I really like the idea of this game, but there are a few things that really stop me from wanting to play it again. I've never played anything similar to Throne of Lies so it's safe to say I'm particularly inexperienced and quite bad, but I feel this gives me a good outsider's perspective. While I completely accept that I'm terrible at the game, I don't feel I could get any better at it in any decent amount of time and here's why.

With multiplayer games like this there's always going to be a small percentage of players who know every detail about the game, experienced players who have followed the game from it's inception. From playing ToL, I've come across many players like this and it's due to the small playerbase.

With AAA titles, you can be sure that when you start playing that there will be a good mix of newbies, regular players and the aforementioned veterans. In ToL, they're everywhere and you cannot possibly hope to fool or decieve them as much as the game expects you to. I join a game and hope to christ that I don't get converted or start off as unseen or neutral killer, I know I can't make a convincing story for people who know the nuances of the roles inside out.

It doesn't help that everyone follows this format to documenting their actions, essentially min-maxing the logs so that when they get upped they can just copy paste what they have. There's barely any actual convincing happening, it's just knowing the roles and making up logs. Even when the logs would otherwise be immaculate, there are always people who know enough about the game to collate their info and call the accused's bluff. I don't think I've ever seen an unseen or neutral killer get away with being upped.

The logs are just one part of this 'meta' that stops new players from grasping anything in a short timespan. For one example, in my first game I played as a physician who got jailed on night 2. All I saw was me in jail and the explanation that I won't be able to take any actions, so I just sat there and waited it out. When the timer almost ran out a message appeared, "Well, later then". I was then executed.

It was later explained that I should have made a 'claim', essentially just copy pasting my logs. This was never taught to me in any capacity beforehand, and to be completely honest the game really shouldn't be teaching me about an established 'meta'. I just don't believe that there should be one in the first place. I could pass this off as just a learning experience if there wasn't so much to the roles and the game itself, I don't think I'm ever going to be at a stage where I can fool these guys. The whole notion of executing someone because they aren't talking is kind of stupid, I feel maybe the prince should be subject to conversion or being spawned as an evil prince. This would fix the issue with not wanting to speak or give information as it doesn't necessarily cause suspicion. My two cents, feel free to discuss.

All in all, ToL is not a game that I'm excited to play anymore. I don't know enough about it and I feel I'm always going to play catchup. Not just that, but the game appears to have boiled down to this very sterile process of keeping/faking logs and presenting them when asked. There needs to be more conversation and there needs to be more convincing because, most of the time that logs are presented, the court has already made up their mind.

I'm not even sure how you'd fix it. It must be fun for the core playerbase to keep playing, but the small and experienced playerbase combined with this playstyle they've all created is a real turn off to new players I feel.

I'm obviously not going to put words in peoples' mouths, I'd like to hear if anyone shares my opinion. If not, let me know what you think anyway. Maybe I'm just really bad at the game and nobody else is having these issues.