The start of balance discussions

[StickyLegend]

Could each mafia member be unique to prevent having 3 framers?

[Brilliand]

Of course changes to some roles will have an impact on other game modes, but can we all stop pretending that Chaos All Any and Coven All Any have any concerns at all about game balance.

That's wrong. I care about balance in All Any, in the form of there not being any "dud" roles or "best" roles: any role the RNG throws at you should give you a fun game, and a fair amount of power relative to other players.

Granted I might move to Ranked if the balance in Ranked improves enough. I moved to All Any in the first place because in Ranked Practice, rolling an evil role feels like getting the short end of the stick; in All Any, it doesn't. (I don't think I tried Ranked itself tbh.)

Retributionist dies the day after they resurrect another player. I mean, rets after they revive someone essentially become a "vanilla townie" anyways.

Congratulations, you just made the role even more boring.

Remove the useless mafia role from ranked: Framer
Remove the overpowered town role from ranked: Retributionist

I don't see this as a solution. It's not like these roles are bad due to some fun-but-chaotic mechanic; they're bad in ways that apply just as much in other gamemodes as in Ranked. (Except in modes where they're explicitly on the rolelist, that is Classic Classic and some Custom lists, where they can be good due to the "balancing around the role" effect.)

Could each mafia member be unique to prevent having 3 framers?

I don't see this as a solution. Even if you can only have 1 Framer, that 1 Framer would still be underpowered.

You're only proposing this for the sake of the underpowered roles anyway; things like the "double Consort game" aren't a problem at all.

[BasicFourLife]

@achilles

What kind of changes are you looking to implement and by that I mean the coding and the size of the changes. The last time a balance change was added was back in Dec 2018 if i'm not wrong, when you asked for a small change and that was the Sheriff change.

[Creedastic]

Achilles must know something we don't here, and that being the Town winning more often when Jailor reveals Day 1. I am surprised to find this out, but if he implies more games are won than lost by doing so, it means he's right. So, that being said, he wants to get rid of the claim Day 1 Jailor.

The fact that you can't jail the same person twice in a row means Town loses the ability to draw the game when Jailor has no more executions and wants to keep the last Mafia Killing role in check. Every possible draw in that scenario for Town will now be a loss. This is already a nerf. If you make Jailor unable to jail the same person twice in the whole match, that is even worse. It forces you to make a decision quick and it has to be the right one. Now, if the Jailor suicides after killing Town/can't jail after killing Town, that really hits hard into any meta I've seen before. I think not being able to jail the same person twice in a row is more than enough. It might still be overkill.

I was thinking we could live with any sort of meta, and without a Jailor nerf. In my first comment, I posted what I thought were the problems(Town Support), but unfortunately, they can't be addressed. So, if that is the change that is needed to increase Mafia winnings, I guess so be it. But nonetheless, I'm still mildly surprised.

[woahah]

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

[BasicFourLife]

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

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

[ZoruaLuhansk]

this just in
I support the frame-focus system of Dragonclaw's Framer Rework

[BasicFourLife]

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

are you not able to detect satire

or am i being baited

the intelligence of an average tos player is so low that i dont know if a 17th thread about firefighter is real or fake anymore, u cant say im wrong

[alvac2012]

uh

i'll give my in-depth thoughts on stuff that should be changed for ranked when i'm not lazy

summary of most of the viable changes that would improve tos ranked the most:

