Why I think the current ToL state is bad

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

Hi.

Just for start: I dont think the game overall is bad, and im not saying ALL changes in the patches are bad.
This is just my opinion, and im not saying I dont understand the point of these changes.

This is just a respectful opinion and feedback I wanted to post.

Lets begin with The Mercenary and Sellsword changes:

They make sense, but it ruins the basic purpose of the Merc: Protect a target. It was really fun to contract somebody and protect him, and even if the “Revenge Kill” with 1 charge was pretty useless, it felt really nice to use it.

Now Mercenary has to beg for some sucessful defenses, making it more Luck based rather than skill based.

I think the best change would be the possibility of picking the first contract before Day 3 and go from there.

Sellsword is actually a Neutral Butler who can side with neutrals and evils, the only problem I got with Sellsword its pretty simple: It just feels pretty useless when you play it, you just see how 1 factions wins while you try to help people you dont really know who they are. One more time, luck based instead of skill based.

Swear Fealty: Just get linked by a Mystic and there you go, Immune to conversion + Guarded by king Investigator. And you can say “Well maybe king is evil and you just exposed yourself as Mystic”

But here is my next point:

Neutral king no longer being able to start the game and current chances of King faction:

King is no longer a “Box of Surprises”: He is now Good most of the times and when he is evil, its too obvious because different kings now have different abilities.

Neutral King chances made the game more different between matches, since he can side even with the Neutral Killer and people needs to have in mind the king can be Neutral.

Also, I think the king is now… Just a Mercenary before the patch: Some guards and a 1 use ability, it was pretty fun to execute somebody at night and shocking the entire court.

And my last statement and the thing makes me feel really sad about:

Alchemist and Scorned:

Lets start with Scorned: Now its just luck based: Frame somebody and pray for it being investigated, or just go afk and pray for people getting executed in court.

Before the patch you could just keep punishing the same person and go for it, but now you just need… Luck.
Also, a detail: Now the Scorned lore makes no sense.

Alchemist: Now we have a Superhero in the court, a SupportOfensiveKillerInvestigative goddes what can do anything.

This one is really skill based, and thats pretty good. But she can do anything by herself! before she had to side a faction to get protection but why if you can just do what any class can do for you in the game.

I want to say, even if this changes are not good, there are a lot of this I really like: Court Wizard feels amazing, Neutral Killer changes are awesome, and there are a lot of other things who are pretty well made.

My conclusion: ToL is now a “Have Luck and you will win” game and not a deception one.

Thanks for reading and remember this is just my opinion.

2 Likes
#2

No, You scumread the evils then work with them. You get people to mislynch the BD and pardon the evils, it’s entirely fun to play and is not luck based in the right players hand.

7 Likes
#3

Yea, because the evils will trust you being a Sellsword when you could be a Butler, and BD will never investigate you…

I just think Sellsword doesn’t do anything important in most games.

1 Like
#4

That’s not my fault you literally could get all the BD to protect you and mislynch every day, it’s literally the skill of the player

#5

Neutral King doesn’t work in practice. He ends up being an Evil King that you can’t scumread

2 Likes
#6

More like an evil king that is supposed to see the NK win that you can’t scumread

1 Like
#7

IMO I’ve always disagreed with the “evil loner can just scumread to find out his ally’s”. I’m all for skill based play… but in general I assume that 9/10 times in a room of 16, there’s at least one other person close to my level or better. If I’m certain enough that someone is evil entirely from the signs that went across the table, I’m also assuming someone else has caught him and either planning to kill at night, waiting to see if he whispers or defends anyone to get extra benefit when he turns up evil. or at the very least preparing to peak or check him to have a weightier claim to the BD.

Either way… when I can conclude a 90% chance that someone is evil, entirely from public information… that’s the time I should either bus him, or at the very least not associate with him, because surely if I saw it someone else probably did.

Maybe that’s just my weakness in game though. Maybe my winrate would go up if I started from the assumption that the odds are insignificant that anyone is anywhere near as clever as me.

#8

I think the flaw here is you’re never going to reach the same level of co-ordination with the informed minority as being a member yourself. Due to the nature of ToL it is usually difficult to gauge how many members they have until there’s 6-7p and by 6p it should just about be clear what you are, until that phase I consider the SS to be expendable and therefore a much preferable lynch over a member of the informed minority or the NK.

In terms of the game itself, I find it very difficult to perform a bus as a butler/mercenary claim which is what most sellswords are claiming. I think your best option is to prevent people from discovering their alignment for as long as possible; delaying the inevitable and when people start to vote him up and it’s nowhere near LyLo to get your vote on the wagon so you can’t be backread.

Its very important when not in LyLo to get your votes on public lead-based lynches

#9

I don’t mean the following statements in a condescending way whatsoever:

If you stop being a passive player, luck will have less of an effect on your games.

Sellsword is incredibly powerful. Prince outs themselves? “Sellsword here, stonewalling Prince, kill him tonight, evils.” Your life is worth less than the Prince’s. Pushing mislynches should be your number 1 priority as Sellsword and occupying the first player the king whispers back to after D2.

6 Likes
#10

So you say it’s too confirmable? Just like mystic in general? People just misuse this ability like this. Anyone who would convert an outted mystic clearly didn’t think about it enough. Mystic is too confirmable to SF anyway. No reason to SF someone who very few people would dare convert. This example might be true, it makes people complain all the time, but no one ever realizes it’s just a waste of a SF.

I was shocked by the throws as well… ah and all the ways it made other classes unable to use their abilities like CW not tornado’ing 'cause King might wanna yoloOE someone.

Note: I get the rest even though I don’t agree with all of it really, but felt like commenting on those.

#11

@Sketch Thanks for explaining some strats for SS. I just started playing again recently and although I only played SS twice, I was like “wtf am I supposed to do here?”

1 Like
#12

Welcome back Alan :3

#13

Alan? Where I thought he’s gone forever

#14

“Sellsword doesn’t do anything important”

Your playing ss wrong, it isn’t about surviving till end game, it’s to intimidate investigates, helping with killing targets like the prince, cause chaos in the court.

4 Likes
#15

:heart:

https://forum.imperium42.com/t/merc-rework-with-contract/71903

#16

He recently got unbanned :slight_smile:

#17

Good for him

Anyhoo about this thread thing

Just because a few classes is ‘bad’ in your eyes it doesn’t mean the whole game is bad? Like, Mercenary and Sellsword are Neutral, not one of the bigwigs like Unseen an Cult. The game’s main dynamic focus on the two opposing faction, so calling the whole game bad because you don’t like a few Neutral (Neutral) classes is too much I think.

So yeah.

#18

Agreed. The one time I got Mystic since the patch I told the King that he should save his SF for an investigative like sheriff

#19

As I said in the post, I am not saying the whole game is bad, Im just concerned about some things.

#20

“Why I think the current ToL state is bad”

:roll_eyes:

3 Likes