Competetive/Ranked gameplay ideas

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

Rules

  1. I would like this topic to gather all ideas, thoughts, feedback and comments about competetive/ranked gameplay ideas.
  2. Do not talk about “if competetive is needed”. Do not cry or shout that current game mode is fun and enough and that ranked idea is bad.
  3. Avoid writing opinions like “i love the idea”, “i hate the idea”, without backup of thought-through arguments.
  4. If you’d like me to extend/correct something in this post - send me a message instead of commenting.

Reasoning

Casual players are fine with no ranked system. It’s ok. They don’t like pressure to win. They want to be happy after either win/lose. That is why a lot of players will tell you - there is no need in creating ranked system.

They are wrong. Other group of players, usually called by game devs “hardcore”, don’t actually want just “fun” from game. They want to develop and be best in it. They care about win/lose and they also don’t want to play in group with players, who are casuals, make many mistakes and just want to chill and have fun during the game. What drives them is - challange and competition.

Hardcore players won’t play the game because of graphics, gold, levels - although many of them will still buy stuff. They just care about developing best strategies and growing in ranking. If game doesn’t have this - they will quit playing it in few weeks or months. Otherwise - they can play the game without any patches many hours everyday for years - without actually getting bored.

I’m quite sure devs are aware of that, but my conclusion is - there may be more casual players, than hardcores - but hardcores are those, who will play the game 8h/day for next few years and they will keep it alive, by being constant players.

Rankeds may not be #1 priority, but it definitely should be set high.

Goals

To make a good competetive mind-conversion-psychology game, I think few assumptions should be set.

Clear, immutable goal
Every role should have quite clear goal from start and random factor (like being converted) should not dramatically change situation of the player. Otherwise their efforts in early-game are in opposition to their late-game goals. That means - player with “convertable roles” will just afk/dont care about early-game at all - what many people actualy do.

Town of Salem developers decided to remove vampire and role-changing for a reason and even it’s currently core mechanics of evils in Throne of Lies - I suggest you do same in rankeds. The Golden Mean could be allowing Mastermind/Cult Leader only to change 1 person per game and only during first 3 nights. This way people would not go over-aggresive with “vfr” or similar strategies early, as they could still be turned.

Minimalizing randomness and making game Team vs Team instead Chaos

  1. BD should have:
  • 1x Prince
  • 1x Paladin/Sheriff
  • 1x Killer
  • 2x Investigative (excluding Paladin/Sheriff)
  • 1x Social
  • 2x Support
  • 2x Offensive
  1. Evils should have:
  • 1x Mastermind/Cult Leader
  • 1x Assassin/Cult Killing Role
  • 2x Support/Investigative/Offensive
  • 1x Turned by Mastermind/Cult Leader as stated above
    The good option is to introduce new faction specially designed for ranked gameplay.
  1. Neutrals:
  • 1x Random
  1. King should be considered “support” - so if king would be evil/bd - evils/bd would have 1 less Support.

In such setup, in general it would be 5 vs 10 + 1 game. With good balance of skills it should be ~50% win chance for each faction.
Neutral would have least chance to win, so he should gain a lot elo for win and lose few for lose.

Second factor of elo-impact should be day-of-death. If somebody died early - he shouldn’t lose nor gain much elo.

#2

I would definately watch a ToL competetive game for the pure unending salt but would rather put my balls in a blender than be part of a ranked scene.

Hope this is the sort of inciteful thought-provoking comentaries you were after. I somehow doubt it.

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#3

inb4 I’m a “casual player” lmao

Ranked in ToL is a bad idea, period. Not because the current is “fun enough” or anything silly like that, but because a competitive game with conversions has already failed at its purpose.

Restricting conversions may well do the job, and is something I have considered, but that basically throws ToL into a state of identity crisis that a growing game cannot afford to find itself in.

5 Likes
#4

I asked in rule section to not post comments exactly like that. Please stay to the rules.

ToS competetive play is awesome and there are hundreds of players competing everyday. Except that game sucks hard from technical point of view and elo system doesn’t work well because it is stupidly written and hackable.

The community in ToS isn’t even as toxic, as it used to be fe. in League of Legends. And League of Legends isn’t conversation-based game. Your argument is hardly invalid. Conversation games can be really good in competetive play, but I agree, that of course, they will never be good to watch on twitch or to organize tournaments for public.

