Devs/Mods have got the wrong idea about Neutrals (but mostly Alchemists)

#1

Felt compelled to write this after reading this thread: https://forum.imperium42.com/t/gamethrowing-neutrals/69827/35

It’s probably misguided to call it “gamethrowing”, but there’s a certain type of behaviour that neuts engage in that needs to be discouraged (not banned) for the good of the game. It’s hard to define so I will preface it with a scenario that is sure to jog memories of a game you’ve played, because it’s very common.

Remaining players: Alch (0 stoneskins remaining, 0 bombs remaining), Possessor (no jumps left), Assassin (no poison charges remaining), Herbalist
Votes required for a trial: 3

Day 7
Everyone at this point is aware of who’s what. Assassin and Herbalist accuse the Possessor of treason and ask the alchemist to vote with them.

The Alchemist, knowing they are out of resources and have only the ability to heal, has two choices.

  1. Accuse the Possessor of treason, thus securing your win 100% of the time and ending the game that day.
  2. Side with the Possessor, putting your win at risk and prolonging the game by up to 2 additional days, forcing dead players to wait 4 extra minutes to get full game gold or report a player who broke a rule earlier in the game.

The Alchemist decides they are going to side with the Neutral killer.

Night 7
Unable to kill the Possessor with abilities, the Assassin attacks the Alchemist and kills them. Possessor kills the Herbalist.

Day 8
2 players remain. Nothing can be done.

Night 8
Possessor kills assassin.

Day 9
Possessor wins!

Now in this scenario the Alchemist has an option whereby they vote with Unseen and the game immediately ends, 100% of the time. They chose not to pursue this option for their own reasons. The consequences of one player making this choice means all remaining players, living or dead, have to sit through the extra theatrics this choice generates, often needlessly, because the Alchemist wants to side with a specific person instead of guaranteeing their win condition. I pose this question: Why is this behaviour not discouraged?

The mantra expressed by the Mods and Devs is like that of a hippie who’s smoked too much doobie: “You just be yourself man, side with whoever you want man it’s a free world! ‘Other players’ is just a social construct man they’re not real!”

Statements like the ones below are incredibly naive to the negative experiences behavior like the scenario above generates.

There’s a reason Alchs get a bad reputation despite everyone loving it when they play as them, it’s because this sort of behavior is not discouraged and consequently happens often.

The Alch win condition is described quite clearly: “Survive”. When you have an option where you have a 100% chance to survive and win the game, and you then choose a significantly worse option not only for you, but every other player that just wants the game to end so they can cast their MVP votes, collect their full gold, report a player, etc; why is there no rule, statement, or gameplay design that discourages players from doing that?

Pseudo-Kingmaker Alchs (Alchs that give their life to decide the victor) make every game objectively worse. It is honestly baffling that it has been allowed to happen for so long, and I am disappointed that the rules haven’t been changed to at the very least acknowledge this behavior creates no positive experiences ingame (with the exception of who Alch sides with).

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#2

Bad play does not equal throwing.

Alch not voting is bad only.

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#3

Maybe read the thread before replying?

#4

I mean don’t have to be rude about it.

i skim don’t read

#5

Makes sense for him to be upset though. Most likely took time to write the thread properly so it would be upsetting if someone doesn’t even read it to get an understanding of their point.

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#6

I put time into carefully writing this to discuss it properly, and not to repeat things I have already typed. Please extend the courtesy of reading what I have written before jumping in.

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#7

I read this. Answer is still the same. Alch can side with whomever he pleases. If he decided to try and help the NK, without Stoneskin available, then so be it. He took the chance and lost. Was it throwing against his win condition? Perhaps, problem is, neuts are only throwing against themselves, not dragging others down with them. They make the choice, good or bad.

I know I saw you in a game earlier, problem is, I’ve seen so many bad plays today that I am unsure which game it was. Regardless, I remember you making a terrible play. Were you the king who tried to get us to exe the inq claim D3-4, so we assumed evil and exe’d you as GK?

Either way, point is, you’ve made bad choices too. And I am 90% sure, if that king was you, that this topic is designed to try and have rules changed so you can report alchs who made you lose when “you could have won with me” as you said you hated neuts.

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#8

Haven’t read this fully, but what i got from this was that he just wanted the devs to discourage this kind of play, rather than punish it?

#9

I don’t really talk about that level of the game. The issue isn’t the kingmaking or the costing of one team the game. The issue is the needless prolonging of the game often to the detriment of the player doing it (as well as others who have to sit through it).

There’s a distinct difference between a risky and/or bad strategy and the scenario I outline. Strategies, particularly if they are taking place D3-4 as you describe, have an effect on the length of the game and a positive/negative impact on their faction depending if they succeed or not. Bad ones fail often, but the wild element may allow it to work; risky ones are hugely beneficial if they pay off.

When Alchs become ‘Pseudo-Kingmakers’, they are making a conscious choice to delay the game’s conclusion, often to their own detriment (and players who want the game to finish) solely because they personally want a single player or faction to win. This isn’t really an issue of throwing, which is why I dismiss the concept somewhat early in the original post.

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#10

Note: Saying this as player, don’t take this as me “shutting down the thread with my opinion” due to being a Moderator.

From what I can tell, the point boils down to wanting to encourage/make the Alchemist choose the “smartest” or “fastest” way to victory and thus not wasting the other player’s time. This seems to make sense when you think about this for any general class, regardless of if they can throw or not.