• retributionist should not exist in ranked unless you're going to entirely change it at it's core. same goes for spy.
• if town power roles are going to exist then there should be a town power subalignment containing them, meaning that only 1 town power role can roll in any given game. town power roles include jailor and mayor assuming the non-existence of retributionist, but would include retributionist assuming it's existence.
• NE as a subalignment needs changes largely due to the disparity in utility and aims of each role within the subalignment, giving scum either much higher or much lower utility depending on which NE role rolls.
• some good implementation of tactical mafia kills would likely be a far better system than the current godfather/mafioso system.
• werewolf needs revamping.
• some mafia roles need changes or revamping.
• potential new role additions; most likely the best one that has been discussed in the past is some variation of the watcher (essentially a mafia lookout), which is not only a good addition to the game in general but also mitigates some large issues of ToS ranked (namely discouraging the X confirmable role claiming d1 meta since watcher easily finds roles like town protectives that would otherwise thrive in such a meta, and also decreasing the confirmability and overall utility of town lookout), arguably mafia lookout should have more utility so some variation of watcher perhaps with other appropriate ability/s would work

i may be missing some things but that should cover most of the biggest issues

I don't think that jailor and mayor need to be mutually exclusive. In a game where jailor is passive, town loses anyways. IF evils are on top of their game and vigi's don't wipe out rm in one night, they can usually win by day 3 or 4. Yes, evils can get completely screwed in one night, but so can town. Yeah, it's rarer, but arso ignite or ww killing off LO and all TP's is one way to do it. Most townies are afraid to post information, LO's not posting wills b/c "OH NO! I CAN'T OUT TP!" and other stupid reasons like that. Hell, I had a gamethrower in my past 2 games refuse to claim anything and he cost town dearly both times. Mislynching is powerful for maf when they can pull it off. When it's 3 v 1 and roles are all confirmed, yeah evils stand no chance and that sucks. However, I do not think that town should be nerfed (except retri) and overall, I agree with the mafia buffs that Achilles has suggested minus the mafioso attack. Also, I think it would be better for forger to be swapped out with hypnotist, which would help add more chaos to the game and buff evil's winrates. B/c this way escort is no longer an insta-confirm. Additionally, since hypnotist is astral, it could throw a wrench in the jailor meta since escort would be "confirmed". Idk. I think mafia needs buffing and that's all that's necessary

[SwampRabbit]

Could each mafia member be unique to prevent having 3 framers?

It is already impossible to have 3 framers. Ranked Mafia consists of a total of 4 members; GF and mafisoo are set. The remaining 2 random mafia spawn from bmer, forger, framer, janitor, disg, consort, and consig.

If you ever want to learn how to play ranked, send me a PM. We have an entire discord server of ranked players at all levels who would be willing to help you learn the game.

[CrimsonKatana]

Thanks for asking!

As an actual high ELO player (the first one to reply so far), town is absolutely not OP at higher ELOs

implying high Elo in a broken ranking system means anything

town is absolutely broken in the majority of possible setups in theory since sheer confirmability and the lack of ability from scum to do anything about said confirmability gives them the upper hand by a landslide

the only times where town theoretically doesn't have a massive upper hand is when NK, especially werewolf, shit on town almost exclusively and/or the rolled setup gives town low/mediocre confirmability power (which is very rare)

The game needs to be balanced around games where everyone is playing the best they possibly can!!!! If you want to beat players that aren't then you just need to be better than them!!!! If you want an equal chance in those kind of games then the game needs to be balanced around games like that!!!! Players that aren't flawless with every role and therefore don't understand what flawless games would be like shouldn't be commenting on this thread!!!

[CrimsonKatana]

Of course changes to some roles will have an impact on other game modes, but can we all stop pretending that Chaos All Any and Coven All Any have any concerns at all about game balance.

That's wrong. I care about balance in All Any, in the form of there not being any "dud" roles or "best" roles: any role the RNG throws at you should give you a fun game, and a fair amount of power relative to other players.

Granted I might move to Ranked if the balance in Ranked improves enough. I moved to All Any in the first place because in Ranked Practice, rolling an evil role feels like getting the short end of the stick; in All Any, it doesn't. (I don't think I tried Ranked itself tbh.)

Retributionist dies the day after they resurrect another player. I mean, rets after they revive someone essentially become a "vanilla townie" anyways.

Congratulations, you just made the role even more boring.

