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Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:58 am
by orangeandblack5
It's not that it's too much work, it's that there comes a point where achieving perfect mechanical balance simply isn't worth the tradeoff. Citizen is pretty necessary for claimspace in most circumstsnces, and scrapping it will definitely have farther-reaching effects than improvement of mechanical balance.

Keep in mind that they had to be initially added, or else TG wouldn't have them right now. There were and continue to be many valid arguments for including Citizens in a game, and the tradeoff of more mechanical balance simply isn't worth losing all that cits bring to the table.

nice strawman btw

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:27 pm
by Gooose26
orangeandblack5 wrote:It's not that it's too much work, it's that there comes a point where achieving perfect mechanical balance simply isn't worth the tradeoff. Citizen is pretty necessary for claimspace in most circumstsnces, and scrapping it will definitely have farther-reaching effects than improvement of mechanical balance.

Keep in mind that they had to be initially added, or else TG wouldn't have them right now. There were and continue to be many valid arguments for including Citizens in a game, and the tradeoff of more mechanical balance simply isn't worth losing all that cits bring to the table.

nice strawman btw

Claimspace is subjective to a rolelist. With a rolelist of 7 random town roles, you have plenty of claimspace. With no random town roles, you don't have enough. This means that there is an equilibrium to be found somewhere, not including Citizen. We can find ways to get claimspace, but we cannot find ways to fix Citizen.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 10:50 pm
by orangeandblack5
Citizen doesn't need a "fix". And Citizen provides more claimspace than any number of RTs ever could.

I'd much rather play "find the scum" than "confirm the town". Citizens help with that immensely.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:00 pm
by fwogcarf
citizen is useless

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 12:23 am
by Gooose26
orangeandblack5 wrote:Citizen doesn't need a "fix". And Citizen provides more claimspace than any number of RTs ever could.

I'd much rather play "find the scum" than "confirm the town". Citizens help with that immensely.

The whole rt cant make claimspace argument you are making is just stupid honestly. It allows you to claim anything, not just claim that you do nothing and hope town believes you. Sure, it is easier to just claim that you do nothing, but there is no skill involved in claiming you do nothing. With random town, we can create claimspace as well as bring in the skill of using deception, something very important in mafia games, in what you claim. Claiming citizen is just trying to hide and hope you don't get caught, which is what leads to confirming the town because there isn't scumreading when you just claim citizen in a game of ToS.

If you want to play find the scum, then you will also have to support my Town (Power) removal as well as Citizen, and also my unknown cause of death change. Silent roleblocking wouldn't hurt but that's not perfect yet. You need to remove confirmability in order to avoid confirm the town games(Town Power/Town Killing/Roleblockers), but you also need to create deception. If there is no deception, the game comes down to whoever leads the town, which leads to massclaiming, which leads to finding town games.

fwogcarf wrote:citizen is useless

As much as I dislike Citizen, useless isn't the proper word. They can vote, speak, and act as targets to take hits for the town. They can still do work, I'm not against them because of the whole "they aren't fun" argument.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 3:57 pm
by orangeandblack5
Gooose26 wrote:
orangeandblack5 wrote:Citizen doesn't need a "fix". And Citizen provides more claimspace than any number of RTs ever could.

I'd much rather play "find the scum" than "confirm the town". Citizens help with that immensely.

The whole rt cant make claimspace argument you are making is just stupid honestly. It allows you to claim anything, not just claim that you do nothing and hope town believes you. Sure, it is easier to just claim that you do nothing, but there is no skill involved in claiming you do nothing. With random town, we can create claimspace as well as bring in the skill of using deception, something very important in mafia games, in what you claim. Claiming citizen is just trying to hide and hope you don't get caught, which is what leads to confirming the town because there isn't scumreading when you just claim citizen in a game of ToS.

If you want to play find the scum, then you will also have to support my Town (Power) removal as well as Citizen, and also my unknown cause of death change. Silent roleblocking wouldn't hurt but that's not perfect yet. You need to remove confirmability in order to avoid confirm the town games(Town Power/Town Killing/Roleblockers), but you also need to create deception. If there is no deception, the game comes down to whoever leads the town, which leads to massclaiming, which leads to finding town games.

