these suggestions are for classic only, I haven't played coven yet.
I will start by saying ToS is a game with decent enough balance and nuance that if you really work hard you can play well as most roles, so there are a lot of roles that many gripe about or say they don't enjoy, but don't bother me at all.
But there are some obvious issues with balance that I wanted to throw out there, with some suggestions on how to improve balance.
1. Too many town roles that are easy to confirm. without a janitor, claim space is super thin and since town can afford to lynch a few innos if needed to eliminate claim space (especially if jailor survives), it can feel a lot like luck to get to the mid-game without the game starting to snowball
2. Speaking of snowballs, the game can easily snowball in the early game if too many evils are discovered\killed and the late game when evils get majority. Only if town gets a powerful role into the late game can they survive.
3. While there can be some surprising variation in games at times it feels as tho the meta can quickly get stagnant, with many people playing roles the exact same way every game.
4. For nearly every role, it remains the same the entire game, which limits creative space and variety.
Here are some of my suggestions to improve balance and keep the game fresh overall.
1. Character progression: I like the idea of players abilities changing over time throughout the game and\or based on certain conditions. Maybe there is an ability that is OP in the late game but perfectly balanced in the early game. For example, maybe a Jester that doesn't get lynched in the early game isn't just waiting around for an evil majority to lynch him, maybe his abilities and objectives changed. Maybe Jester marks a character for death overnight and if he isn't lynched within a day or two that character dies at night. Maybe Town Investigative roles get a weaker version of their results the first few days. Maybe a vet with no kills by d8 will shoot at random. Maybe mafia can pay hush money to shut down a vote or block inv results. Maybe a mayor lynches a rando if he doesn't get an evil lynched within three days. maybe an inv has to visit a sheriff to get their results but if they are tricked into visiting a consig they get false results.
or maybe certain roles abilities have a cooldown of a day or two, or require a certain number of characters dead or certain number of nights to pass to be activated. maybe roles that are really weak in early game gain a strong ability in the late game.
Obviously adding complexity to this degree does require additional balancing to make sure it doesn't go off the rails, but player progression does accomplish a few things: 1. balances game within it's context (number of days past, number dead, etc.) 2. allows for control to prevent the game from running too long. strong late game abilities can force the game to wrap up without lasting over 30 mins. 3. progression can make "boring" roles very exciting. 4. progression can be used to buff or debuff based on how characters are playing their role or how allies are working with them.
2. More chaos. abilities to affect communication, evil roles with changing objectives, etc.
3. Abilities that aren't immediate. maybe a player can be poisoned but can be healed if he is visited by a doc within a day.
The end goal would be to prevent the game from snowballing in the early or late game. harder to confirm first few days and weaker roles can get stronger in the late game, while some stronger roles can experience debuffs.