Ambusher Rework

[alex1234321]

Role Name:
Ambusher

Role Alignment:
Mafia Killing

Abilities:
You may choose to lie in wait outside your target's house.
Kill one captured player the following night in place of the Mafia's factional kill.

Attributes:
Any player who visits your target will be captured
Killing a captured player is a passive visit, so it bypasses protection but not natural immunity
You may only lie in wait 3 times

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

Win Conditions:
Same as other Mafia members.

Additional Information:
Basic attack
You may capture and kill in the same night
You may target any player you want, regardless of whether or not they are in the Mafia
Death messages are the same as generic Mafia kill messages

Example:
John Hathorne is Mayor
Deodat Lawson is Bodyguard
Giles Corey is Lookout
Samuel Sewall is Doctor
Cotton Mather is Ambusher

D3: John Hathorne reveals himself as Mayor and asks for protection
N3: Deodat Lawson, Giles Corey, and Cotton Mather all target John Hathorne. All of their abilities work normally. Cotton Mather learns that Deodat is Town Protective and that Giles is Town Investigative. None of the players know that they were captured.
N4: Cotton Mather chooses to kill Deodat Lawson and may ambush someone else. Samuel Sewall attempts to heal Deodat, but this fails. Deodat Lawson dies. Meanwhile, Giles Corey and anyone who targets him are able to use their abilities normally.

This role removes many of the swingy and unbalanced aspects of the current Ambusher. All players who visit a target are captured, so nobody will learn the Ambusher's identity and no RNG is necessary. This also removes the increased KPN due to the Ambusher, which makes the game less swingy since extra kills impact the amount of time the Town has to kill the evil roles.

I think the biggest problem with this role right now is the swing introduced by the number of visitors and unpredictability of who will visit a certain target. However, like other roles that depend on visits, the Ambusher could target players who they think are likely to be visited by important Town roles. For example, they could target a confirmed Jailor in order to find Town Protective roles or target another Mafia member to capture Town Investigative roles. The fact that some roles visit and others don't may introduce more swing and make it easier for the Mafia to kill certain roles, but this is relatively minor and Mayor, which is arguably the most important non-visiting Town role, can be considerably weakened by killing Town Protective roles.

I'm not exactly sure whether this role is overpowered or underpowered. On one hand, it is very versatile in that it can investigate players while facilitating kills. It may be seen as a buffed Mafioso, in which case it could even function as a Mafioso rework instead. TMK would definitely be the best way to fix Mafioso imo, and under that system this role would still be functional and could act as either an alternative to or replacement for a reworked Mafioso.

Under the current system, if the Godfather is roleblocked, this role would severely constrain the number of people who may be killed by the Mafia. This can create a lot of swing since the Mafia's killing power would be highly dependent on whether the Godfather may kill anyone. Maybe, I can add an ability that if the Godfather is roleblocked the Ambusher could kill whoever the Godfather targets, which would bring it back to the position of a buffed Mafioso that I just discussed. However, if Ambusher spawns in place of Random Mafia like it does right now, this wouldn't be much of an issue. Anyway, the power of this role can be easily modified by either making this change or changing the specificity of the investigation results.

[Paradox12]

Imo what made ambusher good was the ability to get a second kill for the mafia. So there's no chance of me supporting this.

[syjfwbaobfwl]

/no support
This is very complicated and once again its super OP

Townie asks for protection

Ambusher captures all TPs (including trans) and since he roleblocks not even crusader can kill it, which means you get no consecuenses for your visits other than steping into a veteran

Mafia attacks the townie

Boom TP are completely useless


This is way more swingy than the current ambusher because if this role exists, no one can be protected in any way if ambusher is alive


It would be a lot better if ambusher just got the cautious thing
Notification is removed
If more than 1 person visits your target, you dont attack (you still visit though)

[alex1234321]

/no support
This is very complicated and once again its super OP

Townie asks for protection

Ambusher captures all TPs (including trans) and since he roleblocks not even crusader can kill it, which means you get no consecuenses for your visits other than steping into a veteran

I'm not sure if you understand the role correctly. I added an example and changed some of the language to make it more clear. A Crusader would be able to kill the Ambusher when they attempt to capture players. However, this would somewhat counter Jailor meta because protective roles would have to risk being captured by the Ambusher and killed the next night.

Mafia attacks the townie

Boom TP are completely useless

TPs don't have to protect people who ask for protection. Besides making reads, they can decide who to protect based on the roles they claim and can still protect Jailor claims at the risk of being ambushed just like they can right now.


This is way more swingy than the current ambusher because if this role exists, no one can be protected in any way if ambusher is alive

The Mafia wouldn't necessarily want to attack the player that they capture especially since most of the time the Ambusher would only capture 1-2 players. Also, the Ambusher captures nobody if they target someone who is not visited.