P.S. Hardcore players do not give a damn about insulting, bad behavior etc. They won’t cry and report because somebody said “shit” or “fu” in the game. They just live with that because such is a nature of billions of people on the internet. They definitely prefer to play with unpleasent, aggresive and vulgar players who are hardly focused on game though, then just a bunch of guys who afk for half of game and for the other half do random stuff not even trying to think logically.

#5

The amount of gamethrowing reports that would occur from ranked play would be overwhelming.

You could play a fantastic game as a Blue Dragon member and be the sole reason your faction wins except you get converted in the end and lose. People WILL gamethrow, intentionally or not, in order to save their ELO.

4 Likes
#6

So before we even begin pondering what a ranked playlist would be like, we need to solve the more complex problem of human nature vs. rules in a game with conversion.

4 Likes
#7

The thing I like about ToL is no public rolelist, it allows way much more Claimspace

#8

There will always be people who will get their say in regardless what rules you personally state in your OP. I for one believe it’s healthy to have an opinion like that.

I for one believe Throne of Lies does not need a competitive/ranked game mode. But there is always room for it. I just don’t think there is an easy way to go about it with a game that has conversions etc.

5 Likes
#9

I for one, hate Comp in games. (I’ve had my fair share of ToS ranked games, along with a bit of OW comp) The toxicity that comes from ranked is something I wouldn’t like to see in this awesome community.

#10

@Sketch
You didn’t read my post. I resolved issue with role-changing and few others.

@Ami
And I love Comp in games. Everyone likes something else. Freedom of choice is always best. Do not be casual-nazi who just doesn’t want hardcore players to have fun in Throne of Lies and don’t be telling em “you don’t like casual style? quit back to ToS”.

#11

Although I like the idea of ranked I do not like the way you suggested to go about it.

The suggestions you gave would bring the game down to be more like ToS. This is a bad thing. Things like VFC would happen and ruin what makes this game unique.

The way to fix a mechanic like conversation is not to remove or limit it but rather to give it counterplay. I’m not sure what that would be beyond CW and such but one example is the idea that someone who is acting great for BD has more trust from the good guys if converted.

#12

I’d rather have a system where you naturally progress through “ranks” based on playtime
If they implemented an xp system and ranked you with people with roughly the same experience you can still avoid playing with newer players but the devs would not have to redesign their entire game around ranked.

#13

Lemme break down some stuff that you said that I didn’t like/Agree with

Saying that is a very bold move, as most players here are here to play the game casually, the game is already hard on its own, so they can just improve through Casual play. Also, it may discourage them from playing Ranked because of such ideals.

Inevitable. Happens to me all the time, doesn’t matter if it has a ranked environment or its a casual environment, it’s a way of life, people get bored one way or another.

This nerfs the entire evil side COMPLETELY! You are almost guaranteed to lose the game with that special condition, as you can only change either 1 person or only change 2 people, making it very difficult to achieve if you get jailed/Occupied or unable to convert.

Seems pretty okay, but there are only 2 offensive BDs in the game: Butler and Drunk, so I say you get more Supports or Killers instead. 1 offensive would be handy though, so leave that be.

The first two already spawn normally, except for the cult killing role, which I should remind you DOES NOT EXIST! Having a Seeker would be more beneficial.

As a spawn or generally? Very vague description in my opinion. As for the 2x Support/Investigative/Offensive, remember that you can only have 3 Unseen at a time and 4 Cult at a time, And starting out with max classes renders Master Mind almost useless, as his main strength is to convert. As for the last one, it cant happen with the one before it.

So basically a guaranteed lose. As for the King, I would like to maybe have that second Offensive role switched out for King.

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#14

The come I have played. This is my personal opinion . It may not be yours, and I respect that. If you do limit the role changing, I feel ToL would be a schizo when it comes to modes.

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#15

Altering the 100% core mechanic of conversion would break the games balance in so many ways it would be basically designing a whole new game. It’s also ToLs USP so not really great from a marketing pov.

Not altering conversion would lead to endless salt at being denied elo after carrying BD, especially as better BD are more likely to be converted.

1 Like
#16

I mean, at the start it is obviously going to be chaotic. I do partially agree with you though, but I think it should be for Casual rather then Ranked.

