Patch v4.0.0a: Throne goes FREE (F2P)!

[í42-Xblade]

Throne Goes Free-to-Play Dec 18th @ 6pm EST! (LIVE)

Throne of Lies: Medieval Politics - Gameplay Trailer v4 (F2P Relaunch)

Throne goes FREE to play Dec 18th!

I am excited to announce that Throne will be going FREE to play with our target relaunch date of December 18, 2020 @ 6pm EST! As always, we continue our commitment to no loot boxes, no pay-to-win. This means many exciting things, such as lower queue times, new faces, and better offpeak timezone support, (We <3 you, too, EU/Aussie players)! As we grow, we want to thank all our veteran players that helped us reach this point: We’ll be tossing our premium players the exclusiv…

• Patch Status? LIVE (Dec 21)!
• When is F2P (UPDATED)? LIVE (Dec 23 @ 6pm EST)!
• Veterans? Vets claim an exclusive, crystal-flaired “Veteran” title + Veteran avatar~
• Queue Times? Expected to be seriously low (even during offpeak hours)!

Gold (gp)

To better fit the f2p model, we have adjusted goldflow to be more progressive:

• MVP gold now grants 200 gp
• MVP silver now grants 125 gp
• MVP bronze now grants 50 gp
• Public game wins now grant 70 gp
• Public game losses now grant 35 gp
• Private game wins now grant 30 gp
• Private game losses now grant 15 gp
• Gold for win/loss no longer decreases with less starting players
• Double gp weekends have been pending-shifted to double gp Thursdays to better support offpeak hours – for launch weekend, we’ll keep double gp weekend around for one more go

Court Fees

Introducing Court Fees:

Why court fees?

• Instead of bloating our store with finite items, jacking up the prices 10x, and having updates concentrate only on the store (like many other f2p games do), this route allows us to concentrate on the game like we did while premium.

• This way, we don’t have to shove buying gold in your face! We calculated it: It’s pretty much impossible to go broke (you even get gold when you lose; we also won’t allow players to buy items if it’ll mean they’ll go below 50gp).

• To further aid this, we’ll continuously add more promo/progression goodies to help get more bonuses (eg, login promos and achievements are planned). Isn’t it nice that we can actually concentrate on login promos / achievements / progression instead of just store items? This is why court fees!

Mechanics:

• When you start a public game and fully enter the game without being disconnected, there will be a 50gp “court fee” consumed.

• Introducing Court Ticket: If you go <50gp and try to play, we’ll give you a free ticket to play a public (or semi-private) match. For now, you have unlimited: Later, we’ll port them to login bonuses (that can stack up to a maximum — meaning, you can have free entries even if you can afford it).

  • 

• Court fees (and game info) is now displayed when you hover over the start/create buttons.

• Public court fee public reserves are checked before you queue up or create a room.

• Once you get in game, you will receive a toast (bottom-right popup) notifying court fee withdrawn.

• Private Games

  • Semi Private (1~15p) court fee = 50 gp (same as public; merged into public queue)

  • 100% Private (16p) court fee = 500gp (Host pays; all guests play FREE)

    • ^ Why? 100% private means -16 players in the queue, to encourage public queues. However, this also can lead to cool things like a gold-rich player treating the community to a hosted game with 0 court fees (eg, drop a Discord link invite). We can do something cool with this later.

  • If a private room “Queues as Group” (now called “Merge into Public”), the 50gp court fee will be consumed as if queued publicly

  • Yes, if you have 15 (out of 16), you may still merge into public for normal, public court fees.

  • Guests of the private room are free, courtesy of the host, as long as they don’t “Queue as Group” (where it’ll revert back to public court fees).

  • The host will be notified of the private court fee when they click “Start”.

  • If you host a private game, but you leave or d/c, the new host will be prompted about the 500gp court fee (in case it’s unexpected) if they click the Start Privately button.

• Leaving a room will not charge you court fees unless you’re already in-game (Day 1+). You are not actually charged until you’re confirmed to be in the game without issues.

• You cannot purchase a new item without having a leftover 50gp public court fee reserve (we’ll make sure you don’t “oops”). It’s going to be almost impossible to actually go broke.

