The start of balance discussions

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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby MysticMismagius » Sun May 03, 2020 1:01 pm

Why exactly do gains and losses need to be the same for NK? It's the quintessential challenge role in this game, and the ELO you gain/lose for it should be mapped accordingly. You should be losing less ELO for losing and gain more for winning, in order to balance out the average expected value of NK with respect to its winrate.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby jucktropy » Sun May 03, 2020 1:06 pm

SwampRabbit wrote:
saixos wrote:I would suggest that when arso douses a target, he also douses everyone who visits his target that night. Arso is still the weakest of the NK roles and generally seen as the least fun to play. While this sounds OP at first, I think once players adapt to it it would be just around the right power level, and allow for some very interesting dynamics with arso thinking about which targets to douse in greater detail. I think if you want to target TP/LO meta, do it through NE/NK.



Interesting idea. Jailor meta is not really an issue in the games I play because ranked jailors do not often reveal on d1. 90% of the time a d1 Jailor claim is fake--sometimes mafia claiming it when they know they have a consort who can stop real jailor from executing the fake one; sometimes SK who wants to be jailed n1 to kill the real jailor (that is why real jailor should NEVER jail fake one on n1), sometimes mayor or retri who want protection without revealing true role, and sometimes it is the NE. (And sometimes it is just a crayon with a huge ego that thinks that regardless of his town role, that he matters more than every other player in the game). Classic is probably the only game mode that rarely has fake jailor claims.

But I think the idea is interesting from the viewpoint of arso being the most boring NK role, and it would placate those who think jailor meta is a huge thing. It might turn arso into an OP role, but I think it is worth testing out. Have everyone who visits same target as arso get doused and have the arso shown everyone who is doused (in the same way that pb sees who is infected)(or keep it secret to help make new arso not OP).



And to the people who think that balancing an online game to match your little hobby of forum mafia, they are two completely different games and one has nothing to do with the other beyond having roles called "mafia".


If it's your tournament yes but the ranked game is not like this trust me sometimes they have a low player in the queue that sends you to low elos :)
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Spoiler: ImageRanked Elo 2500 Fav Town/NE Roles:
Investigator,Jester,Jailor,Transporter,VampireHunter,Witch

Fav Mafia/Coven/NK Roles:
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby alvac2012 » Sun May 03, 2020 1:22 pm

Flake wrote:
alvac2012 wrote:Ok, but unfortunately, that's not how ToS works. I understand your point. I really do. Yes, when town plays perfectly, evils stand no chance. Rt's get confirmed day 2 and evils lose claim space. Jailor in this situation is highly oppressive yes because even if town mislynches, jailor exe's the evil anyways. However, ToS has never been a game where town functions perfectly. People in the game fear being dead and unable to influence the game more than they care about finding and lynching evils. ToS has always been a psychological game and while I agree that in a perfect town, town is too OP, it is made to be too OP to balance out the fact that most townies vote like sheep.

You're misinterpreting what I'm saying

very good play =/= perfect play

a very good jailor will probably not have as good of an accuracy rate as you think when you consider that we are also assuming that the evil players are also very good

assuming perfect play from both sides is paradoxical because you can argue either side will always win


And so my point is that jailor doesn't need a nerf. Even as you say, "a very good jailor will probably not have as good of an accuracy rate as you think". I support the other changes besides the mafioso attack. I've only ever made the point that jailor should not be nerfed because it's unnecessary. Your point here only proves that statement
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby alvac2012 » Sun May 03, 2020 1:25 pm

Achilles wrote:
azapf2277 wrote:In my opinion, the roles are fine. The setup is fine. Whats isn't fine is the elo system.

Think about how unbalanced the game is when the majority of NK's refuse to even try because "oh well -1". Oh, the reward for getting the hardest win in ranked (at top level)? +1. Its easy to see why they dont try. When you have a NK who doesn't care, its basically a handed town win.

Same goes for a lot of roles and their Elo that comes or goes with it. NE roles will lose you 4 or 5 elo, but if you win its usually a +1?

Now listen, i get it, elo doesnt matter is what everybody says. But the fact is elo is motivating people to play differently. Imagine if a NK win was +9 (like exe turned jester). How many more people would be motivated to try at that point?

