The two are not mutually exclusive, and in fact they both apply.In post 19, Flubbernugget wrote:Anecdotal evidence for what it's worth, but when I first came to this site I remember prs having a bit of an aura of being a necessary evil. Hearing some of mastina's experiences with the nrg sound like they're now being treated more like a commodity. I wonder if that's contributed to setup swing at all.
Power Roles are still every bit a necessary evil as they were, if not moreso. Towns inherently require some level of power to counter the innate natural advantage scum players hold. This level of power is such that the town must be able to hold a
level
playing field with the scum: they must be able to overcome not only the inherent scum advantages, but ALSO the inherent disadvantages town players possess even as PRs. (That being, as the uninformed majority, town power roles are uninformed and thus usually perform sub-optimally compared to theoretical statistics for what random targeting would give.)In a Closed Mini Normal, the magical number is 3-4 power roles of moderate strength (and when on the heavier side, usually with a scum role also of moderate strength). However, therein lies moderators' usage of power roles as a commodity: they are in fact a material which, in a manner of speaking, are "bought" or "sold" depending on the moderator's intentions and design for the setup.
It is possible to run a Mini Normal with less than 3-4 power roles. (Selling them.) For instance, a 10:3 Open with a JK and a Cop is reasonably close to balanced in spite of it being less than the typical, thanks both to the strength of the roles and to the nature of the setup being disclosed from the onset.
It is possible (and increasingly common) to run a Mini Normal with more than 3-4 power roles, and/or for those power roles to instead of being moderate strength to be the five big PRs of incredible strength (Vig, Cop, Watcher, Jailkeeper, Doctor, in approximate order of how strong I'd rate them from a design perspective most to least). Buying them. To accomplish this, a moderator needs to provide compensation to the scumteam in order to keep the playing field level.
The magical formula has been shown to work countless times to provide respectively balanced games that are reasonably low on swing--diverging from that mold in EITHER direction will thus introduce a certain degree of uncertainty, but moderators have the right to do so if that is what they choose to make. This degree of uncertainty is where swing is introduced. You need to take your best guess for what is appropriate compensation.
We mostly get it right, but we can't guarantee success, especially when things are more swingy, because the more swing inherent in the design of the setup, the more room to error in judgement there is as far as townsided/scumsided goes--it's harder to keep the level playing field when you are dealing with additional variables.
Personal opinion, I think that overall, moderators are for the MOST part doing well. They are providing an incredible level of diversity in setups, and yet most of them are reasonably close to the balance mark even if the swing is higher than I personally would prefer it to be. For the most part, I feel that moderators are doing their jobs in providing an experience where players are placed in situations where at the beginning of the game, both sides had loosely equal chances of winning.
When you play a Normal, you aren't able to put the pieces of the puzzle together until late in the game if you can put them together at all. (In other words, you can't break the game open with a massclaim D1; you won't have the answers until much later for what the mods did.) I think this is a good thing, and should in fact be encouraged.
I would, however, prefer to see more 'conventional' setups, i.e., less-crazy ones with a moderate level of strength run. Not to the point where they'd dominate altogether (because too many of these being run can lead to the aforementioned "can break the game on D1" problems not to mention it becoming boring and monotonous), but it'd still be nice to have a fair amount of RECENT setups I could point to and say, "These are setups which were low on swing and high on balance", which is something a bit difficult to do because while I can point to plenty of setups I thought were balanced or close-to-balanced nearly every single one of them comes with the caveat of 'albeit swingy'.