Board Thread:Debate of The Week/@comment-28112409-20181230235210/@comment-28112409-20190105044402

Faraday242 wrote: Stuff and things Uhhh, counters do need to exist for balance. That's a fundamental thing in every social deduction game, including SC2: Mafia which is amazing in terms of balance compared to ToS. What would happen to the evils if Jester and Executioner didn't exist? The TIs steamroll them, that's what happens. There's tons of examples that support this point, but you know just about enough from experience and I don't need to recite them for you.

N1 luck is a thing that happens with any role. BG, Doctor, Trans, Vet, even the evils can have such luck as well, like killing a Ret N1. The luck aspect is more an inevitability for Sheriff than it is a flaw. You can't balance that, but you can try and you will indubitably fail. The real issue is the evils not having an answer against it aside from the usual "You're an Exe/Jester" and how that works depends on how good the evil claim and defense is or how bloodthirsty the Town is being. Since the evils have a deficiency of answers, it's why I'm blaming Framer's trash design for having the missed potential and Sheriff annihilating mafia's Italian accents off the face of the planet, like a true American. N1 luck is not quite the valid basis for calling a role swingy, as it's a common thing found with many roles.

TIs are a buncha pussies in Ranked, they're gonna reveal when they can because they want to avoid suspicion and they got information to share, or they wait till the mid-late game and get suspected anyway. The way Towns act in Ranked means TIs are not as powerful as they used to be, because now they have 2 choices. Reveal early, likely to get killed with the TPs hogging the jailor or wait till the late game, risk being suspected and the Town mislynching you. Granted, a more proper deterrent like better Mafia Deception is welcome but I wouldn't go as far as to say that the Investigator is OP. He's irritating to deal with, but that's every Town role one way or another when you're mafia.

Whoa there, Lookout might be a threat but he's not that threatening. Just because he can doesn't mean he would. WW can wipe the floor with about 4 or 5 people in one night, doesn't mean he consistently does it. That sort of display from WW is actually quite rare. Likewise, Lookout doesn't always prove roles, and he's incapable of visiting himself. "Easily" is a bit of an exaggeration, since an LO is just as vulnerable as the next TI and adjusting claims around the LO's existence is actually pretty easy when you're evil. You can limit his capability of disproval or make it futile, and his proving is not as good as a Spy's or an Investigator's because of the ambiguity in his results.

Well, that's not really truthful to say about Mayor. Self-confirming is easy for all roles. Jailor says he's jailor and boom, confirmed. Transporter transports people, boom, confirmed. Ret revives literally anyone and is the first to whisper to them, boom, confirmed. None of these roles actually have a hassle confirming themselves. They also just type a sentence or click a couple of buttons, using your logic. The approach to be taken with Mayor is simply acknowledging that the self-confirmability is inevitable, and that the counters to need be designed in a way that makes that self confirming capability futile or useless. ToS takes the approach of preventing doctors healing and eliminating whispers. SC2: Mafia approaches this with the Judge role just existing in the game. Both of them address Mayor's self confirming as inevitable, albeit one game did it better. I still stand by the point that the swing of the TS alignment is the issue, not the Mayor itself.

Seeing how Jailor is a stable, consistent thing in every single Ranked game you play, along with the possibility of Escorts, Mafioso does have a solid use. Prior to Mafioso being a confirmed role in the mafia within the Ranked rolelist, stomping and steamrolling the mafia by simply happening to jail the GF nullifies their killing potential entirely. What happens next, is that the jailor keeps jailing the GF to pull the KPN into a screeching halt, and they spend time looking for the NK or other mafia. They just doubled the time they have to find the evils by spam jailing the GF. Having a Mafioso is better than not having one at the game's current state, or else mafia would have a greater chance of being absolutely destroyed by the Town.

The "unoriginality" point is an abysmal, insignificant complaint in the face of what Consort does for the game, unless you want Escort to join the self-confirmable townies and mafia to get fucked even more.

What strategy? And luck, really? Do you need to see probability calculations to see how unlikely Framer's use would be? Right off the bat, it only counters 2 roles out of 4 (6 with Coven), which is already horrid seeing how that leaves mafia with no answers against the 2 other roles. The frames aren't even permanent and you can't affect your own mafia members, which significantly reduce the chances of success. The Framer's "skill ceiling" involves praying that the Sheriff/Invest don't visit one of your own mafia, while randomly visiting non-confirmed townies and hoping the Invest/Sheriff visits them too. That is pure luck and lottery, there is barely any strategy or skill in playing Framer in its current state. It needs to counter all investigative roles in an effective way, so a rework is definitely necessary. They reverted the permanent frames buff because the Framer becomes a hardcounter for 2 roles while the others go unscathed, which isn't ideal for balance.

I wouldn't say Disguiser needs colossal buffs. His concept is functional, he just needs minor tweaks so he can be more versatile and able to pull it off more consistently with less reliance on the Town's rolelist.

If an Executioner wins because of that, that's the Town being stupid for jumping the gun quickly, and Executioner punishes them for doing so. It's fine.

Yes, Witch doesn't affect the game when she's not there, that's the trade she offers as an NE. She doesn't benefit evil deception and instead aims for utility. She isn't that better when her confirmed existence completely eliminates an option for defense or deception for the other evils.

Executioner serves more than kingmaking, which makes his swing more excusable. He also has much greater tendencies of working with evils, since they can assist in lynching him as Jester or lynching his target in the late game when he works with them. Smart evils also push with the executioner, and his allegiance is easily gained along with who he should be. His mere existence in the game is beneficial, he doesn't even need be in the match to help evils. Survivor has no incline to work with anyone, hence he's Benign and anyone can coerce him into working with them. He's also not opposed by Town, unlike Executioner who needs to lynch a townie in order to win.