Town of Salem Game Forums

Now that the Retributionist rework is completed we want to take a look at the Medium. The goal is to remove the Medium's dependency on dead players not leaving the game. While this change will stop players from contributing to the games outcome from the graveyard it will also remove a necessity for Town roles to not leave once they have died. Many members of the community have suggested that this will be a healthier and more fun environment for players. It will also allow the Medium to be a useful role, even if all of the dead players have left the game.

General Rework Idea:
Medium will now seance with a dead role each night.
Medium will learn important information about the dead player (Up for design debate here but things such as):
role (hard counter to janitor/medusa/disguiser/no role reveal game modes) - being a hard counter may be too strong
who visited them (lookout for dead people, possibly too strong)
who the dead player visited each night
night ability feedback from each night (maybe limited to TI roles?) forwarding of TI info from each night would replace the lost last will when cleaned/stoned or if the dead player failed to leave an accurate will, also counters forged wills

Additionally: Should the Medium keep it's ability to open a seance with the living when the Medium dies?

Opening the floor to debate and discussion.

Previous threads on this topic:

On Medium (and Ret) - orangeandblack5's response to previous hints that you might want to rework Medium.
Medium (Town Support) - DragonClaw66's proposal for how to rework the Medium

Anyway, your idea seems very similar to DragonClaw's idea, so I'll just point out the tweaks I'd prefer:

Achilles wrote:who visited them (lookout for dead people, possibly too strong)

No to this. You're right that it's probably too strong, but also I'd prefer the Medium can't get any info that the dead person themselves doesn't know.

Achilles wrote:who the dead player visited each night
night ability feedback from each night (maybe limited to TI roles?) forwarding of TI info from each night would replace the lost last will when cleaned/stoned or if the dead player failed to leave an accurate will, also counters forged

I wouldn't limit the feedback to only TI roles, but I would limit all of this information to only targets that are in fact Town roles.

Achilles wrote:Additionally: Should the Medium keep it's ability to open a seance with the living when the Medium dies?

Probably not. The Mafia should be able to get rid of the Medium by killing it, not just have it keep doing its job from the grave.

Brilliand wrote:Previous threads on this topic:

On Medium (and Ret) - orangeandblack5's response to previous hints that you might want to rework Medium.
Medium (Town Support) - DragonClaw66's proposal for how to rework the Medium

Anyway, your idea seems very similar to DragonClaw's idea, so I'll just point out the tweaks I'd prefer:

Achilles wrote:who visited them (lookout for dead people, possibly too strong)

No to this. You're right that it's probably too strong, but also I'd prefer the Medium can't get any info that the dead person themselves doesn't know.

Achilles wrote:who the dead player visited each night
night ability feedback from each night (maybe limited to TI roles?) forwarding of TI info from each night would replace the lost last will when cleaned/stoned or if the dead player failed to leave an accurate will, also counters forged

I wouldn't limit the feedback to only TI roles, but I would limit all of this information to only targets that are in fact Town roles.

Achilles wrote:Additionally: Should the Medium keep it's ability to open a seance with the living when the Medium dies?

Probably not. The Mafia should be able to get rid of the Medium by killing it, not just have it keep doing its job from the grave.

I did see Dragonclaws post. It didn't seem quite right given that his version keeps the seance from the graveyard. I took his ideas and any other options I could think of and listed them so we could discuss options and balance. What are the balance reasons for his Medium not getting any feedback on non-Town roles?

I'm brainstorming with the other Devs. Here is a potential idea we came up with to keep the Medium seance. Medium could not join the graveyard chat until they use their seance with a living member ability.

Achilles wrote:What are the balance reasons for his Medium not getting any feedback on non-Town roles?

My thinking there is similar to my thinking on the "lookout for the dead" power: It's information that the current version of the Medium wouldn't be able to obtain, in this case due to the dead player being uncooperative rather than ignorant. I'm trying to stick close to the Medium's current role of retrieving information that the Town had and then lost.

From a pure balance perspective, the only concern I can think of is that certain Mafia visits might reveal something incriminating against other members of the Mafia, and it might even have a chilling effect on the Mafia's willingness to use their visits in certain ways (similar to the current Spy). This concern is probably more realistic in Coven, where there's a good chance that if the Potion Master exists, she will use her "heal" ability on a fellow Coven member fairly early on.

