Changing what "Neutral Evil" is

[Soulshade55r]

Can I begin by saying what does define a "neutral evil" as a neutral evil, my idea would be someone who directly helps mafia and Nk not just a more evil sided NB.

Currently Neutral evil is a weird Neutral benign slot with a "Neutral evil" whats the point of removing NB in ranked if you already can get jester/Exe who have no actual obligation to side evils. Only reason why they would normally do is because scum is currently Under Powered in the ranked metagame.

My suggestion is similar to others but I actually think witches wincon is problematic in a way key word "Survive". This may make NE's win rates a lot higher but I'd argue that it's not unbalanced nor takes away from being NE, infact you can go even more wild and help scum more then you could ever before.

Jester/Executioner
Spoiler: Moved to Neutral Benign, not much said here they are both clearly Neutral and have no regards to if scum actually wins or not even if Exe does generally help evils more it doesn't mean they have a obligation to side Mafia/Nk, Jester is completely NB I won't be convinced otherwise.

Neutral Evil
Spoiler: Witch(Neutral Evil)
-During the night you are Immune to Non-Town attacks Once.
-You may control a player at night into another learning the players Role.
-You will be immune to role blocks
Goal: Make sure town loses at all costs.

Renegade(Neutral Evil)
-During the night you are Immune to Non-Town attacks Once.
-You may select a player at night scaring off Non-attacking visitors, you may not choose the same person
-You are Immune to role blocks.
Goal: Make sure town loses at all costs.

Another NE would be cool I wanna know if anyone has any ideas.

Quick Sheriff change.
Spoiler: Interrogating Nks will always come up as Innocent.
Interrogating NEs will come up as Suspicious now
This actually buffs both sheriff and sk/ww, not that sheriff is more reliable and has 4 potential finds instead of a 3/4 (sometimes depending on full moons), Nks are something I want to go over soon because I view nks as lacking in any capacity to be fun or winnable unless you get "dumb luck" and actually not having NE's that can side town works to fix this.

Give your reasons

[JacksonVirgo]

Full support here regarding rxenegade/Witch are two different and both powerful NE roles.
Unsure why NE's would appear as suspicious and NK's wouldn't. If anything it should be neither or just the NK's imo.

[Soulshade55r]

Full support here regarding rxenegade/Witch are two different and both powerful NE roles.
Unsure why NE's would appear as suspicious and NK's wouldn't. If anything it should be neither or just the NK's imo.

It's because I changed the wincon of NE you might have missed it but it doesn't need to survive to win in my version, being suspicious helps with a major flaw with the sheriff generally just being unreliable and buffs SK and WW indirectly without making sheriff even worse (it's currently the weakest Ti imo a little better, not saying sheriff is "super weak" but a little buff wouldn't hurt to go along with the change.)

I know a lot of people would have a massive problem with Ne's having a higher win rate but I personally don't think winrates define balance on it's own aslong as it's reasonable

[MysticMismagius]

I've touched on this in the balance thread so I'm going to just repost what I said there

I still don't think [Exe and Jest are] similar enough to NB roles to fit in the same category as them, names or no names
As far as game design goes if we ever have a reason to put an NB slot on a role list [which is going to happen soon as Achilles wants the NB slot back in Ranked], having Exe/Jest in there would cause the same problems as having them in NE, just in the opposite direction
Instead of being too potentially pro-town/low-impact for NE, they're now too potentially anti-town/high-impact for NB
So the problem of Exe/Jest's weird level and direction of impact on the game would just be kicked down the can rather than actually solved
If roles like these had their own category I might be down
Or fuck, even put them in NC with the likes of Pirate, and move PB to NK where it belongs

Exe/Jest are not really that close to NB as far as scum/anti-Town utility, considering what they do

It's more like they're smack dab in the middle. Wasting a lynching day and killing any random person (most likely a townie) or getting a random townie lynched is far more anti-Town than literally doing nothing to anyone and just trying not to die, or healing and protecting someone, but far less anti-Town than what Witch does.

