Note: I didn't read most of the game, just doing these based off the setup reveal.
Balance thoughts:
I think this setup was very Town-sided.
The Mashmellow Man role was *fantastic* for Town and very Town-sided. If the Mashmellow Man is about to be lynched, he can simply claim his role and Town can switch to different target, confident he's going to get nightkilled at some point. I think the role is stronger than a normal doctor.
Power roles give a lot of information. Even though the Mafia had a good number of ways to disrupt the mechanics of Town roles, the context, motivation, and content of claims would provide alignment information anyway. For example, Slimer's Ascetic ability (Not of this World) and Architect's role hijack ability are much less likely to be Town roles than Mafia ones. (Mafia could fakeclaim, of course, but that comes with its own risks, especially given the vanilla-detector.)
Mechanical Play thoughts:
If I was in this game and rolled Town Ghostbuster, Town Gatekeeper, or Gozer the Ubermacht I would have claimed D1. I would also push to fire the Ghostbuster's power as soon as two claimed (See: this game ending before the any ghostbusters used their ability).
Worth noting that the ghostbusters did fire once - at a town target, though.
The town did lose a significant bit of power by losing a GB early. There was also a lot of variance in the GB ability (like most killing abilities). In the best-case town world, they could have led to up to two Mafia kills - one shot controlled purely by town; the second shot needs both a town and a scum to commit to it, but that can be used as a pseudocop; if the scum GB refuses to shoot at a scumbuddy, and that scumbuddy flips, then the scum GB comes under intense scrutiny.
The Mashmellow Man role was *fantastic* for Town and very Town-sided. If the Mashmellow Man is about to be lynched, he can simply claim his role and Town can switch to different target, confident he's going to get nightkilled at some point. I think the role is stronger than a normal doctor.
I talked a lot about this in the discord but I heavily disagree.
First, this assumes that the town believe the claim. I think when talk about games and balance we have to look at believably. Hindsight is 20/20 but this town almost lynched that role on multiple days.
Secondly, this role has nothing to protect. There are no power roles worth protecting with its life.
Third, this role is guaranteed to die and thus is a weaker doc in the end game scenario.
Overall I just hate roles like KA's. Defense like that shouldn't exist on scum. Like the only arguably true power role was the tracker role(That got disabled by targeting 25% of the time. Otherwise we had some day power roles that couldn't even be protected by the doctor because the mafia could GUARANTEE that kill.
Power roles almost give no information IDK what you are talking about there. None of the information the town received this game gave them any advantage at all. In fact the most information the town got was from a scum giving out their information to the town.
We killed one of the Ghostbusters on Night 1, I think, and the Terry death on D2 was from the Ghostbuster ability (there was No Lynch that Day). They could've gotten an additional kill if they'd gotten Vaimes and Grapefruit to use it on D1, I suppose, which could have made a difference in the end.
I think mechanically the game was fairly townsided though, yeah, (edit: but not significantly so). The main things that played in our favor were that we killed one of the Ghostbusters on N1 which limited the extra town controlled kills (actually, the one GB kill was designated by tom I'm pretty sure, so lol) and the fact that everyone thought DV was scum because he was Gozer after Rodemy flipped (flavor gaming is bad, folks). And the no lynches. Whatever it was that distracted Highroller for scum MVP, tbh.
Also the loudness of Kami's track was a real, uh, thing that didn't make sense but that sort of worked to our advantage just because it didn't.
We killed one of the Ghostbusters on Night 1, I think, and the Terry death on D2 was from the Ghostbuster ability (there was No Lynch that Day). They could've gotten an additional kill if they'd gotten Vaimes and Grapefruit to use it on D1, I suppose, which could have made a difference in the end.
I think mechanically the game was fairly townsided though, yeah, the main things that played in our favor were that we killed one of the Ghostbusters on N1 which limited the extra town controlled kills (actually, the one GB kill was designated by tom I'm pretty sure, so lol) and the fact that everyone thought DV was scum because he was Gozer after Rodemy flipped (flavor gaming is bad, folks). And the no lynches. Whatever it was that distracted Highroller for scum MVP, tbh.
Also the loudness of Kami's track was a real, uh, thing that didn't make sense but that sort of worked to our advantage just because it didn't.
What exactly do you see as being town sided?
None of the town power roles really do anything.
Gozer could only mess with 3 out of the 4 scum. On top of that if the mafia went for a GB gozer wasted a one shot AND the mafia were still unable to be messed with.
That's a slight complaint, I had forgotten about.
Even though incredibly rare. I think its SLIGHTLY bastard that my redirect would have done nothing if the mafia had gone for a kill on a GB.
First, this assumes that the town believe the claim. I think when talk about games and balance we have to look at believably. Hindsight is 20/20 but this town almost lynched that role on multiple days.
Secondly, this role has nothing to protect. There are no power roles worth protecting with its life.
Third, this role is guaranteed to die and thus is a weaker doc in the end game scenario.
1) If Marshmellow Man claims D1, Town should be more than willing to wait until probably MYLO/LYLO before lynching him. Delaying a scum lynch is costless as long as the delay doesn't last until overrun. As the Days go on it's increasingly likely to role is dead.
2) Protecting people who are widely townread is a reasonable use of Bodyguard, even if they're vanilla. Causing the Mafia nightkill to target random people would be a big nerf even in all-vanilla setup. Bodyguard is a step in the "random nightkill" direction - it hijacks the nightkill to (the player who randomly rolled Bodyguard) if mafia try to kill the protected target.
3) Don't disagree, but I think Marshmellow Man > Doctor even factoring that in.
Idk about overall balance (ngl still dont know tubba/rhand roles) but if zdts was trueclaiming its 100% the strongest protective ive ever seen.
It is true that it being one of the two best town PRs (with dv) made bodyguarding less appealing though.
That also applies to kami's track, which was also pretty OP.
Anyway, no lynching 2 really important days is what won the game for us, not night actions.
Days 2/3/4 could have been 5 town controlled kills between lynches and ghostbusts was actually ONE lynch and a ghostbust that i chose. Thats why yall lost.
Stop no lynching
Anyway fun game, good job team. I know how hard it was to keep motivation up with no daychat but yall did enough
Rodemy, i hated to bus you but you were a lost cause. And also, cant be wrong if it works <3
Idk about overall balance (ngl still dont know tubba/rhand roles) but if zdts was trueclaiming its 100% the strongest protective ive ever seen.
It is true that it being one of the two best town PRs (with dv) made bodyguarding less appealing though.
That also applies to kami's track, which was also pretty OP.
Anyway, no lynching 2 really important days is what won the game for us, not night actions.
Days 2/3/4 could have been 5 town controlled kills between lynches and ghostbusts was actually ONE lynch and a ghostbust that i chose. Thats why yall lost.
Stop no lynching
Anyway fun game, good job team. I know how hard it was to keep motivation up with no daychat but yall did enough
Rodemy, i hated to bus you but you were a lost cause. And also, cant be wrong if it works <3
Oh yeah.
Let me make it clear in no way do I think that THIS mafia win was caused by night actions. I think after a lot of reflection the game is only somewhat scum sided, more like 60-40 or 55-45. Something in those ranges.
2) Protecting people who are widely townread is a reasonable use of Bodyguard, even if they're vanilla. Causing the Mafia nightkill to target random people would be a big nerf even in all-vanilla setup. Bodyguard is a step in the "random nightkill" direction - it hijacks the nightkill to (the player who randomly rolled Bodyguard) if mafia try to kill the protected target.
Reasonable yes. Really good? Not so much.
I don't disagree that in a vacuum the protective role isn't strong. Its just in this game its impact isn't that great. It isn't that bad either its still pretty decent, I guess just not as amazing as it could be otherwise.
Idk about overall balance (ngl still dont know tubba/rhand roles) but if zdts was trueclaiming its 100% the strongest protective ive ever seen.
It is true that it being one of the two best town PRs (with dv) made bodyguarding less appealing though.
That also applies to kami's track, which was also pretty OP.
Anyway, no lynching 2 really important days is what won the game for us, not night actions.
Days 2/3/4 could have been 5 town controlled kills between lynches and ghostbusts was actually ONE lynch and a ghostbust that i chose. Thats why yall lost.
Stop no lynching
Anyway fun game, good job team. I know how hard it was to keep motivation up with no daychat but yall did enough
Rodemy, i hated to bus you but you were a lost cause. And also, cant be wrong if it works <3
Also the no lynch was not intentional day 2. I really thought I was miss lynch bait, felt like I needed to die to free the game up and that it would be better for the town that way. Town had too many afk players there at the end.
Its why day 3 I moved my own vote to myself well ahead of time. Riku had moved his vote over and I said to myself welp that's it then. Figured if I did that I could buy myself 12 hours to maybe case and go out on my own terms since a couple people(I think both scum lol) were talking about deadlines and I was worried I was going to get hammered before then. Then I got hammered before then, so there went that.
I liked Joe's entrance at the time for the unadulterated "hey look at me" without actually doing anything. But as that vibe has continued past rvs I'm a lot less sanguine about it.
Feels more intentional as a pattern?
There's an... ok not really an exchange but when grape started pushing on rod for townreading me vaimes sort of tried to change the narrative to "rod/Tom is a weird thing" which I think is a little weird since I was the first to call rod out on it.
Reactions around highroller claim/mass claim suggestion tells me some stuff but most of it is, like, Ghostbuster hunting that doesn't really need to be public info yet.
Elijah has been talked about a little recently but rereading sod I'd be pretty hard pressed to want to lynch him over fuwa/ruma who give opposite info about him based on flips. I still don't think that's how scum would react to townruma, and also still like his early fuwa scumread (and also it's not w/w)
Top townreads from that chunk are highroller (though a lot of that is in retrospect. That dude just... has never rolled scum) and ETR.
Still kinda want to lynch the few rezombied posts but rhand has not pinged me the same way at all other than claiming mindmeld with [unexplained, general opinions]
Maybe add the slot to fuwa and vaimes for reread part 1 scumreads.
Because destructor sounds killy which I'm in favor of early on. Even if it leads to a mafia controlled kill, better now than later
So the first post screamed that tom knew the ghostbusters were a group ability (otherwise why would hunting the ghostbusters be relevant). I sent cantrip a message and said that I thought tom was either a ghostbuster or scum buddies with one. The second post felt like a scum mindset (that I didn't notice for ages) when combined with the knowledge he knew about the ghostbusters. He shouldn't have expected more than the 2 possible extra kills.
tom like, blatantly softclaimed Ghostbuster early D1 tbf. Something about crossing the streams.
I think town would have stood a chance if we hadn’t No Lynched twice AND completely wasted a lynch on DV. Getting the EtR flip early would have helped so much it’s making me sad to think about it.
Oh, I neglected to ask about two things I meant to specifically include:
6) Should scum have had daychat? Tom groused quite a bit about this. I tend to see daychat for scum as pretty significantly powerful, probably mostly from one of the few games I've played with it resulting in the scum (of which I was one) running circles around the town and coordinating reactions and hammers to suit our needs. But there were a few times that I wondered if this was a game where scum daychat would have been appropriate. Arguments for/against?
7) How about those no-reveal flips? Again, my tendency for any game I host is to have flips reveal rolename and alignment, but not the full role. That doesn't make much difference in a game with standard rolenames, but "Mafia Architect", "Town Doctorguard"...these are a little less obvious. Again, I found myself pondering (after DV died and there was no longer the chance of role reveals) whether I should have found something else for the JoaT and done full reveal upon death. Thoughts?
