posts will.

What a lot of people overlook about "jailor meta" is that it is not so much jailor, but any townie who asks for "tp/lo" night 1. Yeah, it tends to be jailor, but I've asked for tp/lo without jailor ever coming out because it is good for confirming spies, escorts, tp, and LO. So even though nerfing jailor seems like a good idea, the fact of the matter is that even if jailors don't come out, townies will still ask for tp/lo to confirm lots of town AND that strat only works if there is a LO.

[orangeandblack5]

Mafioso
First off, Astral and Ninja are not synonyms, and the difference is actually very key! I am not a huge fan of this (although I wouldn't cry if it were implemented), mainly because the difference between how this interacts with a Doctor and a Bodyguard is so large as to make attacking a Jailor N1 with this potentially very harmful. If a Lookout sees a Doctor heal the Jailor N1, that's three town confirmed in one go, so it's probably best for the Mafia to not even take that coin flip. I just think there are better ways to deal with this meta, mainly Osservatore.

All well and good, but I'd still want this to be implemented anyway, purely because removing the change means something else needs to be done to make Mafioso not just worse-GF, and this is the best way I've seen that does this.
Edit: Also, I think we should take the Dev's word for it when he says that Astral and Ninja are going to functionally be the same in this game.

I personally think Mafioso changes are better as a long-term goal, to be included with the implementation of Mafia Tactical Kills in an update further down the line. I see no reason to spend time coding new interactions on a change just to make it unique when we can take other steps to better fix the problem we're trying to address.

Disguiser
I think giving this a Spy-like bug for some information gathering and letting it maintain a Disguise rather than losing it is the best simple change here. The proposed change really only affects games with Investigators, while simply changing how it works a bit allows it to fake-claim Spy perfectly and also allows it to have an easier time against every TI role, not just Investigator.

The point of the first proposed change is that it doesn't require as much Consig support to pull off a successful disguise, as you're disguising as a role and not a person. As it SHOULD be. This means you can actually muck up the role list or orchestrate mislynches with Disguiser much more effectively than you could before. IDEK what's up with that second change though.

My main issue with letting it pick any role is that is basically becomes a better Godfather, for free. Restricting it to roles in the game that it has visited means it's mechanically catchable, and giving it the bug lets it have some utility to help feed into a fake claim. Having two Disguisers spawn with the suggested "pick any role" thing means that most Investigatives literally cannot catch anything except the Mafioso, and that's the same issue I have with Framer being given the ability to Tailor. I really believe it's too far over the line.

Blackmailer
The main issue the Blackmailer has is that using its ability reveals it exists and makes its passive whisper-reading useless by virtue of players knowing their whispers are 100% open to the Mafia. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this is best fixed by removing the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers. In return, it should be buffed such that blackmailed targets can't change their vote once placed for eight seconds, and they shouldn't even be able to say "I am blackmailed." when voted to the stand. This allows the Blackmailer to more aggressively pursue mislynches without their target vote-spamming to indicate they have been blackmailed.

*Vietnam flashbacks to games where I was constantly blackmailed and couldn't speak until I died*

I'm not arguing that Blackmailer is a good role that shouldn't be reworked eventually - all I'm saying is that it can't even do the job it is supposed to be doing right now, and ends up being kind of negative utility for the Mafia. In the interest of reducing overall swing, I would argue that buffing it now is ultimately good, even if I agree that its core concept is at odds with a game of social deduction.

Forger
It should inherit the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers, helping it to construct believable fake wills. It should also now have its fake wills carry over into the day, allowing the Forger to push mislynches onto a "Disguiser" or erase critical will information more flexibly than a Janitor can. Lastly, it should be able to forge four fake wills rather than three, giving it more uses than a current Janitor if it does decide to go for purely wiping information from wills.

Yes, I would rather have BM's ability to read whispers transferred than removed, but... why Forger specifically? Is it just to make it not Diet-Janitor, or is there a reason why Forger would benefit the most from the transfer?

Forger is a role whose ability is not readily detectable, one of the things that should be true of whichever Mafia role can read whispers. However, more critically, Forger benefits the most from the transfer because it can use information gained through whispers to help build convincing forged wills, which is even more important if they can carry over to the next day.

Retributionist
I don't think Retributionist is too strong overall - I think it is too strong in the context of spawning into a game randomly. Removing it from Ranked does indeed seem like the best option.

Unfortunately Achilles doesn't like that option...

Hence the idea of "Town Leader" - if, universally, the Town can only have one of Retributionist/Mayor/Jailor as their dedicated leader, this should no longer be a problem. Presumably, the issue is that outright preventing a role that should in theory be able to spawn in Ranked but is just arbitrarily restricted is un-intuitive to players and will be hard to explain within the game's systems. However, creating a Town Leader category, of which every role is not only Unique, but the entire category is unique such that there can never be more than one Town Leader in any gamemode, should fix this problem easily.

