Town of Salem: The Coven

[shapesifter13]

Hey Townies! This is some of the biggest news we have ever announced. Today we are happy to say that we will be releasing an expansion to Town of Salem! Town of Salem: The Coven. We are really happy with all the work that has gone into this expansion, and know you will all have a blast playing it too!

This expansion will add a ton of new things, so check it all out the official announcement post here: http://www.blankmediagames.com/town-of-salem-the-coven-announcement/

[Hellpest]

Refer to my avatar.

To all the people instantly going 'OMG BMG CASH-GRAB, NO PLAYERS NOW, GAME RUINED', stop and think for a second. How many multi-accounters are going to pay for each account? How many 10-year-olds who think it's ok to spam Fine Black Gentleman, retard, and faggot, aren't going to be able to pay for this? You've been asking for higher ranked requirements for months. Well here it is. The willingness to pay a minimal amount of money for a game you enjoy is that requirement.

Think of this less of like a DLC, and more like this is now the full game, and the browser version is a free demo. This is a standard move for an in infdev game.

Here are some good posts. I'm gonna use and abuse my position as first comment to get them the attention they deserve.

Spoiler:

Nowhere does it specify that the Guardian Angel's target is always a Town role...although for balance purposes, presumably it must be? A Survivor who can suddenly prevent the evils from being voted up at a critical moment would be a pretty fearsome opponent to the Town!

To be honest, my immediate gripe with Guardian Angel is that if the GA fails, he becomes Survivor. That's not exactly a massive incentive to protect your target at all costs. We'll have to see how it balances, but dying of guilt the following night if their target dies (as with Vigi) might sharpen the mind of the Guardian Angel...

Splitting the community base is a really, really bad idea. Part of what made this game such a success was that it's free and easy to get into - you could have a new player be in their first game within a minute or two.

You devs are acting like your game is an AAA game - it's not. It's a browser game. You don't have the graphics, decent UI, and overall features to justify a $10 DLC.

I get that it's a lot of content, and that's great. But you don't need to sell it for 10. I'd prefer it be free (even as someone who has purchased numerous things to support you guys) because that way I can convince a ton of my friends to come back and play more because "They just released an awesome update!" but if not sell it for $5 and free to steam users.

Right now you're literally going down the road of old YPP!, where the majority of content releases became cosmetic cash-grabs. You already released the merit point system. I get that and I'm surprised it wasn't like that before, honestly. Hell, I'm even ok with taunts (not so much them ONLY being available for 50 TP AND being CONSUMABLES), but at least let people purchase them for 100 merit points. I've animated flash sprites before and it's extremely quick/cheap to develop them. But all of these things combined make it seem that you care much less about creating a quality game and more about double and triple dipping into profit margins.

That being said, I get that you're a company and you need to make money. I'm fine with that. But the answer is not locking away content in the form of DLCs. You were crowdfunded. Well and beyond original expectations. If you do this you will split the community base. You'll make money in the short term, sure. But when you split the playerbase like this INEVITABLY will, you won't have the numbers to give players quality games, you piss off your players, and they'll leave. In droves. Your game will die, just like YPP! did.

This should be unlocked at 1k games or ~5000 town points as an alternative to $10
I dont mind paying $10 and if it stays that way I would still buy it but the division of the community can be solved by allowing it to be purchased for ingame currency too

Thoughts:

I really don't like the pirate. Realistically, since it works by rock-paper-scissors, it's entirely luck-based. If the different options had different effects beyond just deciding who wins the rock-paper-scissors game, it'd be fine (because then you could try and predict what your target would do based on the larger game state.) But as it is, it's total luck.

The Psychic also seems to be completely random, although it's not as annoying as the pirate.

I'm fine with the Crusader's randomness. It's a bit random, but it requires that you predict your target's visit and that they visit the same person you do. (And really, a BG shoots at random when someone is attacked by multiple people, from a practical standpoint.) But I'm concerned that Crusaders may kill off too many people too fast - I suspect most Crusaders are going to visit every night, whether it makes sense or not. It's like a mini-Veteran who can't be identified and who can alert every night. Yes, it only kills one visitor, but that is going to add up fast. I would limit the Crusader to three visits, have them kill all (other) visitors, and make them unique - basically a Veteran who protects other people instead of themselves. Also, I wouldn't give them a death note, so they can't confirm easily (making them more distinct from the Veteran, who is easily confirmed.)

