Fire Emblem: Awakening Mafia | GAME OVER: Not Equal To The Challenge

[Dastrn]

We played well enough to not get shot and presumably influenced the ran shot and i personally helped win the game NA wise so dont say we sucked lol. You even called us strong town early on.
Plus
We killed all the right people at the right time. Scum outplayed town and zen and FML led that.

Agreed. You played better than anyone else in the game. Primarily because town sucked.

Xatres read you as scummy D1 but I saw it different so we posted mostly null and town on you. That was my bad. He read you accurately. You did not suck. Your play only sucked IF you WERE town, and you weren't. Xatres and I were actually saying how well you were working the endgame there and we knew town was lost because you were getting away with it.

Scum DEFINITELY outplayed town.

+1

Also, Xast, you act like you were perfect this game. IIRC your reads weren't correct until that case on FML (agree that your case should have been an open and shut on FML.) You had both Zen and me as town reads. You were also the only one to clear Zen based on the safeclaim, it's faulty logic because well, safelclaims exist for a reason.

Not by a long shot. We don't think we played perfectly AT ALL. We're on the phone right now talking about mistakes and whatnot. I read soup as town, xatres made the scum case, and I rolled with his judgment on that. Xatres was right about FML and I was wrong, and he rolled with that. The soup shot WAS the correct play, and it was his own fault he died, and his own fault we went into D2 at such a disadvantage.

We had Zen as a scum read going into D2 and we were going to launch into a case against him until he posted his safe claim (why circus, WHY) and we had to clear him. I actually thought FML might be our pair by mid day 1.

This safeclaim of Zens was as strong as a cop clear. It was brutally unbalanced in favor of scum.
We have talked about this since night 0: if we were wrong about the modding of our odd day kill role having an even counterpart in town, then we were going to have to chalk it up as bad modding, not as bad play on our part. If the role didn't exist at all it would be one thing, but for it to be in a safe claim as scum is just ridic. I'd rather lose a game because I assumed the modding was balanced than win a game because I assumed the mod was sadistic. We decided on that pre-game and rolled with it.

Nah, we got away with it because we were damn townie till seperation, and even in all of that, your case was: He doesn't think we're town because we showed him fb logs.

Yes, you had logs, but you used them in a scummy fashion arguably, you said, and this is basically a quote "It should be obvious from those logs that we are town", basically / essentially "We should be obvtown cuz chat logs", or something to that effect, and you kept acting and posting that those logs affirmed your townieness, and while I admit I didn't think you faked them, if I was legit town, and saw you posting about how those logs absolved all evil, I'd feel very dicey on you, because that is scummy play even if it's true, because your abusing a rule not in place to better your own position and MAKE people read you as townie, which because it looks like your concerned with thread positon / opinion on you(things scum worries about). And yes i "flipped out", but the entirety of it was faked and mostly ad-libbed planning, which ended up working. We were too townie D1 for the type of pressure you were putting on us. Plus, my million posts, all were still a not entirely terrible defense, yes they had AtE and such, but that was because that's what they needed to have.

You needed to focus more on how our waffling was scummy, and how opportunistic our read on you had been. I think.

RR's conflicted attitude when you take D1 into play is completely understandable, we were just strong enough early to allow a bit of derpy play to make it a toss up. I wouldn't contribute towns loss to any player sect in perticular, I think Orbo and Raz hit it on the head, scum was simply better prepared than town was.

I think your hydra did well, but you need to try to be more friendly an open feeling to people, even if your style is mechanical, you have to make people like you in a sense first, so that they get your angles.

We didn't intend to abuse a rule. We knew one was not in place, and since the game involved pairup chats, AND we were explicitly told what we did with those chats was our own decision, we felt like our convos were fair as well. In hindsight, we wish it had never happened. Circus can confirm that we told him that well before the controversy died out.

We knew your flip out was faked. And we talked about how well you were doing with it, and how you deserved to win if it worked. It did, and you won. I'll change my mind.

MVP: FML

We were plenty friendly enough until everything went to hell when soup flipped out D1, and then D2 started so stupidly with Kary and RR playing like children D2 until our chatlog backed them off (indirectly, through your post, which in our private convo we pretended was the best post ever.)

My style will likely always be a bit mechanical. I will always harp on inactives, because they coast to scum victories too often. I'd rather kill an inactive day 1 then be stuck with them day 3 still being inactive and clogging up the game.

I did give up on the post tracker after about 500 posts, because GOOD LORD were there a lot of stupid posts just going "lalalalala we don't hear you, we won't even read your posts" being flung about D2.
I'm not sure if you did this on purpose, FML, but you guys posting like 6 in a row one liners influenced it as well. I stopped tracking because I simply couldn't keep up with your volume. You posted the same word count as someone with 1/3 the posts you made, because you just hit post every 20 seconds, regardless of whether or not you were finished speaking...

