I think most players would agree that they’d love to see some iteration of Maid/parity cop in the actual online game of Throne of Lies.
For the forum readers who do not participate in Forum of Lies, the Maid is an unofficial investigative class similar to a traditional Parity Cop that determines if the alignment of two different targets are of the same alignment or not. A Maid who checks an Unseen player A and checks Blue Dragon player B would get a feedback of “not compatible” and the Maid would know one of those players is almost certainly not a member of BD (unless you can frame like a pro like PKR.)
Let’s look at the current iteration of maid in FoL:
The Maid is by far the most powerful Investigative class in FoL, and it is also one of the most easily faked, making it a great and interesting class overall. Matchmake is a beast of an ability and gives a huge amount of information - very few night abilities can discover 2 scum claims in a single night, and Matchmake is one of them for clever BD players. Poke Around is a strictly better Flirt, and Service is a great ability to sniff out false Princess claims.
Only the Observer is truly comparable in power to this current iteration of Maid. I think in order to be more in line with the power level of Sheriffs, Paladins and Princesses, some small tweaks should be necessary.
The Maid has outperformed all of its investigative counterparts in every FoL game its been in. This is largely due to Matchmake, and its singular ability to quickly find non-BD players and to also find compatible BD players to clear the suspicion cast on them.
If the Maid were to enter ToL, I think Maids would be destroying every game they’d be in. The sample of FoL games is very low, so it is difficult to truly determine the strength of the Maid, but I think most FoL players would agree that the class is very powerful.
There are certain “rules” of compatibility that comes along with Matchmake. These rules would be difficult to fit into the Maid player card. Not only would it be difficult for it to be fit inside the card, but it would introduce a lot of burden of knowledge for new players. While incredibly fun and interesting, the Maid is also incredibly complex and has a high skill floor. Something to think about for new players coming into the game.
My proposed change is to either;
1. Limit the uses of Matchmake to 3 or 4
Matchmake is just plain powerful. A Maid that lives to Day 8 is probably gamesolving by themselves.
2. Matchmake (Night) - Investigate a player and see if they left their room that night. You will know if the alignment of the next player you successfully investigate is the same as your previous target (infinite uses.)
This turns Matchmake into a sort of “leap frog” ability where the results of your next match are going to be entirely dependent on who you investigated the night before. This approach allows Matchmake to be used without limit, but nerfs the ability. I didn’t want to nerf it too hard, so I added the small ability to see if somebody left their room that night. Just a little icing to help ease the pain of losing a match per night.
Overall, the Maid would be a very exciting type of class that would create engaging lines of plays from ToL players. However, it faces challenges of being too convoluted and possibly overpowered.
Curious to hear your guys’ thoughts (especially the FoL players!)
