Revert the Sheriff changes; make the Sheriff non-unique and convertable

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

Making the Sheriff unique, guaranteed, and unconvertable is an absolutely terrible idea. In practice, the most important impact of this is to make it completely impossible for evils to ever claim Sheriff - the real sheriff will easily call you out.

This in turn means that anyone who claims Sheriff will be almost always be believed (Scorned have a huge amount of trouble claiming Sheriff, too, because, again, the real Sheriff will call you out immediately, knowing that a second one is impossible, and the real sheriff will always be present in an Unseen game. There’s some configurations of fools and scorned that could occasionally lead to a mistake, but the vast majority of the time Sheriff claims are now off-limits to anyone but a real Sheriff and trying to fakeclaim it will get you instantly called out.)

At the same time, Sheriffs now have no strategic depth in deciding when to reveal - conversion immunity means that you’ll almost always be covered (since knights, physicians, alchemists, and the king can all completely protect you, and Observers can functionally do so as well.) This leaves Unseen with few options for dealing with a Sheriff and makes gameplay surrounding the Sheriff extremely dull (Sheriffs reveal as soon as they have any info; protectives always protect a revealed sheriff who hasn’t been CCed because they’re almost 100% genuine; Unseen have to avoid him; nobody has any interesting choices or room for deception.)

What was this change trying to accomplish? It makes the metagame significantly worse; I saw only one post requesting it, based on very weak arguments about making Sheriffs more fun for the Sheriff (without regard for the impact on gameplay beyond that) and veiled threats by the poster that the risk of being converted made them want to gamethrow as a Sheriff by never revealing themselves or doing anything to help BD. These are not credible arguments, certainly not for a set of changes that (taken together) severely damage the metagame. ToL is a conversion-based game. The risk of being converted is a major part of every role and central to the game; among the BD, only the Prince and the King should ever be completely immune. If people are terrified of being converted, there are changes that can be made to reduce the penalty for getting converted late (as I’ve suggested in the past). But it’s central to the game and granting BD roles conversion-immunity undermines the basic concept that keeps things interesting.

Beyond that, Sheriffs absolutely cannot be unique. This is the most serious problem with the changes. The change seems to be premised on the idea that uniqueness makes a BD role weaker; but the opposite is true. Uniqueness makes roles more powerful by making it harder for evils to claim them. Yes, it can be used to balance an overpowered role, but individual Sheriffs were not (previously) overpowered.

And, more generally, we need to be moving in the direction of allowing more roles that evils can claim, not less. A change that makes it functionally impossible for anyone but a Jester to fakeclaim Sheriff is a terrible idea.

(Having Sheriffs be guaranteed is not itself a problem as long as they’re not also unique. But the combination of the two completely removes the Sheriff as a fakeclaim for most eviles, which I don’t think is an acceptable sacrifice for the very weak and mostly unimportant gains that this change was aimed at producing.)

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#2

With this patch, MM can’t claim as butler, cuz he is not showed as occ immune anymore. MM can’t claim as sheriff, cuz sheriff is unique. What do we have? Princess? CW? Srsly?

#3

For the Butler thing, I feel that honestly, occupy immunity should no longer be reported to occupying roles at all - it effectively turns them into investigatives. If this nerfs them too severely, other buffs can be added (or just occ immunity removed from a few roles), but it feels like it just causes a bunch of problems without enough benefits.

But more generally, changes like these need to keep a broader picture of what leaves evil claimspace open. Unique roles in particular are dangerous; unique, guaranteed roles are especially dangerous; and a unique, guaranteed, unconvertable role is basically throwing the BD a free, nearly 100% confirmed member (since all they have do is declare and not be CCed to be permanently confirmed for the rest of the game.) If they ever end up with a majority of such roles, they auto-win, which means that you really don’t want to add more than is absolutely necessary.

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#4

You’re right, but that “not be CC’d” part is less guaranteed than you may think

Fool and Scorned can both use a Sheriff claim, as can an Assassin to make room for the next convert.

#5

A Scorned isn’t going to CC a real Sheriff after they’ve claimed. It’d be taking a pointless risk - it’s going to be very hard to convince people if you go “oh no wait I’m the real sheriff, and also that person is Unseen and I decided not to mention it until now.” And you pretty much have to convince them to lynch immediately with that accusation, because either you or the real sheriff getting looked into (or, in the case if the real sheriff, killed) can ruin your plans.

A fool can try it, but it’s a risky strategy because people could easily lynch the wrong person or decide to execute / CS you at night.

These combinations can occasionally lead to misfires, yeah, but they’re not going to make up for almost entirely removing one of the few potential safe claim for those of the Unseen who have to stay alive.

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#6

I would. Don’t say he came up unseen just say that you are sheriff and therefore he isn’t.

#7

And then what? Either you or him is very likely to get CSed, executed, or killed by the Unseen the next night, which will lead to an immediate loss for you because you’ll be outed (and possibly dead if you’re the one executed.) Reducing things to “one of us is real and one of us is fake” is a terrible idea for the Scorned unless they can push to get a target lynched immediately, because the court is going to push to resolve it immediately and even if they don’t, the Unseen are going to want to eliminate a possible Sheriff fast.

I mean, you’ll have successfully disrupted the Town, but that’s not your goal!

Even if you’re not instantly outed, as long as he’s alive, you’re going to have the real Sheriff going “don’t listen to him, I’m the real Sheriff” every time you speak up about anything - and it’s going to be fairly obvious what’s up when he constantly defends your targets (because nobody has any incentive to fakeclaim Sheriff and then aggressively defend someone, especially given that they revealed before you even spoke up.) It just leads to lots and lots of unnecessary headaches for the Scorned that they can easily avoid by saying “ok, Sheriff is taken, I’ll use a different strategy.”

