New Ranked List

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New Ranked List

Postby blackaxe3 » Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:25 am

So Ranked Season 5 is probably going to be ending soon since it’s been almost a year, which means it might be time for a new role list. After seeing a lot of posts about the unfairness of the current list it was pretty obvious that the problem is luck. It’s all about who gets lynched day2, the other team pretty much gains majority instantly and wins.

One of the biggest problems is the Witch. You are essentially a worse Consort because you don’t know your teammates and there isn’t any doubt as to whether to you are an Escort since the message is different. So that gets removed. I replaced it with a Town Support because that’s the least luck-based alignment in my opinion.

Other than that I left the list the same. The current Jailor/2ti/4maf setup seems to be what the devs want and in this list it should actually work. Town can afford a mislynch and tie after the second (assuming 1 kpn from maf) instead of losing after the first one. Executioner has a decent chance to win since Town will get more pushy on day3/4 as they need to lynch to win, and of course there is the fallback of becoming a Jester. Unlike the current list where the game is over day2, maf can come back from a lynched member if they strategize about who is most important rather than picking randomly (again, decreasing luck). Considering the exe will likely push someone d3/4 the mafia should win around 40% and Town should win around 60% because Town has better roles. Exe should win about 70% including winning as a Jester.

Jailor
Town Investigative
Town Investigative
Town Support
Town Support
Town Protective
Town Killing
Random Town
Random Town
Random Town
Godfather
Mafioso
Random Mafia
Random Mafia
Executioner
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby TrillPhonk » Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:12 am

/nosupport

10v5? Seriously? Do you want Town to have 95% winrate or what? The Witch problem can be easily solved if they let witch win with evils regardless if dead or alive, but it seems like BMG needs an entire year to implement a simple change like that.

I really don't think that the suggestion from 1400 elo player about ranked balance is any good, anyway, try to have at least 50 games this season before making a suggestion about balance.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby syjfwbaobfwl » Mon Oct 18, 2021 8:54 am

This its stupidly town sided

Witch isnt a problem, executioner is

A 10v5 only works if its a real 10v5 (exe can make it a 10v4)
Also a 10v5 cannot have jailor or mayor on it
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby blackaxe3 » Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:46 am

The point is that this IS town sided. Mafia winning 70% of games is not what we need, Town should be favored to win overall because Town has more players.

As for Witch, the balance change to win while dead is an option, I’m not saying this is the only option for fixing the problems with Witch.

As for executioner, it’s completely necessary to cast doubt on TI claims and make Town less willing to lynch.

The problem is that the current list is scumsided, Town SHOULD be favored to win more because Town has more players.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby Joacgroso » Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:52 pm

In ranked, I think the winning team should be the one who played the best, not the one with more players. There shouldn't be a bias favoring any team. Also, why do you say it's completely necessary to cast doubt on TIs and make town less willing to lynch and why can't mafia do that instead? Mafia should push for misslynches, not wait for a neutral player to do it for them.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby EqsyLootz » Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:41 pm

blackaxe3 wrote:The point is that this IS town sided. Mafia winning 70% of games is not what we need, Town should be favored to win overall because Town has more players.

As for Witch, the balance change to win while dead is an option, I’m not saying this is the only option for fixing the problems with Witch.

As for executioner, it’s completely necessary to cast doubt on TI claims and make Town less willing to lynch.

The problem is that the current list is scumsided, Town SHOULD be favored to win more because Town has more players.


It should be 50/50 the current list is VERY balanced and is not scumsided. I personally suggest if you notice mafia are winning a lot to get better at reading.
10v5 let's town win 99% of the time which is not good game design. Especially with exe who could side town making it a 11v4. Not sure about you but that isn't fun. Also two TS slots gives more opportunities for Mayor, Retri, Escort and Transporter to spawn Aka 4 Powerhouse roles.

Sooooo.. Yeah no thanks.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby TrillPhonk » Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:52 pm

You can get to 2k elo playing 200 games, my point is that OP doesn't have enough ranked experience to make balance suggestions, don't take it personal, friendo @Kirize12
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby Soulshade55r » Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:22 pm

I do think people need to know the difference between balanced and actual good balance
you could have a meta where mafia and town flip a coin and it would be 50% winrate to each other, that wouldn't be fun or meaningful

The games I've played this season weren't really fun they ended so quickly and it just made ranked exhausting to play after a while

Current ranked depends on a few players getting the right roles, or RNG to spawn the better town roles or better mafia roles, there's so much difference of game impact in a role like ambusher to framer or medium to transporter it's not even funny

10v5 is balanced it's just not balanced with so many town power roles and how current chain jailing works, theirs ways to make 5v10 both fun and balanced.
NK role lists weren't balanced either because games depended on nk killing the right players and a lot of the time Nk acts as a kingsmaker/neutral benign with a bigger impact. Not to say i don't miss nk (Well i only really liked playing SK anyway but eh).