As "strong" as day chat can be, I find it pretty miserable to wolf with phases this long and no day chat. If we find that this makes games too wolf sided we can scale town power up a bit to compensate, but tbh I probably wouldn't have risked replacing in if I had known there was no day chat, lol.
Maybe give daychat and full flips to balance it out some, since full flips usually give town more information? I tend to support both where possible, though like you said if you're using standard roles then 1 line flips are equivalent anyway.
The game was horribly unbalanced and scum-sided. It didn't matter cause we failed horribly, but that's not what we are discussing.
Every town role was limited or nerfed. We even missed role reveals which is great for scum, because wtf is a mafia architect?
Every scum role had so many extra effects while town had extra bad effects. Me and Rhand had a QT, but we weren't confirmed to each other. If Rhand wasn't so townie I would've thought he was scum, just based on role. We got an ability only if we found each other and that ability is pretty *****. We had 2 scum targets that we could hit (KA was immune and tom was GB).
Our tracker lost his tracking by luck (????). I like most of the roles in the game, but this one is a slap in the face. Limited shots would have worked better.
My role was limited to two shots for some dumb reason. I honestly don't feel that having a passive self watch is powerful enough to get it limited by shots.
The GB were cool, but they were < normal day vigs. The problem is that you only get one chance to kill mafia while the other shot is almost guaranteed to hit town.
Gozer was kinda reasonable as a JOAT. I really don't like bus drives in the hands of town. It's one of the most dangerous roles in the hands of town to **** all actions (as it happened here. fortunately town actions were so bad that it didn't end up mattering. He also got abilities by votes which is another nerf albeit small.
The doctor was a cool design, but I think it was slightly worse or on parity with a normal doctor. He can't save the same person and there's a big chance he will die early (doctors usually protect valuable targets that will die quickly).
Scum had powerful to very powerful roles that only got better when scum died. Silver's role is resonable, although the extra shot is too much. Rodemy's role is not reasonable at all and is so freaking strong that the only thing keeping it back is the fact that the town roles are crap. And getting an extra shot of that ability shouldn't have even been in the discussion.
Tom being GB is reasonable, but instead of being treated like a potential dayvig, it was treated like a mafia goon which is even more baffling.
KA's role was downright bonkers. He could track the entire town in a few days and could direct the architect to whoever he wanted. The fact that he was immune to abilities is just way too much.
And then scum also had the strongarm kill on the Ghostbusters, which was totally unnecessary (town had 1 protective and a 1-shot roleblock + 1-shot bus drive) Scum shouldn't nerf the best town roles just by existing (this doesn't even take into account the situation where the roleblock could clear someone falsely or end up in a lynch on the doc).
I hate games without daytalk as scum, but it's about as powerful as a normal PR.
The no full role reveals would be reasonable FOR A NORMAL, which this was not. If your rolenames start being non-descriptive, you should reveal roles so people can make sense of what's happening. You don't have to reveal them if your roles are only classic roles that everybody knows. This was somewhat mitigated by DV, but even so it requires someone to be a live and waste abilities. I'd say no role reveals is about half a power role so this and the third town GB make up for the lack of daychat.
I thought KA was neutral just because of how absurdly good his role seemed.
I'd say the game is 60% to 65% in scum favour just bsaed on roles, but it's a very swingy setup and that number could be higher due to all the luck involved in the town's abilities.
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I do think any limit on flips is strongly scum-sided. It's not as bad as not revealing alignment, but still a major scum boost.
I agree overall, however I think Vez has a point that no reveal of exact wording may be strange in a normal game. IE if it did reveal the role by looking at the name then good enough.
I think also the delayer is pretty absurd too. It targets two players and makes most of the towns abilities a little strange(IE borderline worthless). The mafia have way too many ways to just not be ****ed with. A delayer, a can't be targeted AND they can guarantee a kill on 3 players, AND they can use rods ability. Three out of the four of them scream **** you to town with their abilities and the fourth screams WIFOM in the form of being a GB.
I really don't think anyone saying that this game is town sided can articulate any reason for that. At best this game is close to even, or as I see it slightly scum sided. The only reason I don't think it is super scum sided is basically to me this whole game is a bunch of goons plus a doc, and what the mafia have. Its just a bunch of vanillas plus mafia ignoring any counter play.
The only thing the town have is a legislated day kill, that the mafia can turn around and vengeance kill with impunity. That's assuming it hits scum, and I never assume vigs hits scum when I'm trying to do kill math. At BEST the town get access to two additional day lynches, in practice they get access to one and possibly zero. There is a very real possibility that they never get used for some reason.
I understand that the GB are a strong role and analysis would lead me as a player to believe one of the GB have to be mafia, but I'm not willing to game the system that much when playing a game as a player. Additionally, the power of the GB is heavily muted not only for the fact that the mafia know they exist from N0, but also because the mafia have a revenge kill on them. I understand why they have that ability in a vacuum, but then that mitigates the power that it gives the town. Additionally, its just bastard the more I think about it. If I was to bus drive or RB the correct targets it wouldn't do anything and I would lose my shot. I would also claim that I had done that and then power clear a mafia player possibly.
The tracker in this game is dog *****. It can only target three mafia to begin with AND if it targets one of those three it loses it ability AND it might target that person with out seeing them do anything.
I'm baffled anyone would put forward that this game is town sided and I have to think anyone putting forward that idea has done zero analysis of this game.
Edit: And the mafia gained hero shots if they were losing. I forgot about that one.
Actually, you know what I'm going to write some more on this.
This is a god damn call out. Silver how in the world do you get off saying this game is town sided? You want to open your mouth fine, ******* defend it. '
This game is bastard along with being scum sided.
Having Kami and the Free GB kill is just too much. That's my problem with this game. Its just too much. But the free GB kill with Kami is just bastard.
Mafia is a game of expectancy. You know what both Kami and the free GB kill say to that? **** you town for making the right decision. A town doc correctly reads that because of the GB claim the GB is going to be mafia killed and protects him. **** you doc. The Joat correctly blocks the mafia performing the kill on a GB or bus drivers it? **** you joat and you just wasted a one shot.
The Joat and the tracker both correctly try and **** with Kami? **** you too. Not to mention the mafia have the delayer which is another tool at their disposal to say **** you to the Tracker, Joat and the Doctor.
This game in abilities is just a big **** you to town. The town get ****ed with in every corner and the mafia have all the power AND all the information thanks to the busted tracker role they have. I'm sure somewhere that if I math this game in some sort of weird point count this game is balanced, but that ignores any semblance of actually looking at the board. Like, sure black is up two bishops and a queen but white has checkmate in 1 move and its their move. That's just how this game in abilities will always play out its check mate in abilities. Anything the town has the mafia say **** you to, and then on top of that they have these two bastard abilities.
Edit: I had an additional thought too. I really need to write pages on KA's role. I thought after Iso's BS death role in Horseman I would never see this role again, but its back in a slightly nerfed form, but also buffed. I really can't express how much I have an issue with KA's role. I hate KA's role, I just hate that it can't be targeted. In this game specifically KA's role is a ninja, can't be RB'ed. Its just so ******* strong. This role should not exist.
Its the passiveness of the role and the GB killthat irks me. You know at least with the super witch and the delayer the mafia have to use the role correctly. They have to hit. KA's and the free GB kill? Naw, here you go. Have at it. That's the problem there isn't any skill involved, its just a **** you to town and no skill at all.
I agree about flips needing to be revealed if roles are unconventional. There’s no point in giving town a one shot if all the [mostly mafia] roles are gonna have multiple abilities.
Also agree that Slimer as a mafia role should not happen again. It’s like Cantrip wanted to have his Neutral cake and eat it with mafia frosting. That role should’ve been 100% neutral if it was gonna exist at all. Slime all living players and you win, passive non-kill immunity, boom, that’s a nice logical role.
One Ghostbuster being scum is a good idea. But I dislike it in conjunction with scum having Slimer and having full information with all of their roles.
Doctorguard was pretty cool, I see no issues there mostly because Fuwaslot was scummy enough to protect half the game.
I didn’t read the full mafia abilities because I’m still salty, but the Delayer targeting two people, ever, is a no from me.
For all of DV’s usual yikes ranting I agree with a lot of what he’s saying.
But yeah, overall, I find this setup to be more scumsided than not.
Town power always has to take information into account, since from the beginning we have next to none. And maybe it’s entirely our fault this time around - failing to use the lynch properly very much cost us the game since we couldn’t reevaluate.
@DV: While I can understand your frustration, and I think you’ve got some good points, you’ve kind of sucked the oxygen out of the room here.
Yeah, I'm just really making it clear that this isn't town sided. I know I'm right on this and I'm going to make that clear. Why? Because it worries me when I see other reviewers say this game is town sided.
No worries isn't the right word.
If Silver thinks this game is town sided Silver should not be a reviewer. That's my problem. I'm unsure if Silver didn't take the time and care to validate his "It's town sided" argument, or if he actually thinks that in review. I assume its the former. But, when talking about game balance I want to be really clear that this game isn't town sided. Its an actual fact.
I don't want to see things like this in the future, and I don't want games being balanced around things like this in the future.
Could you imagine if Cantrip read Silver's post, goes OK need to make scum more powerful runs this exact same setup and gives the scum MORE power? Because that's what Silver's comment amounts to. So, yeah I'm coming in a little hot.
Edit: This isn't a game of mafia. Nobody is trying to deceive and nobody should have alternate motives. Silver's comments should be taken in the context of giving good feedback, I'm making it clear that it doesn't.
Also, I made it clear in the discord but I'll make it clear here too. I like the overall design of the roles in this game. I like the thoughts behind it. I just think that "Can't be targeted" on scum and the GB kill goes through is bastard as ****. That and the town is a wet noodle.
Actually, you know what I'm going to write some more on this.
This is a god damn call out. Silver how in the world do you get off saying this game is town sided? You want to open your mouth fine, ******* defend it.
This game is bastard along with being scum sided.
I mean, I think we can have differences of opinion without having a thunderdome, and the game definitely doesn't seem bastard to me.
Having Kami and the Free GB kill is just too much. That's my problem with this game. Its just too much. But the free GB kill with Kami is just bastard.
Mafia is a game of expectancy. You know what both Kami and the free GB kill say to that? **** you town for making the right decision. A town doc correctly reads that because of the GB claim the GB is going to be mafia killed and protects him. **** you doc. The Joat correctly blocks the mafia performing the kill on a GB or bus drivers it? **** you joat and you just wasted a one shot.
The "free" GB kill (which isn't free, by the way, because it still uses the NK) didn't even come up, so I don't know why you're complaining about it, and it's a, you know, anticlaim mechanic. Maybe don't claim so freely in your next game because set ups sometimes contain stuff like this to hurt people who claim too early.
The Joat and the tracker both correctly try and **** with Kami? **** you too. Not to mention the mafia have the delayer which is another tool at their disposal to say **** you to the Tracker, Joat and the Doctor.
I only had two shots, and while getting delayed as the tracker is virtually a roleblock, it doesn't really hurt your role other than busdriver and only turns the doc into a bodyguard on his intended target.
This game in abilities is just a big **** you to town. The town get ****ed with in every corner and the mafia have all the power AND all the information thanks to the busted tracker role they have. I'm sure somewhere that if I math this game in some sort of weird point count, but that ignores any semblance of actually looking at the board. Like, sure black is up two bishops and a queen but white has checkmate in 1 move and its their move. That's just how this game in abilities will always play out its check mate in abilities. Anything the town has the mafia say **** you to, and then on top of that they have these two bastard abilities.
