On Balancing Town (Investigative)

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On Balancing Town (Investigative)

Postby Cookazoo2 » Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:36 pm

Hello, all.

I know a lot of people want to change how Town (Investigative) roles act by completely swapping out their mechanics. I somewhat agree with this notion. However, I wish to quickly bring up a point on how to make your TI ideas.

Every Town Investigative role can be related to another one.

Consider this analogy:

Sheriff:Investigator::Lookout:Tracker::Spy:Psychic

Sheriff finds rough alignment.

Investigator finds rough role.

Lookout finds visitors.

Tracker finds visits.

Spy learns about the visits in the Evils.

Psychic learns about the people in the Evils.

Ideally, any changes should be focused on keeping this analogy, and balancing both sides to be roughly equal in power.

Investigator should be of a similar power level to Sheriff.

Lookout should be of a similar power level to Tracker.

Psychic and Spy should be of similar power levels to each other. I'm comfortable with them being "power investigatives" however.
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Re: On Balancing Town (Investigative)

Postby Cookazoo2 » Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:42 pm

Consider the following.

Sheriff splits the town into two groups: Us and Them.

Investigator (currently) splits the town into several groups which are somewhat similar in function amongst themselves.

Lookout can confirm up to three people in the same night.

Tracker can only confirm one.

Spy, with some simple deduction, can collect basic knowledge of the scumteam (two visits to the same person = forger/janitor, abnormal visit counts = disguiser, RB'd claim + MV = consort, otherwise it's Ambusher, Consig, Framer, or Disguiser, and anything else that's strange = immune, which is a guaranteed lynch if TP's out and posting).

Psychic drives the lynch because it's able to guarantee information about three players every other night, starting with the first.
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Re: On Balancing Town (Investigative)

Postby Cookazoo2 » Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:48 pm

So, what do I suggest?

Sheriff:Investigator::Lookout:Tracker::Spy:Psychic
• Rework Investigator to split the Town into fewer groups than it does currently but still maintain an atmosphere of mistrust amongst it.
I will open a discussion for this shortly.
• Rework Lookout to confirm fewer visits.
A good start would be to make it not see any visits when it sees more than the max.
• Rework Spy and Psychic hand-in-hand such that they are less powerful than they are now.
Spy should probably be able to see scum visits but have an element of non-sanity to it (some way for a false positive or negative to occur without interference of other roles)
Psychic should probably become a double-visiting Parity Cop with an element of non-sanity to it (for example, unique Town always returning negative), as that would be substantially weaker than "insta-confirm info feeder"
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Re: On Balancing Town (Investigative)

Postby alex1234321 » Sun Apr 11, 2021 6:02 pm

I don't think it's necessary for each TI to have a reverse version of it, but in many cases it's relatively easy to make a reverse version of an existing role. I think the more important guideline when designing TI roles is that they should determine the alignment of one person per night on average.

Sheriff is the most direct; it targets one person to roughly determine their alignment. It is considered to be weak due to the degree of doubt in its results.
Investigator does not directly determine alignments, but it can catch people claiming outside their result or force players into weak claims. From this lens, Investigator is actually fairly weak.
Lookout can get an idea of a player's night ability based on feedback, which can determine whether or not the player is evil. I agree that it should be nerfed to confirm fewer people.
Spy can effectively confirm 2-3 players per night as "not Mafia" with some degree of doubt. It shouldn't see Mafia visits because it confirms players too quickly.
Tracker can get an idea of its target's ability based on feedback, which can help determine the target's alignment. It is balanced since it sees one person's visit every night.
Psychic can confirm up to three people on odd nights but is mostly useless on even nights. But it has bigger issues unrelated to being OP or UP.

Cookazoo2 wrote:So, what do I suggest?

Sheriff:Investigator::Lookout:Tracker::Spy:Psychic
• Rework Investigator to split the Town into fewer groups than it does currently but still maintain an atmosphere of mistrust amongst it.
I will open a discussion for this shortly.

I'm not sure if this is necessary, considering that Investigator is already the least direct TI role and can never receive more than one result per night.

Cookazoo2 wrote:• Rework Lookout to confirm fewer visits.
A good start would be to make it not see any visits when it sees more than the max.

I agree that Lookout should see fewer visits, but the RNG must be dealt with through a priority list or something. I don't like the idea of punishing Lookout for seeing too many visits since the purpose of the role is to target people who you think will be visited.

Cookazoo2 wrote:• Rework Spy and Psychic hand-in-hand such that they are less powerful than they are now.
Spy should probably be able to see scum visits but have an element of non-sanity to it (some way for a false positive or negative to occur without interference of other roles)

I don't like the Mafia visit mechanic at all since it is more useful in confirming players as Town than catching scum, but if it can be repurposed somehow to only see one visit at a time, I would support that. Like maybe in addition to feedback it can see if a bugged person was visited by Mafia. That would still be UP, but it can be improved upon.

Cookazoo2 wrote:Psychic should probably become a double-visiting Parity Cop with an element of non-sanity to it (for example, unique Town always returning negative), as that would be substantially weaker than "insta-confirm info feeder"

I like Parity Cop. It has been tested extensively and is usually considered weaker than Sheriff. There should still be some degree of doubt, but I think Framer and Disguiser are enough. I would prefer it to be single visit and compare the last two targets to prevent it from being used as a stronger Sheriff with confirmed Townies, which can never be completely fixed since the game has no way of knowing whether or not someone is confirmed.
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Re: On Balancing Town (Investigative)

Postby MarsGodofWar » Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:41 am

Cookazoo2 wrote:So, what do I suggest?

Sheriff:Investigator::Lookout:Tracker::Spy:Psychic
• Rework Investigator to split the Town into fewer groups than it does currently but still maintain an atmosphere of mistrust amongst it.
I will open a discussion for this shortly.
• Rework Lookout to confirm fewer visits.
A good start would be to make it not see any visits when it sees more than the max.
• Rework Spy and Psychic hand-in-hand such that they are less powerful than they are now.
Spy should probably be able to see scum visits but have an element of non-sanity to it (some way for a false positive or negative to occur without interference of other roles)
Psychic should probably become a double-visiting Parity Cop with an element of non-sanity to it (for example, unique Town always returning negative), as that would be substantially weaker than "insta-confirm info feeder"


(1) Split the town into fewer groups what?
(2) WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, FUCKING WRONG. So you want to create more RNG which is problem enough in this game? Lookout doesn't need fewer visits period. Instead, fix the jailor meta and Lookout naturally gets nerfed.
"A good start would be to make it not see any visits when it sees more than the max." An absolute stupid fucking idea and completely unrealistic.
(3) Rework Spy sure, I agree. Psychic isn't an issue and coven ranked isn't a thing seeing as its impossible to find a game. Psychic is also really easy for evils to fake claim. The only rework I would suggest is a rework that removes rng, but psychic is far from powerful
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