Achilles wrote:I'm brainstorming with the other Devs. Here is a potential idea we came up with to keep the Medium seance. Medium could not join the graveyard chat until they use their seance with a living member ability.

With that restriction, I think the Medium's seance would be rather useless anyway. Also, keeping dead players out of dead chat isn't a great idea, because it's lonely in limbo.

Brilliand wrote:

Achilles wrote:What are the balance reasons for his Medium not getting any feedback on non-Town roles?

My thinking there is similar to my thinking on the "lookout for the dead" power: It's information that the current version of the Medium wouldn't be able to obtain, in this case due to the dead player being uncooperative rather than ignorant. I'm trying to stick close to the Medium's current role of retrieving information that the Town had and then lost.

From a pure balance perspective, the only concern I can think of is that certain Mafia visits might reveal something incriminating against other members of the Mafia, and it might even have a chilling effect on the Mafia's willingness to use their visits in certain ways (similar to the current Spy). This concern is probably more realistic in Coven, where there's a good chance that if the Potion Master exists, she will use her "heal" ability on a fellow Coven member fairly early on.

Yea that is very OP. Gaining information on all maf/coven/NK visits and happenings. This is information that the current medium would not receive.
I would definately lynch any confirmed Potion Master night 2 visit, regardless of claim. While sometimes, as evil, its good to give medium some information, so they can push other factions/NKs other than your own, you would never give them all of your information. I dont think an automated system would be ''smart'' enough to determine what information is what tho.

Alo RIP to the plays of giving entirely false information to the medium, to cause mislynches... like claiming your Consig or Pot Master found the WW or Arso. Or especially if youre a disguiser....

But even with these changes, 2 mediums could still confirm themselves as theyd both have the same information.

I think it's a terrible idea to mess with one of (if not) the most balanced role in the game. Ruining a well designed role just for the sake of people who leave the game isn't worth it.
HOWEVER, if your team is really "commited" into this "problem", just give the medium more seances.

Ribe wrote:I think it's a terrible idea to mess with one of (if not) the most balanced role in the game. Ruining a well designed role just for the sake of people who leave the game isn't worth it.
HOWEVER, if your team is really "commited" into this "problem", just give the medium more seances.

More seances kinda makes ''the problem'' worse. If you kill a medium early enough, chances are they will use their seance early with the first bit of juicy info they get. More seances means more info being leaked when another bit of juicy info comes along...

''The problem'' being dead communication with live players, hence the taunt nerf and the ret change.
Taunts being a problem ''in games with no medium''.
Ret being a problem as it confirmed too many townies in medium games, making the POE game solved too early for evils to stand a chance.

Achilles wrote:I'm brainstorming with the other Devs. Here is a potential idea we came up with to keep the Medium seance. Medium could not join the graveyard chat until they use their seance with a living member ability.

Just remove Medium's seance. No one should have after-death abilities. I even think Jester shouldn't get to haunt someone and instead he just automatically roleblocks all his guilty and abstaining voters the following night.

FerretBandit wrote:

Achilles wrote:I'm brainstorming with the other Devs. Here is a potential idea we came up with to keep the Medium seance. Medium could not join the graveyard chat until they use their seance with a living member ability.

Just remove Medium's seance. No one should have after-death abilities. I even think Jester shouldn't get to haunt someone and instead he just automatically roleblocks all his guilty and abstaining voters the following night.

Roleblocking is an after-death ability

Achilles wrote:Now that the Retributionist rework is completed we want to take a look at the Medium. The goal is to remove the Medium's dependency on dead players not leaving the game. While this change will stop players from contributing to the games outcome from the graveyard it will also remove a necessity for Town roles to not leave once they have died. Many members of the community have suggested that this will be a healthier and more fun environment for players. It will also allow the Medium to be a useful role, even if all of the dead players have left the game.

General Rework Idea:
Medium will now seance with a dead role each night.
Medium will learn important information about the dead player (Up for design debate here but things such as):
role (hard counter to janitor/medusa/disguiser/no role reveal game modes) - being a hard counter may be too strong
who visited them (lookout for dead people, possibly too strong)
who the dead player visited each night
night ability feedback from each night (maybe limited to TI roles?) forwarding of TI info from each night would replace the lost last will when cleaned/stoned or if the dead player failed to leave an accurate will, also counters forged wills

Additionally: Should the Medium keep it's ability to open a seance with the living when the Medium dies?