Kami's role was loud, lol, and targeting Vezok outs him as the slimer. And truthfully, Tubba should have counterclaimed him and gotten him lynched, there's no way there are two town trackers (even if one is slightly nerfed) so he's a neutral at best. Also, Kami was the only wolf immune to your tracker, and he gave a roleblocked message rather than disabling it in addition to not being able to actually do the kill because we needed him to slime people.
Edit: I had an additional thought too. I really need to write pages on KA's role. I thought after Iso's BS death role in Horseman I would never see this role again, but its back in a slightly nerfed form, but also buffed. I really can't express how much I have an issue with KA's role. I hate KA's role, I just hate that it can't be targeted. In this game specifically KA's role is a ninja, can't be RB'ed. Its just so ******* strong. This role should not exist.
Its the passiveness of the role and the GB kill that irks me. You know at least with the super witch and the delayer the mafia have to use the role correctly. They have to hit. KA's and the free GB kill? Naw, here you go. Have at it. That's the problem there isn't any skill involved, its just a **** you to town and no skill at all.
I mean, you can certainly complain about passive roles, I don't like them much myself. And sure, Kami's role is really strong even though it's loud and almost immediately outs itself. But you guys had ZDT the doctor that permanently bodyguards people, too, which is pretty similar in strength and passiveness, an extra day kill baked into the setup that we couldn't have messed with without the other Ghostbusters outing themselves on D1, the JoAT, a tracker, etc. etc.
I'm pretty offended by your characterization of Kami as a ninja, too, because it isn't like the Tracker gets a message that says "Kami didn't go anywhere", they're told their ability failed. The first one is a ninja, the second one is not.
Damn, silver's comments make me irrationally angry.
The free kill on GB is there to just **** up town roles. You can't put anti-claim mechanics in a game that **** up all other claims. Especially when it wouldn't even flip on the corpses of the mafia. This is a no-no in normals for me at least and is mostly what pushes this game over the line imho.
You had 2 shots and another one if 2 mafia died. So you could delay up to 6 people. I agree that delaying is not as powerful as a roleblock, but 2 delays in a night > roleblock, especially when town has 0 investigative worth their while.
What did it matter if KA's role is loud? How could the information that everybody in the town is tracked by scum could possibly have any relevance to town play? Maybe restricting targets to people already slmed so you don't give even more info, but that is a horrible play. The fact that KA targeted the only role that could see him and that I was lucky enough to activate the ability during that night is not a point in favour of this game being townsided. Ka could have targeted literally anyone else and he wouldn't have been caught. I could have forgot to use my ability and KA could target anyone.
The argument that Kami outs himself immediately is so flawed I don't even understand how you could reach that conclusion. Town literally have no way of knowing he is slimer, except my janky role.
The thing that bothers me most is that silver has to audacity to say he is offended by DV calling KA a ninja. Ninja is a bastard role that should only exist when there are watchers flooding the game. Being untargetable to a tracker or being a ninja is almost the same thing barring being the last scum or shenenigans at the end that leave only a pool of people who could have done the nightkill in a night.
You could say KA is a godfather and it would be just as true, except we don't have any cops.
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The "free" GB kill (which isn't free, by the way, because it still uses the NK) didn't even come up, so I don't know why you're complaining about it, and it's a, you know, anticlaim mechanic. Maybe don't claim so freely in your next game because set ups sometimes contain stuff like this to hurt people who claim too early.
"On a mechanical basis this game is town sided" Yeah if you ignore abilities like this and say "They didn't come up. Is this really your argument? That because it didn't come up it doesn't matter? On a mechanical basis this should be the only thing that is thought about.
I only had two shots, and while getting delayed as the tracker is virtually a roleblock, it doesn't really hurt your role other than busdriver and only turns the doc into a bodyguard on his intended target.
Or the roleblock? It effects two of my abilities, and both of them are one shots. Yeah, its basically a RB, you're right. That targets TWO players. You also gained a hero shot.
This effects two targets and acts as a RB on basically everyone in the game except for the two lost roles.
Also that Tracker isn't slightly nerfed. Its majorly nerfed. 50% of the roles with abilities this game are Ecto, 25% of them are in the game in total. The tracker loses his ability 1/4 shots night one.
I mean, you can certainly complain about passive roles, I don't like them much myself. And sure, Kami's role is really strong even though it's loud and almost immediately outs itself. But you guys had ZDT the doctor that permanently bodyguards people, too, which is pretty similar in strength and passiveness, an extra day kill baked into the setup that we couldn't have messed with without the other Ghostbusters outing themselves on D1, the JoAT, a tracker, etc. etc.
Yeah, but none of this makes it town sided. And no, that doctor is not similar in strength. The can't be targeted on scum? Is similar to a doctor that kills himself?
One extra lynch does not make this game town sided. The doctor is not stronger than a normal doctor,I think its probabally roughly the same after a lot of reflection. I'm baffled how you think otherwise.
What you've written here is not analysis, you should be ashamed of yourself. You're ignoring mechanics, you're making large hand waving statements about the doctor saying that makes it town sided.
I'll ask you again how is this game town sided? You've ignored the hero shots for the scum, the fact that the scum can at their leisure **** with any town claimed role. The fact that they have Kami who can basically always perform the kill and not be ****ed with.
Like what the do the town have? A doctor that isn't stronger than a normal doctor(It can't save the same target, it kills itself before end game and the roles it is saving are not worth saving). A tracker that disables itself by night four. A JOAT that can only mess with 3/4 scum. And two lost roles that will probabally never turn on in the game and have no reason to trust each other.
And the GB's. Who are power in this game. But the scum get to freely kill one of them. Yeah sure its not a free EXTRA kill Silver great nitpick there
Scum on the other hand have.
A scum GB giving them N0 info and the ability to play WIFOM madness with the ability to also control a kill.
A scum delayer that targets two people and basically just acts as an RB 90% of the time. That also gains hero shots when the scum are losing.
A scum bat***** insane witch, that gains hero shots when the scum are losing.
A scum tracker that also doesn't let anyone target him and the only thing that can mess with this tracker is the doctor and the one shot of bus driver from the JoaT if he tries to perform the kill. Oh and the tracking is permanent. But, yeah its loud so that makes it all fair.
I mean, I think we can have differences of opinion without having a thunderdome, and the game definitely doesn't seem bastard to me.
Oh yeah and just to respond to this.
This isn't a difference of opinion. You're argument is bad, my arguments are fact. This isn't a discussion about ice cream and which flavor is better. I can't win that argument. I can win this argument. This isn't a difference of opinion and how dare you try and pawn this off as though this is off as an opinion.
It is either a fact that this game was scum sided or town sided or evenly balanced. It is a fact if global warming exists or not. It is a fact if vaccines cause autism or not. Opinions are if it is too cold outside or not, or if vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate. Those are opinions.
FWIW, as far as I'm aware, my watching ability didn't actually ever give mafia useful information - any PRs I targeted had already outed themselves, and their targeting information didn't give us anything interesting or change our decisions.
It is also worth noting that there were only two town players for whom my immunity was both applicable and relevant.
4 town were vanilla.
3 town were ghostbusters, to whom I was not immune.
2 town were Gatekeeper and Keymaster.
- I am technically immune to the Gatekeeper's "finding" ability, but the result implies the answer (the keymaster wouldn't be immune to finding).
- I am technically immune to their combined "are you vanilla" ability, but again the result implies the answer (ascetics are not vanilla).
1 town was the doctorguard; me being immune to that doesn't hurt the town at all.
The remaining 2 town were Gozer and the Librarian, where the immunity was relevant. Although in the case of the latter, there is arguably some upside - it turns out that "Ecto cop" concept is not useful in this game, and if I hadn't been immune, the Librarian would have self-vanillafied.
So, of 8 town PRs, I had significant interaction with only 4, and only a real immunity to 2. The strength level of any partial immunity should be judged by how "partial" it is.
After reading the roles in detail, I'm really confused about why Tubba didn't straight-up counterclaim me. I'm pretty sure that would have sunk me - if not immediately, then after Tubba died and flipped town.
FWIW, as far as I'm aware, my watching ability didn't actually ever give mafia useful information - any PRs I targeted had already outed themselves, and their targeting information didn't give us anything interesting or change our decisions.
Yeah this was a symptom of this game though, all of the town were claiming their abilities out right.
So, of 8 town PRs, I had significant interaction with only 4, and only a real immunity to 2. The strength level of any partial immunity should be judged by how "partial" it is.
That is a good point and correct. If there was a game for it to exist this would be the game. My problem is that it isn't fun strength. Its punishment to town for correctly using their roles. Just like how the GB auto go through is just straight up punishing to players for correctly using their roles.
@Silver, you said maybe players shouldn't claim as much, but the moment the GB's use their role they have claimed. So, they just shouldn't use their role at all? Did you think anything all the way through about what you posted at all?
If you don't think the power level of a role depends on the rest of the set up then we don't have anything worthwhile to talk about. A cop is much, much stronger if it's the only role in an otherwise vanilla set up than it is in a setup where the mafia have a godfather and a roleblocker.
DV's claim that his opinions are "facts" is spurious at best and I'm not entertaining this further.
If you want to talk about role interactions and whether I'm wrong, I'm open to having my mind changed, but the current conversation is verging on flaming and there's no call for that.
If you don't think the power level of a role depends on the rest of the set up then we don't have anything worthwhile to talk about. A cop is much, much stronger if it's the only role in an otherwise vanilla set up than it is in a setup where the mafia have a godfather and a roleblocker.
DV's claim that his opinions are "facts" is spurious at best and I'm not entertaining this further.
If you want to talk about role interactions and whether I'm wrong, I'm open to having my mind changed, but the current conversation is verging on flaming and there's no call for that.
Good retort 10/10.
You're clearly not. You've nitpicked the term free kill, in a way that I clearly didn't mean. You're defending points esoterically, and you made the argument that we should ignore mechanics because it didn't happen in this practical application of the game.
Claims such as
Maybe don't claim so freely in your next game because set ups sometimes contain stuff like this to hurt people who claim too early.
Sure, except you are really just saying GB don't use your ability because that's a claim to the mafia.
You shouldn't be a reviewer if you think this game is town sided. You've dodged explaining how this game is town sided at all. You haven't treated this discussion with respect at all. You shot your mouth off without looking at the game and thinking about it, and instead of being open to the fact that you are wrong you've snidely ignored the lionshare of the arguments nit picked others and made strawmans of other arguments.
I don't think you are arguing in good faith and I do think you are arguing to make yourself feel better about your "Opinions".
DV's claim that his opinions are "facts" is spurious at best and I'm not entertaining this further.
Its a fact whether this game is balanced or not. Its not spurious. Not straw man attempt though.
Yeah I did, DV, the Ghostbusters shouldn't have claimed until they were ready to use their role.
You have a real problem with finding charitable interpretations of people's arguments, I've noticed. You always attack the silliest or worst version of them to make your argument seem stronger. Obviously I don't think they should not use their role, I literally said their role was very strong because it gave twon an extra day kill.
DV, you shot your mouth off first and, truth to tell, I don't feel any need to justify myself to you, especially given you're accusing me of strawmanning you right after you strawmanned me. Look, I know you didn't mean it was "free kill" but I had an issue with your characterization of it as one. I knew what you meant, but calling it a "free kill" makes it look much stronger than it is. It's not a "free kill" it's a "strong kill" and Kami isn't a Ninja, he's an ascetic against basically just the tracker and the JoAT.