Customization Shop

• New Perpetual (Available outside Snowcrest), Winter-Themed Avatars:

  1. Snow King
  2. Snowine
  3. Snow God Mithras

• New Perpetual (Available outside Snowcrest), Winter-Themed Titles:

  1. Icecrafter
  2. Snowmancer
  3. Frosty One

• Rune of Focus weapon temporarily disabled due to execution animation issues.

• Trueshot Crossbow weapon temporarily disabled due to execution animation issues and possibly freezing the game.

• Customization shop prices been adjusted to better match the new f2p model (more up, some down).

• We have added 2 new gold buying options:

  • Tier 5: 100,000gp for $49.99
  • Tier 6: 250,000gp for $99.99

• Refreshed the “buy gold” art to look way more satisfying since we’re now solely supported by this

Balance

1. Remove Telepathy from Mystic, Apostle and Illusionist

   • Ever since whisper meta’s stopped, this ability has lost it’s purpose, and is currently used similarly to the old Noble Twin ability, which was removed because it had no actual purpose other than day-confirming the noble.

2. Hunters Mark: Cancel on redirection

   • This brings Hunters Mark abil in line with Cold Steel - all while making it less frustrating to use in certain situations.

3. Give Apostle and Illusionist 2 charges of “Trollbox” with a new, more fitting name "Sinister Echoes"

   • This ability fits thematically well into the classes, being a social ability and accomplishing similar things to the current Telepathy abil:

• 
• 

4. Increase charges of “Expose” on Seeker to 2

   • This change aims at making starting Seeker be more in line with other starting Cultists.

5. Allow Enforcer to target himself with “Protection”. Also, allow Sellsword to target herself with "Stonewall"

   • "This will help them protect themselves from being found as evil as well as reduce the chance of players being able to confirm anyone as unable to be either of those classes.
   • This will also allow players to more-easily fake offensive classes - all while reducing the overall confirmability of those.

6. Reduce charges of “Ritualist Brotherhood” to 2.

   • Ritualist is currently the strongest Cult convert; this change is aimed at reducing it’s power while making Paladin less frustrating to play.

7. Allow Invoker to target Cult members as second target with "String of Mithras"

   • Allowing the Invoker to redirect into Cult members allows him to potentially redirect protectives into fellow cult members, offering some utility to the abil.

8. Don’t allow non-Possessor force votes to be used, unless there can currently be a trial.

   • Currently, Noble’s force vote primarily gets used to confirm yourself as the Noble after the trial happened, which goes against the spirit of the ability.

9. Scorned Mark now persists until a new target is marked at night.

   • Getting occupied as Scorned was extremely frustrating. This change allows for the Scorned to still be able to push their win condition, unless they were both occupied and their previous target was killed by other means.

10. Sheriff “Scout” will no longer be useable Day 1

    • Being found as visited Night 1 has very little counterplay and can swing the game heavily; not just due to conversions, but also because this commonly got the Neutral Killer executed early. This issue became even bigger with multiple Sheriffs in the game.

Class Fixes

• Raised Bear Traps abil priority to allow Intensify abil to work with it.
• Puppet Strings abil feedback now shows the correct target 1’s name (instead of target 2).
• Removed Intensify mention for occupy immune feedback.

Other Fixes/Improvements

• Fixed MVP bonus gp

• Set server’s in-game player timeout timer (TTL) from 0 >> to 5 seconds.

  • This will hopefully allow people to experience less disconnects, with the timeframe short enough to hopefully not experience desyncs. This is experimental (but tested in test realm).

• In lobby, hovering over any of the center play buttons to play will now reveal the “classic mode” info (formerly only if you hovered over the mode banner) and now shows the “court fee” amounts

• Toggling show FPS in-game will now instantly toggle when applied (instead of next game)

Fluff

• Pending new key art/logo by Adiart (top banner preview) - like it?
• Lobby buttons at the bottom-right are now less bloaty.
• Tutorial NPCs now have an assortment of weapons.
• More-consistent use of “Xgp” vs “X gp”
• More consistent customization shop layout.
• Customization shop now orders from owned >> price >> alphabetical. Filters coming soon!
• Tutorial can no longer be skipped.
• Win7 users will no longer see video previews for weps and emotes (Win7 is missing the modern Windows media packs and shows a white screen).

Pre-Registrant Reward?

