Also bear prevents attackers. Reaper cannot bypass it.
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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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.)
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.
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.
Dude ditch Retribution and I’m super down with this tbh
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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.
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.
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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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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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.
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.)
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.
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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I’d roll those dice as an assassin. Especially if I wanted to get rid of the Hunter.
The King is a good leader but he is also not necessarily BD. King is the open scum leader, Hunter is the Open BD leader, Prince is the Hidden BD leader and MM/CL is the Hidden scum leader. King only works as a scum leader because usually he isn’t one, that does not negate the fact that he is not the BD’s main leader.
Actually that is knight. He does those jobs much better than the hunter does due to determining who the obvious targets are and making them risky rather than just being a risky target himself. That and his cold steel is unlimited use and instant which make is less conformable and better at dealing with an immediate threat.
Which is why we can only have 1 hunter. Too meny and PoE becomes possable.
Or you could just make him a bit less confirmable and let him play like the veteran he is based off of.
That’s why my solution would be to give other ways for people to bleed like that. If the hunter isn’s as easy to confirm then he either wont be trusted as much or they will put trust into someone other than the hunter.
Actually. Scratch this. The leader of the faction is that factions most competent member. Any class should be capable of leading but just some are better than others. Remember that there is exactly 1 BD class that doesn’t have any of the traits I said were needed in a leader.
The King is a good leader but he is also not necessarily BD.
That’s the point. Throne of Lies is a game about deception, trust, and cooperation; if you want to take a leadership role, you should have to either convince people to trust you, or should have to rely on others to protect you, with significant room for deception in each. The King should be as good as a leader as the game offers; anyone who could be a better leader - like the Hunter - is a mistake that is distorting the gameplay and should be corrected so they no longer have the ability to abuse their abilities in that fashion.
Actually that is knight. He does those jobs much better than the hunter does due to determining who the obvious targets are and making them risky rather than just being a risky target himself. That and his cold steel is unlimited use and instant which make is less conformable and better at dealing with an immediate threat.
Games like Throne of Lies have multiple classes that serve the same role, both because it makes gameplay more interesting and because it makes it harder for people to trivially deduce what’s going on. The Knight and the Hunter are both Killer roles, and both serve that same basic purpose. They are not Social roles, and shouldn’t generally serve to lead or unite the BD in even minor ways, since giving someone both the ability to kill, the ability to protect themselves, and the ability to lead results in individual people taking over the game and reduces strategic depth by making trust, deception, and cooperation less important.
Actually. Scratch this. The leader of the faction is that factions most competent member. Any class should be capable of leading but just some are better than others. Remember that there is exactly 1 BD class that doesn’t have any of the traits I said were needed in a leader.
Sure, but I think it’s particularly important to avoid leaders who can protect themselves, since that drastically reduces the amount of cooperation and trust that BD needs in order to win. (The King should be top-tier and unique in that respect, since he’s sort of intended to be ToL’s big unique thing, and since there’s various factors balancing him out.) I’d have no problems with Hunters being as good as eg. a Court Wizard at leading, but it’s something to be very, very careful about - not something to be celebrated and protected. Changes that make the Hunter worse at taking a leadership role (and generally more reluctant to reveal, and less trustworthy when he does) are a good thing.
I mean, to some extent this is a matter of taste. But I don’t think the ToS veteran was a good role overall, and it would be one I’d focus on revising into something else when making a new game. It was absolutely never intended to be a leader, absolutely hurts the game when it manages to do so, and “leader Veterans” or “leader Hunters” are mistakes that ought to be corrected.
Do you feel having “power” roles is a good thing, in general? I think they serve one and only one purpose - they make it so it matters who evils target (since they want to find and kill them rather than less important roles.) Power roles that can defend themselves don’t accomplish this and shouldn’t exist. The game should rely on cooperation, trust, deception, and interaction between people, not on one showboating player in a super-class handling everything.