I know the Tracker has been around a while as a suggestion, but I'm concerned that it basically makes all non-visiting roles impossible for visiting evils to claim. Realistically, it also prevents evils from claiming Vigilante.

I'm worried that the Coven will kill too quickly. Literally every one of them is a potential killer in one way or another, and only the leader even needs the Necronomicon to do it. The Hexmaster is basically an Arsonist, and an Arsonist with an entire faction backing them up killing people for them is going to get ugly fast. (However, do the Coven know other Coven members? That makes a big difference.)

The Coven members know each other.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, that's gonna be hilariously broken, then.

The Psychic is a larger problem than the pirate. It confirms a town role every 2 nights and even outside of competitive gameplay, that's broken and should be fixed. Why not 3 possible people as good role candidates just like how 3 roles are offered on the odd nights?

The whole concept doesn't really work... I just don't see what this role adds. What's it supposed to accomplish?

Here's my alternative: The Psychic does nothing on full moon nights. On non full-moon nights, they select three people (you must select exactly three or you do nothing). You learn their roles, but the order is shuffled, so you don't know who is what. Obviously, you can narrow it down by choosing a different three, but it takes time. Also, the psychic doesn't visit their targets (otherwise their exposure to Veterans, Werewolves, and Crusaders would be suicidal.)

They cannot target themselves and cannot choose a revealed Mayor as one of their three targets.

They only get to act every other night because they can, most of the time, fairly easily determine fake claims (if someone claims, and you make them one of your three targets, and none of your three targets are that claim, then you know that person was lying.) They're also very powerful when they have two confirmed roles to work with. However, they are extremely vulnerable to Framers (who can confuse them by framing any one of their three targets) and Disguisers.

Possibly it could be four roles instead of three (which would make it harder to exploit knowing two people's roles and basically being a Consig.) An alternative is to make it so you cannot target any of the people you targeted last time, making it harder to narrow things down and to exploit confirmed roles.

Turn the "Rock Paper Scissors" into a reaction test. A button will appear randomly and it will say either "Attack!" Or "Defend!" whether you're a Pirate or Defender, respectively. If defender clicks the button first, the attack fails, and Pirate cannot target this player the next night. If Pirate clicks first, the attack succeeds, and the defender is killed and roleblocked, piercing both immunities. (so not even Veteran is safe unless Pirate fails)

Alternatively, make the Pirate have to guess that player's exact role, but I kinda like the minigame. If it feels to be a bit problematic due to things like lag and AFKing and the like, then we can go with exact role.

The Coven roles could use some name shortening? Most of them are a mouthful, and one word roles are easier to remember.

Hex Master -> Hexer
Potion Master -> (Al)chemist?
Guardian Angel -> Guardian or Angel? Both together are too long in Graveyard.

Coven Leader -> Hecate

Ambusher is a kinda clunky name for me, perhaps it could be "Poacher" or "Highwayman" or "Bandit" or something

Pirate is the most fun new role added in the game. It gives the pirate a fun goal and adds variety to the game. Plus it causes tense moments if you're on the other end of the plundering. It's like a fun mini game that adds variety to the game. Pirate is a neutral role and his only goal is to kill two people. He can win with everyone, which makes it even more fun.

Look at him from the perspective of everyone else in the game, though.

1. The Pirate's ability to kill is entirely based on luck. This means that you cannot make strategies based on his actions. I can try and predict where an SK, Mafioso, GF, or Werewolf will attack; I can guess what they'll do (based on their goals and overarching strategy) and use this to plan ahead myself. They might get RBed or hit an immune, but these are all things that result from intersecting strategies and actions - stuff you can plan around. I know that the WW will attack every other night (unless they decide to stay home and nobody decides to visit them), and all of these are things I can strategize around. If something happens with one of those roles, it's a result of people's intersecting choices, all of which can at least notionally be predicted based on their goals.