5v10 would be very boring also with not many varity between how mafia works because of the forced godfather/mafioso, the NE always having to be witch or a unbalanced NB (Exe/jester) called "neutral evil"

Personally their needs to be a "main" mode that isn't ranked that includes the legacy list (maybe a bit tweaked) so people who enjoyed the more classic styled ranked can still have fun and chaos.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby SatouKai » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:05 pm

I would agree with most comments saying that a 5v10 being unbalanced with how powerful the town roles listed are. Even town support roles can be extremely valuable, as Town of Salem's mechanics do not rely on role abilities alone, but do so alongside a series of other factors. (Take this from someone who regularly carries as medium, haha.) As many qualms as I have with it, I find the current role list is balanced adequately for ranked games. Inserting another town role in place of witch would make for a game with far greater odds in favor of town and less chance involved in gameplay at the start of rounds.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby Soulshade55r » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:52 pm

SatouKai wrote:I would agree with most comments saying that a 5v10 being unbalanced with how powerful the town roles listed are. Even town support roles can be extremely valuable, as Town of Salem's mechanics do not rely on role abilities alone, but do so alongside a series of other factors. (Take this from someone who regularly carries as medium, haha.) As many qualms as I have with it, I find the current role list is balanced adequately for ranked games. Inserting another town role in place of witch would make for a game with far greater odds in favor of town and less chance involved in gameplay at the start of rounds.


6v9 isn't balanced it's just acceptable because 5v10 would be too town sided with the amount of overpowered town roles that break the game.
The game state is very unfun and d2 heavy for something that should be more longer more day dependent, evils shouldn't have a way to get majority d2 realistically, town shouldn't have so many gamebreaking confirmability its just awful.

In reality 5v10 would and could work (witch instead of exe/jester) if a lot of the town roles were more balanced and the evil roles were more equal instead of being section into
Ambusher/Consort/Forger/Janitor - Useful
Hypno/Framer/Disguiser/Consig - Bad

fixing a lot of the meta surrounding jailor ect, removing the need of mafioso in favour of more interesting games. (more ne's with witches wincon would also be nice)

But in reality likely the dev team have given up on any major changes to tos so any real suggestion feels like me playing out a fantasy in my head
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby SatouKai » Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:53 pm

Soulshade55r wrote:
SatouKai wrote:I would agree with most comments saying that a 5v10 being unbalanced with how powerful the town roles listed are. Even town support roles can be extremely valuable, as Town of Salem's mechanics do not rely on role abilities alone, but do so alongside a series of other factors. (Take this from someone who regularly carries as medium, haha.) As many qualms as I have with it, I find the current role list is balanced adequately for ranked games. Inserting another town role in place of witch would make for a game with far greater odds in favor of town and less chance involved in gameplay at the start of rounds.


6v9 isn't balanced it's just acceptable because 5v10 would be too town sided with the amount of overpowered town roles that break the game.
The game state is very unfun and d2 heavy for something that should be more longer more day dependent, evils shouldn't have a way to get majority d2 realistically, town shouldn't have so many gamebreaking confirmability its just awful.

In reality 5v10 would and could work (witch instead of exe/jester) if a lot of the town roles were more balanced and the evil roles were more equal instead of being section into
Ambusher/Consort/Forger/Janitor - Useful
Hypno/Framer/Disguiser/Consig - Bad

fixing a lot of the meta surrounding jailor ect, removing the need of mafioso in favour of more interesting games. (more ne's with witches wincon would also be nice)

But in reality likely the dev team have given up on any major changes to tos so any real suggestion feels like me playing out a fantasy in my head


How is 6v9 not balanced iyo? The idea of the game is an uninformed majority versus an uninformed minority. The minority equaling 2/3 of the majority would be heavily in favor of the minority, which is why removing 2 of them from the "informed" picture until potentially later in the game balances it out, at least in my views and experiences with these sorts of games.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby SatouKai » Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:21 pm

Kirize12 wrote:I love making a mega-post just so people can ignore it and talk about how 10v5 is unbalanced because of the roles...you see the issue and why we should be fixing the overpowered roles, right? That doesn’t mean 10v5 is bad.

9v6 isn’t a majority because by the beginning of the second day it’s 8v6. Which means town needs to lynch correctly or they lose majority. This is unbalanced, and once town loses majority it doesn’t matter if they’re uninformed because they’ll just all reveal and give Exe a win/lynch the Jailor. 9v6 is a plurality - Town has more members than any other faction. 10v5 is a majority.

However, simply trading in an evil for a Town member is no bueno. 9v6 is scum sided, but Town wins a lot - which means the Town’s roles are busted. We need to fix Jailor meta, nerf down Jailor, fix Mayor, fox Spy, fix Transporter, fix Medium (multiple mediums are confirmable, giving an advantage based on RNG as its complete luck it was a medium instead of an Escort), fix Framer, add Tactical Mafia Kills, then trade in Mafioso for an RT and the second TI for an RT - which allows for Town to have a true majority while eliminating process of elimination from the game (as the game is Social Deduction, not “check role spots off a list”) That’s an actually balanced game instead of the nuclear arms called 9v6 (a.k.a. both sides are bad, let’s see which side is worse), and believe me it’ll be by far more fun and interesting to play.

