Make Hunter non-unique, reduce Bear uses

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

The uniqueness of Hunter makes them generally too dangerous for people to fakeclaim; this is annoying, since they’d otherwise be a very usable claim (they can prove by bleeding someone, but that takes a night and carries risks; and of course people are reluctant to execute Hunters for obvious reasons.) In particular, the uniqueness of hunters leads to situations where you can deal with two hunter claims by just making one vote first against the other.

I assume the reason for their uniqueness is their bear; but they have other abilities, too, so I think it’d be fine to reduce the number of bear uses they’ve got a bit in exchange for making them non-unique.

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#2

How many uses would bear be reduced to. I think this would work if it was one bear. It would be a more valuable resource, since it is near impossible to kill an innocent with a bear.

#3

One or two, either way. I tend to err on the side of less dramatic changes, so I’d probably go for two and see if it feels too powerful, then reduce it to 1 if it turns out it is.

Remember that making the Hunter non-unique is already a nerf for the Hunter to an extent, since it makes it harder for them to prove themselves (and more likely BD will screw up and mislynch one, eating an arrow retribution in the process.) I’m not sure that that’s balanced out by Hunter being a powerful role - it honestly doesn’t feel hugely powerful to me. Yes, it’s stronger than eg. the ToS Veteran (which is a strong class in that game), but almost all ToL roles are stronger, and all evils factions convert so killing individual ones is worth less. Among the NKs, it fails to kill Reapers who have a spare soul (and can even die to them if they empower), and can kill innocents if up against a Possessor.

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#4

Anyone who thinks that Hunter is weak is not playing Hunter right. He is a power class for this reason. There are 3 things you need to play agressivly and lead people. You don’t need all 3 but more is better:

1: Conformability - Wolf
2: Defence - Bear, Retribution,
3: Leverage - Wolf, Retribution

Let’s take a look at some other power classes

Prince:

Conformability: Jail
Defence: None
Leverage: Jail, Execute

Psychic:

Conformability: Telepathy, Link minds
Defence: none
Leverage: none

1.0.16 sheriff:
Conformability: None
Defence: Survalence
Leverage: None

King:
Conformability: King*
Defence: Guards
Leverage: Execute, Decide fate

*Only proves class. He cannot truly confirm his faction

From that chart alone you can clearly see that Hunter is the best class for openly directing people. King is the only one who comes close. For the record:

Conformability gives people a reason to trust you. If people can trust you then they are more willing to give you info even if they are scum.

Defence: If someone is going around and demanding claims and coordinating people he is a top priority convert/kill for scum. If you die then you can’t help or lead.

Leverage: Not everyone is going to talk. Even if you are trustworthy Information can be gained forcefully. However if the alternative is death then that makes it much more likely that you will talk even when you are scum. It is the reason why vote for class can work.

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#5

Also bear prevents attackers. Reaper cannot bypass it.

#6

I think they’d have to rework retribution if it became a non-unique. Games would be swingy with two hunters as you have twice the chance to die to retribution.

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#7

Perhaps we also need another class that bleeds people at night… or, alternatively, a class that fake certain messages at night.

Perhaps “fake bleeding” and “fake poison” would also be healable and would produce a normal heal message when healed; but if you lived until you were supposed to die, and you aren’t killed by something else that night, then you get a message saying it was fake instead. Perhaps the The Herbalist could get it as an improvement to Drug, although I don’t know if they appear often enough.

However, I have to say that in my experience, few hunters are actually forced to prove by bleeding people. Much more often is “I’m the hunter. Anyone want to CC? No? Ok, I’m confirmed.” And that’s a product of his uniqueness.

Again, uniqueness makes classes more powerful. An individual hunter is much stronger when he’s known to be unique. The idea that you can limit the power of a class by making it unique is usually a mistake. It’s not a problem for the Prince or Psychic (who are trivially confirmable with no effort), but for everyone else it’s a substantial buff, since it basically lets you prove at any time with little effort or risk. Yes, there are some circumstances where people will CC with a lie - mostly Fools - but it rarely comes up. In practice unique classes usually just have to announce their class to become confirmed.

