In my opinion the New King is… really bad. There is no reason to remove Allies from King, it was a GREAT ability and made it easy for (BD/Neut/Evil) King to distinguish who is who. Now if you use an ability on the wrong person, you might just get executed for it.
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I love the new king. No more follow the king exclusively D2-5 and no more unCCable accusations. Just remove Neut king and make it 66% Bd and 33% evil to counter Kings out and I am happy.
So far here’s my thoughts:
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There’s a greater need to whisper among ourselves instead of just relying on King. This increases the need for deduction, which is a positive.
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The King himself seems really, really weak - almost a nonfactor. If we can keep the positive listed above and give the King slightly greater relevance then I think we’ll hit the sweet spot. Perhaps add the penalty for executing a BD king that’s been suggested here?
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The changes to the King make it so that BD can’t exclusively rely on the King, which is probably a good thing, but it makes King really unfun to play as. Like, at night, since King can’t actually check anyone himself, he feels like a Knight with no ability to CS. Makes me really just wish I was Knight or something instead, you know?
Of course, giving King the ability to exe someone at night, even if it follows CS rules, probably isn’t the answer.
Thinking about it and seeing what’s happening thus far, it’s early yet, but I probably would rather Allies be back, thinking about it. Yes, it makes people depend on the King. But so what if they do? Games were more fun that way, and that’s what I care more about. How much BD depends on any one player or follows the King or whatever is like, way secondary to that.
I just love all the mind games that come from allies. Like, yeah, you know that King CLAIMS to have found evil. But ultimately, that’s all it is. A claim. Did they really see Unseen/Cult? Or are they lying and trying to get BD killed because they’re really the Cult King? Or could they have indeed found evil and get that person executed successfully, but then boom, in turns out that they’re a Neutral King and they end up siding with Evil later on when things start going their way?
Allies complemented all three (lol Psycho King is a myth) types of Kings in their own ways. King’s current abilities don’t have that same level of flow or level of mindgames to make you wonder what is or isn’t going on. Particularly with Neutral King. Allies let Neutral King go where the tide takes them, and you can’t make people question just what’s going on as well anymore, which seems to defeat the point of Neutral King to me since without Allies mindgames it almost always makes more sense for Neutral King just to side and act with BD.
So yeah, giving Allies back might back people more dependent on King again. But that doesn’t really bother me, because it led to flow and style of gameplay I personally found more fun, interesting, and dynamic, and that’s what I ultimately care about and makes it worth it to me. But that’s me.
Most experienced players were in agreement Allies was a terrible ability, which is why it has now been removed.
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Why not?
I’m serious. 2 use kill Ability and suddenly you feel a lot more pressure to claim to king.
I’m relatively new to the game but its my understanding that this is not the first time Allies has been removed, so clearly it’s not that simple as whether it’s terrible or not or else it would have stayed gone the first time. Thus, making any sweeping statements on whether it’s a broken ability seems a bit much to me since there clearly has to be at least some disagreement in that area.
In any case, I think I want to rephrase my previous post. The fun of Allies as a Neutral King is being able to get your own info that nobody else knows about and then decide what to do with it and who to side with. Now, as Neutral King (or rather, any type of King), any info you have is from other players. You can still choose not to act on info other players give you as Neutral King. But if you do that, that immediately makes you suspicious for not using their info and will probably mean you’ll get executed for being a possible Evil King.
Allies gives Neutral King a way around that and a way of doing their own thing. Yeah, they have to act on leads other people give them or risk being very sus. But that says nothing of their own leads, which they can share with BD immediately if they want to side with them or hold on to for a bit if they think they might want to side with Cult/Unseen. That’s all gone now, which makes it much less fun to play as the wildcard Neutral King and basically gives them no reason not to side with BD since all their info comes from BD anyway who will call them if they miss it.
Of course, one way around all this is just to remove Neutral King. But that’s a rather sad loss and it’s my opinion that if a change like this means we have to remove an entire class due to that class suddenly basically becoming useless/redundant, perhaps it’s the change itself that was the problem and not the class. Neutral King was fine before. It’s suddenly questionable with Allies gone. So the better way of managing that would be to bring Allies back, but just find a way of balancing Allies itself better or making it more limited instead of just wholesale removing it.
That’s just my take anyway. I know it’s probably not worth much because I’m new. But that’s how I feel about it anyway, for whatever it is worth.
The problem is however; removing allies from the game is removing King from the game. King without allies just makes him a “confirmed role” and nothing else. The King needs a ability that makes him a benefactor to the deduction as like everyone else.
I liked the dynamic of Allies as well, but I also see the major issues it caused - namely, that the first three or four days of every game felt more or less the same, and as Evil you just had to hope the King didn’t spot you.
I love Neutral King. I’m sure the devs will give King back some dynamic play in the next patch or two. For now, though, it’s interesting to see how BD coordinates without a set point man. Also, it increases the deception Evils can use - for example, whispering someone that you know their category is harder to disprove now that the king can’t just confirm.
Allies was probably the biggest reason that playing Neuts was impossible and that the early game social deduction was gone. It was like giving BD a major crutch, because all those checks, despite it being from any King, benefits BD. It hurts Unseen, and definitely destroys Neuts.
However, I was hoping for more than just the Order we have now. I was thinking to incorporate Royal Finger into his passive, and give Starting King another Day Ability to really bolster his arsenal.
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Agree with this 100%. Making Royal Finger a passive makes total sense with the new King.
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YES. DO IT. NEUT KINGS OUT!!! Neut king is the least interesting king and removing him solves all of your problems!
For example:
Let the King be put on the stand starting from Day 2, as long as some sort of minimal punishment is there, as rendering Royal Blood temporarily useless, it shouldn’t be a problem.
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My issues with your version of the Royal Blood punishment thing
1: It only gives extra benefits to scum in LyLo, a scenario in which people just would try lynching the King last from now on.
2: It’s very verbose, as opposed to “If you are executed, Royals may no longer step up early.” This has got to fit on an in-game role card, after all.
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I mean, if a scum stepped up early as King after a Good King was executed, that’s basically asking to be lynched, because they’ll die anyways. It would only be for certain situations.
Well yes they can chose whether to step up early or at the general rolecall. They’d obviously only step up early if either 1. they were caught anyway (say an existing log that just came up that morning revealed them). in which case, stepping up would kill them either way, but delay the election. or if say in an even numbers situation. Of which the side that gets the king is the only one that can execute
But in that case, you would see a lot less people chancing executing the King the day before. So I don’t think it’s really necessary that Royal scum still get the opportunity.
It ruined stuff like Knights and Phys though - do I just guess what to do the first few nights? Makes the game really uneven imho
Why would I protect the king if he does not matter at all?
As a BD I would just assume he is bad and who cares otherwise? Just an empty slot in the roster
Just don’t protect the king FFS. I would tell you that even before this change. King has his own guards. Now he has 6 even. King can defend himself, he does not need your help.
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