What are some ideal conditions for 50% win rates in Among Us?

Question

Of course there are times when the imposter(s) or crewmates have an unfair advantage, such as little to no kill cooldown for imposters or very few tasks for crewmates.

My question is, what are some extremely fair conditions? What I mean by fair is that the chances at winning for crewmates is as close to 50% as possible. I’m sure there are ways to argue for or against certain gameplay settings being exchanged for others.

A perfect answer to this question would be: If it’s possible, some “point values” given to setting changes relative to others (also relative to crewmate advantages) such as +2 points for +0.25 crewmate vision and -1 point for +0.25 imposter vision. (Doesn't have to be numbers, it can just value certain setting changes over others in terms of favoring crewmates or imposters)

A good answer would be something that tells someone what a good “trade-off” would be, such as 2 imposters vs. 1 imposter could mean +0.5 crewmate vision or something like that

I just realized this gets really complicated really fast since changing something such as emergency meetings (or anything really) would change point values for each successive change in a setting since 2 emergency meetings would be Way better than 1, but 3 would be only slightly better than 2.

Answer 1

I don't think it's possible to quantify the conditions necessary for 50% win rates because the game has a non-quantifiable social aspect. In games like Chess every piece has a limited number of moves, which can be evaluated to a set number of points. In Among Us there is a limited number of kills, but unlimited variations of lies which can be told during an emergency meeting. This, coupled with the real-time gameplay means that the point system isn't feasible when every player's physical position and social cohesion is in flux.

I think that we can intuit variations of the settings to give an approximate 50% win rate: those are about the default settings. But changing this should be based on the skill level of the player group you're with, not on a point based system.

To give an example I set up an Among Us session with my coworkers, some of whom had never touched a mobile game in their life. These newcomers would step over bodies without seeing them and were incapable of telling a lie to save their life. No matter what kind of balance you create with the settings there isn't a way to quantify these skills in real-time gameplay. In the end, we tried aiding these coworkers by assigning two short tasks for a task-win but they were not able to argue fluently during emergency meetings - a skill that cannot be buffered with in-game settings.

There's a reason you don't typically point systems in real-time games like Call of Duty or Fortnite. You can evaluate players' skill levels against other players by comparing the two using leagues/ranks, but you cannot quantify the scoring system in games that rely on reaction speed and charisma in the same manner you would in a game with a limited number of turn-based moves.