Reveal timer is the wrong way around

[DeadMG]

You know, I've been playing some Phantom-X, and the thing that really bugs me is the reveal timer.

I get that the non-reveal timer version of the game, Phantom-N, was a bit of a sim-city. But the reveal timer is the wrong solution. It encourages the Phantoms to attack the Innocents. Instead, the Innocents should be encouraged to attack the Phantoms. For a simple example of how the reveal timer is broken, imagine a game where five players are all on a par with the same skill level, but one of the Phantoms is sub-par. There's basically no way for the Phantoms to win. They're forced to act like a team, but there's no opportunity to balance the teams, because you don't know who the members are going to be in advance. This results in some nasty curbstomps both ways. This is especially brutal when the first Phantom breaks, but the second Phantom doesn't know he's supposed to join in.

The core problem is that the aggressor is always Phantom. When the combat starts, it's almost always immediately clear who's the Phantom. That's the wrong way around. The pressure should be on the Innocents to be aggressive. This restores the core tenet that the players never actually know who is Phantom until they're dead or producing blatantly too much.

For example, consider Mafia. The core of that gameplay is that if the Town don't lynch the Mafia, the Mafia will kill the Town at night. It's the Town that are forced into action.

Simple examples of mechanics that can do this are, for example, every minute after the 30th, the Phantom bonus goes up by 3%. If the Innocents don't assault the Phantoms, the bonus keeps going up and eventually the Phantoms will have enough to overwhelm the Innocents. Or alternatively, the Phantom can choose a specific non-ACU unit of a player that has not broken with them and instantly destroys it (think about critical structures like t3 factories, antinukes, etc).

Whatever mechanic is chosen, it should be the Innocents who are forced to attack the Phantoms, not vice versa.

[Ze_PilOt]

Why not simply reveal an innocent instead ? So other innocents know that he is "safe", and if someone attack him ...

[DeadMG]

That's essentially exactly the same mechanic- the Phantoms are forced into aggression. If they don't kill the Innocents in time, they will be revealed by process of elimination.

[mead]

After a lot of discussion and exchanging ideas, it is my opinion that any significant change to a Phantom X core feature will inevitably lead to balancing problems somewhere else. Additionally, all proposed solutions either come with significant problems of their own, or they change the mod too radically.
Instead, I made a "submod" for Phantom X that I hope will provide an entirely different, more diplomacy-centered gameplay: http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=4763