Fix the elo system, you will fix how players operate and the game will become more balanced on its own.


Do you want to also lose 9 ELO when you lose as a NK? I constantly see complaints about -/+1 ELO swings for roles with low win rates. We could remove faction based weighting on ELO and just let the ELO system balance things out in the long term. My expectation is that people will smash their keyboard everytime they get a low winrate role because they know it means a high chance of losing significant ELO. In that system if you are lucky enough to get Town 10 games in a row you will climb ELO quickly since they have the highest winrate.

Also a big factor in the ELO gain/loss is the rating of your opponents. Maybe if we displayed your opponents ELO it would make the gain/loss more transparent.


First off, NK is always -1 elo and because of that, people don't try with NK. I suggested that NK's function like janitors and I feel that that would help NK winrates and make town lose more. Moreover, it would be more chaotic and boost mafia winrates too. I'm just going to be real here. Our NK's are a serial killer, werewolf, and arsonist. Thematically, they should be able to erase wills and roles. Or, if erasing wills are too op, then just roles (although that can easily be bypassed by active towns).

The issue with evils is that people never want to play evil since everyone else who plays evil usually gives up too. If Maf, NE, and NK are all doing their hardest to confuse town with a ton of information, maf wins pretty easily
Last edited by alvac2012 on Sun May 03, 2020 1:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Brilliand » Sun May 03, 2020 1:27 pm

Achilles wrote:Also a big factor in the ELO gain/loss is the rating of your opponents. Maybe if we displayed your opponents ELO it would make the gain/loss more transparent.


This is a good idea. It would help us to understand exactly what is wrong with the ELO system. Right now, it's hard to be certain.

MysticMismagius is right in theory. In my own words: the game should be predicting a % chance that you will win, and choosing an amount of ELO gain/loss such that "on average" you're expected to exactly break even (the gains and losses cancel out if you win exactly as much as predicted).

Come to think of it, the rule I just stated implies that every player in the same faction should gain/lose the same amount of ELO, regardless of how much ELO they have individually.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby DerpNinja » Sun May 03, 2020 1:32 pm

I got some constructive criticism here
The good:
Disguiser ability is actually good now, because being able to fool an investigator and the townies on your death is good in ranked. You could disguise as a doctor and fill the TP slot, making the real TP get lynched. Before, you needed a consig to effectively use disguiser, now he's useful all by himself.

I like the idea of giving a role an unstoppable attack to deal with jailor meta, but I think it should be the serial killer instead. Serial killer is very underpowered since it only has basic defense and a basic attack, has no teammates, and can be instantly exposed by an escort, consort, or jailor's will.

- I like the framer change, makes the framer much more useful.

The bad:

- Jailor thing is not well-thought out, since protecting a town member infinitely is a bad strategy anyway. You're removing that townie's ability (unless they're mayor), and you're not able to execute people.

- Just remove retributionist, full stop. At least from ranked, but even in non-ranked, the role still sucks. The role is not fun to play and it's very unbalanced. Even with your proposed change, having a confirmed townie that everyone can whisper roles to, and setting the killing roles back a night is very unbalanced.

Other suggestions:
- Give jester a night ability to make himself look suspicious to sheriff while giving him basic defense for 1 night.

- Make the penalty for executing a townie as a jailor harsher. Maybe they kill themselves like a vigilante, or they're just not able to jail anyone for the rest of the game.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Joacgroso » Sun May 03, 2020 1:32 pm

To be honest I don't like of showing everyone's elo in lobbies. I already dislike the fact anyone can check your elo in discord and shame you on the forums. This would only be worse in the game, where there are even more salty players than here.
At best, I think only the average and median elos should be showed, for each faction (town/not town, so neutrals can't be outed).
Joacgroso wrote:I feel like I went from Light Yagami to Keiichi Maebara.

I still hope one day the game will have private lobbies. They would really help.
Also, please nerf vampire hunters.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby killstrikers » Sun May 03, 2020 1:33 pm

MysticMismagius wrote:Why exactly do gains and losses need to be the same for NK? It's the quintessential challenge role in this game, and the ELO you gain/lose for it should be mapped accordingly. You should be losing less ELO for losing and gain more for winning, in order to balance out the average expected value of NK with respect to its winrate.