I don’t type rants because I enjoy hearing myself talk, you know.

-

Hypnotist is one of the best Mafia roles, and only needs to be buffed to get an option to wipe player feedback. As the creator of the role, I’ve won games for my faction as Hypno that I couldn’t have won as any other role.

Consigliere has no reason to be on the “Bad” list.

Forger, on the other hand? Terrible except for early game, especially if hardclaims are a thing. Janitor suffers a similar issue, which is why it needs to be able to clean Mafia members and cleans should carry into lynches (potentially limited in case the meta shifts).

NK was never a kingmaker at any point in the game. A town member, who was guaranteed to lose, could be a kingmaker if they had the ability to pick who won - Mafia or NK. Add a Kingmaker Scenario Detector except nobody supports that in the slightest.


The truth is that the roles aren't balanced and the role list is mostly a roulette in order to make the game balanced enough that it isn't always insanely geared towards a certain faction. Being passive-aggressive on the Town of Salem forums isn't going to make a role list any more or less balanced. Hypnotist and Forger can be extremely useless or valuable respectively depending on the town role list and how both the town and mafia utilize their roles and communicate. Fixing roles doesn't happen overnight, especially to this extent. It would require a lot of testing and evaluation, and the more recent Forger and Framer buffs as well as the NK buffs have shown that BMG is actively working on this. In order to implement this into Ranked, though, this will take a long time and isn't worth being actively salty and inductive about.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby alex1234321 » Fri Oct 22, 2021 2:24 pm

The problem with 9v6 isn't that it's too hard for Town to win (it's not) but that the game has too much variability. The outcome of a current Ranked game usually hinges on 1-2 decisions, which means that an inferior team can win if they get lucky once. Since it takes longer for Town to lose majority, a 10v5 rolelist would allow the game's outcome to depend on a greater number of decisions, which is a good thing. Of course, Town would be OP in a 10v5 list with the current roles and abilities, which is why Town roles need to be nerfed.

I think Jailor and Mayor should be placed into Town Power (or Town Government) and removed from Ranked entirely. Self-confirming Town roles almost always lead to metas that negatively impact the game and also cause the game's outcome to depend on the RNG of which player gets the Town Power role.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby blackaxe3 » Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:08 pm

TrillPhonk wrote:
try to have at least 50 games this season before making a suggestion about balance.


Just looked at my ranked stats recently after not looking for a while, and noticed I’ve played exactly 48 games this season. Since I haven’t played any ranked games since originally posting this topic, it seems you arbitrarily chose a number slightly higher than the number of games I’ve played. No clue why you’ve done this.

As for how many games you should have played before having the experience to make these suggestions I’d say the first 10 placement games is enough.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby Soulshade55r » Sat Oct 23, 2021 3:45 am

Kirize12 wrote:I love making a mega-post just so people can ignore it and talk about how 10v5 is unbalanced because of the roles...you see the issue and why we should be fixing the overpowered roles, right? That doesn’t mean 10v5 is bad.

9v6 isn’t a majority because by the beginning of the second day it’s 8v6. Which means town needs to lynch correctly or they lose majority. This is unbalanced, and once town loses majority it doesn’t matter if they’re uninformed because they’ll just all reveal and give Exe a win/lynch the Jailor. 9v6 is a plurality - Town has more members than any other faction. 10v5 is a majority.

However, simply trading in an evil for a Town member is no bueno. 9v6 is scum sided, but Town wins a lot - which means the Town’s roles are busted. We need to fix Jailor meta, nerf down Jailor, fix Mayor, fox Spy, fix Transporter, fix Medium (multiple mediums are confirmable, giving an advantage based on RNG as its complete luck it was a medium instead of an Escort), fix Framer, add Tactical Mafia Kills, then trade in Mafioso for an RT and the second TI for an RT - which allows for Town to have a true majority while eliminating process of elimination from the game (as the game is Social Deduction, not “check role spots off a list”) That’s an actually balanced game instead of the nuclear arms called 9v6 (a.k.a. both sides are bad, let’s see which side is worse), and believe me it’ll be by far more fun and interesting to play.

I don’t type rants because I enjoy hearing myself talk, you know.

-

Hypnotist is one of the best Mafia roles, and only needs to be buffed to get an option to wipe player feedback. As the creator of the role, I’ve won games for my faction as Hypno that I couldn’t have won as any other role.

Consigliere has no reason to be on the “Bad” list.

Forger, on the other hand? Terrible except for early game, especially if hardclaims are a thing. Janitor suffers a similar issue, which is why it needs to be able to clean Mafia members and cleans should carry into lynches (potentially limited in case the meta shifts).

