Psychic(Town Investigative) Rework

[cob709]

Currently, Psychic is fed information every night about the Town. On odd nights, they are given a set of three players and at least one will be evil. On even nights, they are given a set of two players, and at least one of them will be good. The current Psychic is not a good role because it feeds the player information without requiring them to put in any effort. Instead, the quality of information that they Psychic gets should be based on their choices, not random luck.

This reworked Psychic will have their results dependent on the players that they select. The first time that two players of different alignments are investigated by the psychic, the results will be randomized, but will remain constant for the rest of the game.

Note: I am not a Coven player, as such, there may be some mistakes in the balancing.

Psychic
Town Investigative
Abilities

Each night, you may memorize two players.

Attributes

You will either be informed that your targets have at least one Evil or Town player.

Spoiler:
Notifications

[Psychic]: At least one of your targets is Evil!
[Psychic]: At least one of your targets is Good.

[Ezradekezra]

So if you receive only one notification, it's confirmed that both of your targets are one alignment?

Also, couldn't you check a confirmed Townie each night to turn this into a much better Sheriff?

[cob709]

So if you receive only one notification, it's confirmed that both of your targets are one alignment?

Also, couldn't you check a confirmed Townie each night to turn this into a much better Sheriff?

Allow me to clarify.
They will either know that one of their targets is Evil, or one is Town. However, they cannot receive both notifications.

If they choose to check a confirmed townie each night, they have the possibility of receiving the message "At least one of your targets is Good." which would yield no new information.

[Paradox12]

So if you receive only one notification, it's confirmed that both of your targets are one alignment?

Also, couldn't you check a confirmed Townie each night to turn this into a much better Sheriff?

Allow me to clarify.
They will either know that one of their targets is Evil, or one is Town. However, they cannot receive both notifications.

If they choose to check a confirmed townie each night, they have the possibility of receiving the message "At least one of your targets is Good." which would yield no new information.

So you're saying it's based on RNG if the "checking a confirmed townie" strat works, which is even worse than having it work 100% of the time. If you get the evil message, you know that the other person you checked is evil 100%, and if you get the good message, you get no info. So the abovementioned strat still has a chance of being broken as fuck, but it is now based on LUCK to determine if it is useful or not.

[RiceHatMan]

This still has rng (evil or town). And basically, all you do is match one sus with the Jailor, and if it says one is evil, you automatically know that person is evil. Good concept, not good when there are confirmed townies everywhere.

[cookies4you]

Having an overpowered ability that limited by a random chance of failing even when you use it correctly is awful for game balance.

When the coinflip lands, this role becomes a superior Sheriff who gets twice as many checks and can guarantee one-for-ones against Evils.

When the coinflip doesn't land, this role becomes a bad Sheriff who can't even confirm players as NS.

[cob709]

It will always give a true statement. If a player is using the check to compare with a confirmed townie, then that is their choice. However, you are not considering the possibility that they choose players other than confirmed townies/scummies.

Spoiler: If the Psychic chooses two unknown targets, and gets the results "atleast 1 scum," then they know that they both cannot be town, so if a town player dies within those two, then the other person is confirmed scum(1 for 1)
If the Psychic chooses two unknown targets, and gets the results "atleast 1 town," then they know that they both cannot be scum, so if a scum player dies within those two, then the other person is confirmed town
TLDR: The ability is more effective and functional when used on non-confirmed players.

Please stop assuming that the Psychic will always target a confirmed player. It may be the reason you are being hasty to conclude that it's overpowered/coinflip.

[cookies4you]

It will always give a true statement. If a player is using the check to compare with a confirmed townie, then that is their choice. However, you are not considering the possibility that they choose players other than confirmed townies/scummies.

If the Psychic chooses two unknown targets, and gets the results "atleast 1 scum," then they know that they both cannot be town, so if a town player dies within those two, then the other person is confirmed scum(1 for 1)
If the Psychic chooses two unknown targets, and gets the results "atleast 1 town," then they know that they both cannot be scum, so if a scum player dies within those two, then the other person is confirmed town
TLDR: The ability is more effective and functional when used on non-confirmed players.

Please stop assuming that the Psychic will always target a confirmed player. It may be the reason you are being hasty to conclude that it's overpowered/coinflip.

You generate an Evil result if you target Evil-Evil or win the 50% flip with an Evil-Town. You generate a Town result if you target Town-Town or lose the 50% flip with Evil-Town.

However, since Town outnumbers Evils, you are significantly more likely to target Town-Town and Evil-Town than you are Evil-Evil. You also have no way to distinguish Town-Town and Evil-Evil results from Evil-Town coinflips. Hitting Evil-Evil doesn't tell you what the other player is, while hitting Town-Town is useless because it gives less information than hitting Evil-Town and losing the coinflip.

But more importantly, the power difference between winning and losing the Evil-Town coinflip is just insane. Letting the Town kill an Evil with a 50% chance of also killing a Townie is much, much stronger than just confirming a single Townie if their Evil pair happens to die.

It's fine to balance a strong ability by pairing it with an equally strong weakness, but you didn't do that. Instead of coming up with a proper downside, you decided to limit the output of its overpowered ability by making it useless on random Nights. This is the balancing equivalent of giving Vigilante infinite bullets and removing its suicide clause, but giving it a 50% chance to fail its Basic Attack each Night.

[cob709]

Spoiler:

It will always give a true statement. If a player is using the check to compare with a confirmed townie, then that is their choice. However, you are not considering the possibility that they choose players other than confirmed townies/scummies.

If the Psychic chooses two unknown targets, and gets the results "atleast 1 scum," then they know that they both cannot be town, so if a town player dies within those two, then the other person is confirmed scum(1 for 1)
If the Psychic chooses two unknown targets, and gets the results "atleast 1 town," then they know that they both cannot be scum, so if a scum player dies within those two, then the other person is confirmed town
TLDR: The ability is more effective and functional when used on non-confirmed players.

Please stop assuming that the Psychic will always target a confirmed player. It may be the reason you are being hasty to conclude that it's overpowered/coinflip.

You generate an Evil result if you target Evil-Evil or win the 50% flip with an Evil-Town. You generate a Town result if you target Town-Town or lose the 50% flip with Evil-Town.

However, since Town outnumbers Evils, you are significantly more likely to target Town-Town and Evil-Town than you are Evil-Evil. You also have no way to distinguish Town-Town and Evil-Evil results from Evil-Town coinflips. Hitting Evil-Evil doesn't tell you what the other player is, while hitting Town-Town is useless because it gives less information than hitting Evil-Town and losing the coinflip.

But more importantly, the power difference between winning and losing the Evil-Town coinflip is just insane. Letting the Town kill an Evil with a 50% chance of also killing a Townie is much, much stronger than just confirming a single Townie if their Evil pair happens to die.

It's fine to balance a strong ability by pairing it with an equally strong weakness, but you didn't do that. Instead of coming up with a proper downside, you decided to limit the output of its overpowered ability by making it useless on random Nights. This is the balancing equivalent of giving Vigilante infinite bullets and removing its suicide clause, but giving it a 50% chance to fail its Basic Attack each Night.

Alright, it seems like the luck factor is strongly criticized on this rework.
I currently do not have any other ideas to rebalance Psychic.
Do you have anything in mind?

[Soulshade55r]

So a T/E would be generally random between them?

At least this doesn't make psychic as bad.

[cob709]

So a T/E would be generally random between them?

Yeah, but as others pointed out, it would be dependent on a coinflip which could be detrimental to the town.