Please stop strawmanning me thanks

Also unknown cause of death is such a no-brainer that it kinda hurts to see TG still tells you how people died

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:41 am
by Gooose26
orangeandblack5 wrote:Please stop strawmanning me thanks

Also unknown cause of death is such a no-brainer that it kinda hurts to see TG still tells you how people died

Wasn't strawmanning but ok?

And at least we agree on something.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:12 am
by orangeandblack5
Gooose26 wrote:
orangeandblack5 wrote:Perfect mechanical balance is entirely unachievable, and I'm not convinced that it's worth scrapping Cits for less Town power variance from role to role.

So what you are saying is, rather than finding balance in everything that we can, you would just prefer that we only find balance in certain aspects of the game because some things are just too much work and fixing everything is "too much work" to do and thus doing work isn't necessary. That's cool and all, but just because you don't care about balance doesn't mean that it isn't needed, and because we need balance we also need this change.


Gooose26 wrote:
orangeandblack5 wrote:Citizen doesn't need a "fix". And Citizen provides more claimspace than any number of RTs ever could.

The whole rt cant make claimspace argument you are making is just stupid honestly.

I count two

And yeah, while I see where you are coming from, I am merely unconvinced that power variance depending on who gets what is an actual issue that needs fixing.

We seem to agree on a lot of things though, not just the unknown cause of death. "At least we agree on something" seems a bit strong :P

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:19 pm
by Gooose26
I meant it more as a friendly gesture, that we aren't in total disagreement, but you are right.

And I'll explain why I think it does, there's not much to argue if you are just "merely unconvinced" without proper opinions.

Think of players on a scale of skill, usually this scale can be determined by the ladder but elo isn't efficient enough right now to do that. I'll just use a scale of 1-10, 1 being a bad player and 10 being a great player. Now if we tally up all of the town's skill points together, and it is higher than that of the mafia's, then the town should win. But, there are multipliers to that because there are more town players and because of some town roles being focused on being better/worse. There is no problem with there being less mafia and if it is balanced properly the proportion of each mafia role could give use a formula to determine who should win. If the town is more skilled, then town should win. If the mafia(when proportioned to town) is more skilled, then mafia should win.

So that's the system, town power and citizen ruin this. Town power is proportioned as more powerful than a normal town role, say that a town power role is 2x more powerful than a normal role. That means that the player who rands town power is twice as much power than one. So if a player with the skill of 1 is given town power, then their overall effectiveness would be 2 compared to a player with the skill of 10 with the overall effectiveness of 20. So let's say there were 2 townies: 1 skill and 10 skill, 1 town power and one random town. If the 10 skill player has town power, then the overall effectiveness of town would be 21, but if the 1 skill player has town power then the overall effectiveness of town would be 12.

This should be the same number regardless of what roles are randed, and citizen has the same problem but rather than multiplying your effectiveness it divides it. So this is just clear swing because it is based on rng to determine roles. RNG determines how effective the town is.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 2:13 am
by DoonLord
Gooose26 wrote:Think of players on a scale of skill, usually this scale can be determined by the ladder but elo isn't efficient enough right now to do that. I'll just use a scale of 1-10, 1 being a bad player and 10 being a great player. Now if we tally up all of the town's skill points together, and it is higher than that of the mafia's, then the town should win. But, there are multipliers to that because there are more town players and because of some town roles being focused on being better/worse. There is no problem with there being less mafia and if it is balanced properly the proportion of each mafia role could give use a formula to determine who should win. If the town is more skilled, then town should win. If the mafia(when proportioned to town) is more skilled, then mafia should win.


And I guess NK just never wins ever huh. It always hurts me when people forget that this game effectively has 3 factions instead of just 2.

#NKhasrightstoo

*cough

Also totally agree with the OP. We should strive for all town to be equivalent in power (and mafia)

While we are at it should we make random neutral's instead be NB to prevent swing from extra NE's?