But beyond that, I feel that Throne of Lies is meant to have the King as the leader - that’s the basic concept behind the game and what makes it unique among social deduction games. Having secondary classes that can act as leaders is generally a bad thing, and doing so should require multiple people working together. The Hunter is utterly unfit to be a leader role in this respect, and his ability to do so should be completely and ruthlessly removed - cauterized out so not even the smallest trace of it remains.
I am absolutely opposed to the idea of leader-Hunters on every level. It goes against everything about the role, it’s actively bad for the game, it leads to boring gameplay as soon as a Hunter is confirmed (which, in practice, you know happens very easily as a result of his uniqueness even when he doesn’t use bleeding).
I mean, let’s take a step back. What do you like about leader-Hunters? I’ve explained in detail why I think they’re bad for the game and why the Hunter should be revised in whatever ways are necessary to make that impossible (ideally, at the very least, starting with removing the ability of a bear to protect him from conversion - something what would force him to eg. rely on the CW, who could use the buff.)
You haven’t really explained why you like the idea of of them being able to lead beyond saying that you think it’s how it was intended (which I don’t think is true and which, either way, doesn’t really matter.) Like I said, to a certain extent it’s a matter of taste (eg. do you like games with one person leading everyone else or not), but I’m curious what appeals to you about it - I pretty much took it for granted that everyone realized leader-Veterans and leader-Hunters are bad things that emerged accidentally from the way those roles worked and which ought to be removed if possible.
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You seem to missunderstand. Being able to kill or defend yourself neciccaraly means you have the ability to lead. It’s simply the point of a BD killer. If you can figure out who is scum without social or Investigative powers than you can just call them out and have them killed during the day. The real point of targeted town night kills are to use as leverage. If you have leverage then you can force claims and if you can do that then you can lead.
Power roles serve 3 purposes.
They give evils a reason to hit one person over another like you said.
They give town a reason to safeguard one person over another which is similar to what you said.
And they give a good reason not to claim as BD.
Hunter is not a power class for the above reasons. Psychic, Prince and Sheriff/Pally serve that purpose just fine.
Leading is by far the most important and skill based thing you can do in the game. If only the King could do it then that would be locking out 15 other players from doing the most important task you can. In my mind the more ways for a class to be able to lead the better because everyone should at all times be trying to lead. This is because whichever faction has the dominant leader will win every time. Hunter is good because he is clearly designed to take the spotlight. This is itself good because dealing with a Hunter and not being delt with as Hunter can lead to some of the best mind game moment ever. That combined with the actual skill required to lead properly makes leading the most engaging part of the game
The reason why Hunter should be balanced to be a good leader is this:
If I am Unseen/Cult and I see someone leading I think “I should convert him and if I cannot I should kill him”
If I am good at scum reading and know the above I think “I cannot help much if I am dead so I will keep quiet for now”
this leads to everyone being silent and at best just feeding whispers to the king and letting the king do all the work. Now lets play this again but with the Hunter as a thing.
If I am Hunter I think “Hunter is good for leading so I will try and lead”
If i am scum I think “That person leading might be Hunter. We should convert someone else for now and bait out his bears”
If I am good at scumreading I think “If I try and lead they might think I am Hunter and be scared off. So I will state my suspicions and get my read killed”
If I am still scum I think “Oh shit! They have a strong leader in play and he might be hunter. I should try and speak up more myself so that I can take control from him or at least distract BD enough so we can get him to waste his bears and convert him!”
Basically the possibility of a hunter who is expected to lead encourages everyone of both factions to try and take to spotlight rather than shy away from it. The king is not the only one who should have the spotlight but rather he is the one that starts with it. Others trying to wrestle control over the leader position (not just the king position) is what makes the game fun and exiting. It is what gets everyone talking and stops the game from being a whisper fest of the king being the only one who can experience the fun of being the leader.
AKA: Hunter should be a better leader because that makes everyone a better leader. Everyone being a leader is inherently good.
However one thing we do agree on is his confirmability. I don’t think it should be MM/Assassin/CL but it should be possible for both factions to produce the hunter bleed message and thus make this entire thing more interesting by giving some doubt to his class when he finally does claim.