With that said, I'd suggest either a new sub-alignment to separate Exe/Jester-like roles from Witch-likes, or moving Exe/Jest into Neutral Chaos

[Soulshade55r]

I've touched on this in the balance thread so I'm going to just repost what I said there

I still don't think [Exe and Jest are] similar enough to NB roles to fit in the same category as them, names or no names
As far as game design goes if we ever have a reason to put an NB slot on a role list [which is going to happen soon as Achilles wants the NB slot back in Ranked], having Exe/Jest in there would cause the same problems as having them in NE, just in the opposite direction
Instead of being too potentially pro-town/low-impact for NE, they're now too potentially anti-town/high-impact for NB
So the problem of Exe/Jest's weird level and direction of impact on the game would just be kicked down the can rather than actually solved
If roles like these had their own category I might be down
Or fuck, even put them in NC with the likes of Pirate, and move PB to NK where it belongs

Exe/Jest are not really that close to NB as far as scum/anti-Town utility, considering what they do

It's more like they're smack dab in the middle. Wasting a lynching day and killing any random person (most likely a townie) or getting a random townie lynched is far more anti-Town than literally doing nothing to anyone and just trying not to die, or healing and protecting someone, but far less anti-Town than what Witch does.

With that said, I'd suggest either a new sub-alignment to separate Exe/Jester-like roles from Witch-likes, or moving Exe/Jest into Neutral Chaos

I personally would mind even having exe/jester in a "Neutral deception" or something similar to that category, I mean neutral chaos could work aswell but I don't see jest/exe as stupidly unbalanced as vampires (Pirate too I guess pb is alright).

I'd definitely see exe help scum more actually but I just don't really see it in jester and not like town get hard punished for jester, while it is more likely to kill a town, town are less punished by a scum faction member death or god-forbid nks game just being deleted because jester felt like it.

Nb being in ranked sucks I don't know how that would really be balanced I love Surv/Amne but 9 town 3 maf, 1 ne, 1 nk and 1 Ne would generally hurt evils, the other way around is true and while we should nerf unfair things like jailor meta and retri I don't think we should be making towns numbers worse

I guess at least nk would get another maybe ally.

[MysticMismagius]

Spoiler:

I've touched on this in the balance thread so I'm going to just repost what I said there

I still don't think [Exe and Jest are] similar enough to NB roles to fit in the same category as them, names or no names
As far as game design goes if we ever have a reason to put an NB slot on a role list [which is going to happen soon as Achilles wants the NB slot back in Ranked], having Exe/Jest in there would cause the same problems as having them in NE, just in the opposite direction
Instead of being too potentially pro-town/low-impact for NE, they're now too potentially anti-town/high-impact for NB
So the problem of Exe/Jest's weird level and direction of impact on the game would just be kicked down the can rather than actually solved
If roles like these had their own category I might be down
Or fuck, even put them in NC with the likes of Pirate, and move PB to NK where it belongs

Exe/Jest are not really that close to NB as far as scum/anti-Town utility, considering what they do

It's more like they're smack dab in the middle. Wasting a lynching day and killing any random person (most likely a townie) or getting a random townie lynched is far more anti-Town than literally doing nothing to anyone and just trying not to die, or healing and protecting someone, but far less anti-Town than what Witch does.

With that said, I'd suggest either a new sub-alignment to separate Exe/Jester-like roles from Witch-likes, or moving Exe/Jest into Neutral Chaos

I personally would mind even having exe/jester in a "Neutral deception" or something similar to that category, I mean neutral chaos could work aswell but I don't see jest/exe as stupidly unbalanced as vampires (Pirate too I guess pb is alright).

*wouldn't?
When I suggested moving Exe/Jester into NC I was more thinking along the lines of Pirate
Making a new sub-alignment would probably be better, but just in case we're forced to stick with the sub-alignments that currently exist, I think Exe/Jester fit more with Pirate than they do with Surv/GA

I'd definitely see exe help scum more actually but I just don't really see it in jester and not like town get hard punished for jester, while it is more likely to kill a town, town are less punished by a scum faction member death or god-forbid nks game just being deleted because jester felt like it.

Exe and Jester are linked in this game, so I kind of have to lump them together
While I see your point, I still think that Jester following its win-con has more scum utility than something like Survivor
Not only do they kill someone, they also waste a day of lynching and confuse the Town in the process

Nb being in ranked sucks I don't know how that would really be balanced I love Surv/Amne but 9 town 3 maf, 1 ne, 1 nk and 1 Ne would generally hurt evils, the other way around is true and while we should nerf unfair things like jailor meta and retri I don't think we should be making towns numbers worse

I guess at least nk would get another maybe ally.

I agree, I just wanted to nip the potential "oh but NB isn't in Ranked so it doesn't matter if we move Exe/Jester there" argument in the bud

[Brilliand]

I don't think the devs will be willing to remove Exe/Jester from ranked. They're too popular.

