Game Balance Suggestions

[ProvidenceAve]

these suggestions are for classic only, I haven't played coven yet.

I will start by saying ToS is a game with decent enough balance and nuance that if you really work hard you can play well as most roles, so there are a lot of roles that many gripe about or say they don't enjoy, but don't bother me at all.

But there are some obvious issues with balance that I wanted to throw out there, with some suggestions on how to improve balance.

1. Too many town roles that are easy to confirm. without a janitor, claim space is super thin and since town can afford to lynch a few innos if needed to eliminate claim space (especially if jailor survives), it can feel a lot like luck to get to the mid-game without the game starting to snowball

2. Speaking of snowballs, the game can easily snowball in the early game if too many evils are discovered\killed and the late game when evils get majority. Only if town gets a powerful role into the late game can they survive.

3. While there can be some surprising variation in games at times it feels as tho the meta can quickly get stagnant, with many people playing roles the exact same way every game.

4. For nearly every role, it remains the same the entire game, which limits creative space and variety.

Here are some of my suggestions to improve balance and keep the game fresh overall.

1. Character progression: I like the idea of players abilities changing over time throughout the game and\or based on certain conditions. Maybe there is an ability that is OP in the late game but perfectly balanced in the early game. For example, maybe a Jester that doesn't get lynched in the early game isn't just waiting around for an evil majority to lynch him, maybe his abilities and objectives changed. Maybe Jester marks a character for death overnight and if he isn't lynched within a day or two that character dies at night. Maybe Town Investigative roles get a weaker version of their results the first few days. Maybe a vet with no kills by d8 will shoot at random. Maybe mafia can pay hush money to shut down a vote or block inv results. Maybe a mayor lynches a rando if he doesn't get an evil lynched within three days. maybe an inv has to visit a sheriff to get their results but if they are tricked into visiting a consig they get false results.


or maybe certain roles abilities have a cooldown of a day or two, or require a certain number of characters dead or certain number of nights to pass to be activated. maybe roles that are really weak in early game gain a strong ability in the late game.

Obviously adding complexity to this degree does require additional balancing to make sure it doesn't go off the rails, but player progression does accomplish a few things: 1. balances game within it's context (number of days past, number dead, etc.) 2. allows for control to prevent the game from running too long. strong late game abilities can force the game to wrap up without lasting over 30 mins. 3. progression can make "boring" roles very exciting. 4. progression can be used to buff or debuff based on how characters are playing their role or how allies are working with them.

2. More chaos. abilities to affect communication, evil roles with changing objectives, etc.

3. Abilities that aren't immediate. maybe a player can be poisoned but can be healed if he is visited by a doc within a day.


The end goal would be to prevent the game from snowballing in the early or late game. harder to confirm first few days and weaker roles can get stronger in the late game, while some stronger roles can experience debuffs.

[kyuss420]

Any smart player can tell you that the game is won or lost in the first few days. Its the same in most coven modes. Thats why your point 3 and 4 exist. Making the right plays early game causes the match to snowball your way, so the best chance of winning is using the most optimal plays early game. After 2-3000 games, you know what works and what doesnt, so why wouldnt you use what works?

Claim space is always thin in any mode, once again, thats why you have to choose the right targets early game, to make the game snowball your way. Killing TKs is the only way to keep majority late game, so you have to kill the TPs on them early... so why would you waste time kiling a sheriff? Even if they find you, they cant do anything about it without majority or TKs.... 1 for 1 trade offs are worth it for town, but they need a TK alive for that (Thats where a role slot is in dispute by 2 claimers and town lynch one to confirm the slot, and vigi/jailor can kill the other if the lynched guy is inno) TBH even with a janitor, its not that hard to figure out the cleaned guys role, or at least the role slot he was taking.


As for your other suggestions, they all exist in Coven. The coven get a magic book night3 that buffs the holders ability. Basically gives them the ability to kill every night plus another small buff, sheriff also finds the holder of the book innocent. There is also a poisoner in the coven faction. He poisons a player 1 night and they die the next (unless healed by doc or guardian angel) When a poisoner has the magic book, the poison cant be cured. Pestilence and Juggernaut also have changing abilities.