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#8

If you are doing this then you are obviously pushing to get him executed immediately. Since usually only a real sheriff would CC it has a good shot at working.

#9

Ahhh, you mean in a situation where the real Sheriff is your target?

That’s extremely rare, though.

#10

Well if he isn’t your target then you don’t care and will just claim Obs or something anyways.

#11

I also said Fool lmao

#12

To be honest, even I’m not happy with the Sherrif changes due to the fact the Unseen can be capped only at three and when the Mastermind is killed after Night 3, there will be no way of making converts compared to the Cult, where every death of a Leader makes someone into the new one. It would have been better to have a guaranteed Unique and unconvertable Paladin, as it means the Cult has to play carefully to kill the Paladin to ensure their survival and pray that no one is watching/healing them.

We’ll see where it goes. I even remember the times in the Beta where Sherrif and Paladin were unconvertible, and there have been times where I have been able to win as Cult (just barely though) because we out doubt on the Paladins

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#13

The unconvertable sheriff make the game more about deceive.

For example, as an assasian, you can claim “9 lies im the sheriff”, then bd will exe/prince exe 9 because he is a “fool” now, and you’ll get killed by a prince to get more room for converts.

#14

That’s questionable really. I remember one game the Mastermind made a fatal mistake claiming Princess when it was Royal Blood phase, and then they were executed. That was the end of the Unseen that game. Was kinda funny at the same time.

This shows you really need to be slightly experienced to be able to make plays like that

#15

I agree with this outlook, but according to Boslof it’s also an attempt to bring Unseen and Cult’s winrates closer.

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#16

I don’t deny that was the idea which Bos said to all of us, but I feel like that the Unseen’s winrates will go further away slightly where the Unseen would be screwed if the Sherrif keeps on finding them and cannot go for a claim of Sherrif they used to go for.

As I said further above. Let’s see what happens. Maybe it does work

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#17

Sheriff being unique and nonconvertible AND the King having no checks breaks down the communication network significantly in ways which I believe even the devs did not anticipate. Previously, sheriffs could afford to out themselves AT LEAST to the King, knowing that even if they died there would be potentially another Sheriff. Now, what happens? Sheriff can’t trust King (literally nobody should and the entire court should be clamoring to hang King ASAP), and Sheriff won’t want to out himself to the court. And that’s not even counting the HORRIBLE matches where Sheriff gets random killed early and BD have virtually no proper investigators the whole game besides maybe an Obs.

The entire attempt to open up deduction/communication has backfired IMO. Now information is even harder to come around and there is now less actual deduction and more being helpless/guessing wildly.

#18

I think you wildly misunderstand the core concept of the word “deduction”.

Deduction is not clicking a button at night, finding a member of the Unseen, and then whispering that to the King and letting him vote them up for you.

Sure, you can’t really do that anymore, but so what? Now you are forced to actually socially deduct things and figure out who the scum are, especially once your Sheriff dies.

The game plays more like it used to now. The Sheriff must be careful about when he reveals, as he can’t necessarily out to the King alone and survive.

Although, on that note, you do realize that the King is literally exactly as trustworthy as he was before, right? The probabilities of the King being good or evil are the same.

All in all, you’re making the wrong complaints.

#19

I agree there, but I do have to say the sheriff changes, is a bloody mess from where I see it… I am glad everything isn’t rolling around the king, but it seems to me, almost everything insane about the king, just went to the sheriff.

New night ability Surveillance - Prevent visitors and learn the name of those that try. You will be alerted if an Unseen member tries. 3 uses.

The sheriff is now, unconvertable… and un CCable. That tool is off the charts in confirmability… Checking claims… as well as making the unseen think twice before attempting to assasinate the confirmed sheriff.

Assasian CC’s the sheriff after being busted on day 3.
Sheriff - N1 - Surveylance (joe visited me).
Even works if the visitor died n2 (bob visited sheriff - prevented)

Well… day tricks are out, lets kill him at night… wait… if he’s anticipating that it’s the equivalent of getting debauched. He won’t die, and he knows the unseen who visited him.

#20

That’s not what I’m talking about when it comes to deduction, so you ‘wildly misunderstand’ what I’m even trying to say. Obviously finding evils with check targets is not deduction. I’m talking about figuring out who the evils are AFTER you discover that a certain person is evil.

And to even find out who evil people are, there need to be checks as crutches to a certain degree. Fuck it, let’s just remove Observer’s Peek and Sheriff entirely! After all, they are ‘I win’ buttons, amirite. Let’s just have no hard checks at all and force everybody to figure out who the evils are by just talking to each other! I’m sure the game will be REALLY fun and interesting then, especially for new players.

Now you are forced to actually socially deduct things and figure out who the scum are

I keep seeing people say this but I still have seen no real justification for this. The only thing that changed is that there is less publicly and privately available information. No amount of chatting can solve things if claims are solid and logs are fine. The change literally decreased deduction and now you’re forced to make wilder guesses with less concrete information to back it up.

Although, on that note, you do realize that the King is literally exactly as trustworthy as he was before, right? The probabilities of the King being good or evil are the same.

Again, you completely miss the point. The King’s spawn rate is not relevant here. The whole point is it’s become completely impossible for a King to ‘prove’ whether or not he’s good or evil until he starts killing people, and even then it’s a ‘oops didn’t know he was BD’ situation. Now, literally not a single BD should trust the King and the court should hang him ASAP. It’s not smart letting a Killer with unknown allegiances stay long enough to get kills off, on the off chance (33%!) he’s actually a good guy.

Anyway I’m not making the wrong complaints, you’re just not making the proper observations of the patch and its direct/indirect effects.