Mayor
The Mayor is a god with a Bodyguard and extremely weak with a Doctor. In general, it shouldn't be this reliant on what the TP slot rolls, so I'd give it back its ability to be healed, and its ability to whisper (which was never the real issue anyways), and then take it out of Ranked. As long as it is made so there can be either a Jailor, a Retributionist, or a Mayor in any given game, never more than one, it's probably fine to leave it there - after all, you're trading a Jailor and a Retributionist for its existence, and the current Jailor meta is just the old Mayor meta, so if we successfully kill the Jailor meta, the Mayor meta won't return (as I'm sure some will claim).

I'd really, really like a TL slot to work, but I worry about RT making it useless.

Again, the idea is that it is impossible for there to be more than one Town Leader role in the game. Random Town cannot spawn a Town Leader if one already exists any more than it can spawn a second Veteran.

Janitor
2 cleans down from 3, bring it more in line with the others, but it shouldn't lose a usage unless the clean is successful

Is that really neccesary? Janitor's good, but I don't think it needs the nerfs that badly.

It's more of a sidegrade than a nerf - although you can no longer clean three people in one game, you are now near guaranteed to get off two cleans as long as you survive, considering uses that would have been wasted before are now saved until you perform a clean successfully. This is another matter to reduce swing, both within solely the scope of a Janitor's best and worst case scenarios, but also helping to bring it more in line with the rest of the other Mafia roles.

Bodyguard
Letting it be healed when it is sacrificed protecting somebody enables TP chains that help to propogate not only the Jailor meta, but also allow a Doc/BG combo that really has no reason to exist. If it loses its life protecting someone, it should die.

Alternatively, you could give evils ways to counteract TP chains, as this only helps in the instance of a Doc/Crus + BG combo. Under this change, evils are still fucked if they encounter a TP healing circle not involving BG. (This includes double Doc healing circles, which are possible in Ranked)

The problem with that is that you cannot be sure the Mafia will have that countermeasure when they need it unless it is a factional ability. Hence why I'd rather see changes to Doctor further down the line and just nerf Bodyguard now, which takes out a scum with it. I'm bouncing back and forth between seeing how non-consecutive Jailor goes and applying that same idea to Doctor, or just making it so it can't heal someone twice in a row if successful. You could easily go farther if necessary, but I think we'd want a third TP before we start trying to tie Doctor down too much.

[orangeandblack5]

What a lot of people overlook about "jailor meta" is that it is not so much jailor, but any townie who asks for "tp/lo" night 1. Yeah, it tends to be jailor, but I've asked for tp/lo without jailor ever coming out because it is good for confirming spies, escorts, tp, and LO. So even though nerfing jailor seems like a good idea, the fact of the matter is that even if jailors don't come out, townies will still ask for tp/lo to confirm lots of town AND that strat only works if there is a LO.

Believe me, I fully understand this. I've been saying as much for years at this point - the systems that feed into this meta are the exact same ones that were feeding into the dreaded Mayor meta. In 2016 I correctly predicted that the nerfs to the Mayor would do nothing but shift the meta onto the Jailor, and I was exactly correct in these predictions (even if it took a bit longer to get here than I expected, as the Blackmailer buff to be able to read whispers helped with the whisper aspect of the problem [which is why I was pushing for it] and we ended up going first through the VFR meta [which is born from the same fundamental issues] rather than transitioning directly from Mayor to Jailor - but we got here eventually). There are multiple core issues at play here, and I've been talking about them for literal years on end (unfortunately, some of the earliest instances have since been trashed in forum clean-ups, so I can't link them):

Spoiler:

Also literally any other confirmed Town role can start a whisper game

Mayor is still a powerful role, and it can still in fact easily start a whisper game. Consider this:
-Mayor reveals
-Mayor gets jailed
-Jailor tells Mayor his identity
-Mayor tells the entire Town to whisper their role to the Jailor
-Instant Town victory because whispers are still utterly broken

Mayor games are hardly "fixed" past the Mayor itself. The best Mayor strategy still is to start a Mayor game, but to have the Jailor do the whispering. This doesn't even mention the countless other roles that can do this.

Honestly the integrity issue imo is moreso making smarter changes instead of quick ones.