However, I myself believe that as long as you are behaving as a decent human being (which is achieved by following our rules) you do not have to care about if the other players have to stay longer until they can exit the game or hop into another round. Everyone that opened the game and joined this round has to expect that each round of ToL is going to take its fair share of time, due to the fact that every game flows differently.

So if one game takes 5 minutes longer because someone made an unusual choice that may not be optimal, I do not believe they have any grounds to complain – they joined the round, so they have to put up with the round, regardless of what happens (assuming people are adhering by the rules), alternatively they can leave if they do not wish to do so.

That is why I believe it is not and should not be discouraged.

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#11

Alchemists might also side with whoever showed them the most kindness or connected with them the most. That kind of psychological reciprocity is a human thing and should not be simply disallowed in social deduction games in my opinion. It fundamentally can change and alter the game, but simultaneously everyone is aware that this is how humans function, so that should level the playing field. Convincing the neutral to side with you is an art and I think it is part of the game.

Nonetheless I understand how rage inducing it is, when they do turn against you “for no logical reason”.

8 Likes
#12

You are basically just angry that the alch made you lose and want to be able to report them for that. It’s salt.

I’m sorry, and I did read your topic, but that’s all that comes across, the alch cost you the game because he never sided with the Unseen, which is his right. You can’t tell him how to play to that level of control.

It was a questionable decision perhaps, but like I said, you made one too, and you actually could be classed as throwing as you might have (or even did, I can’t remember) cost your faction the game.
(assuming I am remembering which game I seen you in correctly).

EDIT: And like Rob said, an extra few minutes costs nothing really. Dead don’t need to stay, you don’t need to vote a mvp etc, and you get gold regardless.

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#13

THIS. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve decided the game based on what has happened to me. Was the Prince nice when he jailed me, wasn’t an ass about me being an alch etc? Did the court try to put me up for “neuts out”? Did whatever evil it is attack me? All deciding factors. Sure, I could just run it the other way for fun, but usually, this is what I do.

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#14

I’m sure you’re aware of the common counters to this point. (Player might need to stay to report at the end of the game is the most pressing issue, this specific scenario is what causes me the most frustration). But they have alternative solutions such as adding the ability to report in the middle of a game to lessen the necessity of staying in a game.

Maybe discouraged was a poor choice of words to use. As an Alch, to achieve the highest possible winrate, you should be trying to end the game as fast as humanly possible. You don’t have to, but to achieve your goal, you should.

So something as simple as adding a tip in the alchemists description like “The longer the game goes on, the more at risk you are/Making sure the game concludes quickly will increase your chances of winning.” is discouraging that kind of behavior. The behavior doesn’t necessarily need to be discouraged with an iron fist.

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#15

Just a reminder since I feel like this could brew into arguments between you two:

Try not to ride on things like calling others salty or saying they just want to report others for not playing how they want too much. It seems like you aren’t even exactly certain as to whether the person that did these things is the same one as here.

#16

This obviously also isn’t an optimal solution, but when someone really does break the rules most of the time there won’t be only a single person wanting to report them. At the end of the day there will always be a few people that stayed around reporting said person, if the offense was harsh enough to make them want to stay.

Personally can’t say anything about this, isn’t really my territory.

I’m more in favor of adding a simple tip such as that. Your choice of words did indeed seem like you wanted us to explicitly call out people that they had to act one way or another.

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#17

Agreed. It’s why I’m an advocate for outlandish strategies and the importance of social related reads when judging who evils are.

That’s the thing. It’s sometimes not even me that’s the direct victim of the Alch switching allegiances. Sometimes I’m a dead BD sitting in a game waiting for it to conclude to report somebody only to have the game prolonged by up to 5 additional days when I’d quite honestly prefer to be playing a new game.

#18

I am not bothered if he was that King or not, if he wasn’t then it is only an example, if he was then he perhaps understands it more. There is nothing personal intended, aside from possibly just being an example of how anyone, including himself, can make a bad choice. Nothing against Necrolord himself and sorry if it comes across that way.

As for saying it’s salt, well, it kind of is. I feel this is born out of the annoyance and anger that was felt at that time, which I actually do understand, but at the same time it’s not something to advocate massive changes over, just to punish alchs who don’t play optimally. I’m pretty sure if he was the NK in the scenario the topic wouldn’t be made, he’d have been laughing and thanking the Alch.

Basically, Necro, I get what you are saying, I get you are probably annoyed about it, but at the end of the day, the alch did nothing wrong, it just feels worse cos he basically snatched a sure win from your hands. It will happen again, it will happen in reverse and one day you might be that Alch, but it happens. That’s all I can say.

Again, sorry if I’ve come across as personally attacking or anything.

#19

I don’t want it to be banned. The more restrictive rules are in a social game, the worse the game becomes. My game experience when this kind of thing happens, irrespective of whether I’m the victim of it, has been negative (with the sole exception of when the Alch sides with me or the faction I belong to). Can’t say I want it to be condemned either, but I’ve just never seen any of the staff acknowledge that it doesn’t really create a positive ingame experience for most players when it happens.

Can’t say I blame you for coming to that conclusion though. People assume the worst when Alchs are the topic of discussion
Case Study A:

#20

And with that, I am out, cos I actually explained why I believed this was the case, cos you lost as he wasn’t playing to help you. Like I said above, if you were the NK, would this topic have been made? Would you have complained about your win because the alch didn’t play optimally?

I never assumed the worst. I read your topic and gave my opinion based on the scenario you gave, you lost cos an alch never played how you wanted him to, an opinion that you are failing to deny is true or even address.