It would be a lot better if ambusher just got the cautious thing
Notification is removed
If more than 1 person visits your target, you dont attack (you still visit though)

That still gives Mafia more KPN, which is massively swingy, and does not meaningfully remove the swing caused by Ambusher hoping for one and exactly one visitor.

Sorry for not being clear on how this role functions. If you still think it is overpowered, there are several ways to nerf it. Either the investigative ability or the one preventing players from targeting the player being killed can be removed or modified. Also, it can be changed so that it is unable to capture people and kill someone in the same night. In that case, captures can be extended or made permanent to remove dependence on the night number if Ambushers usually kill their targets, but this shouldn't be too much of an issue. Limiting the number of captures or kills would have the same effect without any dependence on night number, so I think it would be an even better idea provided that Ambusher spawns as a Random Mafia instead of changing the current Mafioso slot into Mafia Killing.

Which changes do you think would solve your concerns while keeping its power in line with other Mafia roles?

[syjfwbaobfwl]

Ok now I get it, it sounds fine that way, but I think the investigative ability isnt necesary, its a MK, not MS.
Tbh that ability would fit well in consig

[alex1234321]

Ok now I get it, it sounds fine that way, but I think the investigative ability isnt necesary, its a MK, not MS.
Tbh that ability would fit well in consig

Do you still think the roleblocking is a problem? If I had to choose between killing a less important person with no chance of a TP over a more important player while risking TP, I would usually pick the less important player and bypass TP. As it stands, my rework has the potential to block TP every night except N1 which feels OP to me. What do you think about limiting the number of uses or not allowing it to capture and kill in the same night?

I think the biggest mechanical problem right now is the roleblocking and how it has the potential to weaken or even neutralize TP roles. After that is fixed, we can focus on balance. I added the investigative ability so that the Ambusher can have an idea of who they are killing and make better decisions, but removing that ability would create new strategies involving an Ambusher trying to get players to claim so I'd be open to removing it.

Do you think a 3-shot Ambusher with no investigative ability is UP? Or is it OP because it's still too strong against TPs?

[syjfwbaobfwl]

Ok now I get it, it sounds fine that way, but I think the investigative ability isnt necesary, its a MK, not MS.
Tbh that ability would fit well in consig

Do you still think the roleblocking is a problem? If I had to choose between killing a less important person with no chance of a TP over a more important player while risking TP, I would usually pick the less important player and bypass TP. As it stands, my rework has the potential to block TP every night except N1 which feels OP to me. What do you think about limiting the number of uses or not allowing it to capture and kill in the same night?

I think the biggest mechanical problem right now is the roleblocking and how it has the potential to weaken or even neutralize TP roles. After that is fixed, we can focus on balance. I added the investigative ability so that the Ambusher can have an idea of who they are killing and make better decisions, but removing that ability would create new strategies involving an Ambusher trying to get players to claim so I'd be open to removing it.

Do you think a 3-shot Ambusher with no investigative ability is UP? Or is it OP because it's still too strong against TPs?

What about removing the rb, and making that the first 2 times it bypasses TP and trans

But from third time the attack can be protected against

[alex1234321]

Ok now I get it, it sounds fine that way, but I think the investigative ability isnt necesary, its a MK, not MS.
Tbh that ability would fit well in consig

Do you still think the roleblocking is a problem? If I had to choose between killing a less important person with no chance of a TP over a more important player while risking TP, I would usually pick the less important player and bypass TP. As it stands, my rework has the potential to block TP every night except N1 which feels OP to me. What do you think about limiting the number of uses or not allowing it to capture and kill in the same night?

I think the biggest mechanical problem right now is the roleblocking and how it has the potential to weaken or even neutralize TP roles. After that is fixed, we can focus on balance. I added the investigative ability so that the Ambusher can have an idea of who they are killing and make better decisions, but removing that ability would create new strategies involving an Ambusher trying to get players to claim so I'd be open to removing it.

Do you think a 3-shot Ambusher with no investigative ability is UP? Or is it OP because it's still too strong against TPs?

What about removing the rb, and making that the first 2 times it bypasses TP and trans

But from third time the attack can be protected against

That seems complicated imo. What about only allowing it to capture players three times as opposed to three attacks? It might be swingy but I don't think it's that bad since it also adds skill by punishing players who target someone who isn't visited?

[EvilPudding]

Like the consort, this role has a couple flaws and I believe it’s not really useful. please make it balanced, make it more congruent to juggernaut or something

[cookies4you]

Like the consort, this role has a couple flaws and I believe it’s not really useful. please make it balanced, make it more congruent to juggernaut or something

I hope you're joking. Consort is literally the best Random Mafia role that can spawn.

