Fro99er's Mini Normal Review

[Regfan]

Rulelist is fine though I'd probably recommend making the 'majority' point a little more explained. Normalcy wise it all passes and all the role PMs are fine though I may add a "Or nothing can prevent otherwise" type line to the Mafia role PMs. Rolestopper role PM needs to be made a little clearer, same with motion detecter otherwise they're all fine.

Will look at it for balance later.

[Regfan]

I think the motion detectors role PM needs to explain that motion means the player either used an action or had an action used on them, it's not completely clear for a newer player or someone inexperienced with the role and while the "Wiki" helps it's better to have people understand their roles based on the role PM's.

The rolestopped one is fine on another go over.

I'll get around to balance in a few hours.

[Regfan]

I don't think counting the even/odds night rolecops as "1 role" is the right way to go about this, it's highly likely that town will be able to discern that they're both town when claims occur or at least one person with the role will likely town read the other upon claiming and think it being "2 roles" all up is more town sided than a singular town role cop. That said I'd agree with both Msmith & Mastin that towns power seems to be spread pretty thin here and I don't think going towards the second setup is the solution and generally prefer to stay away from cop setups if possible.

I like Mastins solution of amending the Rolestopper and Roleblockers to 2 shot and her reasoning behind it with town gain little with 1 blocked kill in comparison with the potential for 2 is a very sound logic that said I worry the amended setup could potentially end up too town sided here since it's going to be rather difficult for scum to mslynch any of the 5 town power roles and information determined from several of the roles could put town in a decent position, I feel a scum lynch D1 inside that setup makes for an almost locked town victory with scum having little wiggle room.

I think my preference is seeing 1 of the 5 roles removed and the others slightly strengthened ie. Remove Odd night rolecop and turn Even night into a full rolecop or remove Roleblocker and turn it into a full Rolestopper, something along those lines.

Curious as to Mhsmith & Mastins thoughts on that as well as your own Frogger.

[Regfan]

Like the way I see it mafia need 4 mslynches inside the game to win, if mafia gets lynched D1 and shoot a VT N1 they've pretty much already lost, to win the game they'd either have to mslynch all 4 remaining VT's or get a PR lynched and with 2 rolecops in play it's pretty difficult for scum to fake claim any role here and get away with it making it pretty hard to get a PR lynched, I think reducing towns PR's by one and thus increasing the VT's by 1 is the solution.

[Regfan]

My argument isn't that town power roles will be read as town via claims and mafia ones will be read as mafia upon claiming, my argument is this setup as it currently stands does not allow scum (The Goons ie. 2/3 of them) to fake claim at all, rolecops are effectively huge counters to fake claims, roleblocker, motion detector and rolestopper are all things that can catch fake claims. This means that the scum doctor is the only real person that'll be among the scum fake claims inside the game, this means that whenever a massclaim occurs town will have a decent idea that majority (if not all) of the power roles claimed are probably town and mean that mafia are predominately going to be relying on mslynching inside the VT's of which I don't think there's enough.

Happy to wait to see where Mhsmith & Mastina land on this.

[Regfan]

I think daykill can be very powerful in the right scums hands, that said I don't think daykill does anything to solve the problem for it here.

My fear and huge concern with this setup is that it allows scum very little counterplay to the town, scum are incapable of winning the game via fake claiming with the exception of the Odd night doctors claim since scum are always just going to get caught when fake claiming (Both rolecops are very simple to use, roleblocker and them claiming an action is confirmation they're mafia, rolestoper & motion detector can prove claims fake too), you can state that "People need to use their roles well here" but that's not entirely true when it comes to dealing with scum fake claims at all. When scum have as little options as that and no real actual power themselves town are in a very favourable position, particularly if a VT ever gets shot inside the game. Town will be able to determine there's maximum 1 scum inside the power roles and easily be able to focus in lynching inside the VT-Goon pool.

I really think the amended setup is horrifically town sided and think a role needs to be cut to make this balanced, I'd prefer one of the rolecops being kicked to the curb and wouldn't mind the other one being turned into to a full rolecop since that also solves the problem where they effectively confirm each other as town. I'd also settle with keeping both and removing the roleblocker.

I expect Mhsmith to have a similar thought on this.

[Regfan]

Regfan, I'm curious to your thoughts on the setup of this game: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=62192

Town had Odd-night/even-night rolecop, two backup ICs, one encrypto-enabler was all town had vs scum encryptor, backup encryptor, goon

wouldn't that suffer the same problem of the rolecops being able to prevent fake claims from scum? But scum had a perfect win, and everyone said that setup was scumsided, so I'm curious why this is overly town-sided?

I don't think this setup compares to that one at all, town effectively had the odd/even rolecop duo there and 3 named townies which differ quite a lot from rolestopper/roleblocker/motion detector, it also mean that outside of the rolecops scum were able to fake claim whereas here there's plenty more things preventing them from doing so. All that said I'm not even a fan of that setup? I think there's too many attempts at "Trying to be clever" with the modding here and when most people join normal games they just want a straightforward simple game of mafia.

[Regfan]

Daykill should read as daytalk, no idea how that was mistyped.

[Regfan]

I don't think you're grasping the point I'm trying to make here which sadly means I'm probably not explaining it well enough so I'll give it one more go.