EDIT: Another possibility. Wolf attacks don’t take effect immediately; instead, the wolf will hit someone shortly after the next day begins - make the timing slightly random, so people can’t determine if it was a Hunter by knowing exactly how many seconds after the start of the day it should happen, of course. It can still be blocked by anything that would block the attack now, but if it goes through, there’s no message immediately, and the actual bleed happens the next day. That way, it would be indistinguishable from a Cultist attack. Granted, this still wouldn’t work in Unseen games, but it would make things a bit better. (Note that we can’t actually make the wolf a Day ability because that would make confirming even easier. But making it a night ability that takes effect the next day means that a cultist can credibly fake Hunter.)

#8

I had tones of games when I faked hunter, I think most of the games doesn’t even have hunter,
or had a hunter but he was converted and unnoticed…

If you want to make hunter non-unqiue to buff unseen/nk, so why would you nerf the hunter by reducing the bear?

3 bear uses aren’t that much, as alot of games tend to end in 7-8 nights.

I don’t think hunter needs any rework, if you want to make him non-unique, just do it.

#9

This actualy doesn’t work for the Hunter. This is because he isn’t guarenteed. It wouldn’t even work for Prince if he wasn’t guarenteed.

Still wouldn’t work. Wolf kills faster that bleed and that solution is just clunky.

#10

Dude ditch Retribution and I’m super down with this tbh

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Fighting "he could be fool" as scorned
#11

As for the fake bleed/fake poison. There used to be a class called the Acolyte for the cult who had a fake poison, he could be added with a fake bleed instead. And we could give the Herbalist a fake poison.

#12

What I dislike about Hunter is how hard it is to convert him. I would like him to have less bears so we can have more Poachers. Poacher is an amazing class that can really wreck BD with Snare Trap but do you ever see it? I’ve maybe seen it once or twice.

#13

One thing that people seem to forget is that the less likely something evil sided is to happen the more useful it is when it does. Part of the power of a poacher is that you can simply point out that Hunter’s are rarely converted to help throw off suspicion of you being converted.

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#14

Fair point.

#15

Dude ditch Retribution and I’m super down with this tbh

Retribution is interesting, though! I like it because it’s a double-edged sword; especially if Hunters are harder to confirm, it becomes much more possible for evils to trick BD into losing two people with a single mislynch.

What I dislike about Hunter is how hard it is to convert him. I would like him to have less bears so we can have more Poachers. Poacher is an amazing class that can really wreck BD with Snare Trap but do you ever see it? I’ve maybe seen it once or twice.

Well, another option would be to have bears fail to stop conversion.

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#16

I don’t like this idea. It would negate the risk of trying to deal with a Hunter. It is bad enough that he doesn’t kill them.

#17

Maybe, but the flip side is that it would discourage Hunters from revealing themselves too casually in the first place. I feel it’s useful to give BD a reason not to just reveal themselves, since otherwise having as many BD as possible claim becomes a dominant strategy.

(Granted that everyone claiming to the king seems to be the meta right now given that he’s usually good.)

#18

I just went over why the whole point of the Hunter is to be an exception.

#19

Unlike everyone else the Hunter is designed to act in the open and be loud and proud about what you are doing. If we punish that by making him an easy conversion target then we eliminate his purpose.

#20

I mean, it’s not 100% proving yourself, no. But if it happens while there’s still a decent number of people alive, it’s pretty strong, since any evils would be rolling the dice with their life to fakeclaim Hunter when a real one might be present.

I don’t agree. I think that that’s an accident of the way the Hunter’s powers work. The King is supposed to be the leader, not the Hunter. (And, to an extent, the Psychic and Prince, although the Prince obviously doesn’t reveal themselves if they can avoid it.) The Hunter’s purpose is to eliminate evils who are too obvious or who attack obvious targets, increasing tactical depth and forcing the game to play out the way it’s suppose to by making them consider the risk of bears and wolves.

Generally speaking, I feel that making it too easy for BDs prove themselves and lead while confirmed is bad for the game, and it’s especially bad when they can confirm themselves, protect themselves, and kill others all purely with their own abilities.

If you want a role to lead like that, it should have to be the King (who the BD has to decide if they want to trust or not) or the Psychic (who has to rely on others to protect them or to kill others for them.) Combining proving, self-protection, and killing into one role is a bad idea because it allows the Hunter to accomplish too much without relying on others and because the simple act of having the Hunter step up reduces the space where evils can hide while leaving them relatively little wriggle-room.

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