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 1:39 pm
by orangeandblack5
Honestly treating NK as a full-fledged faction is a mistake in my eyes. They exist to speed up the game, not truly to win. Sad but true, and also the reason I'd support removing Neutrals from Ranked entirely.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:16 pm
by NopeTooFast
no

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:15 pm
by orangeandblack5
Kirize12 wrote:
Kirize12 wrote:remove town in general

Everybody Is Mafia Mafia 2

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 8:15 pm
by Gooose26
NK is mechanically unbalanced and always will be as long as it remains as a solo faction. Saying it isn’t a faction doesn’t hold a lot of weight in my personal opinion because it wins the same as mafia but cannot win with mafia. The problem is that it can die too easily, and there is no way to stop that without making it impossible to kill. This makes NK swingy, and therefore unbalanced.

If you want fix that then you need to give NK the Witch win condition. Of course, the ranked rolelist would need to be scaled as this would be a direct buff to evils, but it would stop kingmaking and stabilize kpn.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 4:56 pm
by orangeandblack5
At that point just go full-on and give Mafia two kills

Although arguably 2 KPN isn't even needed lol

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:24 am
by chitownmvp01
orangeandblack5 wrote:
Kirize12 wrote:
Kirize12 wrote:remove town in general

Everybody Is Mafia Mafia 2


Nah pit all the neutrals against each other and remove night immunity. Last one standing wins.

Gooose26 wrote:NK is mechanically unbalanced and always will be as long as it remains as a solo faction. Saying it isn’t a faction doesn’t hold a lot of weight in my personal opinion because it wins the same as mafia but cannot win with mafia. The problem is that it can die too easily, and there is no way to stop that without making it impossible to kill. This makes NK swingy, and therefore unbalanced.

If you want fix that then you need to give NK the Witch win condition. Of course, the ranked rolelist would need to be scaled as this would be a direct buff to evils, but it would stop kingmaking and stabilize kpn.


NK winning with Mafia would be sooooooooooo OP, lol.

orangeandblack5 wrote:Honestly treating NK as a full-fledged faction is a mistake in my eyes. They exist to speed up the game, not truly to win. Sad but true, and also the reason I'd support removing Neutrals from Ranked entirely.


Agreed

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:30 am
by Gooose26
Power is something that can easily be adjusted. There is no theory behind it. Obviously, if we give NK the ability to win with mafia, we will not keep the same ranked rolelist as we currently have. That would be overpowered. But what if we removed all of the evil members and left in with just town? Well, then the evils are underpowered. So there's a good middle ground that rests in the middle, and nothing is simply "overpowered" or "underpowered" by looking at face value. My points remain.

Just to be clear, giving the NK the NE goal makes it a second mafia killer, it's just not informed. So yes, mafia would just have 2 kills.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:04 am
by orangeandblack5
Then why not just actually make it a second Mafia Killer?

For example, sure Arso may win with Mafia, but it either doesn't get any kills or probably takes out a few Mafia in the process as collateral

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 3:07 pm
by Gooose26
orangeandblack5 wrote:Then why not just actually make it a second Mafia Killer?

For example, sure Arso may win with Mafia, but it either doesn't get any kills or probably takes out a few Mafia in the process as collateral

You can do whatever you want with a change. I’m just simply stating that NK in it’s current state is terrible because it’s a 3rd faction in a game built for 2 factions. If you want it to be a second mafia killer, then do it. If not, I’m sure we could balance around NE killers. That’s not the important part of the argument.

You can use Arso or Werewolf as examples but they are both terrible roles for their respective reasons. Serial Killer is salveagable, but then you should realise that a mafia Serial Killer is just a Godfather that kills roleblockers(which is a bad mechanic that should be removed. So a second mafia killer should just be a Godfather, or we can remove te terrible Godfather/Mafioso mechanic and have 2 mafiosos, which is a lot more balanced.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:02 pm
by OreCreeper
Citizen should not exist. Survivor exists because it is the only truly neutral role in the game. Citizen is just a survivor but aligned with Town. Literally no abilities or anything. A good role should be able to be helpful to its faction in a way other than just being an extra vote. Again, Survivor is an exception because of its neutrality. A good role should be useful, but have their usefulness depend on the skill of the person using it. No utility is not much better than negative utility, in all honesty. Is it not obvious how bad of an idea a Town Survivor would be, balance and utility wise? It's boring and UP, and would quickly become one of the community's most hated roles.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:54 pm
by orangeandblack5
Sounds like you haven't played Citizen ever lmao