If you visited our promo link before we went F2P and registered your email (that matches your in-game email), you’ll be marked as a pre-registrant: Shortly after the dust settles, we’ll reward ya as promised! Give us a bit to code this

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We thank our new partners to contributing to this magic Missed the intro? See Discord #news

We know both veterans and new players, alike, have asked us repeatedly to go F2P - This has been a ton of work over an incredibly short period of time. We hope you enjoy it!

–Xblade @ https://discord.gg/tol

[í42-Xblade]

v4.0.0b Mini Patch

LIVE!

• Fixed Scorned - she can now win Thanks @Stoneage
• Starter gp for new accounts raised from 500 gp >> to 1k gp.

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v4.0.0a Mini Patch

• Fixed black screen desync and sometimes being stuck in an empty Throne when you leave a live game or the tutorial; sometimes not allowing you to progress to the end scene; or anything to do with loading a new “scene” (was a Unity bug, gah! We downgraded back). THANK YOU TESTERS!!

• Fixed the visual tier 5 “buy gold” value: You get 100k gp for this tier. Thx that guy that made fun of the price tier math I can no longer find!

• Buying gold will no longer fail every other attempt (starting with 1st). Thx Toilet

• The random “Weapons” text at the bottom-left of the lobby customization store page now says “*New store filters coming soon!” — way more exciting! Thx beta testers

• There were 2 balance changes in the previous patch crossed out earlier that were inadvertently not included (for the # of charges tweaks); they have returned this mini patch. Thx Dev Pnl

• Removed the class card conflicting mention of Scorned marks lasting for only 1 day (they now persist until marked again). Thx Torino

• Sinister Echoes abil now has more-interesting flavor text in feedback. Thx GameShroomBoy

• Updated credits a bit (listen to the Hangman’s Dance theme song here! ♫). Thx RedHed

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Known Bugs (v4.0.0b)

1. During offpeak (that won’t exist anymore, later), if the “Start Early” pops up in a public match, it says 500gp - it’s not, it’s just 50gp.

2. Tutorial can’t reopen class cards in the tutorial after the introduction to them is over by clicking – but you still can open them via TAB.

3. Buy gp reward popup is scrambled, but you can get the gist: (Ninja fixed in optional patch)

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This f2p patch was crunched a bit (no, not gonna fire myself! I prepared for this), so if there are bugs - no worries! Like always, I’ll fix em

[thepigeonnyc]

@í42-Xblade

Something’s wrong with this picture. Why is Meme Blur still there?

[min]

It’s the best ability, obviously

[RHCube]

@í42-Xblade

Give Apostle and Illusionist 2 charges of “Trollbox” with a new, more fitting name “Sinister Echoes”

Is there any reason that it can’t be infinite uses? Especially for illusionist. Trollbox by itself isn’t that useful as is easily countered.

Aside from that Ilike the patch

[GGhana]

remove alch

fix sorc

give infinite trollboxes

then tol will be the best game ever made

[Intensify]

@í42-Xblade

Snow God Mithras

@í42-Xblade

Remove Telepathy from Mystic, Apostle and Illusionist

Ok fine you win Min

@í42-Xblade

Increase charges of “Expose” on Seeker to 2

Wait no we’re making Seeker useful dafuq go back go back

@í42-Xblade

Allow Enforcer to target himself with “Protection” also Allow Sellsword to target herself with “Stonewall”

Hmm I mean alright that’s fine.
I don’t think Enforcer needed a buff though, and SS targeting self is kinda niche ngl but we’ll see.

@í42-Xblade

Don’t allow non-Possessor force votes to be used, unless there can currently be a trial.

Alright that’s a good step in the right direction atleast.

@í42-Xblade

Scorned Mark should persist, until a new target is marked at night.

Smh imagine making Scorned easier
Also does this include disguises?

@í42-Xblade

Sheriff “Scout” should no longer be useable Day 1

HAHAHA YES FRICK YOU DAY 1 SCOUT. YOU CANT HUANT ME IN MY NIGHTMARES ANYMORE HAHAHA ISDNDIDDJDJ.

[thepigeonnyc]

@í42-Xblade

Reduce charges of “Ritualist Brotherhood” to 2.

Shouldn’t Tornado have three uses?

[Intensify]

Why?

[Amelia]

No

We do not need to follow the “3 use and 2 use” rule, that limits design space for no reason

[Intensify]

@í42-Xblade

Remove Telepathy from Mystic, Apostle and Illusionist

Wait hold on… we asked for this and XBlado gave… do you think we can ask for Duke?