I don't think we want to argue for removing Witch from ranked. Weakening evils is not the direction the game should be going in right now.

So I think our best bet is coming up with ways to "buff" the Exe/Jester to make them more like the Witch in terms of scumsidedness.

For the Jester, that could simply mean giving it the Throne of Lies "Fool" ability (instead of or in addition to its current ability). For anyone who doesn't know, that means that no lynching will be possible the day after the Jester is lynched - so the Jester wastes two lynches instead of one.

The main problem with the Executioner is the part where it turns into a true Neutral Benign after achieving its goal. I'm thinking the easiest solution to that is to have it die after winning, possibly with some sort of "parting blow" against the Town. Having this parting blow be "no lynching is possible for one day" (along with the Jester change above) would make Exe and Jester a perfect parallel (2 lynches wasted, resulting in one townie and one NE dead).

[MysticMismagius]

Oh boy I get to be real lazy tonight

Remapping the roles to some other alignment, even if that alignment exists in Ranked, is to make it so that the NE sub-alignment in particular is not so swingy depending on what role spawns without having to rework Exe/Jest or Witch. Jester in particular is very difficult to rework, because Jester is a well-established role in the greater scope of Mafia, and outside of some small tweaks, all forms of Jester work almost exactly the same: win-con is to get lynched, and when Jester wins they kill one person who participated in their lynching. Stray too far from that norm and what you get isn't really Jester anymore. That leaves us with very few options as to what to do with these roles if the issue with NE's swing is to be resolved. We can't rework Exe/Jest to be more like Witch, because Exe and Jester are intrinsically linked in this game, and we can't change Jester too much. We could tone down the Witch to be more like Exe and Jester, but I can already hear certain people frothing at the mouth for my bringing up the notion. So the only options that remain are to either leave the NE sub-alignment as it is, or to move Witch or Executioner and Jester to a different sub-alignment and create more NE roles that are in line with the new norm for NE.

We basically had this discussion in the balance thread

[Brilliand]

Jester in particular is very difficult to rework, because Jester is a well-established role in the greater scope of Mafia, and outside of some small tweaks, all forms of Jester work almost exactly the same: win-con is to get lynched, and when Jester wins they kill one person who participated in their lynching.

I haven't seen any such consistency. Yes, every Jester wins when lynched, but what they do to the other players varies widely from game to game:

• Town of Salem "Jester" kills someone when lynches
• Throne of Lies "Fool" skips the next lynch day when lynched
• EpicMafia "Fool" immediately ends the game with a loss for everyone else when lynched, but can win with Town instead of by being lynched
• MafiaScum wiki says that "the original variant" ended the game upon being lynched, but doesn't make it clear what the modern version does (maybe nothing?)

We basically had this discussion in the balance thread

We did, yeah. I think I pretty much agreed with you there, but this time I feel like arguing a different side.

Mostly because this time I started by considering the question from the OP "what does define a 'neutral evil' as a neutral evil", and starting with a different question resulted in a different answer.
I'm really not sure what is the best option, but reworking Exe/Jest is at least worth considering for the reasons I gave in my previous post, and it is an option despite what you say about Jester being a super-consistent role... because, well, it isn't a super-consistent role, and even if it was, since when is Town of Salem loyal to the established role mechanics from previous Mafia communities?

[Soulshade55r]

If jester/executioner was reworked into roles that had the actual "ne" wincon they wouldn't be jester/exe anymore, While they are fun roles ranked isn't about wacky fun or chaos ranked is about actual social deduction, scum reading ect. Yet their's so many problems right now due to how broken the meta is to top that swing play by roles like Exe/jester that just make evils get more annoyed and less willing to try which creates a snowball effect of no one really having fun especially when evils get unlucky early game but then roles exist that are easily confirmed to the point where evils are restricted in claim space that they cannot really help. I guess to that exe/jester is the least of our worries when it comes to fixing balance but Exe/jester maybe fun to play with but it's frustrating to actually deal with as evils when they side good it changes what a 9v6 should be into a 10v5 which is a big difference.

The type of players that like exe/jester are in general in the all any "market", right now I'll agree that not enough game modes use roles which already are underused, for example Neutral benign should be in more modes outside all any the problem is even classic is slow to fill queues up on some modes god forbid we go over adding modes to coven.

Jester becoming Tol fool could work, I don't think it should keep it's haunt ability alongside that though, In general Tol fool helps evils quite a lot buying them plenty of time. right now just killing someone at random while it more often hits town because town have higher numbers if it hits evils like I said it has a bigger effect on them.

