Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-25646419-20161124070113/@comment-25646419-20161124233642

Interesting to hear the responses! My line of thinking is basically as Kirize said in that thread:

"Spy reading mafia chat is a terrible idea. You claim Spy reading mafia chat is essential to how the mafia operates, but what about the mafia themselves? Is the mafia chat not essential to how they operate? Do you understand the whole point of Mafia, not just the faction but the party game? An Uninformed Majority opposing the Informed Minority.

Please note the Informed Minority. That is the mafia. They are few in numbers, but do not have to deal with the obstacle of not knowing their allies.

Now then, throw Spy into the equation. He makes the supposed Informed Minority less Informed as they can no longer communicate their plans. The whole point of a mafia game is that if Town wants to win, they have to communicate in public, where mafia can hear and counter their plans. Mafia have a night chat so they don't have to deal with this obstacle, but deal with their own - killing off the biggest faction until their numbers overpower that of the town's. By default, town deaths are a lot less hard on the town than mafia deaths on the mafia. A correct lynch can seriously cripple the mafia, and mafia have to do something called "PR Hunting" to kill who they need to kill. What is PR Hunting? PR Hunting, or Power Role Hunting for short, is the act of reading into the actions of town members to determine their role, then determine the most important role to kill that target role.

Mafia have a lot harder time doing that if they can't communicate their findings. Whatever they get, town gets the same information, or neither side gets that information.

That is why Spy seeing mafia chat is terrible. It diminishes the core aspects of mafia - that each side, Town and Mafia, has their own challenge that is simultaneously the same - become the Informed Majority. If Town gets knowledge of each other, they win, as they will correctly lynch every day and mafia won't be able to kill them off fast enough to become the majority. If mafia gains the majority, they win, as a lynch is majority-controlled and town has no way of killing the mafia. They want the same goal, but must obtain it in different ways. Spy seeing the mafia chat means the mafia needs to complete two goals instead of just one, meaning the game becomes heavily townsided.

But you know what the worst thing is?

It does not buff the Spy in the slightest.

When you think about it, no smart mafia would say anything in the night chat. They simply can't risk it. Whether Spy hears or doesn't hear night chat, his balance remains the same. The mafia is buffed, the town is nerfed, but the Spy is unchanged.

That's why Spy needs to have this ability removed, even if no other changes are made."