Remove the useless mafia role from ranked: Framer
Remove the overpowered town role from ranked: Retributionist

I don't see this as a solution. It's not like these roles are bad due to some fun-but-chaotic mechanic; they're bad in ways that apply just as much in other gamemodes as in Ranked. (Except in modes where they're explicitly on the rolelist, that is Classic Classic and some Custom lists, where they can be good due to the "balancing around the role" effect.)

Could each mafia member be unique to prevent having 3 framers?

I don't see this as a solution. Even if you can only have 1 Framer, that 1 Framer would still be underpowered.

You're only proposing this for the sake of the underpowered roles anyway; things like the "double Consort game" aren't a problem at all.

If you want to try to balance around a game mode that is 100% rng you need to be locked up in a mental ward. You say you care about fun but ITS DEFINITELY GONNA BE FUN WHEN YOU ARE IN A FLAWLESS GAME AND YOU LOSE AS TOWN EVERY TIME CAUSE YOU WANT MUH ALL ROLES TO BE FUN!!!

[SwampRabbit]

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".

[CrimsonKatana]

uh

i'll give my in-depth thoughts on stuff that should be changed for ranked when i'm not lazy

summary of most of the viable changes that would improve tos ranked the most:

• retributionist should not exist in ranked unless you're going to entirely change it at it's core. same goes for spy.
• if town power roles are going to exist then there should be a town power subalignment containing them, meaning that only 1 town power role can roll in any given game. town power roles include jailor and mayor assuming the non-existence of retributionist, but would include retributionist assuming it's existence.
• NE as a subalignment needs changes largely due to the disparity in utility and aims of each role within the subalignment, giving scum either much higher or much lower utility depending on which NE role rolls.
• some good implementation of tactical mafia kills would likely be a far better system than the current godfather/mafioso system.
• werewolf needs revamping.
• some mafia roles need changes or revamping.
• potential new role additions; most likely the best one that has been discussed in the past is some variation of the watcher (essentially a mafia lookout), which is not only a good addition to the game in general but also mitigates some large issues of ToS ranked (namely discouraging the X confirmable role claiming d1 meta since watcher easily finds roles like town protectives that would otherwise thrive in such a meta, and also decreasing the confirmability and overall utility of town lookout), arguably mafia lookout should have more utility so some variation of watcher perhaps with other appropriate ability/s would work

i may be missing some things but that should cover most of the biggest issues

I don't think that jailor and mayor need to be mutually exclusive. In a game where jailor is passive, town loses anyways. IF evils are on top of their game and vigi's don't wipe out rm in one night, they can usually win by day 3 or 4. Yes, evils can get completely screwed in one night, but so can town. Yeah, it's rarer, but arso ignite or ww killing off LO and all TP's is one way to do it. Most townies are afraid to post information, LO's not posting wills b/c "OH NO! I CAN'T OUT TP!" and other stupid reasons like that. Hell, I had a gamethrower in my past 2 games refuse to claim anything and he cost town dearly both times. Mislynching is powerful for maf when they can pull it off. When it's 3 v 1 and roles are all confirmed, yeah evils stand no chance and that sucks. However, I do not think that town should be nerfed (except retri) and overall, I agree with the mafia buffs that Achilles has suggested minus the mafioso attack. Also, I think it would be better for forger to be swapped out with hypnotist, which would help add more chaos to the game and buff evil's winrates. B/c this way escort is no longer an insta-confirm. Additionally, since hypnotist is astral, it could throw a wrench in the jailor meta since escort would be "confirmed". Idk. I think mafia needs buffing and that's all that's necessary

it should definitely not be a thing that the role lists rands different amounts of broken roles in different games, why would you want to keep something that significantly increases the impact of luck on the game's outcome and significantly reduces the impact of skill on the game's outcome in what is supposed to be a competitive mode

especially given jailor and mayor in tandem work extremely well due to jailor's protective capabilities and mayor not caring about being roleblocked

If you think there is even the SLIGHTEST thing wrong with Mayor and Jailor YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY!!! THE GAME SHOULD NOT BE BALANCED AROUND NON FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY AND IT SHOULD BE BALANCED AROUND THE RANKED ROLE LIST AS IT IS THE COMPETITIVE MODE AND MOST BALANCED!!!! FLAWLESS PLAYERS CAN EASILY WORK AROUND THIS!!!!