The Pirate's killing relies on a die roll - a 1/3 chance, with no tactics to it at all - which makes it impossible to plan around whether he'll kill or not; and since he has no long-term goal beyond getting two kills, his targets are always utterly random from the perspective of everyone else. That makes the game less strategic, causes who wins to become more random, and therefore makes the game as a whole less balanced. (Again, as I keep saying - the balance that matters is strategic balance, not win-rates. Are a wide variety of strategies viable? Do games play out in interesting ways? The Pirate hurts this and makes the game as a whole less fun, even if you enjoy screwing around while playing him.)

2. The pirate pierces immunity and can, based on a random die-roll, kill N1, before anyone has a real chance to influence anything. There's a few roles that pierce immunity, yes, but they tend to have more strategically-significant limitations - things that make it much less likely that you'll die to them so fast (and if you do, it's often because you made a tactical mistake.) The Pirate doesn't do any of that. He can just randomly kill a NK N1 and there's absolutely nothing whatsoever you can do to influence your chance of this happening to you in either direction. Again, this is not balanced. This is not fun, not for anyone but the pirate (who, when it happens, gets some cheap lols at lucking out and making the game awful for everyone else.) This is terrible design.

3. Because the Pirate has no goals beyond killing two people, their kills are always 100% unpredictable. This, again, makes the game less strategic. As a BG or Lookout, I can predict (to an extent) where the NK or Maf or Coven will hit, because I know their goals. The Pirate has no goals that matter from a tactical standpoint, just (in effect) random die-rolls; this ruins the balance that makes several other roles work and, again, generally just makes the game more random at the expense of tactical depth.

4. The pirate can win (sometimes very fast) and then stick around as a kingmaker, deciding the game entirely based on his arbitrary whims. This isn't fun for anyone else involved. Kingmakers are already a thing, of course, but the Pirate is the worst by far (since they're a kingmaker who can kill). You mentioned this as a positive - obviously it's fun for the Pirate to just make a mockery of the game by arbitrarily doing whatever the hell he wants after winning, but it's unfun for everyone else, because it means their choices and planning and strategy don't matter at all in the face of the Pirate's random die rolls.

(I keep saying 'die rolls' when he actually plays rock-paper-scissors to emphasize the fact that there is no strategy to that at all. If it just rolled 1d3 when you attacked, the effect would be the same.)

These are all the same problems I've pointed out with people's ability to evaluate changes before. People only evaluate "balance" from the perspective of "do I have a good win rate as this role? Do I have fun as this role?" That is not the most important part of a role; there is 1 of you and 14 other players. Roles have to be fun, sure, but the most important thing is the impact a role has on the meta - the way it changes how people play, the strategies it rewards or punishes and how this influences the overarching way people play the game. The Pirate has a terrible effect on that by making the game as a whole more random for everyone involved, generally decreasing the value of strategy, increasing the chance that players will win based on random die-rolls or his whims rather than their own actions, and therefore making the game less balanced.

In a balanced game, the best player (or team) will win. When a role can easily result in someone winning arbitrarily, they're unbalanced. Every role has some risk of that (the game involves a lot of hidden information, and sometimes you do have to just guess), but the Pirate is the absolute worst role in this respect that the game has ever had, and unlike other such roles it has no redeeming features. Note that my objection here isn't that the Pirate wins at random - I find that a bit silly, but I don't really care about it. My problem is that the Pirate can very very easily cause other people to win or lose at random - ie. a Pirate who wins every die roll will have a dramatically different impact on the game than one who loses every die roll; and a pirate who always tries to target Town will have dramatically different impact than one that always tries to target the Mafia; and there is absolutely no difference between those than dumb luck in one case and the pirate's whims in the other.