Mafia have no

actual

power inside this game, the only decision they have to make to deal with town PR's and players is the night kill - fact.
Mafia will have real difficulty fake claiming a power role and getting away with it outside of the Mafia Doctor given town PR's catch fake claims well - fact.
Mafia require 4 mslynches inside the game to win - fact.

So from the above, whenever a massclaim occurs there'll be between 5-6 PR claims in total being Motion Detector/Limited Roleblocker/Rolestopper/Odd & Even Rolecops/Weak Doctor, town will be able to determine pretty easily from that there's really maximum 1 fake claim inside there just from a balance perspective; 4 nerfed roles do not make a town core, this means it's going to be pretty difficult for scum to get a mslynch inside the PR's this game until it ends up being a case of "Find out which PR is fake" and given how Weak Doctor has to "clear" a player nightly if he maintains that claim it's not going to be pretty.

Effectively I think that if just

one

thing goes well for the town; ie Lynching mafia D1, VT dying N1 town flat out just win eventually here.

I think a town PR really has to be removed here and I'm fine with you upping the power from limited from one to full to even it out.

[Regfan]

I very strongly disagree; I think looking at the role names themselves ie. "Roleblocker / Rolecop / Rolestopper" and assuming just due to those names they're more likely to be mslynched is a bad idea and the wrong way to about reviewing here, it also ignores what happens and how massclaims are handled during the game.

Mafia have a night kill and they know which town claims are truthful or not is not a logical argument to "Mafia don't have a lot of leeway in this setup", it being a normal game doesn't mean that mafia should be expected to fake claim VT at all (How you're attempting to use that argument to differentiate Normals/Themes is ???) it merely means that there's a restricted pool of roles inside the game and mafia are able to fake claim inside that pool, the problem is with this specific division of town roles mafia won't ever get away with a fake claim. Like while the setup is 'normal', this isn't going to be a typical game in that mafia in this game will outright lose if they fake claim here; not something that's always the case at all.

I'm not assuming that town won't ever mslynch a power role, that's absolutely not what I'm saying, there's every possibility that mafia get the doc considered as a 'clear' town mslynch a PR Or two and mafia just move and win the game, this isn't

unwinnable

for mafia as a setup, I just think it's stacked too heavily against them with the sheer number of power roles inside the game where all of them are 'relevant' throughout the entirety of the game.

Like just think about it for a second, if mafia ever get down to 1 member, roleblocker & motion become very strong. I think this setup could turn very snow ball-y in the towns favour with just one thing going their way early on.

[Regfan]

Frogger, first off I didn't review the other setup but I'd have probably commented on disliking the sheer number of "power" in the game overall, honestly I'd have been pretty annoyed about being in that game post-game there since the sheer amount of power roles in the game (7/13) is pretty ridiculous for a game. The difference here is that none of town PR's are "Named townies", all 5 of them are relevant and can be very strong while scum having nothing.

Very much would like to hear mhsmiths thoughts, also wouldn't mind running this by Faraday since I think he's got a good grip of balance on setups like this.

[Regfan]

1. I never really worry too much about scum having little room for a fake claim, and kind of think a setup that punishes it is good. The question is if towns power is so large that scum would mechanically need to fake claim and get hosed out of it due to role cops.

I think fake claiming is something scum should always have a

chance

at doing, sure there's risks involved of them claiming a role in the game or their role they claim not fitting with something claimed in the game but in this game they have no chance at fake claiming and with no power themselves, that's...harsh. It's not just the rolecops that can catch them as fake claims ftr too, it's pretty much every role in the game.

2. I've seen towns mislynch stronger pr claims than any of these five. Motion detector is barely going to stop a lynch, role cops could see themselves as town/ scum analogues, ditto Roleblocker and rolestopper. Really none of the claims are so strong that they'd stop a mislynch for long, and none of the claims are really capable of finding scum. So basically you have two roles that can stop a fakeclaim (and that can essentially falsely clear the scum doc since setup spec strongly suggests the role is town if real), and two roles that have reasonable odds of stopping one kill combined but are pretty unlikely to stop two (and even if they do who knows which is responsible, especially given the scum doc)
Off the cuff I'd say it's fine balance wise, but it's swingy on the survival of the scum doc in most cases.

I'll try and look up some stats on five town pr setups, but the essential utility of town power is low enough that it strikes me as overall pretty fine at first glance.

Think you and Mastina are underestimating the power of these roles and just how much damage they can do if a mass-claim ever occurs in the game, like I said with a good start (scum lynch, VT dying) I see many scenarios where town may just win based on the roles alone which is problematic. I can see an argument for players being mslynched when run up and claiming PR but I can't see much of an argument for players being mslynched post mass-claim here anywhere near as easily and I'm not even expecting scum to have to get 4/5 mslynches inside the VT's, I think it's probable they get 1 inside the PR's at some point but that still requires them to get 3/5 of the VT's lynched to win, if one ever gets shot that's 3/4. Curious what stats you find where town have 5 PR's which are all useful to them in Mini Normals v Scum having questionably 1 otherwise 0. I worry you won't find anything like it though.

Ultimately if you're both pretty confident in this being ~balanced~ I'll pass it but also wipe my hands of anything that happens from it.

[Regfan]

I'm happy with that happening.

[Regfan]

Probably best to prod mhsmith about this.