I'm interested in discussing this but I'm not going to stand for personal attacks or you calling my credentials or intelligence into question because I disagree with you.
The balance of any game, especially a complex one like this, isn't an objective fact. You can't measure a game's balance in an objective way such that it's plainly obvious who is right. Balance and game design are inherently subjective.
Looked through roles
Probably is a little scumsided but no ******* way its bastard lol. Within acceptable range imo.
I do enjoy that we can debate the setup balance without any thought that it changed how this particular game worked out though. Night actions accomplished impressively little. Largely because everything got claimed so we knew what had to be done.
But the strongman ghostbuster kill... imagine if we hadn't used it on grape accidentally and been able to kill highroller disproving zdts claim...
Also regarding flavor:
Theres one scum per grouping.
1/4 of the ghostbusters
1/4 of the cult of gozer
And 1 each [random humans] and [random ghosts]
Thats, uh, the thing missing from my flavorgaming theories d1
Lol
If you don't think the power level of a role depends on the rest of the set up then we don't have anything worthwhile to talk about. A cop is much, much stronger if it's the only role in an otherwise vanilla set up than it is in a setup where the mafia have a godfather and a roleblocker.
DV's claim that his opinions are "facts" is spurious at best and I'm not entertaining this further.
If you want to talk about role interactions and whether I'm wrong, I'm open to having my mind changed, but the current conversation is verging on flaming and there's no call for that.
Oh yeah, rolecop and mindcontrol a player tonight is clearly *****tier when the town doesn't have useful roles, but if that's not balancing. Thanks for dismissing my arguments by giving an absolute statement that is extremely nitpicking of a single argument I made.
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Yeah I did, DV, the Ghostbusters shouldn't have claimed until they were ready to use their role.
You have a real problem with finding charitable interpretations of people's arguments, I've noticed. You always attack the silliest or worst version of them to make your argument seem stronger. Obviously I don't think they should not use their role, I literally said their role was very strong because it gave twon an extra day kill.
Yeah I did, DV, the Ghostbusters shouldn't have claimed until they were ready to use their role.
You have a real problem with finding charitable interpretations of people's arguments, I've noticed. You always attack the silliest or worst version of them to make your argument seem stronger. Obviously I don't think they should not use their role, I literally said their role was very strong because it gave twon an extra day kill.
Oh my god.
Come on man.
That's what you are arguing. Why bring this argument up then? Your claim that maybe claiming shouldn't be as free is a valid statement. On its face its a good statement, but its factious. I'm not strawmaning you here.
When the GB use their ability its basically a claim. Since the mafia have knowledge of the GB since N0 its definitely a claim. Just using their ability is a claim. What you say SOUNDS good. But, in this game with these abilities with the knowledge the mafia have it isn't a just a "Claim" its using the role as intended.
Its a stupid argument and I know you know its a stupid argument in that light. Don't ******* insult me by pushing this as legitimate.
DV, you shot your mouth off first and, truth to tell, I don't feel any need to justify myself to you, especially given you're accusing me of strawmanning you right after you strawmanned me. Look, I know you didn't mean it was "free kill" but I had an issue with your characterization of it as one. I knew what you meant, but calling it a "free kill" makes it look much stronger than it is. It's not a "free kill" it's a "strong kill" and Kami isn't a Ninja, he's an ascetic against basically just the tracker and the JoAT.
I'm talking about the context of the game which I'm saying its basically a ninja. But yeah its not AS bastard as a ninja. Granted, that's a true argument and factually correct.
The balance of any game, especially a complex one like this, isn't an objective fact. You can't measure a game's balance in an objective way such that it's plainly obvious who is right. Balance and game design are inherently subjective.
No, in fact you can. That's stupid. All games have a best design, and a best way to be played. There is always an optimal way to correctly play a game. Yeah there are a lot of variables, but in the straight mechanics of night actions, there are a lot of probables.
What makes this game scum sided is that the scum have all of the probables, while the town have none.
Strong man kill on the GB, ascetic ability.
Tracker which is permanent and they know where the night kill goes.
Night scum is king, in most games as it should be. They for one have knowledge of their teams actions and have information from the thread to help them work out even more. Town only have information from the thread and don't have hindsight knowledge on who may be lying. Scum is always king that's fine.
The problem is that if I was to busdriver Grape, night one to anyone I would assume I swapped the kill. I wouldn't have, I would have failed to stop it since nothing can prevent it. That's bastard. If I was to RB, I would have assumed I didn't stop the kill, that's bastard. Maybe this brings into question strong mans in general. IDK.
I think the problem with your arguments is that you are arguing this is town sided. Its not. Its scum sided. I'm not sure if its a major scum sided, because I don't think the town does much, and most of the mafia's abilities is just disruption for the town. So, its like ehhh? I just have a huge problem with the ascetic I just hate that role. I refuse to accept that its fair. Its just punishing to town for correctly using abilities. Same with the free strongman kill.
Scum having options are fine, and in a vacuum neither of these seem really bad. But on the whole the scum have so much. And its all additional. Hero shots, two roles that can disrupt(One of which can target two players at the same time, the other is information), a tracker that is permanent(And balanced by being loud) but additionally its ascetic, and a GB that gives them n0 information and some control over a day kill. Additionally, they get to have a strong man kill.
Why, I'm attacking you is for a simple reason at this point. You're being disingenuous. You need to either write, why you think this game is town sided or say "DV you're right this game isn't town sided." Because what we are arguing about is if this game is scum sided or not and by how much. The only true power the town have is a day kill, I'm not sure that is much stronger than having a vig kill at night that is strongman. And maybe the doctor. Ehhh?
The doctor I think is about the same power level as a normal doctor. It protects a target, but can't ever re target that same player it also body guards, but that ensures it dies. Also, if I correctly Bus driver, a kill to a mafia, but the doctor protects that role, then I kill the doctor.
Town have an OK tracker. You talk about CCing, but the role as claimed seemed neutral because of how god damn strong it is. I think maybe, but maybe not. Hindsight is 20/20. If I was him I wouldn't have CC'ed. I can understand game states that it could exist, also that town tracker sort of sucks so maybe they are thinking that its possible for two to exist. Just a lot going on there and its setup gaming.
There is the whole GB WIFOM argument. But I'm not really willing to entertain that argument. The argument that one has to be scum, is probabally correct. But also, not. I've seen mods say **** your set up gaming before on this site, and so I'm not willing to stick my neck out for that. Like, I've seen roles where it almost has to be one thing, and then the response from the mod is "I knew you were going to set up game me so I made it to punish you for doing so". So, Ehhh? Damned if we do damned if we don't?
I'm just going to argue that I think the Ghostbusters are incredibly strong. And I think the doctor guard is stronger than a normal doctor.
I don't.
I think its a strong role.
I did a long write up on in discord.
Lets do a pro con.
Doctor can target and prevent a kill. This role can do the same. However, this role can't protect the same target twice from being killed, it does so in a different way, but not in a way that messes with lylo math. That's pretty key.
This role sort of is a cool role, it protects, it moves on it protects. It docs, then bodyguards. However, it this role is guaranteed to die. It doesn't get to the insane situations which is end game doc. It just can't be design get there and it can't have the same impact.
Instead of it being a guessing game for who the doctor will protect the scum just know that they can't protect some targets because they are body guarded.
Theoretically, this role can get to a point where it just can't take an action to protect somebody.
Its definitely stronger in some ways, but I don't think you guys realize how insanely good doctors are. That being said, I don't think its strictly worse as I originally implied. I think its about even. Its got its strengths its got its weaknesses. The biggest thing holding it back is that there are just no roles worth protecting. It is the role for the town, and it can't protect the GB.
Oh god that's another bastard thing, that role claims and then mafia strong man the kill and people go I thought you said you body guarded it. Instantly lynched.
If there were roles protecting I think its a slightly stronger doc, buy about 20%, but still not that much stronger.
I do agree the kill through protection on a GB can lead to bastard situations like you described. Though I imagine they wouldn't have been handled in a bastard fashion as a RB or redirection I hope would have been told their ability failed. If not then it would be bastard.
On the doc vs docguard I agree the doc is stronger in an unclaimed end game situation, but that is the only aspect where it's superior in my book. And mafia games these days just don't allow for end games to happen without claims having flown around. In other phases of the game, and in the current meta of heavy claims by D3 being the norm I much prefer having this role with the lingering protection. It allows the classic PR under the radar/scummy play while giving a 100% out to not be lynched when the claim happens. A traditional doc is only like an 80% not to be lynched.
Quote from DV »
Instead of it being a guessing game for who the doctor will protect the scum just know that they can't protect some targets because they are body guarded.
Theoretically, this role can get to a point where it just can't take an action to protect somebody.
The first part can still be true. You are assuming that the claim is out for scum to have the information about who and who not to shoot. And if the claim is out in the same world for a doctor there isn't a guessing game at all.
The last part is true though and the biggest drawback of this role. I wouldn't put it as strictly stronger but I'd say it has a lower ceiling but a higher average case scenario.
I think to me if the the bodygaurds fell of after 2 nights, IE day four the first protection ended day four and then the role could revisit doctering that player then the role would be unquestionable stronger.
As it currently sits its like a side upgrade to me. Yeah you gain some power, but you also lose some power. Its a good role, I like the role I'm just not sure that as it stands its that much better(Or even at all) than a normal doc. Its definitely not weaker as I thought when I first looked at it.
Edit: The again maybe I'm discounting making scum kill you instead of a high town read. Or just making scum kill you. I don't think duelers are bad and I don't think bodyguards are bad. I just feel like doctors are stronger a lot so, and this is like 3/4 body and 1/4 doc. Or maybe 2/3 1/3. Something like that. More guard than doc.
You know if I think about it that way its a really strong guard role. I guess when I look at it I want to analyze it as a doc first and a guard second. But really its the opposite. Its a guard first and a doc second. That points to it being scum sided, because guards are worth way less on the point meter than docs, but like yeah great guard role if you want to think about it that way.
I do agree the kill through protection on a GB can lead to bastard situations like you described. Though I imagine they wouldn't have been handled in a bastard fashion as a RB or redirection I hope would have been told their ability failed. If not then it would be bastard.
The redirect wouldn't have failed really. It just would have been bypassed.
Yeah IDK, its that the mafia have so much disruption and then on top of it the free gimmes in the can't be targeted and the strong man.
Do people in general like the can't be targeted on scum?
To me as I've said it just punishes town for using their limited knowledge correctly.
Re: Ghostbusters claims, you don't think it was maybe silly for them to claim on D1, before they could shoot, when they knew there were 4 Ghostbusters ad should have suspected they weren't all town because two extra town controlled day kills is a silly, silly thing in a 16 player game with probably 4 antitown roles?
You really think "maybe use your ability before you claim unless under pressure and your claim gets you out of a lynch" is a bad argument?
I see you don't think assuming the players will know one of the Ghostbusters is a wolf is fair. I'm not saying they should have known, I'm saying they should have thought about whether it was likely or not and what they were risking by claiming before they could shoot.
Re: optimal play, no, I don't think it's nearly as clear cut as you're making it. With perfect knowledge of the set up you can say "the optimal doctor protect is this role, the optimal night kill is this one" and so on, but you can never predict which players will get which roles or whether they will be able to get town read or their claim will be believed, etc. etc. The best you can do is assign roles a floor, a ceiling, and an average/random target case, and work off of those.
