I don't necessarily agree that not being able to escape an investigative guilty is bad design. In particular, the cop still has to choose their target carefully. Common wisdom is that you cop your middle reads and/or lurkers. I believe there is counterplay in the form of playing well enough that no one would think to cop you. I understand this may be difficult in certain games (maybe many), but ultimately, getting copped as scum is a sign that someone was already suspicious of you to begin with. If you are a shining beacon of town, people shouldn't want to cop you, so you will avoid guilties.In post 53, Bunno wrote:Not only there's no way out for scum if they are investigated, there's very often not even a possibility of mafia counterplaying the cop due to a lack of mafia PRs.
That said, cop does have issues especially the fact that it is a very powerful and dominating role. As mastina points out, a full cop is a bad idea for many reasons, especially in the late game where PoE starts to matter a lot. But getting copped on N1 or N2 (in a mini normal) is a sign that you didn't play well enough, so I don't agree that there is no way to counterplay a cop.