@Alex literally any other role except for the Mayor now can still do the same thing if they can get themselves confirmed (especially Jailor, Veteran, Transporter, and Ret Day 3). In fact, not doing so should honestly be considered borderline gamethrowing to be honest. The problems with the system still stand - literally the only single reason it happens less with other roles now is the Blackmailer change (something mdb likes to forget was something we pushed as part of a bunch of solutions to fix this very issue, and is clearly partially working). In fact, the current meta of VFR is essentially a whisper game without the whispers - something else those in support of the Mayor nerf choose to ignore. The problems go much deeper than the Mayor role itself, and they haven't been fixed at all.

the issue of Mayor games, whisper games, and Jailor games? (which are literally all the exact same thing)

1. This strategy is born from the low risk and high reward of having confirmed town. Therefore, nerfing Lookout will not solve this issue.

2. I've seen a few people suggest that this occurs frequently due to the presence of more Random Town slots. That is absurd - D1 Jailor claims have always been an amazing strategy, for the same reasons Mayor games were. More claimspace hasn't caused this meta, it's simply the natural progression of prior nerfs to the Mayor/VFR metas (and one that I'm surprised took this long to come about).

3. Speaking of Mayor games, had they been properly fixed D1 Jailor claims would not be the predominant meta. Sorry, but when you have a bunch of problems all stemming from the same issues, it's probably best to tackle those issues instead of slapping a band-aid on your tumor.

Plus my Save The Mayor post, which was trashed but still shows up in my search for some reason.
Ultimately, however, I think removing Lookout is not the right way to go about it. If you want to reduce its occurrence, you could always make it Town Protective since it acts like one anyways, but at the end of the day "evil Lookout" is such an obvious solution to this issue that it really should be our first step towards trying to fix it.





aside: I know he's not a dev but if shapesifter thought these ideas were relevant at the time, they're probably still relevant now viewtopic.php?f=7&t=83372#p2748420

[woahah]

What a lot of people overlook about "jailor meta" is that it is not so much jailor, but any townie who asks for "tp/lo" night 1. Yeah, it tends to be jailor, but I've asked for tp/lo without jailor ever coming out because it is good for confirming spies, escorts, tp, and LO. So even though nerfing jailor seems like a good idea, the fact of the matter is that even if jailors don't come out, townies will still ask for tp/lo to confirm lots of town AND that strat only works if there is a LO.

Believe me, I fully understand this. I've been saying as much for years at this point - the systems that feed into this meta are the exact same ones that were feeding into the dreaded Mayor meta. In 2016 I correctly predicted that the nerfs to the Mayor would do nothing but shift the meta onto the Jailor, and I was exactly correct in these predictions (even if it took a bit longer to get here than I expected, as the Blackmailer buff to be able to read whispers helped with the whisper aspect of the problem [which is why I was pushing for it] and we ended up going first through the VFR meta [which is born from the same fundamental issues] rather than transitioning directly from Mayor to Jailor - but we got here eventually). There are multiple core issues at play here, and I've been talking about them for literal years on end (unfortunately, some of the earliest instances have since been trashed in forum clean-ups, so I can't link them):

Spoiler:

Also literally any other confirmed Town role can start a whisper game

Mayor is still a powerful role, and it can still in fact easily start a whisper game. Consider this:
-Mayor reveals
-Mayor gets jailed
-Jailor tells Mayor his identity
-Mayor tells the entire Town to whisper their role to the Jailor
-Instant Town victory because whispers are still utterly broken

Mayor games are hardly "fixed" past the Mayor itself. The best Mayor strategy still is to start a Mayor game, but to have the Jailor do the whispering. This doesn't even mention the countless other roles that can do this.

Honestly the integrity issue imo is moreso making smarter changes instead of quick ones.

@Alex literally any other role except for the Mayor now can still do the same thing if they can get themselves confirmed (especially Jailor, Veteran, Transporter, and Ret Day 3). In fact, not doing so should honestly be considered borderline gamethrowing to be honest. The problems with the system still stand - literally the only single reason it happens less with other roles now is the Blackmailer change (something mdb likes to forget was something we pushed as part of a bunch of solutions to fix this very issue, and is clearly partially working). In fact, the current meta of VFR is essentially a whisper game without the whispers - something else those in support of the Mayor nerf choose to ignore. The problems go much deeper than the Mayor role itself, and they haven't been fixed at all.

the issue of Mayor games, whisper games, and Jailor games? (which are literally all the exact same thing)

1. This strategy is born from the low risk and high reward of having confirmed town. Therefore, nerfing Lookout will not solve this issue.

2. I've seen a few people suggest that this occurs frequently due to the presence of more Random Town slots. That is absurd - D1 Jailor claims have always been an amazing strategy, for the same reasons Mayor games were. More claimspace hasn't caused this meta, it's simply the natural progression of prior nerfs to the Mayor/VFR metas (and one that I'm surprised took this long to come about).