The floor for wolf roles is a bit higher than the floor for town roles, though, while the ceiling for town roles is quite a bit higher than the ceiling for wolf ones. The ceiling for Tubba's role, for example, is "catches a wolf doing the night kill" and the ceiling for ZDT's role is *Stops multiple kills" while the ceiling for, say, Kami's role is him taking a night off from tracking to do the kill and him getting tracked by Tubba, but Tubba doesn't get the usual clearing message of "Kami visited no one" he gets "Your ability failed" instead, which keeps Kami in the pool of players who might have done it. Or that he can see who everyone targets, passively, except that doesn't really tell us anything except who ZDT was permaguarding after he spent a doc protect on them.
I agree the wolf roles required less skill to pilot optimally (well, delayer required fairly precise targeting to be optimal), but that doesn't mean the wolf roles were stronger overall. I think the game is roughly balanced to maybe slightly town sided, not that you all should have crushed us because you had significantly superior resources or anything like that.
I value extra kills very, very highly. So maybe that's where we disagree. I actually think the doctorguard has a lower ceiling than straight doctor because he can't protect the same target ever agai, though the floor on the role is waaay higher than straight doc.
Re: counterclaiming, I would CC another tracker claim as a tracker, 100%. Even if the other claim is believeable, at worst we spend a lynch on a neutral, at best we lynch a wolf, and I eat a night kill either way (except, you had a Doctor/Bodyguard hybrid too, which would have guaranteed he had two nights minimum to track a kill!). Games aren't designed with multiples of the same role as villagers for a reason, and I think something like 2 town trackers in a closed set up is very bastard.
Edit: as far as ascetic roles on wolves, no, I'm not really a fan of them in general, but they're much better/less bastard than ninjas and godfathers.
Yeah yeah, but scum sided to me means if you run the game 100 times the scum win 60 the town win 40. Its a probability game. The scum have counters to literally everything the town can do, and in ways that feels almost unfair. If this game was to be run a lot, the mafia would always be able to save their abilities for the town PR claims that inevitably happen in mafia and then pick the town off at their leisure. The moment the doc claims the mafia can guarantee for at least two nights with the delayer that person doesn't do anything. And they can target another player as well.
I just don't value town kills nearly as much as other people do I guess. Vigs in good hands can be brutal, in bad hands they can be equally brutal. Extra kills like this are basically extra lynches, they pretty decent. But, that's really the only power the town had. And that's the issue. It isn't that the town didn't have power, its that the town had limited power.
You're seeming to ignore how much of an advantage on paper the mafia have over town. The mafia can **** with all of the power roles in a single night. Hell, they get the super witch on me it isn't even hard for them to do so. RB one, delay the other two, and **** me over as well wasting my one shot.
It just feels like you are not taking into account the litany of scum powers that exist in the game. All four of the mafia have power. The town has like 5 members that really have power and then the gatekeeper/keymaster roles. But that's not even true.
The town have the GB's lets give them .5 each That's what they are worth.
A doctor thing(True power role)
Then they have a tracker that loses their tracking.
A JoaT that has one ability that is sort of meh(The role flips) and two abilities.
And then the keymasters, which may or may not ever find each other and then their ability is OK afterwords.
At best the town have 6.5 power roles. In practice its something more like 4.
Let's take a look at the mafia.
Mafia goon that can also have access to a day kill(I'm going to count this as a one because goons already are counted as a one by most math and this does more a lot more).
Mafia two shot delayer that can target two players
Mafia one shot ROLE COP and WITCH
Mafia PERMANENT(albeit loud) tracker plus can't be targeted.
And the mafia have access to a strong man on three players.
You see the problem here? What exactly does the town do? How do you see this as being town sided? The town just sort of suck.
If this was a mountainous game 4 v 12 is balanced. And that's the issue. The mafia have pound per player more fire power than the town does. By A LOT.
The sort of math I'm used to working with.
Vanilla mafia 3
Vanilla town 1
Add points per power.
12 town power
12 mafia power
Normal town power roles are something like(copied from Kiradawea guide)
Cop: 2
Doctor: 1 (0.5 for mafia)
Roleblocker: 1 (1.5 for mafia)
Jailer: 1.5
Watcher: 1.5
Tracker: 1
Motion detector: 0.5
Vigilante: 1
Mason: 0.5 (for a two mason group, add 0.5 for each additional mason, double if masons confirm one another as town)
Mayor: 0.5
Town gain lets say 5, maybe. Doc counted at one, tracker shouldn't be counted at one because it isn't pure, JoaT is a one I guess? Its around 5.
Takes town to 17.
Mafia gain 4 for base power and the extra strongman takes them to 5.
Takes mafia to 17.
HOWEVER, mafia gain power for each roleblock and they can target two players with it. PLUS they have the can't be targeted.
That's going to take the mafia well above 17.
Its not town sided its scum sided.
The math says this is scum sided at the outset. Compound that with weaker town roles, and stronger mafia roles and this game is scum sided.
I do agree the kill through protection on a GB can lead to bastard situations like you described. Though I imagine they wouldn't have been handled in a bastard fashion as a RB or redirection I hope would have been told their ability failed. If not then it would be bastard.
The redirect wouldn't have failed really. It just would have been bypassed.
Yeah IDK, its that the mafia have so much disruption and then on top of it the free gimmes in the can't be targeted and the strong man.
Do people in general like the can't be targeted on scum?
To me as I've said it just punishes town for using their limited knowledge correctly.
I'd argue that is a tiny semantic difference. I'd be really curious to know how cantrip would have handled it. To me the obvious ruling would have been to notify the redirector that their redirection failed, and not doing so would be bastard. Given the usually first resolving priority of redirects bypassing it would be bastard to me.
On the Doc/Guard the lingering nature of the protection just makes it so unlike both roles that it's hard to evaluate. It's closest to a doc that can only target each player once with a mandatory burnout N3 to lightning rod the kill. I mean not really, but it's just a completely different role with the left behind protection.
On your PR counting: I just don't agree with your valuation of vigs at all. Maybe I'm way off base but a day vig is substantially stronger than a standard vig and having the vig be diffused across several people makes it stronger to me. Plus I generally value a 1 shot vig to be similar power level to a full watcher. So the gradation of the watcher being a half point more strikes me as wrong. But I get that is your central point (that I'm overvaluing vigs).
Also I'm deeply skeptical of that grids scoring. A pair of Masons (with our standard confirmed town definition) are not half a point weaker than a watcher and a full point weaker than a cop. It's a useful heuristic but I don't agree with all it's judgments.
Most people value vigs at the same power level as a tracker when doing setup math. Some slightly higher some lower. I'd be willing to go up on it, but not as much as a cop. I don't think vig is nearly as strong as a jailer or a watcher. Vigs are stronger than docs for sure though. Day kill is ehhh? I'm not sure its stronger than a vig, town I guess can reevaluate after doing the deed though before another lynch. Its strong, but I'm not sure its watcher level strong. Even if I give it .5 more of even double the value, town still is vastly outclass by mafia in terms of power this game.
Its more than semantic difference though.
The redirect in the game is a bus driver. Its a static effect that effects anyone who targets that player.
So if I target player A and B(Player A is a GB), and mafia go for the kill it would ignore the bus drive. While lets say the tracker targets player A they would still go to player B.
Also I'm deeply skeptical of that grids scoring. A pair of Masons (with our standard confirmed town definition) are not half a point weaker than a watcher and a full point weaker than a cop. It's a useful heuristic but I don't agree with all it's judgments.
Its .5 per. So that's a 1 for the mason group. If they know its town its double at 2.
So same power level as a cop.
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Balance thoughts:
I think this setup was very Town-sided.
The Mashmellow Man role was *fantastic* for Town and very Town-sided. If the Mashmellow Man is about to be lynched, he can simply claim his role and Town can switch to different target, confident he's going to get nightkilled at some point. I think the role is stronger than a normal doctor.
Power roles give a lot of information. Even though the Mafia had a good number of ways to disrupt the mechanics of Town roles, the context, motivation, and content of claims would provide alignment information anyway. For example, Slimer's Ascetic ability (Not of this World) and Architect's role hijack ability are much less likely to be Town roles than Mafia ones. (Mafia could fakeclaim, of course, but that comes with its own risks, especially given the vanilla-detector.)
Mechanical Play thoughts:
If I was in this game and rolled Town Ghostbuster, Town Gatekeeper, or Gozer the Ubermacht I would have claimed D1. I would also push to fire the Ghostbuster's power as soon as two claimed
(See: this game ending before the any ghostbusters used their ability).The town did lose a significant bit of power by losing a GB early. There was also a lot of variance in the GB ability (like most killing abilities). In the best-case town world, they could have led to up to two Mafia kills - one shot controlled purely by town; the second shot needs both a town and a scum to commit to it, but that can be used as a pseudocop; if the scum GB refuses to shoot at a scumbuddy, and that scumbuddy flips, then the scum GB comes under intense scrutiny.
I talked a lot about this in the discord but I heavily disagree.
First, this assumes that the town believe the claim. I think when talk about games and balance we have to look at believably. Hindsight is 20/20 but this town almost lynched that role on multiple days.
Secondly, this role has nothing to protect. There are no power roles worth protecting with its life.
Third, this role is guaranteed to die and thus is a weaker doc in the end game scenario.
Overall I just hate roles like KA's. Defense like that shouldn't exist on scum. Like the only arguably true power role was the tracker role(That got disabled by targeting 25% of the time. Otherwise we had some day power roles that couldn't even be protected by the doctor because the mafia could GUARANTEE that kill.
Power roles almost give no information IDK what you are talking about there. None of the information the town received this game gave them any advantage at all. In fact the most information the town got was from a scum giving out their information to the town.
I think mechanically the game was fairly townsided though, yeah, (edit: but not significantly so). The main things that played in our favor were that we killed one of the Ghostbusters on N1 which limited the extra town controlled kills (actually, the one GB kill was designated by tom I'm pretty sure, so lol) and the fact that everyone thought DV was scum because he was Gozer after Rodemy flipped (flavor gaming is bad, folks). And the no lynches. Whatever it was that distracted Highroller for scum MVP, tbh.
Also the loudness of Kami's track was a real, uh, thing that didn't make sense but that sort of worked to our advantage just because it didn't.
What exactly do you see as being town sided?
None of the town power roles really do anything.
Gozer could only mess with 3 out of the 4 scum. On top of that if the mafia went for a GB gozer wasted a one shot AND the mafia were still unable to be messed with.
That's a slight complaint, I had forgotten about.
Even though incredibly rare. I think its SLIGHTLY bastard that my redirect would have done nothing if the mafia had gone for a kill on a GB.
1) If Marshmellow Man claims D1, Town should be more than willing to wait until probably MYLO/LYLO before lynching him. Delaying a scum lynch is costless as long as the delay doesn't last until overrun. As the Days go on it's increasingly likely to role is dead.
2) Protecting people who are widely townread is a reasonable use of Bodyguard, even if they're vanilla. Causing the Mafia nightkill to target random people would be a big nerf even in all-vanilla setup. Bodyguard is a step in the "random nightkill" direction - it hijacks the nightkill to (the player who randomly rolled Bodyguard) if mafia try to kill the protected target.
3) Don't disagree, but I think Marshmellow Man > Doctor even factoring that in.
It is true that it being one of the two best town PRs (with dv) made bodyguarding less appealing though.
That also applies to kami's track, which was also pretty OP.
Anyway, no lynching 2 really important days is what won the game for us, not night actions.