The game is always going to snowball at some point. Harder to confirm in the first few days will snowball it towards mafia, if they know what theyre doing, as town wont want to vote on anything for 3 days, and with an NK, in best (or worst) case scenario, thats 4 dead townies by day 3, giving evils majority day 3, (5 town, 4 maf, NK and NE = 6 evils) enough to vote out the confirmed jailor. (then NK can start killing maf, maf can keep killing town and pushing to lynch the NK.. either way town are no longer controlling the lynching day 3+)

[ProvidenceAve]

Interesting, I have never played coven so I did not know how those new roles worked. My comments were centered around classic ToS. Don't get me wrong, the game gets a lot right and does have a degree of balance to it.

I suppose my suggestions are centered around slowing down the early game, making it a bit more strategic before things start to heat up in classic mode. If abilities had cool downs and roles were weaker\harder to confirm in early game it could put a bit more emphasis on the deduction\deception. VFR could be a bit less useful to town d2/d3 as long as evil roles also are prevented from getting too many kills due to cooldowns. once again, it sounds like coven does address a lot of this based on your description.

[kyuss420]

Interesting, I have never played coven so I did not know how those new roles worked. My comments were centered around classic ToS. Don't get me wrong, the game gets a lot right and does have a degree of balance to it.

I suppose my suggestions are centered around slowing down the early game, making it a bit more strategic before things start to heat up in classic mode. If abilities had cool downs and roles were weaker\harder to confirm in early game it could put a bit more emphasis on the deduction\deception. VFR could be a bit less useful to town d2/d3 as long as evil roles also are prevented from getting too many kills due to cooldowns. once again, it sounds like coven does address a lot of this based on your description.

Yea, altho VFR still exists in coven, (probably where it started tbh), and is actually encouraged with the addition of the psychic role, which gives 3 names on odd nights with at least one of them being confirmed evil. So from day 2 the evils are being pushed and forced to claim, as well as a few townies, then you have townies counter claiming, so a lot of roles are known by night 2. This is where coven can strategically claim a role to force a counter claim from a role that would prefer to remain silent.

Altho coven can get 2 kills per night at times, (even more if medusa has baited well enough - medusa is like a veteran and janitor in one role) so they can gain majority fast, so early claiming is a must for town to win.

So the snowball effect from making good plays early, still exists, even with the addition of all your suggestions. Is coven more balanced tho? Hard to say, personally, Id say its more fun, with the extra roles giving more dynamics to the game, metas like the TP/LO strat, dont work because some TPs kill townies too and besides, its likely Medusa baiting. Its still hard to win as NK without a bit of luck, and very hard to win as coven if you dont make the right plays early on, or if town knows the plays and counters them. Voting patterns and vouching for faction members in day chat still give you away, not claiming early still gets you shot by vigis or exed by jailors or RBed by escorts especially if you were on a psychics vision, so its balanced in a way that either faction can swing the game their way fast early game

[Soulshade55r]

coven is horribly balanced due to kpn and roles like psychic...

[kyuss420]

coven is horribly balanced due to kpn and roles like psychic...

roles like psychic balance out the kpn ratio. losing 1 coven after killing 2 town night 1 slows the kpn right down. Is psychic really any worse than a day 2 or day 3 VFR?

you might be surprised how many nights coven cant kill eg. CL has to break a TP chain with a trapper involved, CL controling a non visiting role early game, dead medusa day 2. Its really no worse than towns kpn abilities with instant majority, jailor, vig and vet

[ProvidenceAve]

I did want to return to chime in and mention after playing a lot more ranked, I have changed my mind and actually agree that classic ranked is a lot more balanced than I initially thought. Potentially higher ELO could handle some balance adjustments if meta gets stagnant, but lower ELO is chaotic enough to sustain a lot of variety.

lower ELO is a bit annoying, but im no top tier player myself