3. Speaking of Mayor games, had they been properly fixed D1 Jailor claims would not be the predominant meta. Sorry, but when you have a bunch of problems all stemming from the same issues, it's probably best to tackle those issues instead of slapping a band-aid on your tumor.

Plus my Save The Mayor post, which was trashed but still shows up in my search for some reason.

Ultimately, however, I think removing Lookout is not the right way to go about it. If you want to reduce its occurrence, you could always make it Town Protective since it acts like one anyways, but at the end of the day "evil Lookout" is such an obvious solution to this issue that it really should be our first step towards trying to fix it.





aside: I know he's not a dev but if shapesifter thought these ideas were relevant at the time, they're probably still relevant now viewtopic.php?f=7&t=83372#p2748420

add agent
that would solve alot
Also see spy? Yeah, make it just a bug
Ezpz game unfucked

[orangeandblack5]

Honestly not convinced that "just a bug" is very convincing for an entire role, I'd much rather actually fully rework Spy than just nerf it again

Also remind me what Agent is?

[woahah]

Honestly not convinced that "just a bug" is very convincing for an entire role, I'd much rather actually fully rework Spy than just nerf it again

Also remind me what Agent is?

honestly making spy underpowered is the way to go
Massive change isnt very good and ill be honest i forgot too
I just remembered it would be useful to have in tos

[orangeandblack5]

oh yeah FM scumspy

Spoiler: Agent

You are an Agent.

Your alignment is Mafia Support.

You were a brilliant Spy in your early days, one of the best in the country. However, on one mission you were captured - by the Godfather.
To your great surprise, he wanted to help you retire after all your years of service. The deal was simple. Use your talents to collect sensitive information from the townsfolk and he will rule to grant you whatever you want in this silly little town.

You can choose one player to spy on during the day. You will be informed if this player visits others at night.
Each night you also have the ability to plant a bug on a person. The bug will allow you to see who they visit that night, or if they do at all.
As well the bug will inform you what feedback they receive at the end of the night.
You can communicate with your allies each night, for as long as they are alive.

Your allies are [x] the [role], [x] the [role], and [x] the [role]

You win with the Mafia
You win with Survivors
You win with Witches
You must kill the Town
You must kill Arsonists
You must kill Serial Killers
You must kill Stalkers
You must kill Bombers
You may spare anyone else

Not against but seems weaker than Consig/Osservatore and I'd rather use the weak bug ability as a buff to Disguiser than make a whole role around it, considering Spy really does just need a rework - having it be underpowered is just needless swing, and that's overall not good (an improvement, sure, but I'd rather make good changes than "less bad" ones)

[woahah]

osservatore is pretty unoriginal, agent has much more uniqueness to it with it being a tracker which steals night info

[woahah]

What a lot of people overlook about "jailor meta" is that it is not so much jailor, but any townie who asks for "tp/lo" night 1. Yeah, it tends to be jailor, but I've asked for tp/lo without jailor ever coming out because it is good for confirming spies, escorts, tp, and LO. So even though nerfing jailor seems like a good idea, the fact of the matter is that even if jailors don't come out, townies will still ask for tp/lo to confirm lots of town AND that strat only works if there is a LO.

Believe me, I fully understand this. I've been saying as much for years at this point - the systems that feed into this meta are the exact same ones that were feeding into the dreaded Mayor meta. In 2016 I correctly predicted that the nerfs to the Mayor would do nothing but shift the meta onto the Jailor, and I was exactly correct in these predictions (even if it took a bit longer to get here than I expected, as the Blackmailer buff to be able to read whispers helped with the whisper aspect of the problem [which is why I was pushing for it] and we ended up going first through the VFR meta [which is born from the same fundamental issues] rather than transitioning directly from Mayor to Jailor - but we got here eventually). There are multiple core issues at play here, and I've been talking about them for literal years on end (unfortunately, some of the earliest instances have since been trashed in forum clean-ups, so I can't link them):

Spoiler:

Also literally any other confirmed Town role can start a whisper game

Mayor is still a powerful role, and it can still in fact easily start a whisper game. Consider this:
-Mayor reveals
-Mayor gets jailed
-Jailor tells Mayor his identity
-Mayor tells the entire Town to whisper their role to the Jailor
-Instant Town victory because whispers are still utterly broken

Mayor games are hardly "fixed" past the Mayor itself. The best Mayor strategy still is to start a Mayor game, but to have the Jailor do the whispering. This doesn't even mention the countless other roles that can do this.

Honestly the integrity issue imo is moreso making smarter changes instead of quick ones.