 

[Shun Goku Satsu Rake]

see my million edit ninja my man

 

[Shun Goku Satsu Rake]

I did give up on the post tracker after about 500 posts, because GOOD LORD were there a lot of stupid posts just going "lalalalala we don't hear you, we won't even read your posts" being flung about D2.
I'm not sure if you did this on purpose, FML, but you guys posting like 6 in a row one liners influenced it as well. I stopped tracking because I simply couldn't keep up with your volume. You posted the same word count as someone with 1/3 the posts you made, because you just hit post every 20 seconds, regardless of whether or not you were finished speaking...

this is because i am jumpy by nature.

You should really read golden sun mafia, it's a eprfect example of how much really goes down in my head as town.

I have a mechanical playstyle but i almost entirely rely on gut feels followed up by thread feels, which means when i feel a new way i always insta post it because i have to get the idea out there

 

[Orboknown]

We just post stream of consciousness and it all ends up out there.
Still bummed we didnt get to use our suicide plan (which was completely designed to get ryu to bteak his weapon so we could nk sokr and jam endgame)

 

[Shun Goku Satsu Rake]

We had Zen as a scum read going into D2 and we were going to launch into a case against him until he posted his safe claim (why circus, WHY) and we had to clear him. I actually thought FML might be our pair by mid day 1.

Thats because me and orbo caught on faster , like I mentioned, I actually did do a little crumbing settign something up that way mostly semi unintentionally, and was surprised you didnt question zen more when he picked it up and claimed and all, because , (and yeah i have a scum bias so it may have been more ovbvious to me), but zen picked it up waaaaay too fast and easy to be natural if you know what i mean

 

[Raziek]

Alright, so here's my overall thoughts/comments post:

​

Based on my last post of reads/content, I was moving generally in the right direction.​

​

Had correct townreads on Ryker, Kary, Sokr, Xastrn.​

​

Incorrect read on FML at that point, but his play didn't start to look bad until D2.​

Incorrect on Dabuz, for much the same reason, wasn't focusing on him on D1.​

​

Null reads on other people.​

​

I have mixed feelings on my decision to (attempt to) shoot Soup. In the moment, I mentally justified it in a way that in retrospect does not make complete sense. It did to me at the time, but I made the shot hastily.​

​

I hold true to my claim that I don't think a Townie should EVER play a situation like that the way Soup did, but I did not give it enough time to pan out and consider if it was really frustrated TownSoup.​

​

What's done is done, at any rate.​

​

Comments on individual play:​

​

Red Ryu - I was kinda null on you D1, and I'm not sure why. I think I've had this conversation before, but you really need to stop trying to stonewall people. When you're wrong, you doing that causes HUGE dissent between Town members and scum can let it blow up in your face at no penalty. I feel like you play much better when you're more co-operative, and it makes you significantly easier to read. I feel like you're trying to FORCE your way to respect, but if you're playing well it should come naturally through agreement with other Townies.​

​

Dabuz - See my comments about scum-play in the quote post I made earlier. You coming to the defense of FML was super unnatural and flip-floppy and basically put your foot in the grave if FML had been shot. Your D1 play was okay, but you would need to be more involved in order to blend in better. Ran pinned you pretty handily on that.​

​

Potassium - I kinda glazed over most of your posts D1. No real comments on your play from when I was alive, but I think you need to trust yourself more. You correctly picked up on the "Saving Private Rake" initiative, but did not act on it. Shooting either person netted you scum, but you deferred your shot against your better judgement.​

​

Xastrn - Most of what should be said has been said, but you need to be more co-operative. I forget who said it, but you "trying to beat people over the head with your opinion dressed up like facts" is very much accurate. I understand that it is your style, but late in D1 and ESPECIALLY in Day 2 you needed to recognize that your approach WASN'T WORKING and adjust accordingly.​

​

As Overswarm has said in the past, Mafia is a game of two parts: Identifying scum, and convincing people to lynch them. Doesn't matter if you're right if people won't listen to you.​

​

Additionally, you got way too hung up on the set-up and fraudulently cleared Zen as a result. You were correct in identifying that Zen's claimed role would be absurdly powerful if it was scum, but you didn't even consider the possibility of mis-information or a well-planned safeclaim. Such things are pretty common in SWF mod meta, and you got burned for assuming otherwise. You barely even seemed to consider his play.​

