Make the Consigliere unable to distinguish non-Town.

[Kikigiri]

The Consigliere is one of the strongest roles the Mafia has (their killers aside, obviously.) The gap between them and most other Mafia non-killers is pretty stark.

More than that (and the main reason I'm suggesting this) - the Consigliere severely punishes NKs, since it's effectively another person who will doom you if they find you. That's not something the game needs. Mafia can already find NKs by attacking them, and can beat them by outnumbering them or finding them via elimination in the late game. They don't need a super-investigative capable of flawlessly identifying NKs on sight on top of that.

Therefore, I suggest a change akin to the recent Sheriff change: The Consigliere can still perfectly identify Town, but for everyone else, their results are more limited. There are a few options:

1. The most extreme, Your target is not a member of the Town. No other info. Only problem is that this could in theory make the Consigliere useless in modes with no Town, but this is an oblique enough scenario that I'm not sure it's a concern.

2. Alternatively, if that is a concern, when investigating non-Town, you only learn their faction - Your target is neutral, Your target is a vampire!, or Your target is a member of the Coven. (Plus Your target is a member of the Mafia! if they get redirected or witched.) Possibly they could even learn exact Coven roles; I suspect that makes less difference than it seems. Vampires could also be considered neutral - it would help protect NKs a bit more by giving them slightly more cover, which is the main point here.

I don't feel that the Mafia should have a role that is so effective at finding NKs, since they already inherently have an advantage over NKs as long as they can beat the town without running down to 1 person, and since, realistically, the Mafioso / GF are already very effective at finding NKs by hitting their immunity.

(Now, you might say, wait, in the current Ranked list, there's only one neutral other than the NK! But Ranked isn't the only mode, and 50-50 uncertainty is still waaaay better than being 100% exposed to the Mafia with no doubts at all.)

[fwogcarf]

The first option makes more sense in ranked (Cause there's only two neutrals)

I don't find any problems with this so I think this is a good change

[Bodhrak]

a change akin to the recent Investigator change

You mean Sheriff?

I don't really see where this is a nerf.
Maf doesn't want to kill Neutrals. Either because they are immune or because they would be a wasted kill or both.
Sure, you can no longer frame the NK to "prove" yourself as town for 100%, but it's often better to let NK live a while and just avoid, especially if found early.
Very few NK actually need to be exposed this way, they typically draw their own suspicions.

I also see two problems:
1. Consig already sees all doused targets as Arso. Would they now see them all as Neutral?
2. There's an achievement for finding the GF. Achievement changes are on the list of things the devs want to avoid atm.

[EgyptFalcon]

1. The most extreme, Your target is not a member of the Town. No other info. Only problem is that this could in theory make the Consigliere useless in modes with no Town, but this is an oblique enough scenario that I'm not sure it's a concern.

Frustratingly enough, a large portion of Custom players spam NO TOWN and requests for Neutral/Evil roles until Town has lost majority, hopelessly outnumbered, or completely gone. So unfortunately, this is a scenario that pops up fairly frequently.

[Kikigiri]

a change akin to the recent Investigator change

You mean Sheriff?

Oops, yes!

I don't really see where this is a nerf.
Maf doesn't want to kill Neutrals. Either because they are immune or because they would be a wasted kill or both.
Sure, you can no longer frame the NK to "prove" yourself as town for 100%, but it's often better to let NK live a while and just avoid, especially if found early.
Very few NK actually need to be exposed this way, they typically draw their own suspicions.

Knowing who the NK is is still a huge advantage to the Mafia and a massive disadvantage to the NK, since the Mafia can plan around ensuring that the NK is lynched. Yes, sure, occasionally the Mafia might allow the NK to live, but when they do that they're doing it in a controlled fashion, secure in the knowledge that they can easily out them when necessary.

Are you actually arguing that the ability to find the NK isn't a big deal, though? Because I don't think that's true at all. Finding the NK is a major coup on the part of the Consigliere - it's one of the most important things to discover and share with the maf. Unless it's so late in the game that there's not enough time to lynch them, any hope the NK has of winning generally evaporates the moment the Consigliere finds them.

Or is your argument "NKs always lose eventually anyway, so it makes no difference?" That seems to be what you're saying with "very few NK actually need to be exposed this way." That's a bad argument - NKs are supposed to have a reasonable chance of winning, and while this change would not, alone, drastically shift the game, it would improve things slightly for them by somewhat reducing one specific threat. The game has to be balanced towards what it's supposed to be.

I also see two problems:
1. Consig already sees all doused targets as Arso. Would they now see them all as Neutral?

Sure. Arso could use the buff and Consigs could use the nerf. (On the whole it's a buff, since it means there's a larger crowd for the Arsonist to hide in - mislynches of doused people aren't really relevant to the Arsonist, since those people will die when they ignite anyway. It's the people who haven't been doused that the Arsonist benefits from eliminating, and in that respect it's to their advantage to have an undoused neutral lynched under suspicion of being them.)

2. There's an achievement for finding the GF. Achievement changes are on the list of things the devs want to avoid atm.

They can see Mafia roles, then. It doesn't make any meaningful difference.

[Bodhrak]

Are you actually arguing that the ability to find the NK isn't a big deal, though? Because I don't think that's true at all. Finding the NK is a major coup on the part of the Consigliere - it's one of the most important things to discover and share with the maf.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Finding NK is not a big deal for Consig. Finding worthwhile and worthless targets for your Killers is the main job. Along with finding specific town roles so your other RM has an actual chance of making an impact - forger and to a lesser degree disguiser, but also Consort all benefit heavily from knowing their targets.
Now this all counts on the fact there is no spy outing your movements, because if there is you become both predictable and will have no chance of pulling off any stunts with other RM.

NKs are supposed to have a reasonable chance of winning

That winchance should be (mathematically) ~7%. (In ranked 1 of 14, ignoring NE as they either have their own goal or can be swingy).
Now I don't know how far actual statistics are for this, but I also don't believe that this change would have any noticeable impact on these chances.

Arso could use the buff (...)

Disagreed.
Arso is probably the strongest of the three NK atm. That doesn't mean he has a good chance at winning (see 7% above) but it at least means he doesn't have like a million lose conditions (SK) or relies on luck to be efficient (WW).

[pierrew]

I like this you should consider submitting this to the tg poll

[itslitatthenightsh0w]

This is a horrendous idea.

[Kikigiri]

If you want to help with this, I'd suggest taking away death notes for everyone but the SK. That way, the SK can out mafia immunity, but not the other way around.

Maf could still out the SK in their wills, or by claiming an investigative role. Or they can just shout "X IS THE SK!" on the stand when being lynched.

Removing DNs from maf would help, but I feel like there's way too many ways for an NK's role to come out once the Mafia knows it, so we should generally try to avoid making it too easy for the Mafia to identify NKs.

[Brilliand]

IMO a better solution to this would be to give the Consigliere Investigative results, but with the Mafia role removed (unless he actually visited a Mafia member, in which case he sees their exact role).

Thematically, the Consigliere is just an Investigator who knows who the Mafia are - there's no reason he should be able to tell the difference between a Doctor and a Serial Killer.

[WhiteGoblin222]

IMO a better solution to this would be to give the Consigliere Investigative results, but with the Mafia role removed (unless he actually visited a Mafia member, in which case he sees their exact role).

Thematically, the Consigliere is just an Investigator who knows who the Mafia are - there's no reason he should be able to tell the difference between a Doctor and a Serial Killer.

This is the right idea. It puts the investigating back into an investigative role so you have to figure out the roles like town rather than be given the knowledge of anyone's role.