@Alex literally any other role except for the Mayor now can still do the same thing if they can get themselves confirmed (especially Jailor, Veteran, Transporter, and Ret Day 3). In fact, not doing so should honestly be considered borderline gamethrowing to be honest. The problems with the system still stand - literally the only single reason it happens less with other roles now is the Blackmailer change (something mdb likes to forget was something we pushed as part of a bunch of solutions to fix this very issue, and is clearly partially working). In fact, the current meta of VFR is essentially a whisper game without the whispers - something else those in support of the Mayor nerf choose to ignore. The problems go much deeper than the Mayor role itself, and they haven't been fixed at all.

the issue of Mayor games, whisper games, and Jailor games? (which are literally all the exact same thing)

1. This strategy is born from the low risk and high reward of having confirmed town. Therefore, nerfing Lookout will not solve this issue.

2. I've seen a few people suggest that this occurs frequently due to the presence of more Random Town slots. That is absurd - D1 Jailor claims have always been an amazing strategy, for the same reasons Mayor games were. More claimspace hasn't caused this meta, it's simply the natural progression of prior nerfs to the Mayor/VFR metas (and one that I'm surprised took this long to come about).

3. Speaking of Mayor games, had they been properly fixed D1 Jailor claims would not be the predominant meta. Sorry, but when you have a bunch of problems all stemming from the same issues, it's probably best to tackle those issues instead of slapping a band-aid on your tumor.

Plus my Save The Mayor post, which was trashed but still shows up in my search for some reason.

Ultimately, however, I think removing Lookout is not the right way to go about it. If you want to reduce its occurrence, you could always make it Town Protective since it acts like one anyways, but at the end of the day "evil Lookout" is such an obvious solution to this issue that it really should be our first step towards trying to fix it.





aside: I know he's not a dev but if shapesifter thought these ideas were relevant at the time, they're probably still relevant now viewtopic.php?f=7&t=83372#p2748420

add agent
that would solve alot
Also see spy? Yeah, make it just a bug
Ezpz game unfucked

the ability to see if someone is a visiting role is near useless in a role madness game, a mafia lookout ability makes more sense in the context of ToS

making spy just have a bug would remove most of the garbage it causes but still wouldn't make spy a near decent role, it'd just be situational utility and inconsistent overall

the daybug wasn't what i was talking about
and I already addressed spy

[orangeandblack5]

I'll take a role that does a better job addressing the problem at hand over one that's more original any and every day of the week

Also Tracker/Spy combo isn't any more original than Lookout/Tracker combo, all told

I wouldn't be against it being added in addition at all (just scum Lookout is strong enough), but I feel like its two halves are better used in a role that can conclusively help put an end to the strength of TPs and address some of the root issues of the Mayor/VFR/whisper/Jailor metas this game has had for the last five years, and a buff for Disguiser, especially when you factor in things like development time.

It just loses the tradeoff.

[Chemist1422]

don't currently have anything to add but just gonna put this in my view your posts since it seems like an interesting discussion

[Brilliand]

I'd much rather actually fully rework Spy than just nerf it again

Do you have a particular rework in mind? I still like my Role-Tracker idea.

[woahah]

Honestly not convinced that "just a bug" is very convincing for an entire role, I'd much rather actually fully rework Spy than just nerf it again

Also remind me what Agent is?

honestly making spy underpowered is the way to go
Massive change isnt very good and ill be honest i forgot too
I just remembered it would be useful to have in tos

how would making spy be a role much less powerful than other town roles, creating even more power discordance than is already existent among town roles, be the way to go

also removing the main utility of spy in and of itself is a massive change to the role

excuse me i dont like the sass
its not as big as a change as changing everything

[MysticMismagius]

Mafioso
First off, Astral and Ninja are not synonyms, and the difference is actually very key! I am not a huge fan of this (although I wouldn't cry if it were implemented), mainly because the difference between how this interacts with a Doctor and a Bodyguard is so large as to make attacking a Jailor N1 with this potentially very harmful. If a Lookout sees a Doctor heal the Jailor N1, that's three town confirmed in one go, so it's probably best for the Mafia to not even take that coin flip. I just think there are better ways to deal with this meta, mainly Osservatore.

All well and good, but I'd still want this to be implemented anyway, purely because removing the change means something else needs to be done to make Mafioso not just worse-GF, and this is the best way I've seen that does this.
Edit: Also, I think we should take the Dev's word for it when he says that Astral and Ninja are going to functionally be the same in this game.

I personally think Mafioso changes are better as a long-term goal, to be included with the implementation of Mafia Tactical Kills in an update further down the line. I see no reason to spend time coding new interactions on a change just to make it unique when we can take other steps to better fix the problem we're trying to address.

Fair enough, as long as we can agree Mafioso needs to be changed at some point.