(ie. yes, a Jester sometimes picks arbitrarily, but you have to guilty them to be vulnerable - so they add strategy, overall. And yes, a SK or WW could decide to always target the Town or Mafia, but their ultimate goal is to win by beating both, which gives them more of a direction than random whimsy and lets people predict or play around their actions. The pirate doesn't have any of this. Tactically, the Pirate adds nothing to anyone except the pirate - nothing whatsoever - and this results in a game that is governed more by dumb luck.)

That's why my proposed changes to the Pirate are basically:

1. Change his goal to a Witchgoal. He could still sometimes be a kingmaker, and would still be sometimes free to pick a side, but now has a more concrete set of goals that let other people plan around him to an extent, adding strategic depth instead of taking it away.

2. Change the rock-paper-scissors game so each decision has strategic significance (ie. he gains some distinct benefit based on what card he chooses if he wins, so his target can try and predict what he wants and respond accordingly.)

He'd still be sometimes random and arbitrary (just like a Jester or a Transporter is sometimes random and arbitrary), but with those changes he'd be something other players can 'use', strategically, and therefore a role that adds stuff to the game's strategic depth rather than just taking away - he'd be more like a Jester, basically. A wild card, yes, but a wild card people can plan around (and whom they're a bit more at fault if they lose to.)

This would keep a lot of what people like about the Pirate (he'd still have a huge amount of freedom and would still play the minigame) while adding enough structure to let people plan around him.

VIP is a bad game mode because scum don't know who the VIP is. Anyone can send a whisper asking who the VIP is and confirm someone as town/scum instantly.

Other than Jugg and Pestilence, all role cards are available in game now.

Tip: try clicking on one of the slots in the role list during the game. You can see all possible roles that can show up in that slot, and can click a role name to see the rolecard.

Hellpest is the best Mod and is 'very very sexie'.

^ Added per request of the OP.

Edit: Quotes no longer updated as of 6/6/17. Most quotes dropped into a spoiler.

[dyaomaster]

And so now Tracker is purchase only.

Gee. Thanks.

[UNDERSTOOD12345]

To all those wondering: It costs money4

[dyaomaster]

This is a purchase only update, so even if it was I doubt it would help

[chitownmvp01]

This looks really cool! Btw I have posted a suggestion for the Trapper role in the Suggestions section of the forums.

Inb4 people complain about it not being free.

The new roles do bring negatives about balance though. For example, Ambusher killing 2 people on some nights is quite OP in Ranked when the Any's Mafia.

[UNDERSTOOD12345]

Yes. The game has become money based now. It costs 10 dollars... and is going to dilute the playerbase of the free players.

[Swordsworth]

I bet you wish now we added scrolls to FM

[chitownmvp01]

Yes. The game has become money based now. It costs 10 dollars... and is going to dilute the playerbase of the free players.

How else would they be able to afford working on this game?

[UNDERSTOOD12345]

...

[lucky333123]

Sadly I can't afford the $10


Can someone explain to me what the coven is? I'm on my phone.

[LevinSnakesRise]

It's the expansion of the Witch faction that was announced.

[chitownmvp01]

Yes. The game has become money based now. It costs 10 dollars... and is going to dilute the playerbase of the free players.

How else would they be able to afford working on this game?

I don't know about you, but $400000 from kickstarter money is a good deal, even if some of it went to fund the card game.

Were the Kickstarters for profit? I don't think so. I believe they were to raise money to fund updates. A company needs to make a profit.

[Galaktik]

Are all of these roles a part of the DLC or only the new faction? These roles are trash and splitting the community is a terrible idea.

Ranked will be more dead than ever now.

[UNDERSTOOD12345]

Are all of these roles a part of the DLC or only the new faction? These roles are trash and splitting the community is a terrible idea.

Ranked will be more dead than ever now.

100% agreed, could not sum it up better

[lucky333123]

It's the expansion of the Witch faction that was announced.

So it is a separate game mode? Will the roles be useable in other modes?

[chitownmvp01]

Are all of these roles a part of the DLC or only the new faction? These roles are trash and splitting the community is a terrible idea.

Ranked will be more dead than ever now.

I don't think Coven roles would work in Ranked.

[iggyvolz]

Oh my god, they're a company and they want to make money for doing things. So very evil. They should be slaving away all day fixing everything for free.