[Polarthief]

Lemme make sure I have these court fees understood:

• For no reason at all, we’re now losing 50gp per public match.
• 500gp for hosting a private match.
• Losses grant only 35gp, causing a net LOSS for playing of 15gp.

What happens if you buy something and repeatedly start losing all your matches? Or heck, what if you buy something and it uses all of your GP to buy it? I see it says we can’t buy something with a GP reserve for court fees, but what if it goes further under than 50gp?
Wins are now a net worth of +20gp and losses are actually a net LOSS of 15gp. You don’t think this is going to cause more toxicity when people do dumb things like throw or cause problems? Also only 20gp for winning (after your court fee) sounds dreadful.

I understand the need to go F2P, but as a decently longtime veteran of the game coming back excitedly to seeing patch 4.0 and then seeing that gold is now harder to get, AND you start losing gold for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON, I can’t help but wonder what’s going on here, and I’m pretty upset by it.

Now, this is all under the assumption that everything I just said-and-assumed is true, which I really hope I’m just reading something wrong. I did just wake up recently, so if I misunderstood something, by all means, please do correct me, but this court fee thing sounds nearly predatory, and it kinda spits in the face of anyone who supported you guys and originally bought the game with money.

TL;DR: There is no positive benefit from stealing player gold and now causing regression on losses, other then forcing a rather hostile F2P mechanic on players.

[thepigeonnyc]

@Polarthief

net LOSS for playing of 15gp

This can be made up for by voting three people for MVP (which supposedly gives you 15 gp)

[Polarthief]

Fair enough, and I’ve been gone away from the game long enough to totally forget that, but I still feel like a net gain of 0/35 is still pretty lousy, and if you forget to MVP/don’t at all, you’re still regressing and losing gold.

[í42-Xblade]

Court fees were carefully chosen since bad things were alternatives, such as renting items instead of owning (Gunbound style), having stupidly high prices on all items and only have items in updates (other games you know), or pay2win, loot boxes, etc.

All alternatives were really eh. However, if we just do this and barely change other things, we can have a near-premium experience.

With court fee, there will be less players leaving alive. With private court fee (for FULL private games: you can merge into public with 15 without this), all guests are free - then this encourages public queues so queue time is lowered with more new faces seen for different experiences each match.

Since you get coin at the end of each room (essentially punished for leaving early , which was already reportable and now has coin loss) +and possibilities for bonuses (dead bets, vote mvp x3, win 1 of 3 mvp, brilders, win bonus, upcoming login promos, and other promo features absolutely coming since f2p needs this kinda stuff)… Statistics are on your side.

If it wasn’t court fee, it’d be something else: Remember, I work full time in Throne: I’m giving up a paycheck to solely and 100 percent rely on folks buying gold for aesthetics to survive. Without a gold sink, you won’t have an active dev. The court fee essentially hires me to update the game as a live service not to mention more players means wayyy more server fees id need to cover.

It’s just any indie f2p model, but better. Go to “other games” and all updates focus on bloaty and expensive store items. It’s a f2p patch and I still did balance and bug fixes. Because of our model, I can keep concentrating on what’s important instead of trying to shove items in your face with 0 true updates. Compare us and you’ll see why we went with court fees.

[KyoDaz]

I think now is a really good time to make drastic changes like these.
Indie dev companies; hell, even indie musicians are becoming mainstream because the pandemic poses larger companies too high a risk to attempt to make profits. At least I think that’s why it is.
Either way, larger game companies right now aren’t bringing out particularly exciting games and people may look at indie games to play instead.
F2P is definitely going to make them more likely to try it.
I’ve not played with the court fee yet and would rather experience it in practice rather than make a judgement based on paper.

[thepigeonnyc]

I believe that the court fee may have a few problems, but is not too bad. My main concern is the 500gp fee for private matches. This is an insane amount for one person. Maybe have a system where different people can contribute different amounts? Maybe just have everyone pay 50? Idk, but 500 is still a huge amount, especially in F2P.

[Shrimpy]

Cult trollboxes Apostle is already my favorite cultist, now it’s my … favorite-favorite cultist.

Scorned Mark should persist, until a new target is marked at night.

Heck yea!

All these changes are amazing!