Disguiser
I think giving this a Spy-like bug for some information gathering and letting it maintain a Disguise rather than losing it is the best simple change here. The proposed change really only affects games with Investigators, while simply changing how it works a bit allows it to fake-claim Spy perfectly and also allows it to have an easier time against every TI role, not just Investigator.

The point of the first proposed change is that it doesn't require as much Consig support to pull off a successful disguise, as you're disguising as a role and not a person. As it SHOULD be. This means you can actually muck up the role list or orchestrate mislynches with Disguiser much more effectively than you could before. IDEK what's up with that second change though.

My main issue with letting it pick any role is that is basically becomes a better Godfather, for free. Restricting it to roles in the game that it has visited means it's mechanically catchable, and giving it the bug lets it have some utility to help feed into a fake claim. Having two Disguisers spawn with the suggested "pick any role" thing means that most Investigatives literally cannot catch anything except the Mafioso, and that's the same issue I have with Framer being given the ability to Tailor. I really believe it's too far over the line.

I disagree that Disguiser would be a better GF with this buff. The main drawbacks of Disg as a Mafia member that fools people into thinking it's Town are still the same: That it pings sus to Sheriffs, and that it is required to die for its disguises to be useful. All this does is make it so that your ability to make a decent disguise isn't so wholly dictated by luck.

Blackmailer
The main issue the Blackmailer has is that using its ability reveals it exists and makes its passive whisper-reading useless by virtue of players knowing their whispers are 100% open to the Mafia. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this is best fixed by removing the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers. In return, it should be buffed such that blackmailed targets can't change their vote once placed for eight seconds, and they shouldn't even be able to say "I am blackmailed." when voted to the stand. This allows the Blackmailer to more aggressively pursue mislynches without their target vote-spamming to indicate they have been blackmailed.

*Vietnam flashbacks to games where I was constantly blackmailed and couldn't speak until I died*

I'm not arguing that Blackmailer is a good role that shouldn't be reworked eventually - all I'm saying is that it can't even do the job it is supposed to be doing right now, and ends up being kind of negative utility for the Mafia. In the interest of reducing overall swing, I would argue that buffing it now is ultimately good, even if I agree that its core concept is at odds with a game of social deduction.

I suppose. Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution, though.

Forger
It should inherit the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers, helping it to construct believable fake wills. It should also now have its fake wills carry over into the day, allowing the Forger to push mislynches onto a "Disguiser" or erase critical will information more flexibly than a Janitor can. Lastly, it should be able to forge four fake wills rather than three, giving it more uses than a current Janitor if it does decide to go for purely wiping information from wills.

Yes, I would rather have BM's ability to read whispers transferred than removed, but... why Forger specifically? Is it just to make it not Diet-Janitor, or is there a reason why Forger would benefit the most from the transfer?

Forger is a role whose ability is not readily detectable, one of the things that should be true of whichever Mafia role can read whispers. However, more critically, Forger benefits the most from the transfer because it can use information gained through whispers to help build convincing forged wills, which is even more important if they can carry over to the next day.

Okay, thanks.

Retributionist
I don't think Retributionist is too strong overall - I think it is too strong in the context of spawning into a game randomly. Removing it from Ranked does indeed seem like the best option.

Unfortunately Achilles doesn't like that option...

Hence the idea of "Town Leader" - if, universally, the Town can only have one of Retributionist/Mayor/Jailor as their dedicated leader, this should no longer be a problem. Presumably, the issue is that outright preventing a role that should in theory be able to spawn in Ranked but is just arbitrarily restricted is un-intuitive to players and will be hard to explain within the game's systems. However, creating a Town Leader category, of which every role is not only Unique, but the entire category is unique such that there can never be more than one Town Leader in any gamemode, should fix this problem easily.

Earlier in this thread I advocated for the Ranked role slots being spelled out as different in the case of Ret being removed, but this would also work as long as it too is explained.

Mayor
The Mayor is a god with a Bodyguard and extremely weak with a Doctor. In general, it shouldn't be this reliant on what the TP slot rolls, so I'd give it back its ability to be healed, and its ability to whisper (which was never the real issue anyways), and then take it out of Ranked. As long as it is made so there can be either a Jailor, a Retributionist, or a Mayor in any given game, never more than one, it's probably fine to leave it there - after all, you're trading a Jailor and a Retributionist for its existence, and the current Jailor meta is just the old Mayor meta, so if we successfully kill the Jailor meta, the Mayor meta won't return (as I'm sure some will claim).

I'd really, really like a TL slot to work, but I worry about RT making it useless.

Again, the idea is that it is impossible for there to be more than one Town Leader role in the game. Random Town cannot spawn a Town Leader if one already exists any more than it can spawn a second Veteran.