In all seriousness,


This looks awesome. Definitely looking forward to getting back into ToS now that finals are done.

Questions: Do you know when preorders will go up for this? Also - this won't be a separate SWF/Steam app right, just a different mode within the game?

[RotomDex]

Looking through the roles list, some are pretty good looking. Hypnotist, Medusa and Pirate sound like great roles.

However, there are some roles in here that are considerably less good; Crusader sounds like a worse BG, Potion Master sounds overcomplicated and overpowered, and the Psychic confirming a town member every 2 nights is utterly ridiculous. And the Plaguemaster is going to be... interesting.

[Galaktik]

Are all of these roles a part of the DLC or only the new faction? These roles are trash and splitting the community is a terrible idea.

Ranked will be more dead than ever now.

100% agreed, could not sum it up better

Yes I agree. this isn't COD.
In COD, it doesn't matter if people have DLC map packs or not because there are still enough people.
With this, if you have DLC, you will likely have trouble trying to find a game

I mean the thing is that ranked usually only has 2-4 queues at a given time anyways. Ranked is so inactive because they do nothing to promote it. This will just split the community further. I would not be surprised if there is only one queue at a time in the ranked DLC queue, if that even..

I guess I can't be surprised they are appealing to the lowest common denominator here. Maybe most of their players are kids and teens, but I doubt the kids and teens are the ones spending money on the steam version, buying bundles, or funding the kickstarters.

[LevinSnakesRise]

Oh my god, they're a company and they want to make money for doing things. So very evil. They should be slaving away all day fixing everything for free.

In all seriousness,


This looks awesome. Definitely looking forward to getting back into ToS now that finals are done.

Questions: Do you know when preorders will go up for this? Also - this won't be a separate SWF/Steam app right, just a different mode within the game?

There will be a way to swap between Classic ToS and Coven ToS, from my understanding.

[chitownmvp01]

Oh my god, they're a company and they want to make money for doing things. So very evil. They should be slaving away all day fixing everything for free.

In all seriousness,


This looks awesome. Definitely looking forward to getting back into ToS now that finals are done.

Questions: Do you know when preorders will go up for this? Also - this won't be a separate SWF/Steam app right, just a different mode within the game?

Finally someone that agrees with the point I've been trying to make.

Looking through the roles list, some are pretty good looking. Hypnotist, Medusa and Pirate sound like great roles.

However, there are some roles in here that are considerably less good; Crusader sounds like a worse BG, Potion Master sounds overcomplicated and overpowered, and the Psychic confirming a town member every 2 nights is utterly ridiculous. And the Plaguemaster is going to be... interesting.

Yeah I like the Hypnotist role too. Ambusher is OP as well. I agree that Psychic is OP.

[LevinSnakesRise]

Oh my god, they're a company and they want to make money for doing things. So very evil. They should be slaving away all day fixing everything for free.

This looks awesome. Definitely looking forward to getting back into ToS now that finals are done.

Questions: Do you know when preorders will go up for this? Also - this won't be a separate SWF/Steam app right, just a different mode within the game?

Finally someone that agrees with the point I've been trying to make.

Yes companies are supposed to make money, but it would make their reputation not as bad if everything they did wasn't an obvious money grab.
(Card Game, Merit Points, Taunts, This new alignment, etc)

Yet the alignment doesn't have to be owned in order to play Classic ToS. It doesn't give an advantage over those who play Classic because the two are split.

Most online games have multiple currencies. I guess every company out there that does that is also money-grubbing because they have split currencies.

Yes there are valid points here, but there are some that invalidate some claims, such as my split-currency response.

[chitownmvp01]

Naru how is Ranked going to work? Will there be 2 versions?

[datdownie]

Electrician? :3

Goddammit Kirize. XD

Anyhow, I'm actually quite keen on this. It's definitely needed an expansion for a while now from the original.

...until I heard it's a DLC that's worth $9.99. That's a definite turn off for most people who are F2P for this. It definitely turns me off for sure, since the replayability is not as big as it once was in the past.