XnadrojX's Mini Normal Review the Second

[mykonian]

darnit smith

[XnadrojX]

There's a lot of investigation power but a lot of it is mitigatable by potentially guiltying on a town and the amount of scum power.

The tracker is generally not considered am incredibly strong investigative due to the fact you can only guilty one person at most and it's easy to fakeclaim out, as well as potentially guiltying the other investigatives.

The gunsmith, although strong, is offset by the RoleBlocker and the potential to guilty on the cop.

The cop can guilty on the Miller, who itself is a power role, as well as being blocked by the RoleBlocker.

Scum can roleblock and kill the investigatives quite easily, and all but the cop can be claimed out of. The cop itself only gets at most 2 inspects out, and the inspects are stoppable by Roleblocker and the Ascetic. The gunsmith can be fakeclaim out of followed by a NK, Tracker has minimal power, and Cop can be Roleblocker until it can be killed in a timely manner.
And then the Miller Doublevoter's great power is offset by the fact that it can be guiltyed by the cop and that it's vote is hidden, meaning town has to waste a day to confirm the claim.

It's a little more to town favour than mountainous 10:3, but the chances of all the investigative power to not be incredibly successful offsets that. The best part of the power roles here is it's claimability, but investigatives in LyLo gets suspected more than usual.

The Ninja can be made a full Ninja but that just cuts into the Tracker's usability even more, which at that point I would prefer to cut the ninja and Tracker for a goon and VT instead.

[XnadrojX]

Bump

[XnadrojX]

Bump?

[mykonian]

I'm sorry jordan, my brain is mush, has been mush for the last 3 days. I'll post something when I can actually read your post in one go.

[XnadrojX]

Smith mastina?

[mykonian]

1 3S Gunsmith
1 Odd-Night Cop
1 Miller DoubleVoter
1 2 shot tracker
6 VT's

1 Mafia Ascetic
1 Mafia OS Ninja
1 Mafia RoleBlocker


I don't think scum needs three roles for that town.

There's a lot of investigation power but a lot of it is mitigatable by potentially guiltying on a town and the amount of scum power.

Yes

The tracker is generally not considered am incredibly strong investigative due to the fact you can only guilty one person at most and it's easy to fakeclaim out, as well as potentially guiltying the other investigatives.

Yes

The gunsmith, although strong, is offset by the RoleBlocker and the potential to guilty on the cop.

Verily

The cop can guilty on the Miller, who itself is a power role, as well as being blocked by the RoleBlocker.

Debatable. The miller could very well claim early to avoid this, making it just a downside for the miller, not the odd night cop. Point about the RB stands.

Scum can roleblock and kill the investigatives quite easily, and all but the cop can be claimed out of. The cop itself only gets at most 2 inspects out, and the inspects are stoppable by Roleblocker and the Ascetic. The gunsmith can be fakeclaim out of followed by a NK, Tracker has minimal power, and Cop can be Roleblocker until it can be killed in a timely manner.

And without a scum lynch the cops claim, if he is so greedy to wait till half the town is dead to get his 2 investigations, in lylo. Might not even help the town that much there. Otherwise, yes to all.

And then the Miller Doublevoter's great power is offset by the fact that it can be guiltyed by the cop and that it's vote is hidden, meaning town has to waste a day to confirm the claim.

More likely by his own claim, depending if he does that, otherwise, yes.

It's a little more to town favour than mountainous 10:3, but the chances of all the investigative power to not be incredibly successful offsets that. The best part of the power roles here is it's claimability, but investigatives in LyLo gets suspected more than usual.

Yes, but... You've put if's and buts with every town power, none is particulary strong on it's own given they are limited on top, and scum have an answer for everything. Mountainous 10:3 is utterly horrible for town, you need to do a lot better than giving town a slight edge on top. You have to cut down on scum answers to towns power here. Like, cut the ninja, cut the RB, and it's a setup that is ballpark in the right direction, even then probably scumsided. I think Hoopla came up with the guideline of 3 full town pr's more than scum got pr's to get games that ended up being around 50% winrate (obviously strength of pr's matters some but that way she got to condense the data). Here, town gets one, and 3 half ones. Scum get 2 and a half one, of which the RB has shown to be very potent over the years. Something has gone awry!

[mykonian]

aww crap I don't have editing rights here. I must have mucked up the quote tags. Sorry, hope it's readable.

[mhsmith0]

I'll do a check on stuff w similar investigation heavy setups, but I'm pretty skeptical of cutting the Roleblocker from a two investigative setup, with a third claimable ability and a miller who's probably never getting lynched. Dropping ninja MAY be ok, but dropping Roleblocker isn't unless my checks of similar games tells me something surprising.