​

Zen - I have to applaud the balls you had to try to save Rake, that was truly some incredible play. I didn't pick up on much Day 1, but it became apparent as Day 2 dragged on that you were very much sitting on your heels, which isn't something you do as Town. That said, in that situation, that was probably the right play to make. You caused the disruption and then let Town blow itself up. I mainly mention this as a result of it appearing starkly different from your usual Town meta. Well done, and I would support you in receiving MVP.​

​

Sokr: Try to be more active! You're a super-background player, which makes it difficult for others players to read you without relying on meta. You were fortunate to be able to pair with Kantrip and have him on your side, but that certainly isn't something that will always happen.​

​

FML: As both alignments, please tone down the post-apocalypse. You make the thread a nightmare to read, and I'm now at the point where I'm no longer Town-reading you for doing so (following this game). Posting in such sheer volume makes your lack of content become really apparent into D2 when almost every other post you made was saying nothing. Both of you post with clear direction (even when you post a lot) when you're Town, and that wasn't present in your scum play.​

Soup - We talked briefly already in the Green Room, but I'm sorry to see that your personal life interfered with your play. Regarding the parts before the meltdown, I suggest you try not to get so defensive when dealing with other Townies, even if they're wrong. I was on the fence on your alignment but was leaning towards Town until you melted down. Getting into those huge, wally ****-slinging contests has (from what I've seen) very rarely proven beneficial to you. I mentioned at one point that you had a LITERAL BRICK of text that was basically you being incredibly verbose in trying to explain every single detail of I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER because it was so damn unnecessarily long.

Ryker - It's DeGrey all over again, haha. Last time I agree to be YOUR meatshield. Nothing much to say here, our asses got shot.

Death Mountain - I have set-up glasses on here, since I KNEW you guys were Town from the moment I started reading your posts. I thought you guys played really well, though. Reads were very on point, I'm really not sure how people managed to paint you as scummy enough to get shot.

Kary - I thought you played pretty well, but like you said, you seemed a bit lost, and I picked up on that early from your aversion to the game mechanics. I feel like you needed to be involved more in Day 2. You seemed to have the right idea of what needed to happen, but you let the bad pushes from Red Ryu happen and things dragged out/blew up as a result. Hindsight is 20/20.

On the setup:

Circus, I love you for making this set-up. Really my only qualm with it is I feel scum didn't need to have the double-shot. That seems like it may have been too powerful given that Town is restricted by not only numbers, but weapons. A Townie with a broken weapon more or less becomes a tree stump, so that should be accounted for in balance. Overall, really well-planned and interesting. Unfortunate mis-step with the Hydra/Pair-up business, but we live and learn.

Amusingly, I picked up REALLY EARLY into Day 1 that the Townies might ALL be children once things started to shake out a bit. That didn't come into play at all, but it COULD HAVE if scum had tried to safeclaim outside the box and claimed a first-generation character.

That's all I've got for stream-of-consciousness for the moment.

 

[Orboknown]

We werent kidding when we said we think the same things tho

 

[Shun Goku Satsu Rake]

FML: As both alignments, please tone down the post-apocalypse. You make the thread a nightmare to read, and I'm now at the point where I'm no longer Town-reading you for doing so (following this game). Posting in such sheer volume makes your lack of content become really apparent into D2 when almost every other post you made was saying nothing. Both of you post with clear direction (even when you post a lot) when you're Town, and that wasn't present in your scum play.

.

I'm trying believe me. It's just hard when I have an idea spark and go "Oh ****, this is legit"

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Here's the thing. We focused on intention, and everyone tried to hush us the entire time. We talked about WHY certain players would have been killed N1, and NO ONE wanted to explore it.

Imagine being a real cop in a real town trying to solve a murder. You would look into motivation, opportunity, and things like that. NO ONE seems to like to do that in mafia games here anymore, and it makes us frustrated.

I think Zen's safeclaim was a horrible decision by Circus, to be honest, and with respect. I was going to the bank with that check because it's such a clearly poor design to give us the even day thing, and to focus our role PM on our relationship with Nowi as opposites, and then to not have that opposite be town, or even exist at all, for that matter.
THEN to put it in a safeclaim is doubly damning for town.

Just the pure fact that we were in MyLo day 2 suggests that this setup was completely broken in scum's favor. There were NO PRs of note. No cop. No doc. No information roles is just BRUTAL. Allowing scum to kill 2 people in 1 night (even once) is brutal. Most BiM games have 2 cops, and we had 0 ( negative 1, in fact, if you consider the Zen factor ). Circus, love you man but this game fell apart when you designed it. I tip my hat to you for trying something new, and I wish I could say it was good design, but it was flat out bad. I'm sorry. I wish town hadn't played like ****, because then maybe we could have salvaged it.