NK was never a kingmaker at any point in the game. A town member, who was guaranteed to lose, could be a kingmaker if they had the ability to pick who won - Mafia or NK. Add a Kingmaker Scenario Detector except nobody supports that in the slightest.


Actually if you include one of the random mafia which is ambusher spawning you have a lot of games reach majority by day 2 and that's not really even having to mention a lucky witch or bad veteran.


Not letting Town or mafia have space to breath, having the role list be tick off whos confirmed or not isn't fun, nor balanced evils aren't meant to be more then 1/3 of the majority that's absurd. The only reason why 6v9 is currently "balanced" is because of the amount of sheer Inbalance of certain roles such as Lookout, Jailor, Trans, Mayor, spy ect. Realistically town protectives can be easily confirmed by them instead of actually having to use their abilites early successfully.

The meta revolving too much on comfirming self instead of trying to be a social game where you make good scum reads look at votes ect. I don't know give town and mafia time to actually play the game instead of being heavy on d1 would go a long way in fixing a lot about the game.

6v9 IS horrible for balance, the current roles and meta are just so good that making it 5v10 would be too town sided, theirs ways to fix a lot of the game but it's in a broken balance state right now, has been for a long time that's why NK worked in a 6v9 because at least they'd vote with town sometimes and kill evils. Wasn't a good solution mind you.
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Re: New Ranked List

Postby Crona111 » Wed Nov 10, 2021 9:53 pm

Kirize12 wrote:
blackaxe3 wrote:Mafia winning 70% of games is not what we need, Town should be favored to win overall because Town has more players.

As for Witch, the balance change to win while dead is an option, I’m not saying this is the only option for fixing the problems with Witch.

As for executioner, it’s completely necessary to cast doubt on TI claims and make Town less willing to lynch.

The problem is that the current list is scumsided, Town SHOULD be favored to win more because Town has more players.

All of these concepts are ridiculous.

Town shouldn't be winning most games because it has the most players. That means whether you win/lose is based on RNG. What's the point of playing a game you're not supposed to win? Squid Game is more fair than proportional winrates. For an in-depth explanation of how awful proportional winrates are and why we as a collective need to take it out of our mindset, click on the spoiler:

Spoiler:
For anyone wondering why proportional winrates are so awful, it’s because they essentially mean that the game is decided upon winning. What’s the point of playing if the odds are significantly stacked against you?

If you are in an audition room with 99 other actors, and there is no set “type”, you have the same odds as everyone else. They’re low - 1/100 - but they’re not any lower than anyone else in the room. Thus, whether or not you get the role comes down to who you are as an actor. In this case, the most talented actor in the room will be playing the character in the movie and the odds don’t actually matter. These are equal winrates.

If you are in an audition room, but there is a set type, things change. If the role needs brown hair, and you have blonde hair, the deck is stacked against you. Even if you outperform everyone else in the room by miles, it’s possible that you will not get the role just because you’re not who they’re looking for. Meanwhile, you could be a pretty mediocre actor and get the role just because you fit the type. Maybe the other actors don’t have a certain eye color. These are proportional winrates.

Which sounds more fair to you?


Witch winning while dead is NOT an option. It means their winrate is the combined winrate of every evil role in the game. Witch is a neutral, not a Mafia member that doesn't know their members. They should be playing like a Neutral. Sacrificing themselves for their goals means they're a mafia member who doesn't know their faction, nothing more, and I'm all for strategical variance (which this buff would admittedly add) but it's not worth it.

Executioner doesn't even add that much to the game considering the majority of them say "HAHA I'M EXE!" and vote with Town so they can continue playing the game. Roles that can win before the end of the game shouldn't exist in Ranked because unless they die when they win, which is just as bad (don't get me started on everything wrong with Jester and why it needs to be NC), they have no gameplay goals. It's like playing basketball and picking a tall dude from the spectators and saying "hey, you're free to play on the court. go wild, do whatever, i don't care just don't be an asshole." Which means whether they side with the Lakers or the Clippers is irrelevant, because unless they deliberately assault Curry, nothing they do makes them a bad player. The Lakers want to beat the Clippers. The Clippers want to beat the Lakers. Diplomacy with neutrals is one of the things I love most about this game, but that only applies when said neutrals have a goal. If they don't, the way a victorious Executioner does, the entire game just gets thrown into randomness because the Executioner felt like giving the win to the Town (or the Mafia).

If you want to cast doubt in lynches and make the town less lynch happy, buff Framer and Disguiser or redesign Executioner so it has stake in the game and thus diplomacy still means something. Otherwise, the reason Town should be unwilling to lynch is the risk that Mafia's pushing the wagon instead of Town.

