Why this game in its current state could never really work in a tournament setting.

tl;dr – there is a strategy to play a standard rules game that is 100% guaranteed winnable by the Crewmates, assuming every player is intelligent and playing to win (which would be the case in a competitive environment).

The main reason this is is because Impostors cannot sabotage while standing next to the emergency button. The strategy (agreed upon by all players, if you don't follow this strategy you're immediately lynched. Yes, this would become the Among Us meta) is as follows:

  1. All players stand against the meeting table at the start of the round.
  2. One by one, starting at the top of the table and going clockwise, all players go out individually and perform their tasks. The next person doesn't leave until the first person is standing against the table again.
  3. It is everyone's job (of those gathered around the table) to watch everyone else like a hawk, as the only way a sabotage can occur is if someone steps away from the table, or the one person who's out doing their tasks does it. If someone sabotages, it will be immediately evident who it is, resulting in a lynch after the sabotage resolves.
  4. As soon as the player who is out doing their tasks returns, that player calls an emergency meeting. This serves 2 purposes: It updates the task bar so they can prove they were actually doing tasks, as well as it resets everyone to the initial game state, to prevent Impostors from being able to sabotage (I tested it out in Freeplay, and the game resets you to within range to activate the button, meaning Impostors can't sabotage without moving away. Not 100% sure if this applies to all starting positions, though). Players once again step towards the table to guarantee sabotages don't occur. The only way an Impostor can sabotage while standing next to the button is if they open the sabotage menu before they get in range. By calling a meeting, they have to close the sabotage menu, and if a sabotage occurs before the meeting, they can't call the meeting, and it would be clear to all players who performed the sabotage.
  5. Eventually, the Crewmates either win on tasks, or the Impostors out themselves and the Crewmates win on lynches.

As far as I'm aware, if all Crewmates play perfectly according to this strategy, there's nothing Impostors can do to counter it as the game currently stands with default settings. Is it fun? Not really, but the game is pretty solvable. Multiple changes would be needed to make this game playable in a tournament setting, possibly including:

– Disable emergency meetings so Impostors can sabotage without immediately outing themselves.

– Give Impostors the ability to sabotage while standing next to the meeting table.

– Have an impartial judge that issues penalties based on their discretion of whether or not this strategy is followed. This would require either a spectator mode, or someone physically watching the game.

– Create a time limit, where if the game doesn't end before then, everyone is disqualified. Normally, this would not be an issue at all, as the time it would take for every player to individually perform their tasks would be far longer than a normal game.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmongUs/comments/kmn9r3/why_this_game_in_its_current_state_could_never/

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