[XnadrojX]

3 roles, but not if they're all investigatives?


Usually it's a X-shot/X-Night Investigaive/Protective/utility with scum having a few power to compensate. But here the restrictions on the power roles aren't very restrictive, and they're all investigative and different types of them. They don't overlap like how a JK/Cop/Random Utility does.

And then we have a double voter. Who in fairness is a miller but having one more vote is immensely powerful imo

[mykonian]

I'll do a check on stuff w similar investigation heavy setups, but I'm pretty skeptical of cutting the Roleblocker from a two investigative setup, with a third claimable ability and a miller who's probably never getting lynched. Dropping ninja MAY be ok, but dropping Roleblocker isn't unless my checks of similar games tells me something surprising.

Only the gunsmith is a "full" role. Calling it a 3 investigative setup is somewhat flattering.

While smith is searcing, I assume you didn't want to adjust the lynch treshold to account for the extra vote, Jordan?

[XnadrojX]

No. If it's 7 alive, it's 4 to lynch. Which is why the DoubleVoter is so powerful. Town gets an extra vote which doesn't affect the threshold or is revealed, meaning that Town has a higher level of power over the day, making it harder for scum to drive mislynches..

[XnadrojX]

Well, even if it's weakened investigatives, they still collectively have a lot of investigation power in total. Roleblocker can't block 3 people and not likely allof them will target the ascetic or ninja in the case of the tracker.

[XnadrojX]

That's why I'm so unwilling to cut the RoleBlocker, I'm afraid the sheer collective power of the 3 town investigative are able to overwhelm the scum.

I might be more open to weakening the RoleBlocker, like make it X-shot or something. That way scum loses half a role.

[mhsmith0]

So gunsmith/cop setups:

mini 1514 town win night 3, 5 town survived
cop/odd and even vig/cowardly gunsmith
vs tracker / godfather / roleblocker

mini 1707 town win day 5, 7 town survived
jk / ascetic odd cop / even gs / backup role cop (named townie)
vs goon/goon/encryptor

1708 scum win, 1 scum lived
1-shot gs / even cop / town backup / jk
vs goon/goon/tracker

1763 scum win, 2 scum lived
joat (v cop, follower, neighborizer) / 1-shot vig / 2-shot cop / odd gs
vs even gs / encryptor / 2-shot role cop


roleblocker setups

FWIW, 10v3 mini normal games with roleblockers have as a whole been pretty balanced, around 50% town win rate

Spoiler:

1794 town win
doc, gunslinger, cop
vs rb, encryptor, goon

1772 town win
doc, roleblocker, macho tracker
vs rb, goon, goon

1719 scum win
1-shot BP, mason, mason, doc
vs rb, goon, goon (very different game here, town power was mainly passive)

1715 town win
doc, cop, role cop, jailkeeper
vs rb, godfather, goon

1709 scum win
1-shot gunsmith, JOAT, role cop, doctor
vs rb, watcher, goon

1666 scum win
tracker, 1-shot BP, cop, 1-shot vig neighbor, vanilla neighbor
vs rb, godfather, neighbor

1662 town win
tracker, vig, doc
vs rb, goon, goon

1653 scum win
doc, cop, 1-shot vig
vs rb, goon, goon

1596 scum win
miller, doc, cop
vs rb, goon, goon

1527 town win
bodyguard, cop, 2-shot vig
vs rb, goon, goon

1514 town win
even night vig, cowardly gunsmith, cop, odd night vig
vs rb, godfather, goon

etc

In general, against a roleblocker, town has had at least one really strong power role, or multiple passives (like 1719). The JOAT isn't strong enough, and tracker is a middling town power in a 13p game.

so...

1 3S Gunsmith
1 Odd-Night Cop
1 Miller DoubleVoter
1 2 shot tracker
6 VT's

1 Mafia Ascetic
1 Mafia OS Ninja
1 Mafia RoleBlocker

You've got two roles that are essentially never ever getting lynched (cop and gs), and a third role that is going to always be claimed and probably not going to get lynched barring weirdness, and a fourth role that is inherently dubious as a claim but that is at least a plausible claim that likely buys scum's ire, and that can plausibly note roleblocking abilities (if targeting ascetic or hit by rb). GS/cop are probably going to collectively get at least one hard clear between them, unless scum are REALLY good at choosing their targets, which adds up to half the town mechanically never getting lynched (or an early guilty result)... and that's a pretty solid amount of town power, where I think you really do want to see a good amount of scum power to counter it.