Executioner dying after lynching town seems really unfun to me and to generally more "Casual" players. This also prevents evils from fake claiming Exe while you don't see it all the time it can work really well in the long-run (or backfire horribly once ne is truly discovered).

Side note:
Talking about "Casual" if we were to ever see a new "starndard" game mode I'd want something similar to ranked with a set role list that is mainly random slots for a more fun game mode that allows more obscure roles outside of all any. (generally could replace something bad like rainbow).

[FrenchyTheSphee]

Add Renegade so we kill this stupid jailor meta

[Brilliand]

While they are fun roles ranked isn't about wacky fun or chaos ranked is about actual social deduction, scum reading ect.
...
The type of players that like exe/jester are in general in the all any "market"

Good point.

Yeah moving Exe/Jest out of Ranked is probably a better plan than "ramping them up" to be witchlike.

Of course Coven absolutely requires that a new NE role be added before Jester/Exe can be removed - can't have the "Coven NE" category be empty. (Ideally that should have at least two roles, even.)
...On the other hand "add the neutral WItch role to Coven" isn't a completely crazy proposal.

[Soulshade55r]

While they are fun roles ranked isn't about wacky fun or chaos ranked is about actual social deduction, scum reading ect.
...
The type of players that like exe/jester are in general in the all any "market"

Good point.

Yeah moving Exe/Jest out of Ranked is probably a better plan than "ramping them up" to be witchlike.

Of course Coven absolutely requires that a new NE role be added before Jester/Exe can be removed - can't have the "Coven NE" category be empty. (Ideally that should have at least two roles, even.)
...On the other hand "add the neutral WItch role to Coven" isn't a completely crazy proposal.

I just think the people who do want to be jester/exe wouldn't want them to change but are the types of players not to be interested in actual ranked, it would be fine if their was a more casual ranked like role list, but I just think jester/exe play apart of the ranked balanced issue even if it's a small part, I don't think it's a bad thing to rework jester/exe but it might receive a lot of backlash because they are generally popular roles

I think making two new NE witch like roles would be perfect and if anyones got any other ideas I'd be interested

[Brilliand]

Incidentally, I don't think Vampires or Pestilence belong in Neutral Chaos. Pestilence is essentially a Neutral Killing, and Vampires are a legit faction like Mafia or Coven (albeit with only one role).

It would make sense to make "Neutral Chaos" consist of Pirate, Executioner and Jester, while PB/Pestilence go to Neutral Killing, and Vampires get a separate category all to themselves (so they won't roll in any random slot except "Any"). That would create a temptation to add more roles to the "Vampires" faction, but that could possibly be a good thing (we'd have to look at the exact proposals).

[Soulshade55r]

Incidentally, I don't think Vampires or Pestilence belong in Neutral Chaos. Pestilence is essentially a Neutral Killing, and Vampires are a legit faction like Mafia or Coven (albeit with only one role).

It would make sense to make "Neutral Chaos" consist of Pirate, Executioner and Jester, while PB/Pestilence go to Neutral Killing, and Vampires get a separate category all to themselves (so they won't roll in any random slot except "Any"). That would create a temptation to add more roles to the "Vampires" faction, but that could possibly be a good thing (we'd have to look at the exact proposals).

A actual vampire faction would be interesting, Like one that would be reworked to work in a way that makes then an entirely new thing then they currently are (of course keeping the convert aspect), Vampire Hunter should honestly become unique Neutral Benign (Or even chaos) with a lot of tweaks ect, if that was ever to happen. I also agree with you that Pb should become a Neutral killing they literally share the same goal and act like one. I might actually make a thread about a proper vampire faction (of course this is just my insane of hopes and dreams of future updates). Then again if something as bad as retri is getting overhauled I actually have a lot more hope then I used to that other roles will be given some care that need fixing or would be "awesome" getting a rework.

[Brilliand]

Vampire Hunter should honestly become unique Neutral Benign (Or even chaos) with a lot of tweaks ect, if that was ever to happen.

This I disagree with. Quite the opposite, I would favor merging Vampire Hunter into Sheriff, so that Sheriff is useful against every major anti-Town faction.

[Soulshade55r]

Vampire Hunter should honestly become unique Neutral Benign (Or even chaos) with a lot of tweaks ect, if that was ever to happen.

This I disagree with. Quite the opposite, I would favor merging Vampire Hunter into Sheriff, so that Sheriff is useful against every major anti-Town faction.