Cool. In that case, carry on.

Janitor
2 cleans down from 3, bring it more in line with the others, but it shouldn't lose a usage unless the clean is successful

Is that really neccesary? Janitor's good, but I don't think it needs the nerfs that badly.

It's more of a sidegrade than a nerf - although you can no longer clean three people in one game, you are now near guaranteed to get off two cleans as long as you survive, considering uses that would have been wasted before are now saved until you perform a clean successfully. This is another matter to reduce swing, both within solely the scope of a Janitor's best and worst case scenarios, but also helping to bring it more in line with the rest of the other Mafia roles.

So it's like the Ice Beam/Blizzard question in Pokémon? That's evil. Having cleans/forges only take away a charge if they work is a real nice QoL change, but I don't like it being tied to having one less charge altogether.

Bodyguard
Letting it be healed when it is sacrificed protecting somebody enables TP chains that help to propogate not only the Jailor meta, but also allow a Doc/BG combo that really has no reason to exist. If it loses its life protecting someone, it should die.

Alternatively, you could give evils ways to counteract TP chains, as this only helps in the instance of a Doc/Crus + BG combo. Under this change, evils are still fucked if they encounter a TP healing circle not involving BG. (This includes double Doc healing circles, which are possible in Ranked)

The problem with that is that you cannot be sure the Mafia will have that countermeasure when they need it unless it is a factional ability. Hence why I'd rather see changes to Doctor further down the line and just nerf Bodyguard now, which takes out a scum with it. I'm bouncing back and forth between seeing how non-consecutive Jailor goes and applying that same idea to Doctor, or just making it so it can't heal someone twice in a row if successful. You could easily go farther if necessary, but I think we'd want a third TP before we start trying to tie Doctor down too much.

Like I said earlier, nothing's more permanent than a temporary solution. As far as preventing TP healing circles goes, it's a matter of personal choice: you either have to nerf every TP so they can't form healing circles, or you buff every evil to give them the tools to counteract TP healing circles even while alone. I'm partial to the latter, but won't be too mad if we go with the former.

[alvac2012]

Overall, In games with LO's, yes, TP/LO is extremely strong and lately I have had a lot of games where there are multiple LO's, allowing them to constantly watch over multiple townies. Perhaps making LO a unique role would help? Because mafia gets really shafted when there are multiple LOs. I really don't know how TP/LO gets countered because like you said, it went from Mayor to Jailor, and now, if they "nerf" jailor "meta" then it'll just shift to one townie calling tp/lo to confirm everything. I really do believe that evil buffs are the only way to solve this problem, but how is the question.

[BS4125]

Response to orangeandblack5 (spoiled for good measure):

Spoiler:

Mafioso
First off, Astral and Ninja are not synonyms, and the difference is actually very key! I am not a huge fan of this (although I wouldn't cry if it were implemented), mainly because the difference between how this interacts with a Doctor and a Bodyguard is so large as to make attacking a Jailor N1 with this potentially very harmful. If a Lookout sees a Doctor heal the Jailor N1, that's three town confirmed in one go, so it's probably best for the Mafia to not even take that coin flip. I just think there are better ways to deal with this meta, mainly Osservatore.

Agreed, it doesn't covers all ways of protection and so the D1 Jailor meta can still exist through Doctors being able to heal an astral attack. If we could make any major changes eg. role additions, Osservatore or any variant of a Mafia Lookout is kind of a necessity, since it easily helps solve the D1 Jailor meta compared to adding an unnecessary buff to a role that doesn't need it

Framer
I've supported being able to Tailor your fellow Mafia members in the past, but I have fallen pretty far out of favor with this idea over the past few years, so a few reasons. The second-most-important one is that investigatives should be rewarded for choosing good targets, and the Mafia should be rewarded for killing people who might investigate them. This change means you can never really trust an innocent result. The primary reason that this should not be the fix we go with, however, is that it amplifies the swing already inherent to Framer. Consider a game that rolls Lookout/Lookout, and compare it to a game that rolls Sheriff/Sheriff. In the latter game, the Framer has a decently high chance of framing somebody already, and if it can tailor its teammate it's very likely to have a large impact on the game! However, when Lookout/Lookout rolls, the Framer is literally negative utility, as it will never get a frame off. Although I can see the idea that this is now a further (necessary) nerf to Spy being sold as a positive, I fear that we will reach the point where Spy is too weak and considered not fun enough to cause issues with players who roll it. All in all, I much prefer focusing on making Framer more reliable, regardless of which Town Investigatives roll, to making it stronger IF the roles it can affect roll. The easiest way to do this is to make it so people who are framed are seen to be visiting the Mafia kill target by Lookouts and Trackers, and so their real visit target is seen as being visited by the Mafia to the Spy.

