Mini Normal Stats Update

[zMuffinMan]

the funny thing about guessing what roles make sense as town in a setup is that, other than the fact that most people can't do this (see: how they balance their own setups), it requires the mod thinking about it in the same way you do

[Antihero]

The investigatives were neighbors; PAY ATTN!

doesn't matter

neighborhoods are power neutral

[zoraster]

neighborhoods aren't power neutral when a neighbor is a power role.

[callforjudgement]

the funny thing about guessing what roles make sense as town in a setup is that, other than the fact that most people can't do this (see: how they balance their own setups), it requires the mod thinking about it in the same way you do

You can sometimes do it if you're sufficiently in tune with the modmeta of the mod in question, but probably not otherwise.

neighborhoods aren't power neutral when a neighbor is a power role.

Neighbourhoods can sometimes be non-power-neutral even in the absence of that. Most notably, they reduce the target pool for town rolecops, as the fact that they're neighbours normally becomes evident after a while and thus there's not much point in role-investigating them; Micro 597 used this technique pretty well.

[zMuffinMan]

I wasn't saying it can't be done, just that the cases where a town can do it aren't all that common, so it's not exactly an easy thing to balance for (you can make the assumption in setup design that a town will think X but in practice, eh...)

[mhsmith0]

neighborhoods aren't power neutral when a neighbor is a power role.

Especially when both are. Otoh no day talk severely nerfs the power of the hood.

[Zachrulez]

Neighbor roles should definitely be considered power neutral when accounting for game balance. Recruiting a town power role is a reward for good recruitment, but is definitely not a factor you should be working into game balance.

[zoraster]

neighbors =/= neighborizor.

[zMuffinMan]

neighborhoods aren't power neutral when a neighbor is a power role.

they still probably are, but i don't have anything to back this up other than the fact that they can sometimes be protown and sometimes antitown, and it entirely depends on how theyre used

that said, i dont think you have anything to back your assertion up either

[Zachrulez]

neighbors =/= neighborizor.

Yeah so?

[zoraster]

I mean, I don't have numbers to back it up, but I think I have pretty firm reasons. My intuition is that neighbors are usually neutral to a town, sometimes positive, rarely truly negative. So for balancing purposes, I'd call that moderately pro-town.

[zoraster]

neighbors =/= neighborizor.

Yeah so?

So you talked about "recruiting a town power role" when what we're talking about could theoretically just be a town power role hooked up to a vanilla townie (or two power roles), though I can't speak to the normality of that.

[zMuffinMan]

I don't think it's fair to say neighbourhoods are rarely truly negative

i can point to any number of games where all-town hoods affected games in negative ways (just due to the nature of how neighbourhoods work) and i can't point to any games off the top of my head where they helped town's win chances (though im sure others can probably point to some)

neighbourisers are pretty much in the same boat (except i can think of a few positive examples of a neighbouriser being used well)

[Zachrulez]

neighbors =/= neighborizor.

Yeah so?

So you talked about "recruiting a town power role" when what we're talking about could theoretically just be a town power role hooked up to a vanilla townie (or two power roles), though I can't speak to the normality of that.

I'm using the two somewhat interchangeably. I understand the difference between a neighborizer and a neighbor. Doesn't change that they're power neutral for balance reasons. I wouldn't think a neighbor (as opposed to a neighborizer hitting a power role.) having a power role as well would be normal.

[chamber]

2x Mafia Goons
1x Mafia Tracker
1x Cop
1x Jailkeeper
8x Townies

My intuition says that this is actually close to balanced? Certainly if you remove the tracker I'd think it balanced. And I'm not sure how much the scum tracker actually adds to the mafia.

[mhsmith0]

I agree with hoopla there, 2 town PR's is super low even if they're strong PR's. Moreover, the mafia tracker could just claim town tracker and give honest results without any real negative consequence (barring a "why are you still alive" bit after a couple days).

[chamber]

Perhaps my issue is putting jailkeeper as close to cop in power level? Most of my experience with the roll was in the newbie setups which were only 2 scum, which would increase its power. I still think that setup is more balanced as is than with the tracker as town though? So I really just don't buy the claim bit. I would think 2 cops 8 townies 3 goons was town sided.

[mhsmith0]

10v3 with just 2 cops, no daytalk or other mafia powers is crazy swingy to be sure, and super dependent on the cops not getting NK'd or overlapping peeks or outing each other or the like. But that's a setup where you could potentially see the game basically locked for the town by like D3 through no fault of the wolves other than failing to PR hunt and getting unlucky w night peeks. That kind of potential is why that (might) be town sided, although I think it's really just swingy, with a result that's likely to be an easy win by one side or the other depending mainly on night actions.

That said, I've played 10v3 open setup with one cop with a N0 villa peek (random townie) on MU, and it seems reasonably balanced, but that's mainly because it's an open setup, and the N0 peek structure means every single NK is high info (since the wolves are always hunting the cop). Of course, there's nothing more fun than faking a guilty on someone who turns out to be guilty and then getting NK'd for your trouble .

But in a closed setup, that wouldn't be anything close to balanced, because fake claims can be made reasonably effectively with little room to prove them false, and the rest of the town won't be engaged in "seer cover" if they aren't aware of the need to do so ahead of time.

As far as JK goes, JK is very OP in small games or in late game. Early game in a 13p, it's much less so. I'd say cop is stronger than JK in a 13p, though JK is a more entertaining and fun role to have in a game.

PS As stated before, towns are dumb and lazy. Like, never underestimate this. In my (admittedly limited) experience, I've seen WAY more mediocre to outright terrible towns than I have legitimately good towns.

[Antihero]

I would think 2 cops 8 townies 3 goons was town sided.

i think you'd be wrong there

[RadiantCowbells]

I would think 2 cops 8 townies 3 goons was town sided.

i think you'd be wrong there

Only because the cops would cc each other and one would get lynched.

[RadiantCowbells]

Like, in an open, town would slaughter that shit.

[mhsmith0]

Like, in an open, town would slaughter that shit.

In an open, I'd agree. The only way it's any kind of game is if the wolves kill a cop N1. Otherwise it'd be completely ridiculous. Every player would be forced to make a "cop peek" every day, and every single NK would be chock full of info. If the wolves kill cops N1 AND N2 (or maybe N1 and N3) they can win, otherwise they get slaughtered.

That said, opens are big edges for towns, especially full opens (as opposed to semi-opens like C++, JK++ etc). And this is a great example of why.

[Zachrulez]

I would think 2 cops 8 townies 3 goons was town sided.

i think you'd be wrong there

Only because the cops would cc each other and one would get lynched.

On another site I was playing, one of the mods actually set up a game with 2 cops and that's exactly what happened.

[BBmolla]

I would think 2 cops 8 townies 3 goons was town sided.

i think you'd be wrong there

Only because the cops would cc each other and one would get lynched.

On another site I was playing, one of the mods actually set up a game with 2 cops and that's exactly what happened.

I actually think counter claiming cops is so uncommon here it'd be a towntell if two people claimed cop.

[callforjudgement]

Last time I was in a Normal where two people claimed Cop, they were both scum.