Whisper meta costs

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

The whisper meta currently in play needs some sort of cost. I’ve seen streamers putting suggestions out already, and I might have missed some here too.

Examples:
no whispers in first 2 or 3 days
each whisper has a cool down of 5 to 10 secs across the Court, ie the next whisper isn’t available until the CD ends from any player
Noble can eavesdrop more than one target (maid stands between 2 players at once)
visible whispers don’t remain in chat history at the end of day - they default to “X whispered to Y”

Any others?

-RustyRoo

1 Like
#2

I would limit the amount of whisper targets for every player individually. Maximum of 1 whisper conversation initiated by someone else and maximum of 1 whisper conversation initiated by yourself.

#3

The whisper meta isn’t bad. It makes Noble very useful, for one.

I see no harm in it, and things to gain from it.

7 Likes
#4

It’s the day 2 wall of whispers meta, not whispering in general, that’s becoming an issue.

#5

It’s not an issue, though.

It adds to the game.

1 Like
#6

My experience is that king is insisting on everyone whispering claims D2 in 4 out of 5 games. That has an impact on balance. On D2, Un or Cult are listening for clues to check that their cover is reasonable. To be forced to blind claim puts them at a disadvantage.

King just writes it all down, finds where he has too many claims and ups them both (or more), asking the prince to jail any survivor if an inno gets killed.

This can potentially happen without a single BD investigative result being reported to the king. He’s acting on the whispers and the whispers alone in some cases.

in one game, a BD king upped someone day 2 for not whispering, that turned out to be a princess, and blind exed another at night. Sometimes, BD don’t want to claim or be forced to - Prince or Hunter for instance - because they’re not sure of the king’s own alignment by that point.

So, that’s another issue created by this meta that could be addressed with a relatively simple whisper cost.

So, let’s start tracking games to see how many legit claims are being exed with no investigations to indicate any guilt, and if the problem is serious or minor.

Some common ones are: knight, princess, hunter, and CW.

“Knight claim? Exe this”
“CW? 2018 claim lol”

being fairly common reactions.

Granted, this is my gut feeling and I haven’t gathered hard data on it yet myself, but we can, and it’s easy to see how much this meta is impacting balance.

My prediction is that it will be close to, if not actually, game-breaking.

I didn’t argue for removing whispers btw, only making them have some sort of cost to them.

1 Like
#7

Eh

I’ve never been a fan of whispers existing whatsoever, so whisper-based metas have always felt really boring, especially when whoever RNG decides is King or whatever basically controls the entire early-game flow.

I expect you’ll get bored of this sooner or later.

#8

The King whisper meta is a very good strategy imo, I don’t understand the reasoning behind adding a counter to this strategy.

#9

Because why the heck would you leave a strong strategy with no counterplay?

Whether it needs to be nerfed or not is a question, but there should always be counterplay. In this case, converted Social classes and the possibility of an Evil King are some of the things the scum have going for them in these scenarios.

#10

There is already some counters, for example, you fake logs which is a core part of being evil and surviving even without this meta strat. Don’t see why more counters need to be added tbh.

#11

I just listed some counters, and I get that there are some in place. Your post seemed to generalize the idea that good strategies don’t need counterplay, which is what I was responding to.

As for whether this particular case needs any, that’s a matter for individual opinion (well, and Boslof’s stats).

1 Like
#12

Ima just address all of the specific solutions suggested in the OP.

This would have too much collateral damage. Classes like Merc, Psychic and Noble would take a big hit and I don’t think you intended for that.

This would just be really annoying. If there are 2 different groups of people that trust each other and want to talk then they should be able to do so simultaneously.

Yes. This is more like how we should go about it (this alone will not be enough however). Noble is a little weak and if we nerf the whisper king meta then we will need to buff the Noble anyway to keep him strong.

No. This just rewards players who obsessively record everything and punishes slow typers and people who might look away for a second. Any mechanic that rely’s on Memory or Speed is usually a bad idea (hence why Mental Blur gets so much flack).

1 Like
#13

@Livicus had a suggestion that I think is very promising.

For Noble/Aristocrat:

Apostle would have the same ability, meaning it is much more of a risk to have everyone and their mother whisp king on d2.

2 Likes
#14

The problem with that is that the Apostle or Aristocrat only rarely shows up in those first few days.

#15

Adding more whisper-related abilities like

“You were supposed to destroy the Whisper meta, Noble! Not join them!”

1 Like
#16

Maybe there should just be no whispering at all. Or a strict limit of 1 whisper per day.

1 Like
#17

I’d be super happy with that. If I may quote myself:

#18

Allowing a whisper as a day ability for a class like Noble/Psy (and their converted forms) would be an interesting concept. A message like “whispers are heard among the court” instead of saying exactly who whispered who

1 Like
#19

That would definitely be the eventual outcome of such a decision. You should probably also let evil roles continue to whisper in that case.

#20

Maybe just Aristo/Illus/Apostle, and allow for one return message.

And Possessor. Possibly allow him to have a day ability that allows you to whisper the target you controlled the previous night. (would up his fake claim space)

Having a full day chat might tilt the game too heavily in Unseen/Cult’s favor

1 Like