I think this is pretty reasonable actually. If there's an objection to scum power, I GUESS you could turn the 1-shot ninja into a goon or make the roleblocker odd night. I don't think I'd want to see both changes. Part of my headspace is I think cop is a super-powerful role, and given the other town claimable power on the board i do think scum need help to counter it. So I'd approve it as is, or with changing the 1-shot ninja to a goon, or with changing the roleblocker to an odd night rb.

[mykonian]

oh, we got better at judging RB's then Lovely.

Still properly scared of pitting the RB against the ~1 and 2 half investigative roles here. It's giving scum way too much handle on the game where you are judging towns power in how likely they are to lynch an odd night cop in a game with a gunsmith. I guess we are assuming then that scum claim VT? I would leave claims and lynches up to the players, that could go wrong and right in so many ways.

[mhsmith0]

Unless scum rb AND shoot cop and gunsmith night one (and if they do they deserve the great outcome), town is probably going to get an early clear or early guilty, which is then on top of all the claimable stuff. And cop and gunsmith MIGHT somehow both get checks in night one, which is super useful for town.

If town can keep big two PRs alive night one and dodge the Roleblocker and ascetic, they're going to be in a crushing position super early. If scum can wipe PRs early, they'll be in crushing position. Both teams have meaningful weapons, and town has other role clears at the same time. Strikes me as balanced, but I'm willing to nerf scum power a little bit if you guys want.

[mastina]

The setup would be swingy no matter what to an uncomfortable degree (like, major swing, not minor swing; there's a great many variables which HUGELY affect the game), but I'd be willing to pass it if the 1x ninja was nixed. The ninja to counter a gated tracker (when pitting up a tracker against a ninja is already unfair! Yet along, GATED tracker) is something I'm not comfortable with. (I know the ninja is itself gated, but it doesn't matter to me; one ninja shot is still absurdly powerful against a tracker, yet alone a gated tracker.)

[XnadrojX]

So the Final Setup is:

3-Shot Gunsmith
Odd-Night Cop
2-Shot Tracker
Miller Doublevoter
VT x 6


Mafia Ascetic
Mafia Roleblocker
Mafia Goon

[mykonian]

If town can keep big two PRs alive night one and dodge the Roleblocker and ascetic

Yeah this is too short to me. If I'd add to that, you could see where my worry lies:

If the town can keep the two big pr's alive, and dodge the RB and the ascetic, and the miller claims or the cop doesn't investigate it, and the gunsmith avoids investigating the cop,

then still night two town only get one investigation from the pair.


I think even if they only had to dodge a stationary target (the ascetic), town could be in decent trouble if one of the investigatives actually does hit him. Giving scum the opportunity to lock one investigative down if they had a good read or a claim happened, that's just too surefire that they'll be able to mess with towns power. Even the basic odds already become quite a bit worse, and I think town needs 2 solid investigative results to put pressure on scum (like give town a guilty and an inno, eh, that game can go places, you can worry scum without that being broken). 3 and town could be in a happy place, but 3 means that if the gunsmith gets the guilty (2:1) you'll actually still have a claim situation on your hands which might not make a guilty so obvious.

I am making a wall again, but tl;dr I feel the setup as is gives town a whole lot of things to dodge for not too much gain, given the cop isnt full.

[XnadrojX]

I guess you're right, but i think you're not considering that cops claiming also count as a clear, assuming it was not done under suspicious conditions.

[mykonian]

yes, I'm quite ignoring that. If a claimed role could get to be semi confirmed, so could a fakeclaimed role from mafia. I feel that's part of play, not of the setup, given the roles aren't actually that confirmable.

[mhsmith0]

So the Final Setup is:

3-Shot Gunsmith
Odd-Night Cop
2-Shot Tracker
Miller Doublevoter
VT x 6


Mafia Ascetic
Mafia Roleblocker
Mafia Goon

I approve this, pending role pms and final opening post. Skimming op, I think you need to state whether or not scum can kill and act simultaneously, nothing g else aprtuclarly bugged me while skimming.

[XnadrojX]

What do i do when different reviewers give conflicting advice?

I can't finalise the setup and redo the OP without everyone's approval, and having two reviewers with different opinions of balance makes it hard for me to balance it to everyone's standards.

I'll probably go home and do some EVing and see for myself how balanced the setup is.

[mhsmith0]

Myko needs to explicitly weigh in on what he wants to see balance-wise instead of the setup proposed, and mastina needs to explicitly say what her opinion is as well (beyond "it's swingy")