[LONG THREAD WARNING]
Before anyone reads too hard into what I say, I have a writing style that can come across as authoritative or definitive, but most of the time when I say things I speak from my experience alone and do not necessarily intend to suggest that what I say is an absolute statement of fact. Just bear that in mind when reading ahead.
Bottom section of the thread has the feedback specific stuff so skip this next bit if you’re a ̶l̶a̶z̶y̶ ̶p̶i̶e̶c̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ person looking for feedback only.
I would ask that you refrain from responding if you are not willing to read at the very least the full suggestions section of this thread. I do not want this thread, which I have taken time out of my day to construct carefully, to be littered with responses from people that quite clearly did not read the thread.
With that out the way, onto the thread:
I felt compelled to write a thread like this following Boslof’s Chronomancer poll. From what he suggested, feedback from players gave him the impression that people didn’t want Physician to exist and so he, in an attempt to improve player experience, suggested a solution whereby that problem was solved.
To me, this poll came as a surprise. I was baffled. I’ve never really noticed an issue amongst players regarding the Physician itself, people understand the niche is needed and his selfheal allowed the player to be more than just a heal bot and start being socially aggressive (exhume being added also helps the mono-playstyle ‘healbot’ issue a great deal). So what made Boslof think that such a poll was necessary to make?
I can only conclude that it’s just based on the feedback he gets. People who are content with how the game is are much less likely to be vocal to the devs and simply continue playing the game.
This cannot continue.
I’ve happily dropped around 400 or so game hours into ToL since before release and haven’t given too much in the way of feedback (other than my seething hatred of the Alchemist); so I feel it’s time to throw some out there: these are my biggest gripes with the way ToL is (+ solutions to them if I can think of any).
I’d also invite anyone else that has dropped a lot of hours over a great deal of time into this game to start being more vocal about what you think can improve the game.
1. Alchemist
I may as well get this out of the way, since this links into what I was talking about when it comes to Physician.
We all enjoy playing Alchemist, but I think it’s long overdue to admit to ourselves that this class existing generates nothing positive for the game. Not only does it make Phys players worthless by being an unconvertible healer (thereby being too useful for BD to remove from play), it also has sticking power via stoneskin, making it difficult to remove for evils (who most of the time prefer to keep them around for the extra vote anyway - meaning the stoneskin uses from 4 -> 3 nerf did very little).
All this strength and influence in one class, and their goal is simply to survive. The class is provable and has umpteen reasons to be kept alive by both major factions and virtually no downsides, no effort needs to be put in to achieve their goal. Sometimes other Neutrals like Scorned/Fool/Inquisitor can get their win handed to them by sitting on their thumbs and watching the game play out, but more often than not they’ll need to make a conscious effort to fulfill their objective in order to win games consistently. Alch almost never needs to do this.
Solutions:
- Make real nerfs to Alchemist that will hinder their ability to be useful or give room for others to fake Alchemist claims. I think the best nerf for this class is to remove its Nightshade and Bleeding immunity. This would mean Cult/Unseen/Hunter are all checks to an alch dedicating themself too much to one side, and allows room for fake claims (which will pressure alch to make themselves useful even more).
- Remove Alchemist from the game, and introduce a new class to fit the “survive” Neutral niche which actually has to make an effort to be given a win (there are myriad classes suggested on these forums what would be suitable contenders. Chronomancer is also a fairly interesting choice)
Any radical change to Alchemist would probably anger a great deal of people, but it will ultimately be the right thing long term. There are better ways to handle “survive” neutrals and they need to start being seriously considered.
2. Unexplored Mechanics
Throne of Lies has a great deal of interesting unique mechanics for a game of its type that have very little depth to them. Main ones that make me quite sad to see unexplored are:
- Royal Blood
- Kings (generally)
- Trollbox
Royal Blood is something that could be so cool! It’s sad that it’s just a measly passive that gets relegated to specific classes that may or may not get converted. Something as simple as expanding Royal Blood beyond just the main factions would not only improve claim space for evils but add a bit of depth to transitioning Kings beyond just Royal Blood classes being compelled to confirm themselves.
In terms of the King, I recognize that the whole thing has been a balancing nightmare for some time. This is why I think some more ambitious changes should be considered. Reintroduction of some kind of Neutral aligned King would be a start (not necessarily a “survive” goal, maybe something like living to see every royal blood player dead). King’s biggest issue for me is the chronic lack of variety; when you’re narrowed down to two options in terms of guessing which King is in play, you only need to look a little into how they behave before you can make a fair judgement on whether they’re GK or EK. It gets stale after a while.
Trollbox is less important in fairness, I would like to see more/new classes gain access to it though. It’s a very rewarding ability for good players who master the art of timing and wording. Would only exist on a neutral/converted class though. BD having trollbox would be a no no.
3. Lack of communicated direction from the devs
Aside from trying to get specific winrates for certain classes, there’s not really much communication on the side of the devs about where they want the game to be and what the biggest issues are in their eyes. Something as simple as a dev post about what their targets are every month would not only better the relationship between player and dev, but most likely improve the kind of feedback you are receiving in relation to what your aims are as devs. I’d personally love to give suggestions on things the devs may or may not be working on, but there’s just no communication on that front.
My main questions:
- What are the main issues currently for the devs in regards to how the game is balanced?
- What are the problem classes for the devs (ones that need changing/reworks above all others)?
- What style of classes are the devs looking to add to the game (as in what do they think is missing)?
I understand the dev team isn’t huge, but doing this kind of thing will only make things easier for everyone. Better communication would work wonders in getting more focused feedback on things you are working on or things you’re considering changing.
Very grateful if you’ve managed to read this far. Happy to discuss any part of my thread you might disagree with.
'd the OP because it was well-written but not because I agree with all of it. Alchemist is fine now with 3 stoneskins. Trollbox maybe could be given to some Unseen convert but needs to be rare, it causes too much confusion to be a common ability.