[syjfwbaobfwl]

Like the consort, this role has a couple flaws and I believe it’s not really useful. please make it balanced, make it more congruent to juggernaut or something

Consort is perfectly fine

And wtf talking about jugg? Ambusher congruebt with jugg? Wtf is that?

[Soulshade55r]

Like the consort, this role has a couple flaws and I believe it’s not really useful. please make it balanced, make it more congruent to juggernaut or something

I hope you're joking. Consort is literally the best Random Mafia role that can spawn.

Don't underestimate the power of thicc booty

Consort is a godlike rm

[alex1234321]

I made it so that you can only lie in wait at someone's house three times, which should make the role useful without making TPs completely useless.

[Brilliand]

Directly contradicting Paradox12 - the thing that makes the current Ambusher bad is the fact that it's a bonus kill for the Mafia. That's why it needs its hideous downsides - though it's debatable whether those downsides are enough.

Unfortunately, I do agree that this role is overly complicated. I'd remove the "roleblocking" bit entirely, and change it to a passive (non-visiting) attack that ignores protection but doesn't ignore natural defense (like the Poisoner's Necronomicon attack). Of course this should still replace the Mafia's kill for that night. (The Mafioso and Godfather should get some message to indicate that this replacement happened.)

Learning the sub-alignments is a bit odd - giving this role exactly the Lookout's ability to see visitor names should be sufficient (in addition to the ability to kill one person the following night).

Boom TP are completely useless

Countering TP is kinda the point of the Ambusher. Still, this doesn't make the TP completely useless - they'll still be able to protect the Jailor (who doesn't visit and so can't be ambushed), they'll just be accurately targeted by the Mafia (and unable to protect each other) so the Jailor becomes unprotected a little bit sooner. No more TP chains, which were kind of an exploit anyway.

[OreCreeper]

Directly contradicting Paradox12 - the thing that makes the current Ambusher bad is the fact that it's a bonus kill for the Mafia. That's why it needs its hideous downsides - though it's debatable whether those downsides are enough.

Unfortunately, I do agree that this role is overly complicated. I'd remove the "roleblocking" bit entirely, and change it to a passive (non-visiting) attack that ignores protection but doesn't ignore natural defense (like the Poisoner's Necronomicon attack). Of course this should still replace the Mafia's kill for that night. (The Mafioso and Godfather should get some message to indicate that this replacement happened.)

Learning the sub-alignments is a bit odd - giving this role exactly the Lookout's ability to see visitor names should be sufficient (in addition to the ability to kill one person the following night).

Well, I agree with Paradox12. Ambusher is really only useful BECAUSE it gives mafia an extra kill. This role hardly adds anything to the mafia. For catching TP, we have consig and bmer, and although consig is a pretty weak role (which is why I made a suggestion to buff it), this idea is basically consig-tier. I think it's fine that mafia has ambusher, with cautious, it's probably around as strong as mayor and mafia definitely needs a few strong roles to keep up with jailor and mayor.

Although I don't really think mafia is underpowered in ranked at the moment, I don't think that ambusher should get nerfed as harshly as this, to the point where the intended purpose is completely changed and it is about a fraction of how good it once was.

[Brilliand]

For catching TP, we have consig and bmer

Neither of which can do anything about a TP loop. Consort can stop a TP loop, but only with some clever guesswork (or with BMer support). This version of the Ambusher hardcounters that degenerate strategy.

Current version of the Ambusher hardcounters BG/Lookout loops, but not Doctor loops (with mixed results when the loop contains both).

I think it's fine that mafia has ambusher, with cautious, it's probably around as strong as mayor and mafia definitely needs a few strong roles to keep up with jailor and mayor.

Well, that makes sense if you have Jailor and Mayor enshrined as "good" roles. However, Mayor is currently the major "Town randomly gets a big advantage some of the time" role, and Jailor avoids that status solely by being both unique and guaranteed by the rolelist (so there will never be random variation in how many Jailors the Town has).

Ambusher can spawn randomly in Ranked, so if we suppose that it's similar in power to Mayor, then we have to consider that "Mayor spawns when Ambusher doesn't" and "Ambusher spawns when Mayor doesn't" are both possible, creating swing in both directions.

[alex1234321]

I like Brilliand's idea of making the attack passive because it accomplishes the intended purpose of the role while being less complicated. In that case, should there still be limited uses? I don't want this to make TP useless but it should weaken them depending on the circumstance.

I made the Ambusher learn the sub-alignments as a buff so that it has a better idea of who to kill. I don't think it's a buff for the sake of a buff because knowing sub-alignments can help the Ambusher make the right decision in the event that multiple players visit its target. If that's still too weak, I'd be okay with it learning exact roles.

[Brilliand]

In that case, should there still be limited uses? I don't want this to make TP useless but it should weaken them depending on the circumstance.