Nobody should be FAVORED to win a game straight out of the gate. Town of Salem is not an asymmetrical game, and we need to stop calling it that. Town of Salem is inversely symmetrical. The Town is the uninformed majority, which means that while they don't know any of their teammates going in they have the numbers and an unstoppable kill. The Mafia is the informed minority, which means that while they don't have the safety in numbers Town has, they DO know that everyone who isn't in their group chat wants them dead - whereas the Town, at the beginning of the game, can only trust their own rolecard. They each have an advantage and a disadvantage, which means their winrates NEED to be equal. Town cannot have a higher winrate just because numbers, not even slightly, because that basically spits on the entire concept of the game. Neutrals, especially NK, are tricky and that's a subject for another time, but Town and Mafia must have even footing at the beginning of the game if you want a competitive game, and the notion that Town needs to win more because numbers, much like the notion that Johnny Depp abused his wife (or anyone), needs to be retired from our collective discussions.

TrillPhonk wrote:/nosupport

10v5? Seriously? Do you want Town to have 95% winrate or what?

I really don't think that the suggestion from 1400 elo player about ranked balance is any good, anyway, try to have at least 50 games this season before making a suggestion about balance.

If you want to play competitively, 10v5 is a necessity, and if the rolelist is balanced, it will actually result in a lower winrate for Town than what we have now.

The Town, as I said, is an uninformed majority. Notice the word "majority". That doesn't mean "more players than anyone else", that's a plurality. The goal of Mafia is to whittle down Town's numbers to the point where nothing can prevent a Mafia > Town. Currently, it's nine versus six, which means that by the beginning of the second day, if Town mislynches, they lose. That hands the mafia an advantage on a silver platter. It has to be 10v5 in order to make things FAIR.

So Kirize, if this rolelist is so scum-sided, why the FUCK does Town win so often?

Glad you asked - and I'm not denying Town's winrate isn't a problem, just that making it so Town doesn't have as many members is NOT the way to fix that problem. I summed this up a while back on Discord:

Spoiler: The reason why the game is unbalanced right now is simple. Town can confirm themselves through no effort of their own faster than mafia can kill them. When this happens, we are no longer playing uninformed majority vs informed minority, we are playing informed majority vs informed minority. Town and mafia kill at the same rate, the only difference is town can, if evils are convincing enough, kill members of their own faction - that's how mafia wins.

However, when you throw in confirmability and PoE, town has the ability to confirm themselves and thus they have the same advantage as the mafia has innately but have the numbers to kill them off faster than they can. It doesn't matter if you have the raw charm of Dexter Morgan if everyone in town but you and the murder victim was at the gala - people can lie but facts can't. Town can confirm themselves in two ways - confirmability and process of elimination. To reference Dexter again, confirmability is if the town knows definitively where you were and who you were with the night of the murder. This is why we need Framers, Millers (that show as red to sheriff), death Disguisers, etc. - they destroy confirmability. Under these circumstances, a single Town Power is more than acceptable confirmability without breaking the game. Process of elimination is town using the information they have to know, again definitively, that more people claim town than can be town. If three people were at the murder victim's house, one HAS to be the killer. If town has the numbers, they can lynch all three and it doesn't matter. If town doesn't have the numbers, that's where character comes into play. I've won countless games of Salem, or at least outlived the other suspects, simply because I made people trust me. But in the end, no matter how trustworthy someone is, if the TK and all RTs are taken by dead people the only thing a smart town can do is lynch me as I claimed TK and literally cannot be TK.


But it's time to get into the nitty-gritty. So - to fix the winrates, what do?

The Town's unbecoming strength, at least in Ranked, whittles down to (from most pressing to least pressing):
the rolelist
the Jailor meta
the Spy
the Transporter
the Jailor
the Mayor

The rolelist:

Jailor
TI
TI
TP
TK
TS
RT
RT
RT

GF
MAF
RM
RM

Witch
EXE

Let's break this down.

Jailor - easily the powerhouse, Jailor Meta is winnable but isn't fun to play against, we'll break this down later
TI - fine
TI - a bit much, considering we have a TI already. Invest is a problem for sure, since any results with a TI in them are subject to scrutiny in a rolelist with a single TI, but the devs have expressed interest in changing Invest so we shouldn't let this factor in.
TP - without a confirmed TP, there's more punishment for outing your PR. which means that removing it could be better for the game, but i'm not gonna go there just yet.
TK - ...eh, fine. a bit swingy as Vig is superior to Vet, but that's another subject
TS - this is the alignment you do NOT want to confirm. it's swingy because the roles in TS have NOTHING to do with each other. however, abolishing town support and moving medium into TI and escort and transporter into TP would be even swingier because of the power disparity between the roles, and it would also limit future role suggestions by removing the "miscellaneous" alignment. which means that it needs to stay, but can NOT be confirmed on rolelists as it's essentially a limited RT.
RT - yes good. this is where claimspace comes in
RT - excellent
RT - there used to be but a single RT in Ranked. can you believe that? dark ages, man.
RT - oh wait, there aren't any more RT's. there should be.

I'm not gonna mention Team Evil here just yet, that's a bigger discussion.

