I hate classes that have the “see blue dragon defeated at all costs” just is a really boring win-con.
I understand I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I feel it’s necessary to state it nonetheless.
I disagree with the Mastermind change. If you missed it, it reads as such:
I believe this change will cause Unseen to be much much more powerful than Blue Dragon, as well as their counterpart, the Cult. I’ve gone through all the non-unique Blue Dragon classes and compiled a list of abilities and interactions that most would consider to be very powerful. I believe any of these abilities would give Unseen an almost guaranteed edge over Blue Dragon, and in some cases, Neutral Killers as well.
Wallpost
The Alchemist’s Apply & Brew Potion allow the Mastermind to select from a number of abilites, all of which are very useful in the hands of evils - the most notable of which being Tar Potion, Health Potion, and Poison Potion. Even if Poison Potion still forces the Mastermind to suicide, it is still a very valuable end-game tool, if all that is needed are two night kills. If you stack this with a convert with kill or healing power you either have three nightkills, or a night where it is almost guaranteed that no Unseen die, as you are Death Immune, Assassin is healed, and convert is healed.
Absolutely the most overpowered selection by far - the Archer’s Multi-shot and Bulls-eye would practically guarantee an Unseen victory unless the Mastermind is taken care of very early into the game. Bulls-eye can strip Death Immunity from the Neutral Killer as well as many Neutrals, if you so choose. Along with this, Bulls-Eye/Multi-Shot can be used alongside 2f1 to almost guarantee 5 nightkills in a single night. That… is insane. Pair this with a convert with killpower and you can have SIX kills in one night. That just aint fun.
Edit: Ignore most of this talk about extreme killpower - I misread Multishot to say “fire an arrow at one of your marks”
One of the only classes where there is an argument for selecting either of the Night Abilities - Court Wizard has a selection of abilities that are extremely useful when usable by evils.
First off, Arcane Empower allows Assassin to bypass not only passive death immunity, but given death immunity as well, such as from Good King’s Guard or Hunter’s Bear. This could also allow an Alcoholic/Plaguebearer/Poacher/Sage/Servant/Wench to bypass occupation and redirection immunity for two nights - which is precisely what was trying to be avoided when removing half of Sellsword’s passive.
Second is Magical Barrier. Though this choice could be seen as worse than Ice Ward, it has infinite charges, which means it can be useful throughout the entire game. I am still waiting for confirmation on what specifically counts as a negative effect, but assuming I’m right, this would allow an Assassin or convert to be redirection and occupation immune for as long as you exist. Jeez.
Last but not least comes Ice Ward. Who needs an Enforcer when you, the Mastermind, can prevent all visits to your fellow Unseen member? You can also block heals on bleeds with this.
While Bear Companion is rather useless, the Hunter’s kit is a very very useful tool for Mastermind. Equipped with a bleed, you can ensure up to three nightkills in a single night with the use of 2-for-1 as well. Pair this with a Hunter’s Mark and you can have up to FOUR nightkills in a single night. Combined with some converts, Hunter’s Mark is nearly unstoppable, as it is possible to force one player to visit another.
Being able to Inoculate and chainheal your assassin is very good. Perhaps not as powerful as extra killpower or aiding your assassin’s kills, but it is still a very strong combination.
Tavernkeeper has a kit that is extremely useful for Unseen - especially after discovering the Prince, or after they are outted. Being able to day-occupy the Prince is extremely powerful. Along with this, you can pull infinite ToL-Rit swaps (FoL Invoker), by swapping an important Blue Dragon with someone else, and attacking that someone else, thus getting an almost confirmed kill on said Blue Dragon.
Although I only listed six classes, it’s quite apparent that these are very very powerful choices, and it is very likely that the Mastermind will choose from this pool - as it is absolutely in their best interest. Do you really want to face an Unseen with extreme nightkill power? Or an unseen that cannot die by many means? In my personal opinion, this passive belongs in SFol where things don’t necessarily have to be completely balanced. If you want to change Mastermind, perhaps remove the possibility of Killer abilities being selected, as that would be a good start towards making this balanced.