[azapf2277]

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.

[azapf2277]

Oh maybe 1 thing, since people have an issue with how easily some roles are confirmed (ahem...ts i'm looking at you).

limit it to 2 ts roles per game. ez

[FerretBandit]

Give Framer a three-use ability to visit a Mafia teammate, making their visit Astral and making them appear innocent to Sheriff for that night. This also helps nerf Spy, who currently can confirm anyone the mafia visits as Not mafia.

Give Forger infinite forges. Then the role can use its ability more than Janitor and possibly get more use out of that.

Keep the Disguiser changes you have planned.

[alvac2012]

uh

i'll give my in-depth thoughts on stuff that should be changed for ranked when i'm not lazy

summary of most of the viable changes that would improve tos ranked the most:

• retributionist should not exist in ranked unless you're going to entirely change it at it's core. same goes for spy.
• if town power roles are going to exist then there should be a town power subalignment containing them, meaning that only 1 town power role can roll in any given game. town power roles include jailor and mayor assuming the non-existence of retributionist, but would include retributionist assuming it's existence.
• NE as a subalignment needs changes largely due to the disparity in utility and aims of each role within the subalignment, giving scum either much higher or much lower utility depending on which NE role rolls.
• some good implementation of tactical mafia kills would likely be a far better system than the current godfather/mafioso system.
• werewolf needs revamping.
• some mafia roles need changes or revamping.
• potential new role additions; most likely the best one that has been discussed in the past is some variation of the watcher (essentially a mafia lookout), which is not only a good addition to the game in general but also mitigates some large issues of ToS ranked (namely discouraging the X confirmable role claiming d1 meta since watcher easily finds roles like town protectives that would otherwise thrive in such a meta, and also decreasing the confirmability and overall utility of town lookout), arguably mafia lookout should have more utility so some variation of watcher perhaps with other appropriate ability/s would work

i may be missing some things but that should cover most of the biggest issues

I don't think that jailor and mayor need to be mutually exclusive. In a game where jailor is passive, town loses anyways. IF evils are on top of their game and vigi's don't wipe out rm in one night, they can usually win by day 3 or 4. Yes, evils can get completely screwed in one night, but so can town. Yeah, it's rarer, but arso ignite or ww killing off LO and all TP's is one way to do it. Most townies are afraid to post information, LO's not posting wills b/c "OH NO! I CAN'T OUT TP!" and other stupid reasons like that. Hell, I had a gamethrower in my past 2 games refuse to claim anything and he cost town dearly both times. Mislynching is powerful for maf when they can pull it off. When it's 3 v 1 and roles are all confirmed, yeah evils stand no chance and that sucks. However, I do not think that town should be nerfed (except retri) and overall, I agree with the mafia buffs that Achilles has suggested minus the mafioso attack. Also, I think it would be better for forger to be swapped out with hypnotist, which would help add more chaos to the game and buff evil's winrates. B/c this way escort is no longer an insta-confirm. Additionally, since hypnotist is astral, it could throw a wrench in the jailor meta since escort would be "confirmed". Idk. I think mafia needs buffing and that's all that's necessary

it should definitely not be a thing that the role lists rands different amounts of broken roles in different games, why would you want to keep something that significantly increases the impact of luck on the game's outcome and significantly reduces the impact of skill on the game's outcome in what is supposed to be a competitive mode

especially given jailor and mayor in tandem work extremely well due to jailor's protective capabilities and mayor not caring about being roleblocked