Days 2/3/4 could have been 5 town controlled kills between lynches and ghostbusts was actually ONE lynch and a ghostbust that i chose. Thats why yall lost.
Stop no lynching
Anyway fun game, good job team. I know how hard it was to keep motivation up with no daychat but yall did enough
Rodemy, i hated to bus you but you were a lost cause. And also, cant be wrong if it works <3
Let me make it clear in no way do I think that THIS mafia win was caused by night actions. I think after a lot of reflection the game is only somewhat scum sided, more like 60-40 or 55-45. Something in those ranges.
Reasonable yes. Really good? Not so much.
I don't disagree that in a vacuum the protective role isn't strong. Its just in this game its impact isn't that great. It isn't that bad either its still pretty decent, I guess just not as amazing as it could be otherwise.
Also the no lynch was not intentional day 2. I really thought I was miss lynch bait, felt like I needed to die to free the game up and that it would be better for the town that way. Town had too many afk players there at the end.
Its why day 3 I moved my own vote to myself well ahead of time. Riku had moved his vote over and I said to myself welp that's it then. Figured if I did that I could buy myself 12 hours to maybe case and go out on my own terms since a couple people(I think both scum lol) were talking about deadlines and I was worried I was going to get hammered before then. Then I got hammered before then, so there went that.
So the first post screamed that tom knew the ghostbusters were a group ability (otherwise why would hunting the ghostbusters be relevant). I sent cantrip a message and said that I thought tom was either a ghostbuster or scum buddies with one. The second post felt like a scum mindset (that I didn't notice for ages) when combined with the knowledge he knew about the ghostbusters. He shouldn't have expected more than the 2 possible extra kills.
/brag
I think town would have stood a chance if we hadn’t No Lynched twice AND completely wasted a lynch on DV. Getting the EtR flip early would have helped so much it’s making me sad to think about it.
6) Should scum have had daychat? Tom groused quite a bit about this. I tend to see daychat for scum as pretty significantly powerful, probably mostly from one of the few games I've played with it resulting in the scum (of which I was one) running circles around the town and coordinating reactions and hammers to suit our needs. But there were a few times that I wondered if this was a game where scum daychat would have been appropriate. Arguments for/against?
7) How about those no-reveal flips? Again, my tendency for any game I host is to have flips reveal rolename and alignment, but not the full role. That doesn't make much difference in a game with standard rolenames, but "Mafia Architect", "Town Doctorguard"...these are a little less obvious. Again, I found myself pondering (after DV died and there was no longer the chance of role reveals) whether I should have found something else for the JoaT and done full reveal upon death. Thoughts?
Maybe give daychat and full flips to balance it out some, since full flips usually give town more information? I tend to support both where possible, though like you said if you're using standard roles then 1 line flips are equivalent anyway.
Every town role was limited or nerfed. We even missed role reveals which is great for scum, because wtf is a mafia architect?
Every scum role had so many extra effects while town had extra bad effects. Me and Rhand had a QT, but we weren't confirmed to each other. If Rhand wasn't so townie I would've thought he was scum, just based on role. We got an ability only if we found each other and that ability is pretty *****. We had 2 scum targets that we could hit (KA was immune and tom was GB).
Our tracker lost his tracking by luck (????). I like most of the roles in the game, but this one is a slap in the face. Limited shots would have worked better.
My role was limited to two shots for some dumb reason. I honestly don't feel that having a passive self watch is powerful enough to get it limited by shots.
The GB were cool, but they were < normal day vigs. The problem is that you only get one chance to kill mafia while the other shot is almost guaranteed to hit town.
Gozer was kinda reasonable as a JOAT. I really don't like bus drives in the hands of town. It's one of the most dangerous roles in the hands of town to **** all actions (as it happened here. fortunately town actions were so bad that it didn't end up mattering. He also got abilities by votes which is another nerf albeit small.
The doctor was a cool design, but I think it was slightly worse or on parity with a normal doctor. He can't save the same person and there's a big chance he will die early (doctors usually protect valuable targets that will die quickly).
Scum had powerful to very powerful roles that only got better when scum died. Silver's role is resonable, although the extra shot is too much. Rodemy's role is not reasonable at all and is so freaking strong that the only thing keeping it back is the fact that the town roles are crap. And getting an extra shot of that ability shouldn't have even been in the discussion.
Tom being GB is reasonable, but instead of being treated like a potential dayvig, it was treated like a mafia goon which is even more baffling.
KA's role was downright bonkers. He could track the entire town in a few days and could direct the architect to whoever he wanted. The fact that he was immune to abilities is just way too much.
And then scum also had the strongarm kill on the Ghostbusters, which was totally unnecessary (town had 1 protective and a 1-shot roleblock + 1-shot bus drive) Scum shouldn't nerf the best town roles just by existing (this doesn't even take into account the situation where the roleblock could clear someone falsely or end up in a lynch on the doc).
I hate games without daytalk as scum, but it's about as powerful as a normal PR.
The no full role reveals would be reasonable FOR A NORMAL, which this was not. If your rolenames start being non-descriptive, you should reveal roles so people can make sense of what's happening. You don't have to reveal them if your roles are only classic roles that everybody knows. This was somewhat mitigated by DV, but even so it requires someone to be a live and waste abilities. I'd say no role reveals is about half a power role so this and the third town GB make up for the lack of daychat.
I thought KA was neutral just because of how absurdly good his role seemed.
I'd say the game is 60% to 65% in scum favour just bsaed on roles, but it's a very swingy setup and that number could be higher due to all the luck involved in the town's abilities.
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I agree overall, however I think Vez has a point that no reveal of exact wording may be strange in a normal game. IE if it did reveal the role by looking at the name then good enough.
I think also the delayer is pretty absurd too. It targets two players and makes most of the towns abilities a little strange(IE borderline worthless). The mafia have way too many ways to just not be ****ed with. A delayer, a can't be targeted AND they can guarantee a kill on 3 players, AND they can use rods ability. Three out of the four of them scream **** you to town with their abilities and the fourth screams WIFOM in the form of being a GB.
I really don't think anyone saying that this game is town sided can articulate any reason for that. At best this game is close to even, or as I see it slightly scum sided. The only reason I don't think it is super scum sided is basically to me this whole game is a bunch of goons plus a doc, and what the mafia have. Its just a bunch of vanillas plus mafia ignoring any counter play.
The only thing the town have is a legislated day kill, that the mafia can turn around and vengeance kill with impunity. That's assuming it hits scum, and I never assume vigs hits scum when I'm trying to do kill math. At BEST the town get access to two additional day lynches, in practice they get access to one and possibly zero. There is a very real possibility that they never get used for some reason.
I understand that the GB are a strong role and analysis would lead me as a player to believe one of the GB have to be mafia, but I'm not willing to game the system that much when playing a game as a player. Additionally, the power of the GB is heavily muted not only for the fact that the mafia know they exist from N0, but also because the mafia have a revenge kill on them. I understand why they have that ability in a vacuum, but then that mitigates the power that it gives the town. Additionally, its just bastard the more I think about it. If I was to bus drive or RB the correct targets it wouldn't do anything and I would lose my shot. I would also claim that I had done that and then power clear a mafia player possibly.
The tracker in this game is dog *****. It can only target three mafia to begin with AND if it targets one of those three it loses it ability AND it might target that person with out seeing them do anything.
I'm baffled anyone would put forward that this game is town sided and I have to think anyone putting forward that idea has done zero analysis of this game.
Edit: And the mafia gained hero shots if they were losing. I forgot about that one.
This is a god damn call out. Silver how in the world do you get off saying this game is town sided? You want to open your mouth fine, ******* defend it. '
This game is bastard along with being scum sided.
Having Kami and the Free GB kill is just too much. That's my problem with this game. Its just too much. But the free GB kill with Kami is just bastard.
Mafia is a game of expectancy. You know what both Kami and the free GB kill say to that? **** you town for making the right decision. A town doc correctly reads that because of the GB claim the GB is going to be mafia killed and protects him. **** you doc. The Joat correctly blocks the mafia performing the kill on a GB or bus drivers it? **** you joat and you just wasted a one shot.
The Joat and the tracker both correctly try and **** with Kami? **** you too. Not to mention the mafia have the delayer which is another tool at their disposal to say **** you to the Tracker, Joat and the Doctor.
This game in abilities is just a big **** you to town. The town get ****ed with in every corner and the mafia have all the power AND all the information thanks to the busted tracker role they have. I'm sure somewhere that if I math this game in some sort of weird point count this game is balanced, but that ignores any semblance of actually looking at the board. Like, sure black is up two bishops and a queen but white has checkmate in 1 move and its their move. That's just how this game in abilities will always play out its check mate in abilities. Anything the town has the mafia say **** you to, and then on top of that they have these two bastard abilities.
Edit: I had an additional thought too. I really need to write pages on KA's role. I thought after Iso's BS death role in Horseman I would never see this role again, but its back in a slightly nerfed form, but also buffed. I really can't express how much I have an issue with KA's role. I hate KA's role, I just hate that it can't be targeted. In this game specifically KA's role is a ninja, can't be RB'ed. Its just so ******* strong. This role should not exist.
Its the passiveness of the role and the GB killthat irks me. You know at least with the super witch and the delayer the mafia have to use the role correctly. They have to hit. KA's and the free GB kill? Naw, here you go. Have at it. That's the problem there isn't any skill involved, its just a **** you to town and no skill at all.
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StaffAlso agree that Slimer as a mafia role should not happen again. It’s like Cantrip wanted to have his Neutral cake and eat it with mafia frosting. That role should’ve been 100% neutral if it was gonna exist at all. Slime all living players and you win, passive non-kill immunity, boom, that’s a nice logical role.
One Ghostbuster being scum is a good idea. But I dislike it in conjunction with scum having Slimer and having full information with all of their roles.
Doctorguard was pretty cool, I see no issues there mostly because Fuwaslot was scummy enough to protect half the game.
I didn’t read the full mafia abilities because I’m still salty, but the Delayer targeting two people, ever, is a no from me.
For all of DV’s usual yikes ranting I agree with a lot of what he’s saying.
Town power always has to take information into account, since from the beginning we have next to none. And maybe it’s entirely our fault this time around - failing to use the lynch properly very much cost us the game since we couldn’t reevaluate.
Yeah, I'm just really making it clear that this isn't town sided. I know I'm right on this and I'm going to make that clear. Why? Because it worries me when I see other reviewers say this game is town sided.
No worries isn't the right word.
If Silver thinks this game is town sided Silver should not be a reviewer. That's my problem. I'm unsure if Silver didn't take the time and care to validate his "It's town sided" argument, or if he actually thinks that in review. I assume its the former. But, when talking about game balance I want to be really clear that this game isn't town sided. Its an actual fact.
I don't want to see things like this in the future, and I don't want games being balanced around things like this in the future.
Could you imagine if Cantrip read Silver's post, goes OK need to make scum more powerful runs this exact same setup and gives the scum MORE power? Because that's what Silver's comment amounts to. So, yeah I'm coming in a little hot.
Edit: This isn't a game of mafia. Nobody is trying to deceive and nobody should have alternate motives. Silver's comments should be taken in the context of giving good feedback, I'm making it clear that it doesn't.
Also, I made it clear in the discord but I'll make it clear here too. I like the overall design of the roles in this game. I like the thoughts behind it. I just think that "Can't be targeted" on scum and the GB kill goes through is bastard as ****. That and the town is a wet noodle.
