Has the new Iso feature changed game balance?

[orangeandblack5]

I'm hoping to collect some player feedback on how much they think the new ability to filter chat to only see one player's posts in isolation has affected the game's overall balance.

[EqsyLootz]

I think it gives town a little bigger advantage with organizing info based on player and specifically reading them.

I don't like it. Gives town-advantage.

[orangeandblack5]

In my games thus far it has proved useful but never actually changes the game, personally.

[MysticMismagius]

I've heard an argument on Youtube and other forum posts that the iso feature makes it impossible to lie, and I feel like here is the best place to address this argument.

It's bullshit.

If you made a lie that could be easily detected by someone isoing you (claiming multiple roles, putting false words in people's mouths, etc.), you made a bad lie and banked on people not noticing it. This is not skillful play and it should not be rewarded. Someone could have caught those lies anyway by reading the chat log. The iso feature only removes an interface barrier and gives people room for analysis of people's chat rather than forcing them to waste time looking for the messages they want to analyze. Yes, Town gets a bit more mileage out of this than evils do (hence why I picked "the game is a little bit more townsided now"), but it does so in a way that fosters positive growth among both townie and evil players. As aforementioned, townies can now spend more of their brainpower analyzing people's behavior than trying to work around the interface barrier, while evils have less of an excuse to make sloppy self-contradictions, and can use the iso feature to scumread other evils and craft lies to get on Town's good side.

Edit: Remember, the iso feature is a scumreading tool for everyone. While I can't deny Town gets the most mileage out of it, evils can also use it to their advantage, either by scumreading other evils to get on Town's good side or by "scumreading" a townie who seems like the best candidate for an orchestrated mislynch.

[orangeandblack5]

Well-spoken, and more or less my view on the feature, although I do think the benefits to evils in generating fake reasoning and misdirecting the town should not be overlooked.

[MysticMismagius]

Ah, yes, I glanced over that a bit too much.

[orangeandblack5]

They probably aren't as good as the benefits to town

But scum can certainly make use of them

And overall I'd say it'd probably negligible balance-wise for all but extremely-high-elo games, where it's probably a slight change at most (bad lies were already caught there anyways)

[MysticMismagius]

And overall I'd say it'd probably negligible balance-wise for all but extremely-high-elo games, where it's probably a slight change at most (bad lies were already caught there anyways)

I disagree here, the most change is for low elo games or other games where people suck. Those are going be the places where you see such bad lies the most, and also where you see townies not noticing it. In these games, evils making bad lies and banking on people not noticing them tends to pay off (and thus those evils move forward thinking it's a good idea when really it's not), whereas with the iso feature that's less likely to happen. As I mentioned in my first post this will make both teams grow as players, so even if it buffs town there it's not a bad thing.

[SparkingJay]

It literally doesn't change anything unless you are stupid and let people change their claims/results/whatever.

[fwogcarf]

Unfortunately for me this feature doesn't seem to exist on the browser version

But then again it could just be me

[MysticMismagius]

Unfortunately for me this feature doesn't seem to exist on the browser version

But then again it could just be me

It doesn't. Browser players are getting the shaft until Web Unity comes out.

[kosmo16]

It literally doesn't change anything unless you are stupid and let people change their claims/results/whatever.

I won few games, because of that. So it changes something.

As Mafia you sometimes need to change your early results in the will hoping that no one will notice. Now it's not possible.

[kyuss420]

on web, so cant use it, but I think that its a huge advantage for the goldfish players, who really dont deserve that advantage. (goldfish = memory of 3 seconds)

[kyuss420]

It literally doesn't change anything unless you are stupid and let people change their claims/results/whatever.

So its an advantage for the stupid people. Atho those guys dont usually check logs anyway....