Throne of Lies is at a Crossroads

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

ToL, is at a crossroads. It can go two ways. We can cater to new players of the genre, or the veterans from ToS. Too many games have I lost as Scum/BD due to a new player to the genre who didn’t know what to do. Then the opposing side just steamrolled us. Now, it may seem I’m just hating to give hate, that these noobs “ruined” the game. I honestly kinda welcome the amount of players, just that they aren’t that well versed in social deduction games. The amount of times the Guides (Huge shout out to you guys BTW) have had to explain basic things is just too many times.

Dear Alches who want a free ride
Go shove something up your ass. Its not going to happen. If you are an alche and heal BD, we will give you a pass. Just don’t expect a free pass early game when you claim.

Dear salty noobs
Suck it up, just because someone was “Confirmed” BD, doesn’t mean they weren’t converted, so don’t report them for game throwing when they get converted, and if you do. The Mods will shove a False Report warning in your face.

Open letter time over!

Now, we can go down two paths
~The Path of Playerbase (More People, more noobs)
or
`The Path of Veterans (Less People, more skilled players)

I implore you to go down the second path, while the first has the most immediate benefits it will not go well in the Long Term. We need to look past the numbers, and have a game about believable fake claims, lying and wins that feel good
~NozBugz

#2

Unfortunately some of the balance changes are veering to the former. Noble was stripped of high skill ceiling abilities in favor of simplistic ones.

Money talks though. Devs will cater to a larger base and I don’t blame them.

#3

I (Whatchu do there boi?)

Honestly the old Noble abilities were shit, I honestly don’t blame the devs for changing it

It does sadly. They haven’t been corrupted…Yet.

#4

I’m not concerned about the noble change all that much, less confirmable roles -> more skill in general

That being said, balance should certainly cater to players that know what they’re doing over those that don’t. You don’t balance for idiots, that’s common sense.

However, at no point do we need to stop trying to pull in new players. You can do both things well, even if your focus is on the dedicated playerbase that is your most loyal base.

2 Likes
#5

I liked the idea of ‘Noob mode’ I saw, where people could play games against other new players, and a 3 or 4 experienced players queued in the knowledge that they were there to help new players play the game, not to play ‘properly’

#6

There is a middle ground. I’m talking about modes like ranked and things like matchmaking that factors more than join time. As long as anyone can choose any mode (at most requiring you play the game more to unlock like with ranked).

#7

I do think that at the moment the game if played well the BD should steamroll the evil but its often not played well and that gets the game balanced around that instead .
thankfully the dev’s seem to be constantly rebalancing around the player base , but it can be very frustrating at times.

With a game like this you need your new players guys . Building for only the elite will mean that when those elite get bored there will be nobody left to play with .

I think there are a couple of options .

One that I have been thinking about is a clan system , but not competitive against other clans like in many games .

Just a group of players that someone is in charge , probably with a group of admins etc .

the idea would be so that you could easily join one of these clans with a similar gamer mentality to your own and play games within that group.

These things would self regulate reasonably well .

If you where one of those guys that claims you are a reaper turn 1 to the prince , then maybe most clans wont have you .

There would be likely clans for the ultra serious only elite players only , as well as a clans open for people who like to play as long as everyone is trying it don’t matter if they make mistakes etc .

Clans that are too small will likely fold as people don’t want silly waits etc .

#8

That will still mix experience with new. Typically, people adapt from experience.

#9

As much as I want to win, I think we should cater to noobs!

2 Likes
#10

I’m a bit disappointed to hear these words. The veterans have been the dominant crowd requesting we do something about newbs not knowing how to do their thing. We’re doing this for both of you. The noobcakes won’t piss off all the vets for not knowing what to do, now. Give someone a sandbox and sometimes they know to make great castles and sculptures. Others will just turn it to mud, which even great sculptors can’t work with.

Maybe we can even add the advanced things back in the future. Or heck, maybe even add a “pro mode” that isn’t necessarily ranked, but doesn’t water down advanced abilities, and requires xx games. Just throwing out ideas. If anyone likes any of this, post it in #feedback or it’ll be forgotten ;D

Even with some abilities watered down, it’s still a very advanced game, even for vets. We have to adapt for both newbs and vets. In alpha, EVERY class had a day ability, but by the time beta rolled around, we realized 75% of the day abilities needed either rework or dropout due to meta abuse.

Later, we’ll simply split up newbcakes and vets. I say split up instead of ranked because we’re still brainstorming about ranked since conversion makes it a bit funny. Either way, the average vet says they want to play with other vets.

For now, simplifying things a bit seems to make the most sense and in the fastest way to provide a “workaround”. We’re sorta limited while we’re still working on stability/bug fixes, which aren’t fun (not fun to dev and not exciting to see in patch notes), but very necessary. We’ll be able to do more with matchmaking and such once matchmaking isn’t buggy, anymore, with timeouts and random weirdness. We’re getting there, but not yet.

TL;DR: We’re not even at a crossroads. Just like our entire game, we think outside the box. Why not cater for both? There’s always a way. It may seem like we’re at a crossroads, sometimes, but generally it’s just temporary workarounds/placeholders until we can get something better in (which takes time/testing).

6 Likes
#11

I appreciate you taking the time to clarify your position but I’m gonna have to disagree.

Simplifying classes isn’t really a solution to the problem. Pre-change if I was a Noble and bad/new players spawned as Prince/Psychic/Phys/King/etc, I could still make an impact. Now, I can block votes and have to rely solely on a player’s voting record and behavior to determine if they’re bad or not (which can be done piloting almost any class). By simplifying more classes you’re limiting the impact experienced players can have on the game should they roll into x class, Noble being the most recent victim of this.

New players are going to be bad at the game. This is a facet of a game like this that I feel like most people have come to terms with. I don’t agree with the sentiment of chopping the complexity out of classes. New players just need to put in the hours and get experienced, this game has absolutely no issue with player retention but I’m almost certain it will if this trend of simplicity continues. Games will be decided more and more by class lists and early sheriff/pally/king RNG as more classes get simpler and simpler.

Social classes, particularly in the BD need tools to help make reads based on what players say and do; that’s the entire point of the social archetype. Psychic does this incredibly well, but Noble is literally just a vote bot now.

#12

I didn’t realize you were making this thread to complain about a group you are a member of, noz.

Old noble was literally one of the best classes. I carried so many games with it once private matter was added.

2 Likes
#13

What is that group?

#14

the noobs.

The noble, in the hand of a good player, was one of the best classes. Not because you could find evils, but because you could find the prince and his little clique, and allow them to communicate silently.

Maybe you didn’t get to play enough games as noble with private matter, I played like 6

#15

This concept even made sense for Noble. Establishing a close-knit network of important people is the kind of thing a Noble should be doing. Now we have a vote bot.

#16

Rope you of all people should know I’m not a Noob XD.

Also XBlade thanks for the response, You have yet to remove my claim host button, get on that you silly goose!

#17

I know you are not, which is why i suggested that you didn’t play enough games with private matter noble.

Honestly, though, new noble is pretty good as well.

#18

I will be upfront and say I have not played alot of ToL recently. I have been busy dealing with IRL shit.
IRL > Games

#19

yes, IRL > games
But I am saying that you are not in a position to say that old noble was terrible when the people who think it was good got more games played as it.

#20

Also, I agree with xblade that you can cater to both new and old players. You just need new game modes.

1 Like