Opening the floor to debate and discussion.

Receiving the player's role
I'm relaxed about it being a "hard counter" to Janitor, as New Medium is even more unconfirmable than the existing one, which gives the Janitor (and to an extent other Mafia) additional options to respond. Also, the delay in being able to unmask a cleaned role continues to buy the Mafia time, so it doesn't render Janitors useless even if a Medium is in play.

This is a bit more powerful against Medusa, but this ability in isolation isn't too strong as it's not necessarily clear if the Medium is telling the truth unless multiple Mediums confirm the role...and even then, there's no way for Town to know if any or all of those Mediums are trustworthy without additional evidence. So how powerful this is will depend on additional abilities that the Medium has.

I'm less comfortable with it hard countering Disguisers, as they have enough headaches and penalties as it is, not least having to die in order to deceive. Losing their ability to maintain the deception from the grave is a big hit to Disguiser. Short of a rework to Disguiser in response, I'd suggest that any Mafia/Coven action which changes the appearance of a dead role should appear to be legitimate when checked by the Medium to prevent hard countering.

who visited them (lookout for dead people, possibly too strong)
Possibly might be an understatement. This turns the Medium into a super-powered Lookout with a one day delay, and brings it too much into the TI space (IMO). I'm not convinced this is a good idea.

who the dead player visited each night
Deeply problematic IMO as it would hard counter a Disguiser will and immediately reveal the Medusa. That just seems too powerful - those roles have no practical defence against this except ensuring the Medium is dead before using their abilities. If it's possible to seance non-Town roles, then the Medium can be a pseudo-Spy by seancing RMs and reveal the identity of roles with defence by seancing basic attack roles like Mafioso, Godfather and SK.

night ability feedback from each night
This is a good option for TIs, and mimics how Mediums currently act if players don't leave. Not very impactful for most other roles, though - except that it continues to hard counter Forger the same way a dead person would; although by that point it may well be too late, so I don't anticipate this being a major problem.

FerretBandit wrote:I even think Jester shouldn't get to haunt someone and instead he just automatically roleblocks all his guilty and abstaining voters the following night.

I agree that it would be good for Jester to lose its after-death choice, but I disagree with your idea for a replacement ability.

cob709 wrote:Roleblocking is an after-death ability

Huh? No it isn't.

After death = you can make the choice to use it after you've entered the dead chat. IIRC only Medium, Jester and GA have actions that can be voluntarily taken from the graveyard.

wozearly wrote:I'm less comfortable with it hard countering Disguisers, as they have enough headaches and penalties as it is, not least having to die in order to deceive. Losing their ability to maintain the deception from the grave is a big hit to Disguiser. Short of a rework to Disguiser in response, I'd suggest that any Mafia/Coven action which changes the appearance of a dead role should appear to be legitimate when checked by the Medium to prevent hard countering.

The trouble is, since the Disguiser player isn't available to actively lie to the Medium, you'd have to cripple the Medium pretty severely to keep the Disguiser lie undetected.

We do have to be wary of making the Medium underpowered here, since it isn't all that powerful a role in the current game.

Achilles wrote:Now that the Retributionist rework is completed we want to take a look at the Medium. The goal is to remove the Medium's dependency on dead players not leaving the game. While this change will stop players from contributing to the games outcome from the graveyard it will also remove a necessity for Town roles to not leave once they have died. Many members of the community have suggested that this will be a healthier and more fun environment for players. It will also allow the Medium to be a useful role, even if all of the dead players have left the game.

General Rework Idea:
Medium will now seance with a dead role each night.
Medium will learn important information about the dead player (Up for design debate here but things such as):
role (hard counter to janitor/medusa/disguiser/no role reveal game modes) - being a hard counter may be too strong
who visited them (lookout for dead people, possibly too strong)
who the dead player visited each night
night ability feedback from each night (maybe limited to TI roles?) forwarding of TI info from each night would replace the lost last will when cleaned/stoned or if the dead player failed to leave an accurate will, also counters forged wills

Additionally: Should the Medium keep it's ability to open a seance with the living when the Medium dies?

Opening the floor to debate and discussion.

Just punish leavers. There's no reason to change the way medium works.

James2 wrote:
Just punish leavers. There's no reason to change the way medium works.

people who leave when theyre dead, shouldnt be punished.