RT is essentially the "foundation" of the game. RT allows players to claim a role and not risk getting CC'd. The problem is, the current rolelist is heavily focused on process of elimination. Which means the Mafia can't kill without signing their own death warrant, because if you claimed TP and you start killing the TPs you've killed everyone Town could mislynch, and then you die. How do we fix this?

Jailor - we will talk about this
TI
TI - (or another RT, but six feels like a lot although I know a player who'd like seven)
TP
TK
RT
RT
RT
RT
RT

Despite having ten members, it creates perfect claimspace for the Mafia and any roles town has to kill to win. The Town loses their ability to PoE, and thus the game now boils down to how well players use their abilities and, more importantly, interpersonal interactions - instead of etching off slots once a player dies.

Despite the additional member to Town, and the lack of one to Team Evil, this rolelist will produce BY FAR less Town victories than the current one. So certainly not 95% winrate to Town.

The Jailor Meta:

Never has there been a greater topic of contention than what to do with Jailor Meta. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

The core problem of Jailor Meta, for anyone not familiar, is that a confirmable role like Jailor can become unkillable by asking for TP/LO/ESC/SPY. (spy is another subject that i promise we will get to)

Let's break that down.

TP - their job is to stop kills from occuring, so can't do much about that and we shouldn't desire to
LO - can see how many players visit up to a certain point, means confirmability. believe it or not, the lookout nerf made things worse, not better, as it made lookout dependent on rng. rng dumbs down skill based games and, in the context of games made for fun like all any...well, it isn't fun to cheer for the dice, is it? at least once it loses its novelty.
ESC - since jailor can't execute the first night, escort can confirm themselves by roleblocking. a consort or hypnotist can as well, but -
SPY - basically stops counterplay from occurring by outing any visitors to the jailor. which as a concept is garbage, but we'll get to it.

I've heard that it doesn't happen as much in high level Ranked as Witch will stop Jailor from moving, but if a Lookout spawns, Witch dies, so its actions become futile as Witch can't and shouldn't win in death. So it still needs to be ended.

How do we do this?

First things first, the Mafia Lookout.

"Duplicate Roles", aka making a role in another faction that acts identical/similar to a role in a different faction, is tricky, and orangeandblack5 (who, for anyone unfamiliar, is the reason Investigator results are somewhat balanced now when before there was Mayor/Godfather, Transporter/Arsonist, and Survivor/Witch/Werewolf), despite being the primary pusher of the Mafia Lookout (colloquially known as the Osservatore - or Watcher, but Osservatore is way cooler - which is what we'll be referring to it as from now on), advised against making them multiple times. So why would orange make an exception like this?

Because everything Mafia Lookout does is good for the game.

Look, "duplicate roles" can be good for the game. To paraphrase from Kikigiri, who, like orangeandblack5, is a balance legend (at least in my eyes - almost every suggestion they make helps the game and they've successfully swayed my opinions multiple times) - First of all, they're not true duplicates. Because they have different goals, they play differently despite using a similar mechanic. This also means there's by far less of a learning curve, since the mechanics are similar - this is a good thing, as new players should have a more-less easy adjustment outside of Classic (which is why Consort and Consig are among the best roles for a newbie outside of the Classic lineup). Plus, it means that Town roles like Lookout are harder to prove, since a Mafia role can produce the same will without risking it being incorrect the way another Mafia role would.

But the best part about Mafia Lookout?

It makes protectives less inclined to visit, because all Mafia Lookout has to do to get the same information Town does is watch a Jailor claim. Once Mafia kills everyone on that list, they get a free shot at Jailor, and at that point an actual Lookout would be no threat to them since they have the mob mentality to get them lynched.

This will reduce Jailor Meta by a long shot. What else can we do?

The Stalker - what's better than knowing who people visit? Stopping them from visiting at all. Stalker stops any non-killing actions from taking place at someone's house. It's a Neutral Evil with the goal to survive to see the Town lose the game. If a Lookout, Bodyguard, Stalker, and Godfather all visit the Jailor...rest in peace, Jailor. It could use some refining for sure, but when it comes to stopping Jailor meta - and as an effective and powerful NE, but with no ways to find its allies beyond scumreading, a solid role in its own right - there's no substitute.

That's the idea that comes to mind first, anyways. But if we want to stop Jailor meta at the source:

Make Jailor unprotectable by ANY protective role, full-stop, while jailing.

I don't like the idea of a "macho" modifier, or modifiers at all outside of CGM (it's a TG thing), but on Jailor it makes sense.

Jailor currently is a Mayor but bass boosted:
Mayor can't be healed by a Doctor. Jailor can.
Mayor can't whisper or be whispered to. Jailor can.
Mayor can't deal an unstoppable attack on their own, they need the Town to cooperate. If a Jailor, wants you dead, you WILL be dead. (unless Consort or Witch interferes, both of which are susceptible to Lookouts)

The only half-advantage Mayor has over Jailor is that it appears in the rolelist as a "confirmed townie". But Jailor can be confirmed just as easily by executing any CCers, and if it's the first day, just jail a random person and tell them your name, odds are they're Town and if they somehow manage to get you lynched they and whoever CC'd you are vig fodder. So Mayor doesn't have any actual advantage over Jailor, because "I'm Jailor" is just as effective as a reveal button.