If you think there is even the SLIGHTEST thing wrong with Mayor and Jailor YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY!!! THE GAME SHOULD NOT BE BALANCED AROUND NON FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY AND IT SHOULD BE BALANCED AROUND THE RANKED ROLE LIST AS IT IS THE COMPETITIVE MODE AND MOST BALANCED!!!! FLAWLESS PLAYERS CAN EASILY WORK AROUND THIS!!!!

i'm confused what you're even arguing at this point but ok

Crimsonkatana is trying to say that this entire "nerf jailor" argument is based around the idea that jailor is always on top of their game and that a mayor always spawns with jailor to ruin evils days. From the games that I've played, mayor dies decently early and I myself always use mayor as a way to divert evils from jailor. At the end of the day, jailor needs to play well. I played a game flawlessly as mayor, I read evils and lynched 2 of the 4 mafia before mafia attacked me. Town still lost that game because the jailor was incompetent. Yes, from the current arguments on the forum, in high ELO, mafia doesn't stand a chance. HOWEVER. In the current state of ranked, I at 1700 ELO can run into people who act like they are playing their placement games. So overall, no. town does not need a nerf (Remove retri from role list though). Yes, evils need a buff. Most importantly, the ELO system and matchmaking requires a rework.

[CrimsonKatana]

The worst ideas I've heard are people that propose lowering spawn rates and spawn limits... I definitely do no want that... Anyways Mayor and Spy have got nothing OP about them. I agree with everything I said before and not allowing jailor to jail twice in a row which I don't think is necessary but if you want to make it easier for mafia then go ahead...

[CrimsonKatana]

Bro are you dumb??? I'm saying if the game is being played where everyone is playing flawlessly!!!! It's pretty clear here that you've never played in games where all the evils are actually trying their best!!!

[CrimsonKatana]

You are the one who is the troll here who makes the craziest claims on the planet and can't handle getting called out on it

[alvac2012]

uh

i'll give my in-depth thoughts on stuff that should be changed for ranked when i'm not lazy

summary of most of the viable changes that would improve tos ranked the most:

• retributionist should not exist in ranked unless you're going to entirely change it at it's core. same goes for spy.
• if town power roles are going to exist then there should be a town power subalignment containing them, meaning that only 1 town power role can roll in any given game. town power roles include jailor and mayor assuming the non-existence of retributionist, but would include retributionist assuming it's existence.
• NE as a subalignment needs changes largely due to the disparity in utility and aims of each role within the subalignment, giving scum either much higher or much lower utility depending on which NE role rolls.
• some good implementation of tactical mafia kills would likely be a far better system than the current godfather/mafioso system.
• werewolf needs revamping.
• some mafia roles need changes or revamping.
• potential new role additions; most likely the best one that has been discussed in the past is some variation of the watcher (essentially a mafia lookout), which is not only a good addition to the game in general but also mitigates some large issues of ToS ranked (namely discouraging the X confirmable role claiming d1 meta since watcher easily finds roles like town protectives that would otherwise thrive in such a meta, and also decreasing the confirmability and overall utility of town lookout), arguably mafia lookout should have more utility so some variation of watcher perhaps with other appropriate ability/s would work

i may be missing some things but that should cover most of the biggest issues

I don't think that jailor and mayor need to be mutually exclusive. In a game where jailor is passive, town loses anyways. IF evils are on top of their game and vigi's don't wipe out rm in one night, they can usually win by day 3 or 4. Yes, evils can get completely screwed in one night, but so can town. Yeah, it's rarer, but arso ignite or ww killing off LO and all TP's is one way to do it. Most townies are afraid to post information, LO's not posting wills b/c "OH NO! I CAN'T OUT TP!" and other stupid reasons like that. Hell, I had a gamethrower in my past 2 games refuse to claim anything and he cost town dearly both times. Mislynching is powerful for maf when they can pull it off. When it's 3 v 1 and roles are all confirmed, yeah evils stand no chance and that sucks. However, I do not think that town should be nerfed (except retri) and overall, I agree with the mafia buffs that Achilles has suggested minus the mafioso attack. Also, I think it would be better for forger to be swapped out with hypnotist, which would help add more chaos to the game and buff evil's winrates. B/c this way escort is no longer an insta-confirm. Additionally, since hypnotist is astral, it could throw a wrench in the jailor meta since escort would be "confirmed". Idk. I think mafia needs buffing and that's all that's necessary