The "free" GB kill (which isn't free, by the way, because it still uses the NK) didn't even come up, so I don't know why you're complaining about it, and it's a, you know, anticlaim mechanic. Maybe don't claim so freely in your next game because set ups sometimes contain stuff like this to hurt people who claim too early.
I only had two shots, and while getting delayed as the tracker is virtually a roleblock, it doesn't really hurt your role other than busdriver and only turns the doc into a bodyguard on his intended target.
Kami's role was loud, lol, and targeting Vezok outs him as the slimer. And truthfully, Tubba should have counterclaimed him and gotten him lynched, there's no way there are two town trackers (even if one is slightly nerfed) so he's a neutral at best. Also, Kami was the only wolf immune to your tracker, and he gave a roleblocked message rather than disabling it in addition to not being able to actually do the kill because we needed him to slime people.
I mean, you can certainly complain about passive roles, I don't like them much myself. And sure, Kami's role is really strong even though it's loud and almost immediately outs itself. But you guys had ZDT the doctor that permanently bodyguards people, too, which is pretty similar in strength and passiveness, an extra day kill baked into the setup that we couldn't have messed with without the other Ghostbusters outing themselves on D1, the JoAT, a tracker, etc. etc.
I'm pretty offended by your characterization of Kami as a ninja, too, because it isn't like the Tracker gets a message that says "Kami didn't go anywhere", they're told their ability failed. The first one is a ninja, the second one is not.
The free kill on GB is there to just **** up town roles. You can't put anti-claim mechanics in a game that **** up all other claims. Especially when it wouldn't even flip on the corpses of the mafia. This is a no-no in normals for me at least and is mostly what pushes this game over the line imho.
You had 2 shots and another one if 2 mafia died. So you could delay up to 6 people. I agree that delaying is not as powerful as a roleblock, but 2 delays in a night > roleblock, especially when town has 0 investigative worth their while.
What did it matter if KA's role is loud? How could the information that everybody in the town is tracked by scum could possibly have any relevance to town play? Maybe restricting targets to people already slmed so you don't give even more info, but that is a horrible play. The fact that KA targeted the only role that could see him and that I was lucky enough to activate the ability during that night is not a point in favour of this game being townsided. Ka could have targeted literally anyone else and he wouldn't have been caught. I could have forgot to use my ability and KA could target anyone.
The argument that Kami outs himself immediately is so flawed I don't even understand how you could reach that conclusion. Town literally have no way of knowing he is slimer, except my janky role.
The thing that bothers me most is that silver has to audacity to say he is offended by DV calling KA a ninja. Ninja is a bastard role that should only exist when there are watchers flooding the game. Being untargetable to a tracker or being a ninja is almost the same thing barring being the last scum or shenenigans at the end that leave only a pool of people who could have done the nightkill in a night.
You could say KA is a godfather and it would be just as true, except we don't have any cops.
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"On a mechanical basis this game is town sided" Yeah if you ignore abilities like this and say "They didn't come up. Is this really your argument? That because it didn't come up it doesn't matter? On a mechanical basis this should be the only thing that is thought about.
Or the roleblock? It effects two of my abilities, and both of them are one shots. Yeah, its basically a RB, you're right. That targets TWO players. You also gained a hero shot.
This effects two targets and acts as a RB on basically everyone in the game except for the two lost roles.
Also that Tracker isn't slightly nerfed. Its majorly nerfed. 50% of the roles with abilities this game are Ecto, 25% of them are in the game in total. The tracker loses his ability 1/4 shots night one.
Yeah, but none of this makes it town sided. And no, that doctor is not similar in strength. The can't be targeted on scum? Is similar to a doctor that kills himself?
One extra lynch does not make this game town sided. The doctor is not stronger than a normal doctor,I think its probabally roughly the same after a lot of reflection. I'm baffled how you think otherwise.
What you've written here is not analysis, you should be ashamed of yourself. You're ignoring mechanics, you're making large hand waving statements about the doctor saying that makes it town sided.
I'll ask you again how is this game town sided? You've ignored the hero shots for the scum, the fact that the scum can at their leisure **** with any town claimed role. The fact that they have Kami who can basically always perform the kill and not be ****ed with.
Like what the do the town have? A doctor that isn't stronger than a normal doctor(It can't save the same target, it kills itself before end game and the roles it is saving are not worth saving). A tracker that disables itself by night four. A JOAT that can only mess with 3/4 scum. And two lost roles that will probabally never turn on in the game and have no reason to trust each other.
And the GB's. Who are power in this game. But the scum get to freely kill one of them. Yeah sure its not a free EXTRA kill Silver great nitpick there
Scum on the other hand have.
A scum GB giving them N0 info and the ability to play WIFOM madness with the ability to also control a kill.
A scum delayer that targets two people and basically just acts as an RB 90% of the time. That also gains hero shots when the scum are losing.
A scum bat***** insane witch, that gains hero shots when the scum are losing.
A scum tracker that also doesn't let anyone target him and the only thing that can mess with this tracker is the doctor and the one shot of bus driver from the JoaT if he tries to perform the kill. Oh and the tracking is permanent. But, yeah its loud so that makes it all fair.
"On a mechanical basis this game is townsided".
Oh yeah and just to respond to this.
This isn't a difference of opinion. You're argument is bad, my arguments are fact. This isn't a discussion about ice cream and which flavor is better. I can't win that argument. I can win this argument. This isn't a difference of opinion and how dare you try and pawn this off as though this is off as an opinion.
It is either a fact that this game was scum sided or town sided or evenly balanced. It is a fact if global warming exists or not. It is a fact if vaccines cause autism or not. Opinions are if it is too cold outside or not, or if vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate. Those are opinions.
It is also worth noting that there were only two town players for whom my immunity was both applicable and relevant.
4 town were vanilla.
3 town were ghostbusters, to whom I was not immune.
2 town were Gatekeeper and Keymaster.
- I am technically immune to the Gatekeeper's "finding" ability, but the result implies the answer (the keymaster wouldn't be immune to finding).
- I am technically immune to their combined "are you vanilla" ability, but again the result implies the answer (ascetics are not vanilla).
1 town was the doctorguard; me being immune to that doesn't hurt the town at all.
The remaining 2 town were Gozer and the Librarian, where the immunity was relevant. Although in the case of the latter, there is arguably some upside - it turns out that "Ecto cop" concept is not useful in this game, and if I hadn't been immune, the Librarian would have self-vanillafied.
So, of 8 town PRs, I had significant interaction with only 4, and only a real immunity to 2. The strength level of any partial immunity should be judged by how "partial" it is.
After reading the roles in detail, I'm really confused about why Tubba didn't straight-up counterclaim me. I'm pretty sure that would have sunk me - if not immediately, then after Tubba died and flipped town.
Rodemy's role was only kept in check by the fact that town had super *****ty abilities.
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Yeah this was a symptom of this game though, all of the town were claiming their abilities out right.
That is a good point and correct. If there was a game for it to exist this would be the game. My problem is that it isn't fun strength. Its punishment to town for correctly using their roles. Just like how the GB auto go through is just straight up punishing to players for correctly using their roles.
@Silver, you said maybe players shouldn't claim as much, but the moment the GB's use their role they have claimed. So, they just shouldn't use their role at all? Did you think anything all the way through about what you posted at all?
DV's claim that his opinions are "facts" is spurious at best and I'm not entertaining this further.
If you want to talk about role interactions and whether I'm wrong, I'm open to having my mind changed, but the current conversation is verging on flaming and there's no call for that.
Good retort 10/10.
You're clearly not. You've nitpicked the term free kill, in a way that I clearly didn't mean. You're defending points esoterically, and you made the argument that we should ignore mechanics because it didn't happen in this practical application of the game.
Claims such as
Sure, except you are really just saying GB don't use your ability because that's a claim to the mafia.
You shouldn't be a reviewer if you think this game is town sided. You've dodged explaining how this game is town sided at all. You haven't treated this discussion with respect at all. You shot your mouth off without looking at the game and thinking about it, and instead of being open to the fact that you are wrong you've snidely ignored the lionshare of the arguments nit picked others and made strawmans of other arguments.
I don't think you are arguing in good faith and I do think you are arguing to make yourself feel better about your "Opinions".
Its a fact whether this game is balanced or not. Its not spurious. Not straw man attempt though.
You have a real problem with finding charitable interpretations of people's arguments, I've noticed. You always attack the silliest or worst version of them to make your argument seem stronger. Obviously I don't think they should not use their role, I literally said their role was very strong because it gave twon an extra day kill.
I'm interested in discussing this but I'm not going to stand for personal attacks or you calling my credentials or intelligence into question because I disagree with you.
The balance of any game, especially a complex one like this, isn't an objective fact. You can't measure a game's balance in an objective way such that it's plainly obvious who is right. Balance and game design are inherently subjective.
Probably is a little scumsided but no ******* way its bastard lol. Within acceptable range imo.
I do enjoy that we can debate the setup balance without any thought that it changed how this particular game worked out though. Night actions accomplished impressively little. Largely because everything got claimed so we knew what had to be done.
But the strongman ghostbuster kill... imagine if we hadn't used it on grape accidentally and been able to kill highroller disproving zdts claim...
Also regarding flavor:
Theres one scum per grouping.
1/4 of the ghostbusters
1/4 of the cult of gozer
And 1 each [random humans] and [random ghosts]
Thats, uh, the thing missing from my flavorgaming theories d1
Lol
Oh yeah, rolecop and mindcontrol a player tonight is clearly *****tier when the town doesn't have useful roles, but if that's not balancing. Thanks for dismissing my arguments by giving an absolute statement that is extremely nitpicking of a single argument I made.
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Oh my god.
Come on man.
That's what you are arguing. Why bring this argument up then? Your claim that maybe claiming shouldn't be as free is a valid statement. On its face its a good statement, but its factious. I'm not strawmaning you here.
When the GB use their ability its basically a claim. Since the mafia have knowledge of the GB since N0 its definitely a claim. Just using their ability is a claim. What you say SOUNDS good. But, in this game with these abilities with the knowledge the mafia have it isn't a just a "Claim" its using the role as intended.
Its a stupid argument and I know you know its a stupid argument in that light. Don't ******* insult me by pushing this as legitimate.
I'm talking about the context of the game which I'm saying its basically a ninja. But yeah its not AS bastard as a ninja. Granted, that's a true argument and factually correct.
No, in fact you can. That's stupid. All games have a best design, and a best way to be played. There is always an optimal way to correctly play a game. Yeah there are a lot of variables, but in the straight mechanics of night actions, there are a lot of probables.
What makes this game scum sided is that the scum have all of the probables, while the town have none.
Strong man kill on the GB, ascetic ability.
Tracker which is permanent and they know where the night kill goes.
Night scum is king, in most games as it should be. They for one have knowledge of their teams actions and have information from the thread to help them work out even more. Town only have information from the thread and don't have hindsight knowledge on who may be lying. Scum is always king that's fine.
The problem is that if I was to busdriver Grape, night one to anyone I would assume I swapped the kill. I wouldn't have, I would have failed to stop it since nothing can prevent it. That's bastard. If I was to RB, I would have assumed I didn't stop the kill, that's bastard. Maybe this brings into question strong mans in general. IDK.
I think the problem with your arguments is that you are arguing this is town sided. Its not. Its scum sided. I'm not sure if its a major scum sided, because I don't think the town does much, and most of the mafia's abilities is just disruption for the town. So, its like ehhh? I just have a huge problem with the ascetic I just hate that role. I refuse to accept that its fair. Its just punishing to town for correctly using abilities. Same with the free strongman kill.