Agreed, SK/WW/Arso are game changers and roles worth the challenge if you could potentially get a fair amount of Elo from winning. Anything is better than a measly +1 at this point.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby MysticMismagius » Sun May 03, 2020 1:36 pm

Brilliand wrote:
Achilles wrote:Also a big factor in the ELO gain/loss is the rating of your opponents. Maybe if we displayed your opponents ELO it would make the gain/loss more transparent.
This is a good idea. It would help us to understand exactly what is wrong with the ELO system. Right now, it's hard to be certain.

MysticMismagius is right in theory. In my own words: the game should be predicting a % chance that you will win, and choosing an amount of ELO gain/loss such that "on average" you're expected to exactly break even (the gains and losses cancel out if you win exactly as much as predicted).

Come to think of it, the rule I just stated implies that every player in the same faction should gain/lose the same amount of ELO, regardless of how much ELO they have individually.
Not necessarily. There are many possible payouts that one can apply to a game with a given winrate and have the expected value be 0. For example, if you have a 33% winrate, then all that is necessary for the expected value of the game to be 0 is that the payout be twice as high as the loss for losing: it doesn't matter if you gain 2 ELO for winning and lose 1 for losing, or gain 20 for a win and lose 10 for a loss.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby woahah » Sun May 03, 2020 1:55 pm

BasicFourLife wrote:
Flake wrote:the amount of people thinking that "i play ranked town of salem a lot and i am high elo" automatically gives them a good understanding of mafia balance is funny

if your knowledge of the game of mafia is limited to playing town of salem then your understanding of mafia balance is probably shit, the source for that being me before like 2 years ago

^5^%^%^%^%^%%%^^^^^^

agree very much so

woahah wrote:
Flake wrote:the amount of people thinking that "i play ranked town of salem a lot and i am high elo" automatically gives them a good understanding of mafia balance is funny

if your knowledge of the game of mafia is limited to playing town of salem then your understanding of mafia balance is probably shit, the source for that being me before like 2 years ago

^this
like, sure you might be knowledgeable, but you aren't helping your case at all
just talk
like a normal human being
and give your opinion
Also as a 100% winrate player, mafioso change is mean and should not be done

100% winrate in a game of rng is not possible, cut the shit and stop pretending

first of all, it was obviously a joke
second of all
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby alvac2012 » Sun May 03, 2020 2:17 pm

Flake wrote:it is a desirable change to put jailor at around mayor's utility level if it were to be the case that both jailor and mayor were put in the same sub alignment (Town Power) since less power disparity between roles within a sub alignment means the influence of luck in whether jailor or mayor is rolled is less apparent in affecting the game's outcome, and mitigating the amount of luck influencing the game's outcome is desirable in a competitive game

and as for why jailor and mayor should be put in the same subalignment (Town Power):

so no the nerf isn't unnecessary when there's a clear reason for it other than "lol nerf town"; it mitigates the impact of luck on the outcome of a given game which indirectly increases the impact of skill on the outcome of a given game which is very desirable in the context of a competitive environment


But what I'm saying is, ToS isn't just about the jailor. Yes, jailor CAN be OP, but more often than not, Jailor doesn't swing the balance of the game in town's favor. EXCEPT when he can perma-jail maf killing and stalemate the game, which Fine. Yeah, that sucks. I don't see a reason to nerf town, AND you increase the RNG factor by making jailor and mayor mutually exclusive. I don't see too many mayors anyways in my games. I don't think it's necessary. Yeah, my experience isn't all inclusive, but still. There's no reason to have mayor and jailor be mutually exclusive
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby MysticMismagius » Sun May 03, 2020 2:23 pm

alvac2012 wrote:But what I'm saying is, ToS isn't just about the jailor. Yes, jailor CAN be OP, but more often than not, Jailor doesn't swing the balance of the game in town's favor. EXCEPT when he can perma-jail maf killing and stalemate the game, which Fine. Yeah, that sucks. I don't see a reason to nerf town, AND you increase the RNG factor by making jailor and mayor mutually exclusive. I don't see too many mayors anyways in my games. I don't think it's necessary. Yeah, my experience isn't all inclusive, but still. There's no reason to have mayor and jailor be mutually exclusive
The reason is because when you have a game with Jailor, Mayor, and Ret in it, Mafia generally gets fucked. Even two out of three makes it significantly harder for evils to win, as they all have powerful abilities that can single-handedly turn around games.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby alvac2012 » Sun May 03, 2020 2:33 pm