#17

You resolved the issue by saying we should make an entirely new game that doesn’t involve conversion. Do you have any actual suggestions on how to fix this issue?

#18

@NuclearBurrito
Game is currently super-random based. No quality of playing, skill, intelligence, etc. can bring you a victory. Never ever. You are just lucky or not. Maybe there are other ways to make game logically-based than just a role list and finding “impossible claims” with preventing vfr and other conversation-based overpowered strategies, that break up the balance, but I tried to make my solution easy to implement and to require minimal amount of changes from devs.

If we are looking for better gameplay ideas/scenarios of rankeds - they can mean rework of 3/4 of classes and many gameplay aspects. That would be opposite to my intentions.

@Hippolytus
It wouldn’t resolve the issue at all.

@Insert_Cancer_Here

Cytat
Saying that is a very bold move, as most players here are here to play the game casually, the game is already hard on its own, so they can just improve through Casual play. Also, it may discourage them from playing Ranked because of such ideals.

You find it wrong that some players will be discouraged from playing rankeds? Ya know, casuals would still be there and… there is nothing wrong in choosing other game mode than ranked?

Cytat
Inevitable. Happens to me all the time, doesn’t matter if it has a ranked environment or its a casual environment, it’s a way of life, people get bored one way or another.

Not true. I watch a lot of researches on youtube, read articles on gamedev websites etc. Casuals quit games much more often and faster - and almost never stick to one game (playing it a lot almost everyday) for few years. Of course it’s just statistics.

Cytat
This nerfs the entire evil side COMPLETELY! You are almost guaranteed to lose the game with that special condition, as you can only change either 1 person or only change 2 people, making it very difficult to achieve if you get jailed/Occupied or unable to convert.

That’s why they would always have 4 members on start + 1 member turned in next 3 nights. And they should be allowed to kill 1 target everyday limitlessly or almost limitlessly. Yes, that would require small changes to skills. But seriously. My suggestion isn’t 20 paged pitch document describing all small things that actually should happen with such changes. I leave some obvious things to deduction.

Cytat
Seems pretty okay, but there are only 2 offensive BDs in the game: Butler and Drunk, so I say you get more Supports or Killers instead. 1 offensive would be handy though, so leave that be.

3 Supports and 1 Offensive is actually quite good idea. Also “total random bd” - from invest/support/offensive BDs could be considered in place of 1 offensive.

Cytat
As a spawn or generally? Very vague description in my opinion. As for the 2x Support/Investigative/Offensive, remember that you can only have 3 Unseen at a time and 4 Cult at a time, And starting out with max classes renders Master Mind almost useless, as his main strength is to convert. As for the last one, it cant happen with the one before it.

I do not actually see a way to make game “immutable clear-goal” with just 3/4 evil members limit. That would be required to change.

Cytat
So basically a guaranteed lose. As for the King, I would like to maybe have that second Offensive role switched out for King.

Neutral would be almost-guaranteed lose. But they introduce some required randomness and broader claim-space. And they are also quite fun to play. Personally I would give them night immunity for first 3 nights, because dieing randomly as neutral sucks. And if you’re talking about king - he would be almost-guaranteed dead quick if not protected, not really lose, because he can win being dead like everyone else. Maybe my king idea should be rethought, but I wouldn’t like him to impact fairness of game (making it once 5v10 and once 6v9 wouldn’t be cool).

@Sketch

Cytat
You resolved the issue by saying we should make an entirely new game that doesn’t involve conversion. Do you have any actual suggestions on how to fix this issue?

Yes. I did suggest to change core game mechanics. Because I think there is no other way of making game promote activity, logical thinking, deduction and doing best for your faction - if it can easiely change during the game. It is also almost impossible to measure who is doing well or wrong on other basis then win/lose ratio. And actually, with class-conversion even the simplest, the most reliable, immortal win/lose ratio isn’t good indicator! Because somebody who plays well Faction A, then plays well Faction B = should be considered good player. And in this system - best players will be those who play poor Faction A/afk, then play well faction B.

#19

I don’t think you understand how core conversion is to the balance of this game :joy::joy:. You change it even slightly and you’ve gotta redesign every aspect of the whole game.

#20

I actually wouldn’t mind a ranked which is the exact same format as casual and you get a straight +1 for win -1 for loss. All the crazy elo manipulations fuck things up big time.

1 Like