NightX rants about Neutrals

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

Alchemist/Neutral King

I find the Neutral King and Alchemist very boring classes. They generally promote very passive and BD sided play, since they are the biggest faction, until the Unseen/Cult/Neutral Killer gets the upper hand.

Alchemists, at least good ones, are basically Physicians early game. There is little reason not to keep them, since they can heal you. And for Unseen/Cult/NK, killing them is not killing a sworn enemy. Alchemists have no motivation, so they will do as they please. And they can’t be converted, so in that way they are better than a Physician.

As I have heard NuclearBurrito complain about, you can’t usually tell a Good and Neutral King apart. They are basically good early game, and just flip if the Blue Dragon is losing.

What I’m saying is, being Alchemist/Neutral King is not a challenge.

I do feel survival is an interesting goal, but not on classes that are only good for the Blue Dragon. I do think a someone who had to survive, but was harmful, like the Carrier in Pestilence Forum of Lies Game, could be interesting, as people would want to get rid of you.

But I feel just a plain survival goal is boring, promotes passive play, and adds very little to the game.

One of the things I love about Neutrals is their interesting and diverse goals, but Alchemist/Neutral King are not interesting.

Possessor/Reaper/Mercenary

Possessor and Reaper are cool.

Mercenary is being reworked.

No need to complain :frowning:

Fool/Scorned

Trollbox is not needed. You can win games fine without it. It is an unnecessary buff, on classes I think are already too strong.

Frame is also unneeded. Just make shitty logs as Fool, or whatever logs as Scorned, and everyone just laps it up. Hide is good for Fool, however.

We really need to some make the goal harder, otherwise they are one of the easiest wins in the game. However, we can’t really give them no abilities, either.

Anyways, something needs to change.

Sorcerer and Inquisitor

My least favorite Neutral classes.

First, Inquisitor. Their goal is the easiest in the game, just have the Sorcerer lose. They don’t even need to be alive, so their goal is always easier than the BD’s. It should either be a BD class, or have to live to see it, or maybe do it themselves. Otherwise, its goal is way too easy.

Now, the dynamic. It is an interesting one. However, here are my objections:

The Neutral Killer is the most powerful class in the game. And yet, Inquisitor can easily kill them at night. If the Inq just guesses, they have a 1/14 chance of just winning.

I also think it is way too friendly for a Neutral. Its win condition is linked to the BD’s, so they are always allies. This isn’t a goal the Inquisitor has no support for, it has ALL of the support.

I prefer @Cuatrolan Silver Hand and Dark Hand idea, since the Blue Dragon and Unseen/Cult have no stake in the matter.

The scale is also huge. It is the freakin Neutral Killer, and the fact that some Neutral can just kill it is very swingy.

I feel this dynamic really needs to be reworked a bit. It’s cool, but I think some things just need to change.

In addition, the Reaper and Possessor are great classes since they have no side. They are a one man army, out to fend for themselves. Sorcerer is something else entirely.

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#2

I feel like the sorcerer AND Inquisitor should be NK’s that also need to kill each other but win with Unseen.

#3

I agree with what you said about Neut king.

Alch isn’t a big deal here as you have tools besides scum reading to spot one. They might need a Nerf but a rework is unnecessary.

I’ll get to work on drafting what I want the Inquisitor/Sorcerer to be if they both become NK.

#4

I think we need other names than Silver Hand and Dark Hand, but the concept is far better than Inq/Sorc in my opinion.

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#5

NKs should be against the Unseen/Cult.

It’s part of the NK and Cult/Unseen dynamic.

I really like both as NKs.

1 Like
#6

Survival when they are always good to have sucks.

In fact, I think they should be forced fake claim since their goal should be hard.

They definitely shouldn’t be a healer. There is no good reason to get rid of them most of the time.

#7

I disagree here. One strong reason to having a BD sided Neutral is to make Neutral Peeks less sus. He exists for that reason.

#8

Tbh Observer shouldn’t have Peak. We don’t need faction checks. Maybe just make it a Sheriff?

Besides, if Merc loses notifications, it is also generally BD sided.

Alchemist should actually have to try hard, instead of claiming and no one bothering to kill them.

#9

We could make him a pinyata for evils with a Negitive, on death passive.

#10

Eh, I guess.

I think it would be cooler if it was passively harmful, like the Carrier in the Pestilence game.

Or maybe there would be some bonus for executing it.

#11

Not for execution. Trust me the more BD sided he is without being confirmable the less trustworthy he is. This is because it makes him a better fake claim so the odds of him being faked go up and thus his suspicion.

#12

Then it’s just like claiming CW or Knight

#13

Yep. Believe it or not but an early D1-2 CW or Knight claim is usually the truth btw.

#14

I know.

But no neutral should be basically BD like Alchemist or Neutral King.

#15

Inq and Sorc need to be reworked structurally. They’re still treated as “Neutrals” when they’re functionally not at all.