It's definitely a great role, is super fun to play, and lets you do a lot that you can't really justify doing with many other roles

That being said

I think you're in the wrong part of the forum lmao

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:10 am
by BasicFourLife
OreCreeper wrote:Citizen should not exist. Survivor exists because it is the only truly neutral role in the game. Citizen is just a survivor but aligned with Town. Literally no abilities or anything. A good role should be able to be helpful to its faction in a way other than just being an extra vote. Again, Survivor is an exception because of its neutrality. A good role should be useful, but have their usefulness depend on the skill of the person using it. No utility is not much better than negative utility, in all honesty. Is it not obvious how bad of an idea a Town Survivor would be, balance and utility wise? It's boring and UP, and would quickly become one of the community's most hated roles.

1. shut up
2. maybe not in tos, but in every mafia community it does exist cuz balance
3. S H I t u p

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:55 pm
by MysticMismagius
MysticMismagius wrote:Since Citizens have been mentioned a lot: I don't think they'd help with balance all that much. They'd basically be Town's version of the Framer: useless and boring when they appear, if the people who roll them don't just leave. It seems like a really artificial way to "balance" the game by occasionally having up to 3 (edit: or even more than 3, depending on game mode/edits to the Ranked role list) people who are nothing but a vote. If Town is OP, this should be mitigated by nerfing the OP roles and/or buffing the competition in ways that counteract the Town's most OP strategies, not by introducing dead weight to the Town.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:20 am
by Gooose26
Kirize12 wrote:
orangeandblack5 wrote:Honestly treating NK as a full-fledged faction is a mistake in my eyes. They exist to speed up the game, not truly to win. Sad but true, and also the reason I'd support removing Neutrals from Ranked entirely.

Agreed

This is what I call “loser theory”. If you are here accepting that a 15th of the rolelist is simply going to ruin somebody’s experience every single game, I’d argue that you don’t have the mindset to problem solve or work with others to build solutions. You’re simply accepting that Town of Salem will never be balanced and that it is people like you who derail every balance discussion that takes place.

Balancing isn’t a yes or no question, it is a question of how. The start of every suggestion is a belief that the game can be improved from it’s current state, whether physically in the game or just in theory on the forums. At the very least, this is me, a realist, trying to convince you, pessimists, that there is an underlying meaning. You guys aren’t visionaries.

orangeandblack5 wrote:Sounds like you haven't played Citizen ever lmao

It's definitely a great role, is super fun to play, and lets you do a lot that you can't really justify doing with many other roles

That being said

I think you're in the wrong part of the forum lmao

Name one ability that you are given when you roll the Citizen that you are not given when you roll any other Town role in Town of Salem. Your argument is based on meta play that you’ve experienced. You’ve built a bias to how the game of mafia should be played based on this experience, and it may be an effective style, but it’s not a standard of balance. You’re now indirectly enforcing this bias on others because you are using it as a standard of balance and it is not getting the whole picture from an aggregate perspective. That’s where FM and TG split on the topic: FM looks at meta while TG looks at balance.

You think it is a great role, you think it is super fun to play. Lots of others do not think it is a great role and lots of others do not think it is super fun. These are both entirely subjective statements that have no relation to the balance of the role. You also haven’t defined what “great” means. Does it mean great as in powerful? Citizen is not nearly as great as Jailor then. Does it mean great as in balanced? Well I’d argue that it is simply too weak. Does it mean great as in useful? Well, it definitely is useful for hosts who can’t make a balanced rolelist. All of this to say that this argument is irrelevant, at least to this section of the forums.

Re: Petition to remove Town (Power) and Citizen

PostPosted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 1:01 pm
by Schultz128
this is still being discussed lmao

balanced doesnt equal fun, no, but for competitive play you ought to prioritize overall game balance equality than worrying about each player being able to click a button each night.

mafia-based games aren't founded in their skill level through abilities primarily, it's primarily through your ability to properly analyze other players and effectively communicate that analysis.

abilities are just a shortcut for that.