I think no. It's added complexity, and I don't like the thought of the Mafia facing a TP loop in the endgame with no way to break it because the Ambusher ran out of charges.

I made the Ambusher learn the sub-alignments as a buff so that it has a better idea of who to kill. I don't think it's a buff for the sake of a buff because knowing sub-alignments can help the Ambusher make the right decision in the event that multiple players visit its target. If that's still too weak, I'd be okay with it learning exact roles.

Think of how complicated the readout from the Ambusher's ability will be though! In any case, I don't think the Ambusher needs to be told anything about the players' roles; just knowing that they visited your target is likely to be enough information (especially if you were on the Jailor).

[alex1234321]

In that case, should there still be limited uses? I don't want this to make TP useless but it should weaken them depending on the circumstance.

I think no. It's added complexity, and I don't like the thought of the Mafia facing a TP loop in the endgame with no way to break it because the Ambusher ran out of charges.

Do you think this could lead to TP becoming almost useless in Ambusher games? I'm worried that if an Ambusher manages to hit someone who is visited almost every night, which isn't too hard, the Mafia might prefer to let the Ambusher take the kill and not worry about TP than kill whoever they were planning to. This would probably need testing to see how it would play out in a real game.

I made the Ambusher learn the sub-alignments as a buff so that it has a better idea of who to kill. I don't think it's a buff for the sake of a buff because knowing sub-alignments can help the Ambusher make the right decision in the event that multiple players visit its target. If that's still too weak, I'd be okay with it learning exact roles.

Think of how complicated the readout from the Ambusher's ability will be though! In any case, I don't think the Ambusher needs to be told anything about the players' roles; just knowing that they visited your target is likely to be enough information (especially if you were on the Jailor).

I don't think it would be too bad. It would be something like "You captured alex1234321! They are a Town Protective role." Sometimes you might get two players of different alignments visiting the same player, and depending on the situation you might prefer to hit someone of one alignment over the other. I don't think this is necessary with unlimited charges, but I would prefer to have limited charges and have the investigative ability supplement it.

[Brilliand]

Do you think this could lead to TP becoming almost useless in Ambusher games? I'm worried that if an Ambusher manages to hit someone who is visited almost every night, which isn't too hard, the Mafia might prefer to let the Ambusher take the kill and not worry about TP than kill whoever they were planning to. This would probably need testing to see how it would play out in a real game.

No. Using that strategy, the Mafia loses most of their choice in who they kill, and it's impossible to kill the Jailor through an Ambusher attack.

Something like that might happen in the early game, but it would be specifically for the purpose of killing TPs, not something expected to make the TPs irrelevant.

Oh, there's something I'm not clear on - does performing the Ambusher attack prevent the Ambusher from forming a new list of targets in the same night? It makes some difference whether this is an every-other-night thing or an every-night thing (though I'm not actually sure which I would prefer).

[OreCreeper]

You should remove the part where everyone who visits the ambusher's attack target is role-blocked because that doesn't really make any sense and it feels like it got added as an afterthought, and overall adds to the detriment of the entire concept.

[alex1234321]

You should remove the part where everyone who visits the ambusher's attack target is role-blocked because that doesn't really make any sense and it feels like it got added as an afterthought, and overall adds to the detriment of the entire concept.

That's not what I meant and the whole thing is unclear but I'm just going to make it a passive visit like Brilliand suggested once the details are ironed out.

Do you think this could lead to TP becoming almost useless in Ambusher games? I'm worried that if an Ambusher manages to hit someone who is visited almost every night, which isn't too hard, the Mafia might prefer to let the Ambusher take the kill and not worry about TP than kill whoever they were planning to. This would probably need testing to see how it would play out in a real game.

No. Using that strategy, the Mafia loses most of their choice in who they kill, and it's impossible to kill the Jailor through an Ambusher attack.

Something like that might happen in the early game, but it would be specifically for the purpose of killing TPs, not something expected to make the TPs irrelevant.

Oh, there's something I'm not clear on - does performing the Ambusher attack prevent the Ambusher from forming a new list of targets in the same night? It makes some difference whether this is an every-other-night thing or an every-night thing (though I'm not actually sure which I would prefer).

I've been flip flopping on this quite a bit. The current version allows the abilities to be used concurrently but it also has limited uses. I don't like the idea of making the role's power rely on the night number, but not allowing it to multitask would still allow it to make target lists twice in a row if they don't like the first list. Either way it's fine and it's just a matter of how powerful the role is. I'm leaning toward allowing both abilities to be used at once since it's currently relatively UP, but if uses are unlimited than it might be OP. I'm going to create a poll to get more feedback on these things.

[alex1234321]

I removed the sub-alignment mechanic based on the current poll results, but I would like more people to respond to the poll before the TG submission deadline.