it should definitely not be a thing that the role lists rands different amounts of broken roles in different games, why would you want to keep something that significantly increases the impact of luck on the game's outcome and significantly reduces the impact of skill on the game's outcome in what is supposed to be a competitive mode

especially given jailor and mayor in tandem work extremely well due to jailor's protective capabilities and mayor not caring about being roleblocked

If you think there is even the SLIGHTEST thing wrong with Mayor and Jailor YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY!!! THE GAME SHOULD NOT BE BALANCED AROUND NON FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY AND IT SHOULD BE BALANCED AROUND THE RANKED ROLE LIST AS IT IS THE COMPETITIVE MODE AND MOST BALANCED!!!! FLAWLESS PLAYERS CAN EASILY WORK AROUND THIS!!!!

i'm confused what you're even arguing at this point but ok

Crimsonkatana is trying to say that this entire "nerf jailor" argument is based around the idea that jailor is always on top of their game and that a mayor always spawns with jailor to ruin evils days. From the games that I've played, mayor dies decently early and I myself always use mayor as a way to divert evils from jailor. At the end of the day, jailor needs to play well. I played a game flawlessly as mayor, I read evils and lynched 2 of the 4 mafia before mafia attacked me. Town still lost that game because the jailor was incompetent. Yes, from the current arguments on the forum, in high ELO, mafia doesn't stand a chance. HOWEVER. In the current state of ranked, I at 1700 ELO can run into people who act like they are playing their placement games. So overall, no. town does not need a nerf (Remove retri from role list though). Yes, evils need a buff. Most importantly, the ELO system and matchmaking requires a rework.

again

when you balance a competitive game you balance under the assumption that players are good and equally good because in this case it maximises insight into the true utility of alignments, that is the general rule of thumb for balancing any competitive game

you don't assume players are going to be average or worse when balancing because you lose information regarding the true utility of alignments; the general rule of thumb in competitive balance is that true utility is more important than utility at a given skill level, unless that skill level perfectly showcases true utility

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. Mafia has a hard time winning normally and I understand that. This is why I agree with buffs to mafia roles. However, town does not need to be nerfed simultaneously. And NK's do need a buff. Perhaps NK can work similarly to jani, where they erase will. For instance, SK, WW, and Arso could erase wills and roles b/c "the body is unidentifiable".

[Royee]

Spoiler:

uh

i'll give my in-depth thoughts on stuff that should be changed for ranked when i'm not lazy

summary of most of the viable changes that would improve tos ranked the most:

• retributionist should not exist in ranked unless you're going to entirely change it at it's core. same goes for spy.
• if town power roles are going to exist then there should be a town power subalignment containing them, meaning that only 1 town power role can roll in any given game. town power roles include jailor and mayor assuming the non-existence of retributionist, but would include retributionist assuming it's existence.
• NE as a subalignment needs changes largely due to the disparity in utility and aims of each role within the subalignment, giving scum either much higher or much lower utility depending on which NE role rolls.
• some good implementation of tactical mafia kills would likely be a far better system than the current godfather/mafioso system.
• werewolf needs revamping.
• some mafia roles need changes or revamping.
• potential new role additions; most likely the best one that has been discussed in the past is some variation of the watcher (essentially a mafia lookout), which is not only a good addition to the game in general but also mitigates some large issues of ToS ranked (namely discouraging the X confirmable role claiming d1 meta since watcher easily finds roles like town protectives that would otherwise thrive in such a meta, and also decreasing the confirmability and overall utility of town lookout), arguably mafia lookout should have more utility so some variation of watcher perhaps with other appropriate ability/s would work