I don't like the idea of removing roles maybe this could be the one expection but I'd like sheriff to see non-youngest vamps as susp

[OreCreeper]

Moving jester and executioner into NB means they will no longer show up in Ranked, which is problematic, because now town has no fear of lynching suspicious players because they can't be jester, and evils basically can't discredit accusations from TI anymore because executioner no longer exists. Imo this is an indirect town buff (especially in Ranked) rather than an evils buff.

[Brilliand]

because now town has no fear of lynching suspicious players because they can't be jester,

Town had no fear of that anyway. It's not like the Jester is especially threatening right now.

and evils basically can't discredit accusations from TI anymore because executioner no longer exists.

Accuse the accuser of being Mafia.

[Soulshade55r]

Moving jester and executioner into NB means they will no longer show up in Ranked, which is problematic, because now town has no fear of lynching suspicious players because they can't be jester, and evils basically can't discredit accusations from TI anymore because executioner no longer exists. Imo this is an indirect town buff (especially in Ranked) rather than an evils buff.

Literally no fear of lynching jester anyway, it doesn't do much to hurt town, Town shouldn't be punished for lynching a scummy player in ranked anyway.

even so it's not jesters job to make town scared of lynching, it's infact evils job to make town lynch another town ect.

[videogamecin]

For one, the words "Neutral" and "Evil" are incompatible with each other if you ask me. They're neither "good" (Town) nor "bad", that's why they're called Neutral, am I right?
(or is it bc they're individuals? idk.)
Secondly: a. Jester is evil bc they're supposed to haunt an innocent soul after being lynched (which is why it is also stupid that Mafia and Neuts can also die of guilt),
b. Exe is evil bc they want to lynch an innocent Townie, and c. Witch is evil bc they only win alongside the evils...
but in reality, Jester and Exe can side with Town to return the favor (many do), but Witch can't.
Which means it is only the Witch who's truly "evil" in the sense of being an irreconcilable enemy of the good guys.
So why are they *all* in the one and the same category of NE? Doesn't make sense to me.
(Tbh, it doesn't make sense to call the Town 'the good guys' either. Most of the time they're the most dangerous faction to the Town lol.)

[Soulshade55r]

For one, the words "Neutral" and "Evil" are incompatible with each other if you ask me. They're neither "good" (Town) nor "bad", that's why they're called Neutral, am I right?
(or is it bc they're individuals? idk.)
Secondly: a. Jester is evil bc they're supposed to haunt an innocent soul after being lynched (which is why it is also stupid that Mafia and Neuts can also die of guilt),
b. Exe is evil bc they want to lynch an innocent Townie, and c. Witch is evil bc they only win alongside the evils...
but in reality, Jester and Exe can side with Town to return the favor (many do), but Witch can't.
Which means it is only the Witch who's truly "evil" in the sense of being an irreconcilable enemy of the good guys.
So why are they *all* in the one and the same category of NE? Doesn't make sense to me.
(Tbh, it doesn't make sense to call the Town 'the good guys' either. Most of the time they're the most dangerous faction to the Town lol.)

Generally I'm looking towards balance wise, "Neutral evil" should be doesn't really care who they side with aslong as they aren't town.

Generally Jester and Exe come across more "benign" they have their own goal that doesn't target a faction they just want to reach that goal, of course it might be a better fit for them to be in chaos, many players who do enjoy playing jester or like how jester controls votes (not much tbf) are generally not ones into "ranked" were the actual balance of the game matters.

[Brilliand]

For one, the words "Neutral" and "Evil" are incompatible with each other if you ask me. They're neither "good" (Town) nor "bad", that's why they're called Neutral, am I right?
(or is it bc they're individuals? idk.)

They're neither "Town" nor "Mafia", hence they're "Neutral". They're still evil, though.

Compare with the Neutral Killing, where the same principle applies only moreso.

[JacksonVirgo]

For one, the words "Neutral" and "Evil" are incompatible with each other if you ask me. They're neither "good" (Town) nor "bad", that's why they're called Neutral, am I right?
(or is it bc they're individuals? idk.)

Neutral is a spectrum in a sense
There's true neutrals (Neutral Benign) who are in it for their own win which is not categorized by a set other faction.
There's scum sided neutrals (Neutral Evil). Those who are neutral in who they side with but cannot with the good (town).
There's no town sided neutrals, they would be just called Town.

NK/NC are kinda far and inbetween those two categories.