The tailor ability as a buff is incredibly weak also since this interaction between Framer and TI would hardly happen. Framer 100% needs to effect each TI roll otherwise it has no utility for when only Lookouts and Spies roll, so agreed

Jailor
Non-consecutive Jailor is great, suicide Jailor is just... no thank you. Suicide guilt is a super swingy mechanic that I strongly feel should be removed from the Vigilante, so to see it being suggested for Jailor is honestly a bit frightening. Much better to reduce executes to 2 or even 1 than to make it so a misstep on an execute kills TWO town, including the Jailor, in one go. Personally, I'd go non-consecutive, 2 executes, and downgrade its protection to Basic, nerfing it a bit in every area rather than gimping it if and only if it executes a Town.

Yeh the suicide mechanic isn't ideal in that it's too large of a loss with 2 town dying for one mistake, I agree being unable to jail is punishment enough. Vig guilt also should be removed. And yes, why is jail better protection than from a TPr role? Jail should give basic defence.

Disguiser
I think giving this a Spy-like bug for some information gathering and letting it maintain a Disguise rather than losing it is the best simple change here. The proposed change really only affects games with Investigators, while simply changing how it works a bit allows it to fake-claim Spy perfectly and also allows it to have an easier time against every TI role, not just Investigator.

Not sure what the Spy bugs adds tho other than a fake claim, seems unnecessary. I think allowing the Disguiser to disguise other players and to have them flip as the role of their choosing would be a great addition, especially if it includes lynching as it could definitely help with doomed Mafia.

Osservatore
Basically the best defense against the TP/LO meta. It both makes LO claims untrustworthy, and also makes finding the Town Protectives extremely easy for the Mafia, which will likely kill the Jailor meta outright. Kinda hard to keep the Jailor alive when the TPs are all dead.

/support

Blackmailer
The main issue the Blackmailer has is that using its ability reveals it exists and makes its passive whisper-reading useless by virtue of players knowing their whispers are 100% open to the Mafia. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this is best fixed by removing the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers. In return, it should be buffed such that blackmailed targets can't change their vote once placed for eight seconds, and they shouldn't even be able to say "I am blackmailed." when voted to the stand. This allows the Blackmailer to more aggressively pursue mislynches without their target vote-spamming to indicate they have been blackmailed.

Blackmailer should most definitely not read whispers. And agreed, the fact that blackmailed targets can confirm themselves undermines its whole ability to be able to push mislynches

Forger
It should inherit the Blackmailer's ability to read whispers, helping it to construct believable fake wills. It should also now have its fake wills carry over into the day, allowing the Forger to push mislynches onto a "Disguiser" or erase critical will information more flexibly than a Janitor can. Lastly, it should be able to forge four fake wills rather than three, giving it more uses than a current Janitor if it does decide to go for purely wiping information from wills.

Editing the fake will during the day and having the will carry over from day and night majorly helps the functionality of the role. Plus I'd also not mind the Forger inheriting Janitor's ability of gaining the actual will from the killed target, makes more sense and gives it some utility

Retributionist
I don't think Retributionist is too strong overall - I think it is too strong in the context of spawning into a game randomly. Removing it from Ranked does indeed seem like the best option.

Strongly agree

Mayor
The Mayor is a god with a Bodyguard and extremely weak with a Doctor. In general, it shouldn't be this reliant on what the TP slot rolls, so I'd give it back its ability to be healed, and its ability to whisper (which was never the real issue anyways), and then take it out of Ranked. As long as it is made so there can be either a Jailor, a Retributionist, or a Mayor in any given game, never more than one, it's probably fine to leave it there - after all, you're trading a Jailor and a Retributionist for its existence, and the current Jailor meta is just the old Mayor meta, so if we successfully kill the Jailor meta, the Mayor meta won't return (as I'm sure some will claim).

TPrs should be consistent with who they can protect and whisper games are prevalent with any easily confirmable Town role so agreed.

Serial Killer
Just make it so that when the Serial Killer attacks a roleblocker, the roleblocker's death message will now be "You were stabbed by a Serial Killer!" instead of "You were stabbed by the Serial Killer you roleblocked/jailed!" In a game with the Medium, there is zero reason to 100% confirm that.

100% needed, basically dooms the SK for no reason

Janitor
2 cleans down from 3, bring it more in line with the others, but it shouldn't lose a usage unless the clean is successful

Sure, not against this

Bodyguard
Letting it be healed when it is sacrificed protecting somebody enables TP chains that help to propogate not only the Jailor meta, but also allow a Doc/BG combo that really has no reason to exist. If it loses its life protecting someone, it should die.

Yes, strongly agree