Scum having options are fine, and in a vacuum neither of these seem really bad. But on the whole the scum have so much. And its all additional. Hero shots, two roles that can disrupt(One of which can target two players at the same time, the other is information), a tracker that is permanent(And balanced by being loud) but additionally its ascetic, and a GB that gives them n0 information and some control over a day kill. Additionally, they get to have a strong man kill.
Why, I'm attacking you is for a simple reason at this point. You're being disingenuous. You need to either write, why you think this game is town sided or say "DV you're right this game isn't town sided." Because what we are arguing about is if this game is scum sided or not and by how much. The only true power the town have is a day kill, I'm not sure that is much stronger than having a vig kill at night that is strongman. And maybe the doctor. Ehhh?
The doctor I think is about the same power level as a normal doctor. It protects a target, but can't ever re target that same player it also body guards, but that ensures it dies. Also, if I correctly Bus driver, a kill to a mafia, but the doctor protects that role, then I kill the doctor.
Town have an OK tracker. You talk about CCing, but the role as claimed seemed neutral because of how god damn strong it is. I think maybe, but maybe not. Hindsight is 20/20. If I was him I wouldn't have CC'ed. I can understand game states that it could exist, also that town tracker sort of sucks so maybe they are thinking that its possible for two to exist. Just a lot going on there and its setup gaming.
There is the whole GB WIFOM argument. But I'm not really willing to entertain that argument. The argument that one has to be scum, is probabally correct. But also, not. I've seen mods say **** your set up gaming before on this site, and so I'm not willing to stick my neck out for that. Like, I've seen roles where it almost has to be one thing, and then the response from the mod is "I knew you were going to set up game me so I made it to punish you for doing so". So, Ehhh? Damned if we do damned if we don't?
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StaffThe doctorguard is absolutely stronger than a regular doctor, playing against it took away scum choices.
I don't.
I think its a strong role.
I did a long write up on in discord.
Lets do a pro con.
Doctor can target and prevent a kill. This role can do the same. However, this role can't protect the same target twice from being killed, it does so in a different way, but not in a way that messes with lylo math. That's pretty key.
This role sort of is a cool role, it protects, it moves on it protects. It docs, then bodyguards. However, it this role is guaranteed to die. It doesn't get to the insane situations which is end game doc. It just can't be design get there and it can't have the same impact.
Instead of it being a guessing game for who the doctor will protect the scum just know that they can't protect some targets because they are body guarded.
Theoretically, this role can get to a point where it just can't take an action to protect somebody.
Its definitely stronger in some ways, but I don't think you guys realize how insanely good doctors are. That being said, I don't think its strictly worse as I originally implied. I think its about even. Its got its strengths its got its weaknesses. The biggest thing holding it back is that there are just no roles worth protecting. It is the role for the town, and it can't protect the GB.
Oh god that's another bastard thing, that role claims and then mafia strong man the kill and people go I thought you said you body guarded it. Instantly lynched.
If there were roles protecting I think its a slightly stronger doc, buy about 20%, but still not that much stronger.
On the doc vs docguard I agree the doc is stronger in an unclaimed end game situation, but that is the only aspect where it's superior in my book. And mafia games these days just don't allow for end games to happen without claims having flown around. In other phases of the game, and in the current meta of heavy claims by D3 being the norm I much prefer having this role with the lingering protection. It allows the classic PR under the radar/scummy play while giving a 100% out to not be lynched when the claim happens. A traditional doc is only like an 80% not to be lynched.
The first part can still be true. You are assuming that the claim is out for scum to have the information about who and who not to shoot. And if the claim is out in the same world for a doctor there isn't a guessing game at all.
The last part is true though and the biggest drawback of this role. I wouldn't put it as strictly stronger but I'd say it has a lower ceiling but a higher average case scenario.
As it currently sits its like a side upgrade to me. Yeah you gain some power, but you also lose some power. Its a good role, I like the role I'm just not sure that as it stands its that much better(Or even at all) than a normal doc. Its definitely not weaker as I thought when I first looked at it.
Edit: The again maybe I'm discounting making scum kill you instead of a high town read. Or just making scum kill you. I don't think duelers are bad and I don't think bodyguards are bad. I just feel like doctors are stronger a lot so, and this is like 3/4 body and 1/4 doc. Or maybe 2/3 1/3. Something like that. More guard than doc.
You know if I think about it that way its a really strong guard role. I guess when I look at it I want to analyze it as a doc first and a guard second. But really its the opposite. Its a guard first and a doc second. That points to it being scum sided, because guards are worth way less on the point meter than docs, but like yeah great guard role if you want to think about it that way.
The redirect wouldn't have failed really. It just would have been bypassed.
Yeah IDK, its that the mafia have so much disruption and then on top of it the free gimmes in the can't be targeted and the strong man.
Do people in general like the can't be targeted on scum?
To me as I've said it just punishes town for using their limited knowledge correctly.
You really think "maybe use your ability before you claim unless under pressure and your claim gets you out of a lynch" is a bad argument?
I see you don't think assuming the players will know one of the Ghostbusters is a wolf is fair. I'm not saying they should have known, I'm saying they should have thought about whether it was likely or not and what they were risking by claiming before they could shoot.
Re: optimal play, no, I don't think it's nearly as clear cut as you're making it. With perfect knowledge of the set up you can say "the optimal doctor protect is this role, the optimal night kill is this one" and so on, but you can never predict which players will get which roles or whether they will be able to get town read or their claim will be believed, etc. etc. The best you can do is assign roles a floor, a ceiling, and an average/random target case, and work off of those.
The floor for wolf roles is a bit higher than the floor for town roles, though, while the ceiling for town roles is quite a bit higher than the ceiling for wolf ones. The ceiling for Tubba's role, for example, is "catches a wolf doing the night kill" and the ceiling for ZDT's role is *Stops multiple kills" while the ceiling for, say, Kami's role is him taking a night off from tracking to do the kill and him getting tracked by Tubba, but Tubba doesn't get the usual clearing message of "Kami visited no one" he gets "Your ability failed" instead, which keeps Kami in the pool of players who might have done it. Or that he can see who everyone targets, passively, except that doesn't really tell us anything except who ZDT was permaguarding after he spent a doc protect on them.
I agree the wolf roles required less skill to pilot optimally (well, delayer required fairly precise targeting to be optimal), but that doesn't mean the wolf roles were stronger overall. I think the game is roughly balanced to maybe slightly town sided, not that you all should have crushed us because you had significantly superior resources or anything like that.
I value extra kills very, very highly. So maybe that's where we disagree. I actually think the doctorguard has a lower ceiling than straight doctor because he can't protect the same target ever agai, though the floor on the role is waaay higher than straight doc.
Re: counterclaiming, I would CC another tracker claim as a tracker, 100%. Even if the other claim is believeable, at worst we spend a lynch on a neutral, at best we lynch a wolf, and I eat a night kill either way (except, you had a Doctor/Bodyguard hybrid too, which would have guaranteed he had two nights minimum to track a kill!). Games aren't designed with multiples of the same role as villagers for a reason, and I think something like 2 town trackers in a closed set up is very bastard.
Edit: as far as ascetic roles on wolves, no, I'm not really a fan of them in general, but they're much better/less bastard than ninjas and godfathers.
I just don't value town kills nearly as much as other people do I guess. Vigs in good hands can be brutal, in bad hands they can be equally brutal. Extra kills like this are basically extra lynches, they pretty decent. But, that's really the only power the town had. And that's the issue. It isn't that the town didn't have power, its that the town had limited power.
You're seeming to ignore how much of an advantage on paper the mafia have over town. The mafia can **** with all of the power roles in a single night. Hell, they get the super witch on me it isn't even hard for them to do so. RB one, delay the other two, and **** me over as well wasting my one shot.
It just feels like you are not taking into account the litany of scum powers that exist in the game. All four of the mafia have power. The town has like 5 members that really have power and then the gatekeeper/keymaster roles. But that's not even true.
The town have the GB's lets give them .5 each That's what they are worth.
A doctor thing(True power role)
Then they have a tracker that loses their tracking.
A JoaT that has one ability that is sort of meh(The role flips) and two abilities.
And then the keymasters, which may or may not ever find each other and then their ability is OK afterwords.
At best the town have 6.5 power roles. In practice its something more like 4.
Let's take a look at the mafia.
Mafia goon that can also have access to a day kill(I'm going to count this as a one because goons already are counted as a one by most math and this does more a lot more).
Mafia two shot delayer that can target two players
Mafia one shot ROLE COP and WITCH
Mafia PERMANENT(albeit loud) tracker plus can't be targeted.
And the mafia have access to a strong man on three players.
You see the problem here? What exactly does the town do? How do you see this as being town sided? The town just sort of suck.
If this was a mountainous game 4 v 12 is balanced. And that's the issue. The mafia have pound per player more fire power than the town does. By A LOT.
The sort of math I'm used to working with.
Vanilla mafia 3
Vanilla town 1
Add points per power.
12 town power
12 mafia power
Normal town power roles are something like(copied from Kiradawea guide)
Cop: 2
Doctor: 1 (0.5 for mafia)
Roleblocker: 1 (1.5 for mafia)
Jailer: 1.5
Watcher: 1.5
Tracker: 1
Motion detector: 0.5
Vigilante: 1
Mason: 0.5 (for a two mason group, add 0.5 for each additional mason, double if masons confirm one another as town)
Mayor: 0.5
Town gain lets say 5, maybe. Doc counted at one, tracker shouldn't be counted at one because it isn't pure, JoaT is a one I guess? Its around 5.
Takes town to 17.
Mafia gain 4 for base power and the extra strongman takes them to 5.
Takes mafia to 17.
HOWEVER, mafia gain power for each roleblock and they can target two players with it. PLUS they have the can't be targeted.
That's going to take the mafia well above 17.
Its not town sided its scum sided.
The math says this is scum sided at the outset. Compound that with weaker town roles, and stronger mafia roles and this game is scum sided.
I'd argue that is a tiny semantic difference. I'd be really curious to know how cantrip would have handled it. To me the obvious ruling would have been to notify the redirector that their redirection failed, and not doing so would be bastard. Given the usually first resolving priority of redirects bypassing it would be bastard to me.
On the Doc/Guard the lingering nature of the protection just makes it so unlike both roles that it's hard to evaluate. It's closest to a doc that can only target each player once with a mandatory burnout N3 to lightning rod the kill. I mean not really, but it's just a completely different role with the left behind protection.
On your PR counting: I just don't agree with your valuation of vigs at all. Maybe I'm way off base but a day vig is substantially stronger than a standard vig and having the vig be diffused across several people makes it stronger to me. Plus I generally value a 1 shot vig to be similar power level to a full watcher. So the gradation of the watcher being a half point more strikes me as wrong. But I get that is your central point (that I'm overvaluing vigs).
Also I'm deeply skeptical of that grids scoring. A pair of Masons (with our standard confirmed town definition) are not half a point weaker than a watcher and a full point weaker than a cop. It's a useful heuristic but I don't agree with all it's judgments.
Its more than semantic difference though.
The redirect in the game is a bus driver. Its a static effect that effects anyone who targets that player.
So if I target player A and B(Player A is a GB), and mafia go for the kill it would ignore the bus drive. While lets say the tracker targets player A they would still go to player B.
That's the problem.
It hasn't failed. Its just failed for one person.
Its .5 per. So that's a 1 for the mason group. If they know its town its double at 2.
So same power level as a cop.