MysticMismagius wrote:
alvac2012 wrote:But what I'm saying is, ToS isn't just about the jailor. Yes, jailor CAN be OP, but more often than not, Jailor doesn't swing the balance of the game in town's favor. EXCEPT when he can perma-jail maf killing and stalemate the game, which Fine. Yeah, that sucks. I don't see a reason to nerf town, AND you increase the RNG factor by making jailor and mayor mutually exclusive. I don't see too many mayors anyways in my games. I don't think it's necessary. Yeah, my experience isn't all inclusive, but still. There's no reason to have mayor and jailor be mutually exclusive
The reason is because when you have a game with Jailor, Mayor, and Ret in it, Mafia generally gets fucked. Even two out of three makes it significantly harder for evils to win, as they all have powerful abilities that can single-handedly turn around games.



And that's why I have no issues with ret being removed. That kind of combo is only OP because of ret.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby alvac2012 » Sun May 03, 2020 2:35 pm

Flake wrote:
alvac2012 wrote:
Flake wrote:it is a desirable change to put jailor at around mayor's utility level if it were to be the case that both jailor and mayor were put in the same sub alignment (Town Power) since less power disparity between roles within a sub alignment means the influence of luck in whether jailor or mayor is rolled is less apparent in affecting the game's outcome, and mitigating the amount of luck influencing the game's outcome is desirable in a competitive game

and as for why jailor and mayor should be put in the same subalignment (Town Power):

so no the nerf isn't unnecessary when there's a clear reason for it other than "lol nerf town"; it mitigates the impact of luck on the outcome of a given game which indirectly increases the impact of skill on the outcome of a given game which is very desirable in the context of a competitive environment


But what I'm saying is, ToS isn't just about the jailor. Yes, jailor CAN be OP, but more often than not, Jailor doesn't swing the balance of the game in town's favor. EXCEPT when he can perma-jail maf killing and stalemate the game, which Fine. Yeah, that sucks. I don't see a reason to nerf town, AND you increase the RNG factor by making jailor and mayor mutually exclusive. I don't see too many mayors anyways in my games. I don't think it's necessary. Yeah, my experience isn't all inclusive, but still. There's no reason to have mayor and jailor be mutually exclusive

no one is saying that ToS is just about the jailor, and again you're misconstruing my reason for nerfing jailor as being solely for the sake of nerfing town when it isn't, as i have already explained

the impact of luck in affecting the outcome of a given game does not increase by making jailor and mayor mutually exclusive, it is the opposite as i have already explained

they absolutely should be mutually exclusive for the reasons i have explained

like i'm not saying this shit again, it really isn't this hard to understand



What I'm saying is they already plan to buff evils. Why don't we see what evil's winrates look like after the buffs and decide whether we want to nerf town or not? For me, the town nerf feels like TOO much
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby MysticMismagius » Sun May 03, 2020 2:41 pm

Buffing the bad evils only solves half the problem, though. The other half, and frankly the more important half, is the confirmability meta that town has, making it so that many townies can be confirmed as early as D2. Unless you're arguing this can be fixed exclusively by buffing evils, nerfing town roles to break up that confirmability is also necessary.
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Re: The start of balance discussions

Postby Achilles » Sun May 03, 2020 2:43 pm

Maybe there could be a Ret rework that spins them into more of the good mirror to the Necromancer. Something that brings back a dead townie for 1 night and lets them use their night ability 1 last time or if disconnected gives the Retri full control. Just brainstorming here I haven't fully thought this out yet but lore wise something like that could be pretty cool.

I'm going to lock this thread and restart a Part 2 thread. Once the thread gets to 10 pages I don't think anyone goes through and reads all of the comments so it's better to restart with an updated post.
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