Although I agree theres no major reason to change medium.

If they're still capable of winning they shouldn't leave and should be punished if they do leave.

Bit of a left-field idea, but what about giving the medium the option to forgo dead chat and seance with a player at night while alive.

It would give them something to do on nights when there is nothing useful to be gained from the graveyard, and gives it more options for confirmability and strategising with town.

That said, it simultaneously makes it a far more interesting role for evils. Fake claims could no longer be shot down by being asked to copy paste dead chat as they could say they seance that night instead. Evils could sheep a med into using their seance on then to get more information, and a pair of mafia could set up a med fakeclaim by having one "confirm" the other's seance claim.

It's far from a perfect solution and it's the sort of thing that could probably benefit from having limited uses but I think it's worth considering as an alternative fix that still keeps the spirit of the role.

Matty89190 wrote:Bit of a left-field idea, but what about giving the medium the option to forgo dead chat and seance with a player at night while alive.

So creating a telepathic link between the living?

That's pretty much only good for confirmability. ...and asking for roles, exactly like the Jailor does.

Idk why medium should be reworked, cuz no townies leave in Ranked because they don't want to lose elo, and if this happens in casual modes, players should be expecting that people will be leaving more so I don't get what's the problem here. I would even suggest buffing the medium's seance ability to the following:

(Night Ability): Choose to seance the Town the next day. You may talk as a normal townie, but you may not vote. Your presence also has no impact on the voting majority. You can read the dead chat at the same time while seancing.

The medium's ability should be kept as it allows not only for dead players to share info, but also scumreads and generally continue to have their voice heard. Smart players that died early can continue sharing who they're suspicious of to the medium and sometimes this can make/break a game.

Brilliand wrote:

Matty89190 wrote:Bit of a left-field idea, but what about giving the medium the option to forgo dead chat and seance with a player at night while alive.

So creating a telepathic link between the living?

That's pretty much only good for confirmability. ...and asking for roles, exactly like the Jailor does.

I'm not suggesting it's a perfect solution by any means, limiting to one use while living/one while dead might balance it a bit more.

Personally, I don't think medium needs to be changed at all; those who believe the obligation to stay in a game when dead is terrible represent a vocal minority as far as I've seen.

And if medium does need changed, the proposed rework here isn't very good imo. What I was suggesting was just an alternative that may be more in keeping with how the role is rather than just "nightly info dump you copy down".

while not a guarantee to fix the problem of that Medium being useless when all the dead leave, one suggestion I have proposed in the past is to give a dead player a notification that there's at least one Medium alive in the current game. This could potentially push people to stay, though salty ragequitters probably wouldn't care, but at that point, leaving while knowing there's a Medium to pass valuable to the Town information through is pretty much the equivalent of gamethrowing

BlastingOff wrote:while not a guarantee to fix the problem of that Medium being useless when all the dead leave, one suggestion I have proposed in the past is to give a dead player a notification that there's at least one Medium alive in the current game. This could potentially push people to stay, though salty ragequitters probably wouldn't care, but at that point, leaving while knowing there's a Medium to pass valuable to the Town information through is pretty much the equivalent of gamethrowing

That being an assumption, that they had ''valuable'' information to start with.

As it is now, half the time when i give a medium valuable information, they stay silent for days without passing it on.... shoudl that also be considered gamethrowing?

Perhaps the "gain information from the dead" ability could be used along with Medium's current ability, with people who have left the game
That way we can keep the Medium's current abilities, but if people leave there is a backup plan to get that information

Ribe wrote:I think it's a terrible idea to mess with one of (if not) the most balanced role in the game. Ruining a well designed role just for the sake of people who leave the game isn't worth it.
HOWEVER, if your team is really "commited" into this "problem", just give the medium more seances.

Agreed. Medium is fine how it is.

I would suggest adding a message that alerts all dead people of a Medium's presence as soon as they die. Knowing this, people would be much more likely to stick around long enough to pass along info to the Medium. I feel like reworking the role entirely to remove the communication channel with the dead would remove a lot of the fun of sticking around after death, especially if the other players aren't that talkative.

MysticMismagius wrote:Perhaps the "gain information from the dead" ability could be used along with Medium's current ability, with people who have left the game
That way we can keep the Medium's current abilities, but if people leave there is a backup plan to get that information

Well townies don't really leave in ranked anyways.