And if Mayor and Jailor spawn together? Good luck. I've won those games before, but believe me, it's not fun and almost entirely based on RNG (it's luck that Mayor spawned instead of Med)

So making it so Jailor can't be protected on nights they jail is an AMAZING thing. It makes Jailor different from Mayor, in that Jailor becomes a "from the shadows" leader - while Mayor is best played revealed, as a Jailor you want to stay hidden and potentially even fakeclaim. This leads to a higher abundance in strategical variance. Which is also the reason Jailor Meta sucks - it's not really OP, and it's not unwinnable by any means, but when you have those predominant strategies there's no reason to use any other. This means that every game plays out the same way, and Ranked becomes unfun.

The Spy:

Spy is a bad role for the sheer reason that it gets the same information every night regardless of how well the player plays. There's no way to play the role, you just sit back and give your information to the Town, and no role like that should ever exist. But that's not why I mentioned it here - I'm looking at "what makes Town win so often despite not being a majority", not "bad roles". So why is Spy on here, then?

Because it's passive ability destroys Mafia cooperation. Spy can:

Determine the Mafia lineup with little effort - an essential part of playing Mafia is deciding when to tip your hand. roles like Janitor reveal a mafia lineup, but they also make it so nobody can know what role the dead player was so the power is worth the trade-off. Spy just says "you can't do anything without shooting yourself in the foot" and that is not okay.

In detail, Spy can:
Distinguish a Consort block from an Escort block (while scumreads can do that as well, there's a possibility to be inaccurate - with Spy there is none)
Distinguish whether a suspicious player was framed or not
Distinguish whether a player was forged or not
Distinguish whether a player was hypnotized or not
Distinguish whether a player was actually blackmailed
Distinguish whether a kill failed, outing Witch (and, in non-Ranked, NK)

It stops the Mafia Deception roles from moving simply because it exists. The only counter is Disguiser, but given every role besides it and Consig can be deduced, unless there's a Consig you will determine that every visit is confirmed non-Mafia. Conversely, once a Disguiser dies, you can use that to your advantage because you know that it likely used its abilities so whoever the Mafia visited (most of which are likely dead) IS in fact a mafia member.

The only way to shut it down is to use your abilities in a way that doesn't maximize the Mafia's utility - just to counter a role that may not even exist. And that's messed up.

The fix?

It needs refining, but even in it's current state it's more balanced than current Spy, no contest. And I've yet to see anything better that isn't a replacement rather than a rework.

The Transporter:

This role is just broken. Part of the reason that Town has an easy time confirming themselves is because of how confirmable most roles are, leading to easy PoE.

Roles that can confirm themselves (in Classic Ranked):
Mayor - that's it's whole function though, so no critique there
Jailor - with my changes, it's better and by far more effective to not confirm yourself
Spy - but we already covered that
Escort - has a counter, so not confirmable, but also not fakeclaimable by any role beyond its counter (and Hypnotist). but that's fine to be honest given it can harm town more than help
Medium - only with multiple, which needs fixes, but that's a different topic. it does need to be fixed though. remind me
Veteran - can be fixed, that's another topic
Vigilante - can be fixed, that's another topic

And then we get to Transporter. The reason I single out Transporter is because it has the single most powerful ability in the game - it can stop Mafia from killing AND kill a mafia member. Jailor can't even do that unless it jails the killer (remind me about TMK). The only other role that can do this is Veteran. So why should Transporter be CONFIRMABLE on top of that? (and no, Hypnotist doesn't make it any better since Hypno can't select multiple people)

The worst part? If you manage to read the Transporter, what are you gonna do? Kill em? They'll just transport themselves into you!

I don't mind the transporter's power, because it's high risk high reward - it's swingy, sure, but it's the kind of swing that makes a good player more capable than a bad one, and that's a good swing because it can be manipulated by the interactions between players instead of equations that rule the game. The ability to transport a Mafia member into killing another Mafia member can and should stay. So here's what needs to go:

The Transporter should be unable to transport themselves.
The Transporter should not give feedback to those they transport.

All of a sudden, you have a hard-to-confirm, easy-to-fakeclaim, powerful enough role that shouldn't act every night, thus making it even better because you don't have as much pressure for making a solid will. The only role that's entirely unconfirmable (without using other roles) is Bodyguard - now Transporter joins it. This is good for the game. Powerful abilities shouldn't be confirmable as well.

The Jailor:

and why it's still bad despite the alleviation of Jailor meta.

Simply because even though it can't be protected, it's still stronger than every other role. Reliance on a singular role is bad for the game. I support "Town Leader"-like roles, but Jailor swings everything far too badly. Evils need to be kept on their toes, and they will, but this is by far too much.