1 Like
you’re forgetting the part where MM actually needs to be able to fire this arrow, and that isn’t possible with this setup
with that said i do kind of agree that giving MM SFoL58 arbiter status is probably a bit too much
I guess i read it as “fire an arrow at one of your marks tonight”
with that in mind, ignore the major killpower from the archer selection
I’d just remove the killer abilities, tbh. Giving extra KPN to scum is way too strong as scum doesn’t have the downside of not knowing who’s on their side. I’d limit the bus drive to 1-2 uses as well as it’s completely broken for scum to be able to swap freely like this.
Also day-occupying the Prince isn’t that much of an issue. It’s a single-use action and so it’s not like it completely makes the Prince irrelevant.
3 Likes
Being able to day occupy Prince when it’s the deciding factor in the game, or when you know that Unseen is going to be jailed could be extremely powerful.
Though I do agree that it doesn’t make Prince irrelevant
The class card thread has been updated with the changes discussed in this thread
The Mastermind change has been slightly modified; it now prohibits taking abilities from Killer-type classes (so as to avoid giving Unseen too much additional KP)
please tell me if I accidentally did something dumb like copy-pasting over a class
5 Likes
baseline observation is that game is hard to balance outside of particularly egregious examples of ‘power over others’
the game suffers from the critical mass problem
where one of several of things leads to a massive imbalance should these factors be in any way effective against scum
Investigative
Offensive (against cult)
Killing
As to aid in protection against each factor at play here, we have several counterbalances that don’t work against all but work against some
Investigative: Godfather
Offensive: Occ / Red immunity (so so many classes have this)
Killing: Tons of bpvs (again cult suffers)
In order to counterract these, scum must act proactively through conversion and manipulating the targets of these effect, with some instances of being able to mechanically manipulate them
Ultimately, this is why things like ToL work well
The abilities, assuming marginally random targets in most cases, will invariably hit scum by random occassionally
abilities are geared in a way that hitting scum significantly increases their effectiveness, as the reliability of not hitting scum (cop still has clears in c13), sucks
ergo game is fundamentally geared toward deepwolf play
game is seemingly at odds with itself
that is funneled into the scum+ part of abilities
paladin greenchecks suck
there are several scum immune to the
occupation on town somewhat sucks, considering we’re seriously considering giving all nks knowledge if they are blocked or redirected
killing is most egregious example
games are lost by bad use of killing abilities
but won by good use
and even then scum have a shit ton of bps
Social/Support are the weakest classes therefore, since none of their abilities directly impact the gamestate in a meaningful way.
Self-confirmation is only marginally useful
same as cop checks
in a game like c13
where getting obvtown as a n0 often fucking sucks
supports suffer from scum either completely subverting them or the impacts of their abilities ultimately being negligible
All NKs have ways to stop the ‘follow the prince’ strategy
Cult has ways to kill prince
Basically
Supports suck
We keep adding ways to counter supports…but should we instead be figuring out ways to counterract the 3 problem categories?
invest
offensive
killing
also Prince is a problem class
because it creates design hiccups while also being the most swingy class by far
It has invest
It has offensive
It has killing
spirit of tol fundamentally different than spirit of fol
tol embraces the fact that people won’t mass coordinate in its design
well, not fact
‘possibility’
basically
with so much time to communicate, but the removal of whispers, most of the fundamental aspects of the game don’t mean shite
scum+ design becomes worse
since invest catching a scum means that scum can be exploited in any number of ways by prince/offensive/killing
offensive can be used to lock out game much easier
killing creates a be all end all for design
I spent some time writing and reflecting about the balance of FoL and why it seems like games like FoL 26 exist
I’ve come to the point where I believe I’ve identified the part of the game that makes the game so feast or famine
It’s the scum+ design of most abilities
Wherein hitting a scum with your abilities is several magnitudes better than hitting a town (outside of supports by I already noted them as an exception)
It might seem to be a basic observation, but I believe it deeply impacts how games end up turning out