Detailed feedback from a total n00b

[lord_monkeystyle]

First off, loving the game.

Here are my first impressions after a few days of binge play.

The rotating round table camera, while trying to read, is nausea inducing. You really should consider disabling this by default. I almost uninstalled the game before luckily finding the tick box.

Immediately loved the classes & portrait art. The in-game class drop down is an invaluable resource for new players. It should be more featured, with a bigger button. For me this was the strongest part of the game. The identities, colors and styles really captured my imagination. They make me want to play more, just to experience all the unique flavors and gameplay opportunities.

The learning curve here is significant. All the abbreviated lingo, acronyms. I have to play with this wiki page open just to cross-reference. Depth of gameplay is a great thing. However not understanding what MM or HH means is the difference between making a good play, and getting verbally assaulted. Please consider adding these definitions to the in-game help.

Lack of meaningful progression is the biggest drawback. W/L record would be a great start. I do understand how ranked play can make a community toxic, but eventually if this game is gonna grow to the next level, it needs to be done.

2nd biggest room for improvement is information management. Information is coming at you so fast, it’s stressful making sense of it all. Start with the right side list of players. It should be way bigger. Let players use stock, or custom portraits. Numbers & names alone are hard to keep track of. Add dropdown or free text fields so we can keep track of claims, at a glance. Give us color coding options. 1-10 number scales. We can use them to track suspiciousness, or to plan out our order of operations.

Logs; I wish they would be the formatted layout by default, and the button for blank canvas. Why not make this a perma-toggle? Even better, let players create their own template to save-as.

Gold earned per game is only useful for cosmetics, which don’t have a big enough price spread to indicate big investments from small. Make some of them really expensive. Let people show off! Make me care about the cosmetics by attaching status to them.

Some of the classes are VERY exciting to get, like king, unseen, cult, or NK’s. Others are VERY boring. Physician I rolled at least 5 times. Kill me now.

Thanks to the devs & community for an overall awesome game. Best in its class. Can’t wait to see how it evolves.

[orangeandblack5]

Welcome, glad to have you! Let me critique your critiques

3. You’ll get used to the acronyms and such, I promise, and although I have no qualms with them adding a list in-game, most people would probably be willing to answer questions to the tune of “What does X mean?”. Otherwise, the MGR page you linked should all become second-nature soon enough.

4. Progression of some sort is something the devs have stated they are working on. There are no plans to add Ranked currently (thank goodness), but you can find some community-run tournaments and the like on Discord.

5. Most players keep claims and the like in their will or private notes, which I think is probably good enough. You’ll get better at handling the info dump with time, and it’s an important skill to have. Streamlining it isn’t bad, but I’m just not convinced that the will is an untenable solution.

6. Custom saved logs have been a highly-requested feature, I’m sure the devs are investigaing.

7. I agree entirely, but the devs seem to think that making everything more easily obtainable is inherently more consumer-friendly. I think that’s debatable, but their hearts are in the right place on this one.

8. Matter of opionion, unfixable and unavoidable. Especially since your example, Physician, is a really good, really powerful, and quite necessary class atm

[NuclearBurrito]

@lord_monkeystyle

Some of the classes are VERY exciting to get, like king, unseen, cult, or NK’s. Others are VERY boring. Physician I rolled at least 5 times. Kill me now.

This problem is midigated by the fact that while some are better than others, nearly all classes are fun. CW would be the only class that isn’t fun to play in my opinion.

[TinyDeer]

WELCOME! Happy to have you Feel free to friend or message me here or on Discord if you ever want to ask/talk about the game.

@lord_monkeystyle

The rotating round table camera, while trying to read, is nausea inducing. You really should consider disabling this by default.

Agreed that there should be an option to toggle this off. (Though I love it )

@lord_monkeystyle

The learning curve here is significant. All the abbreviated lingo, acronyms. I have to play with this wiki page open just to cross-reference. Depth of gameplay is a great thing.

If you haven’t played this genre before then yes, but you’ll get used to it over time - the game only gets more fun. Friend me (TinyDeer) and I’d be happy to play with you.

@lord_monkeystyle

W/L record…

This would be an interesting private record to have. Personally I don’t care but I see why others might.

@lord_monkeystyle

2nd biggest room for improvement is information management. Information is coming at you so fast, it’s stressful making sense of it all.

Honestly, I believe your sense of being overwhelmed here is from newness to the genre. The numbers are imo a really clear way to go - no needing to know or type anyone’s name to understand what’s happening. Like in other areas of ToL, you get used to this. Check out Town of Salem for some really bad UI - the UI in this game is pretty good. Of course, perhaps there’s room for improvement as well!

@lord_monkeystyle

Even better, let players create their own template to save-as.

This would be great for them to look at.

@lord_monkeystyle

Gold earned per game is only useful for cosmetics, which don’t have a big enough price spread to indicate big investments from small. Make some of them really expensive. Let people show off! Make me care about the cosmetics by attaching status to them.

I disagree. I love the equalizing nature of the game’s structure. No rank, no important cosmetics, no status. It makes every game feel fresh - I don’t want it to be about meta-game status, that leads to toxicity.

@lord_monkeystyle

Some of the classes are VERY exciting to get, like king, unseen, cult, or NK’s. Others are VERY boring. Physician I rolled at least 5 times. Kill me now.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - I like playing Phys! But the CW needs to be reworked from the ground up…

[Aquillion]

@lord_monkeystyle

2nd biggest room for improvement is information management. Information is coming at you so fast, it’s stressful making sense of it all. Start with the right side list of players. It should be way bigger. Let players use stock, or custom portraits. Numbers & names alone are hard to keep track of. Add dropdown or free text fields so we can keep track of claims, at a glance. Give us color coding options. 1-10 number scales. We can use them to track suspiciousness, or to plan out our order of operations.

It’s interesting to think about what options there are for this. I particularly wish there was an easier way to access past vote records at a click - writing them down is a pain. Hmm, maybe I’ll make a suggestion for this.

[TinyDeer]

@Aquillion

It’s interesting to think about what options there are for this. I particularly wish there was an easier way to access past vote records at a click - writing them down is a pain. Hmm, maybe I’ll make a suggestion for this.

Interesting - if there is a mechanism for this that would be an interesting possibility. It’s not a shortcut, just a reference…very useful as a check. Considering there’s already tabs for psychic speech, whispers, etc, it would be a great addition. Make a suggestion for it and I will chime in.