In post 3800, schadd_ wrote:another thing is when i refer to balance from a numbers standpoint, i purely mean how often id expect town to win. i dont think anybody really numerically analyzes normal setups, especially past micro size, its like too hard.
The issue with this is that "numbers standpoint" implies some level of statistical backing that is misleading. I definitely don't punch EVs for more than the most simplistic setups, but the reliance then should be on general heuristics and empirical experience, and it's important not to equate gut feeling with numbers without highlighting any intermediate steps.
I've designed my own ridiculously townsided setup, and it sucks to be wrong in a volunteer position that tends to only really get attention when things go wrong. I put this setup in discussion with other Normal games to suggest it's a more systemic failure. There's a strong aversion to any kind of predictability in normal games which tend to defeat the entire point of the queue.
In post 3799, schadd_ wrote:when i give scum a roleblocker it creates a small amount of scenarios where they pick good blocks (i think this generally happens by luck) and then a large amount of scenarios where they don't, and it maybe feels like it was their fault instead of my fault and so they dont offer criticism. i dont like that. i want scum to have truly actionable decisions to make instead of aesthetic ones and i think those are rare, and come more often from tricky town roles than like traditionally strong scum roles.
I think this one I can be more specific.
You're right that good blocks tend to happen by luck early, but
when players claim
, that luck gets reduced or entirely eliminated and scum gets adequately rewarded for forcing a claim out, or in the event a town player acted unilaterally thinking it was an apt moment, we want to provide adequate counterplay for scum/punishment to the town if the claim was preemptive while keeping the reward for town if they're correct. A simple concrete example of this structure is a cop claiming on Day 1 with no flips, versus a cop claiming on Day 2 with a flipped scum roleblocker. Few people would complain that the cop had their agency stripped if they're punished for the first, and few people would complain that scum had their agency stripped in the second.
As other people have stated, the only things keeping town in check this game was the even-night modifier and the assumption/fear that scum had some kind of mechanical counterplay, as opposed to them actually having mechanical counterplay. I want to really emphasize the normative point: Chiseling away at that assumption is not really something we really want to encourage as a matter of the health of the queue.