I strongly disagree that Neut King or Alch are essentially BD.

I really enjoy playing as Alch/Neut King because I have to adapt to the tides of the game, choosing if or when to shift allegiances. If I’m Alch and too outwardly helping BD, I get killed by Evils. There should be roles that are supposed to be more background players until they make their move. That’s a good thing. Maybe it doesn’t tickle some players’ fancy, but I happen to love it.

Neutral King is enjoyable for me because although you have to play like Good King at the beginning, there should always be the small doubt from the BD toward the king. Is he Good or just Neut? Will he turn on us if we’re in a bad spot? I like that sense of unpredictability from both the perspective of BD and King.

I think there’s a danger in wanting every role to be powerful or an early-game power. I would argue the opposite: That we need to value mid-to-late-game classes more. Knight is extremely strong late-game. Alch is a kingmaker (no pun intended) late-game. We should have that variety, not shy away from it.

As I said in another thread, I don’t think Merc needs reworking at all. But if they’re for sure doing it, I’m interested in what they decide.

#16

@NuclearBurrito came up with a good rework. You can find it here with a bunch of other ideas. I think it has promise.

Evils should never kill an Alchemist claim, regardless of who they help. If they kill him, they aren’t killing a sworn enemy, and are thus wasting their time. Alch will flip if you are winning, so you shouldn’t bother. Or they could be the NK or other neutral, and you still wasted your time. Same with a Neutral King.

Not saying all classes should be powerful early game.

I think Kingmakers shouldn’t be encouraged. Even if we have them, they shouldn’t be promoted.

#17

This is like the third anti-neutral thread you’ve created in a week. Could you stop, or at least try to confine it to one thread? It feels like you’re trying to make it look like there’s a big problem by making a bunch of threads. You already have a thread about the Alchemist / Neutral King specifically, so what’s the point of saying the exact same things here?

Alchemist is mostly fine and serves a vital role; they have to balance pretending to be a Physician (which calms the Town but makes them a target for evils) with avoiding dying at night (which is easier if they can signal to evils that they’re not BD.) A few small tweaks might be possible (making them convertable, say), but I’ve mostly found them fun to play and to involve interesting decisions by the BD. If you really, really hate them, you could reduce their stoneskin charges, but I would be pretty heavily opposed to any deeper rework.

Trollbox is one of the most fun and interesting powers in the game. And again, what do you mean by “too strong?” Too strong compared to what? They’re supposed to be strong in order to increase the chance of BD mislynches and to add additional distrust. This is the part of your post I disagree with most strenuously - nerfing Scorned / Fool is a terrible idea, and your argument that they win too much means nothing. Who cares? They win or lose on their own terms, so it’s not connected to anything else. All that matters is that they have the required impact on the game, which they do (and which your suggestions would take away from for really terrible reasons.)

ToL is an asymmetric game. It’s fine for different roles to have different winrates as long as they’re all reasonably fun to play and serve their purpose in the meta; and most of these are working fine - even if you are not enjoying them, I think most people are.

Basically, I’ve said this to you over and over, but I’m going to keep saying it until it gets through: Stop looking at suggestions solely from the perspective of someone playing that role. Most of the things you’re suggesting here would be really bad for the meta, weakening the main purpose that those roles serve for little real benefit beyond a vague sense that you, personally, do not have fun playing them (or get upset when you see people winning easily with them? I just can’t follow your logic.)

Easy / hard is not a good argument on its own and is mostly a terrible reason to tweak a neutral class in particular. What matters is how they affect the entire game - whether they add depth to the decisions made by BD, Cult, Unseen, the NK, etc. Most of the roles you’re attacking here are serving their purpose pretty well, and your suggestions would put that at risk that for very bad reasons.

3 Likes
#18

You really should stop talking about how easy or hard it is to win as a class. You don’t know what the win rates are. Just because a class is easy for you to win as doesn’t mean it is easy for others. You say the Fool and Scorned are too easy when both have roughly a 30% win rate.

This is my problem with a lot of people’s suggestions or reworks. They only consider themselves. What they think would be fun. What they think is too easy. What they don’t like. There’s thousands of other people playing this game. I have to consider everyone when I make a single change.

I welcome suggestions and rework ideas. It’s just if you want to have a higher chance of your idea being implemented in-game you need to consider these things.

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#19

Would you be able to give us info on win rates? Like, I suspect that Sorc has the lowest but I can’t say that confidently. I’m also surprised to hear the win rates for Fool/Scorned are as high as 30%

I’d ask for class design intention too but I think the benefits of differing views on that are useful.

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#20

Well the next patch is likely gonna shake things up and is close to being ready for testing, so current win rates don’t matter too much. I can release the win rates after the patch has been out for a while if someone reminds me.

Sorcerer does have a slightly higher win rate, 15%, than the other NK’s, but they’re all pretty low atm.

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