i may be missing some things but that should cover most of the biggest issues

I don't think that jailor and mayor need to be mutually exclusive. In a game where jailor is passive, town loses anyways. IF evils are on top of their game and vigi's don't wipe out rm in one night, they can usually win by day 3 or 4. Yes, evils can get completely screwed in one night, but so can town. Yeah, it's rarer, but arso ignite or ww killing off LO and all TP's is one way to do it. Most townies are afraid to post information, LO's not posting wills b/c "OH NO! I CAN'T OUT TP!" and other stupid reasons like that. Hell, I had a gamethrower in my past 2 games refuse to claim anything and he cost town dearly both times. Mislynching is powerful for maf when they can pull it off. When it's 3 v 1 and roles are all confirmed, yeah evils stand no chance and that sucks. However, I do not think that town should be nerfed (except retri) and overall, I agree with the mafia buffs that Achilles has suggested minus the mafioso attack. Also, I think it would be better for forger to be swapped out with hypnotist, which would help add more chaos to the game and buff evil's winrates. B/c this way escort is no longer an insta-confirm. Additionally, since hypnotist is astral, it could throw a wrench in the jailor meta since escort would be "confirmed". Idk. I think mafia needs buffing and that's all that's necessary

it should definitely not be a thing that the role lists rands different amounts of broken roles in different games, why would you want to keep something that significantly increases the impact of luck on the game's outcome and significantly reduces the impact of skill on the game's outcome in what is supposed to be a competitive mode

especially given jailor and mayor in tandem work extremely well due to jailor's protective capabilities and mayor not caring about being roleblocked

If you think there is even the SLIGHTEST thing wrong with Mayor and Jailor YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY!!! THE GAME SHOULD NOT BE BALANCED AROUND NON FLAWLESS GAMEPLAY AND IT SHOULD BE BALANCED AROUND THE RANKED ROLE LIST AS IT IS THE COMPETITIVE MODE AND MOST BALANCED!!!! FLAWLESS PLAYERS CAN EASILY WORK AROUND THIS!!!!

i'm confused what you're even arguing at this point but ok

Crimsonkatana is trying to say that this entire "nerf jailor" argument is based around the idea that jailor is always on top of their game and that a mayor always spawns with jailor to ruin evils days. From the games that I've played, mayor dies decently early and I myself always use mayor as a way to divert evils from jailor. At the end of the day, jailor needs to play well. I played a game flawlessly as mayor, I read evils and lynched 2 of the 4 mafia before mafia attacked me. Town still lost that game because the jailor was incompetent. Yes, from the current arguments on the forum, in high ELO, mafia doesn't stand a chance. HOWEVER. In the current state of ranked, I at 1700 ELO can run into people who act like they are playing their placement games. So overall, no. town does not need a nerf (Remove retri from role list though). Yes, evils need a buff. Most importantly, the ELO system and matchmaking requires a rework.

again

when you balance a competitive game you balance under the assumption that players are good and equally good because in this case it maximises insight into the true utility of alignments, that is the general rule of thumb for balancing any competitive game

you don't assume players are going to be average or worse when balancing because you lose information regarding the true utility of alignments; the general rule of thumb in competitive balance is that true utility is more important than utility at a given skill level, unless that skill level perfectly showcases true utility

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. Mafia has a hard time winning normally and I understand that. This is why I agree with buffs to mafia roles. However, town does not need to be nerfed simultaneously. And NK's do need a buff. Perhaps NK can work similarly to jani, where they erase will. For instance, SK, WW, and Arso could erase wills and roles b/c "the body is unidentifiable".

how does it even contradicts what flake has said?

[Achilles]

@achilles

What kind of changes are you looking to implement and by that I mean the coding and the size of the changes. The last time a balance change was added was back in Dec 2018 if i'm not wrong, when you asked for a small change and that was the Sheriff change.

Anything is on the table but of course the more complicated the changes the longer the patch will take and likely the offseason will need to be longer.

[Achilles]

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.