Think of it from the Vigilante's perspective. What's the point of playing Vigilante if you could be Jailor instead, who ignores immunity and can interrogate a player's claim? Vigilante can't interrogate a player before killing them, suffers guilt to make shots risky, and doesn't ignore defense so it can't kill Godfather. Jailor just straight-up kills.

The fix: dock an execute from Jailor, and make it so Jailor will lose the ability to jail if it executes a Town member. (In addition, Vigilante should lose all its bullets if it executes a Town member, but should not be docked a bullet - this removes risk, but that's another story). Now Jailor has more risk, which is fine since it can interrogate targets privately, and has less kills than Vigilante, which is also fine as they're more powerful.

In addition, the whole "rolestopping" thing is too much and hurts scum more than helps them (fakeclaims become riskier - I personally suffered this, as I accidentally checked a jailed target). But going back to the way it was, where jailing got rid of all negative effects, is just as bad. I love the idea of a jack of all trades role like Jailor, as it can investigate by talking, protect like a protective, roleblock like a support, and of course, kill - but it should be master of none. Which means Jailor should only be able to give Basic Defense - also, to lower its protecting capabilities, it shouldn't be able to jail a player twice in a row.

Of course, none of that is gonna make a difference if Jailor can still stop the Mafia from killing. So here's what to do - say it with me now:

Tactical! Mafia! Kills!

This would require a much bigger discussion than "why does Town win so often despite having bad numbers", but it's a necessity. I think the devs know that, as they added it to Traitors in Salem, but it's still relevant and needed.

The Mayor:

The Mayor, in combination with a Jailor, is incredibly swingy. This is bad swing, because whether Mayor spawns instead of Medium is based on factors nobody can control. With the above changes, Jailor will be the "from the shadows" leader, while Mayor will be the "loud and proud" leader - but having them together is certainly bad, especially when Mayor is by far more powerful than any Town Support role (with the Transporter nerfs).

The solution?

Town Power (or, Town Government).

Have an alignment with Mayor and Jailor, so you can't have both in a game. (Any future Town Government roles will also follow this rule - the point of Town Government is to limit the powerful roles like Mayor and Jailor, basically meaning the entire alignment has shared uniqueness)

This means you either get the loud and proud leader, or the "from the shadows" leader. But even with the Jailor nerfs, Mayor is by far lacking, especially since its ability makes it unable to be whispered to. Whispers are a core component of the game and they help put the "social" in "social deduction". They're not necessary in the sense that they're not a staple of Mafia games (the way lynching is a staple of Mafia games), but if they exist EVERY role needs to be able to access them. No role should be handicapped because that isn't fun, and while games need to be balanced, they also need to be fun. It's like creating a role that can send whispers discretely but loses their ability to vote once they use that ability. Voting is a key part of the game the same way whispers are, and please spare me the shpiel about Mayor Games - roles don't play the game. People do. And people can be fooled. (Besides, Jailor is much more effective at whisper games than Mayor could ever be, since Mayor needs town cooperation to deal an unstoppable attack. Jailor does not.) Also, Blackmailer reads whispers now, so it'll be riskier to Mayor game in general.

So:
Mayor should be able to whisper and be whispered to.
Mayor should be able to be healed by a Doctor. (I'm ok with adding risk to reveals, but not one based on RNG - it's complete luck whether Mayor can be protected or not)

And suddenly the Town Government alignment is balanced again.

-

All of these changes make Town more uninformed at the beginning of the game, and now we can have a 10v5. There's a lot more changes to make, especially to Team Evil (Tactical Mafia Kills and Framer changes are highest priority atm) but with these changes, all of which are good for the factional, strategical, and structural balance of the game (read my signature), Town's winrate will lower and games will be by far more fun - even, and especially, in a 10v5.

I just want to demolish, once and for all, that "Town of Salem is an asymmetrical game so Town should win the most because it has the most players" and any arguments of that ilk. None of them make the slightest logical sense.

TrillPhonk wrote:I really don't think that the suggestion from 1400 elo player about ranked balance is any good, anyway, try to have at least 50 games this season before making a suggestion about balance.

Just want to call this out specifically, the ELO system is broken and this season has gone on by far too long. Having a "high ELO" is like repeating third grade for 35 yeard and bragging about how you're the champion of handball. So stop doing that, it makes you look bad. (and I'm certainly not defending the OP here, considering they believe in proportional winrates)

I have an ELO of 724 - it's not because I'm a bad player, or I wouldn't have been Master last season, it's because my WiFi is unreliable and I left all my placement games. But I've been on this forum since the year the game was made, and I've been on the TG, which tests balanced roles, as a balancer since it was created and at one point a moderator. When you use ELO as an argument, that's a "go to hell" to me and I'm not okay with that. Respect people's opinions, just because you're in front of a screen doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want with no consequence.

/end rant


Not once have I read a post where I agree with every single word said.
Damn I'm too lazy to add anything.

If you see "Purple Popcorn" in your game I love you.
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