The Zen safeclaim is just one piece of that, but let's be fair: town SUCKED this game. Soup exploding RUINED day 1. Potassium and Kary refusing to shoot FML RUINED day 2. Kary and RR tunneling me with their fingers in their ears WASTED half of Day 2, and had we not done what was allowed by ultimately shouldn't have been (chatlog), we would have been killed simply because town played horribly.

I'm glad scum won because town did not deserve to win. People didn't communicate with any sort of rationality. AtE and OMGUS were the rules of the game for town. FML was able to stir up enough **** trigger more and more trouble. I wish I could give a MVP vote to someone, but honestly, FML did not play well, and was obvscum. It's only because town sucked that he got away with it. The best thing he did was to flip out and stir up controversy and post a million times there when he was at risk, and get the more emotionally driven players (RR, Kary, Potassium) to start second guessing everything and make a stupid lynch instead of an obvious one.

Rough game. To be honest, Xatres and I couldn't wait for it to end by mid-day 2. I wish I had more positive things to say, but I just don't.

You know, it's kinda sad to see you blaming everyone, including the mod, for town losing this game. I think you should probably take a look at how well you actually did, before you start throwing **** around.

This is coming from me trying my hardest not to give you **** about how badly you played this game.

 

[Raziek]

You know, it's kinda sad to see you blaming everyone, including the mod, for town losing this game. I think you should probably take a look at how well you actually did, before you start throwing **** around.

This is coming from me trying my hardest not to give you **** about how badly you played this game.

This is basically how I feel, though I don't feel you played as awful as some do. Whichever head was posting reasonably has it much better. Xatres, I suppose, by PoE.

Edit: I guess both post were Dastrn, actually.

Just try to check the salt a bit, I suppose.

 

[Orboknown]

Xatres was def more townie than dast

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

MVP: Zen

 

[Xatres]

@Kary: You can criticize us for relying too much on our own logic. That's fine. But we'd rather you reply with logic of your own, showing where our thinking is faulty, rather than getting pissed and making emotional posts. That's pretty much been your MO since page 1, and it's detrimental to both the game itself and your relationship with your fellow players.

The truth is, everything Dastrn pointed out in his post were actual problems that contributed to a town loss. Soup self-destructing caused a mislynch. You and RR tunneling us did take up entirely too much time D2. You and Potassium giving FML the time to hyper-post and sow confusion did cost town another mislynch and unfortunately, ended the game. Our trust is Zen turned out to be wrong, and this was a contributing factor as well. All these mistakes by town contributed to the scum victory.

The problem we were faced with this game was that whenever we turned to logic, everyone told us we were stupid to do so and ignored what we had to say. That was the one unifying problem we saw with town the entire game. Logic is a useful tool that town deprived themselves of in favor gut feels and meta. We were perfectly ready to accept when we were wrong, but no one took the time to actually respond in a way that had any chance of convincing us that we were. Rather than respond with a rational argument, most people just told us off for trying to use logic in the first place. We ended up spending more time defending our playstyle this game than actually playing the game itself.

The fact of the matter is, town needs a variety of playstyles in order to be successful. Two years ago, the best town games came from having aggressive, charismatic town leaders (like Cello) combined with slower, more logical players like Dastrn and I. The charismatic players would often have bad reads, but they were active enough and aggressive enough that they got everyone talking and kept scum from hiding perfectly. The logical players then had all the tools they needed to sift through the data and find scum. This is exactly how town won Oddworld (Cello slowing down at Xastrn/EP's request), and exactly how they lost FF6 (Cello refusing to slow down at my own).

The problem today seems to be that everyone is more concerned about themselves than about town as a whole. This is a generalization, and probably not true for every single player in this game, but the atmosphere really struck me as being this way. Town was more of a mob than a team, which allowed scum to hide a lot more easily than they should have been able to.

Just my 14 cents.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

What I learned is, I am not a leader, and I stonewall people too much when I think I am right.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

What I learned is, I am not a leader, and I stonewall people too much when I think I am right.

In other words: You're not actually worse than anybody else.

 

[Sokr]

Xastrn, IIRC you were the only one who viewed Zen as confirmed town because of his claim. That isn't the mod's fault. That's your fault. You making the wrong assumptions is not poor game design by the mod.

MVP: FML

I can't believe he was my strongest town read for most of the game.

GG everyone, I enjoyed playing.

 

[Raziek]

What I learned is, I am not a leader, and I stonewall people too much when I think I am right.

That's what I've been saying in most of the game's we've played, haha.

In other words: You're not actually worse than anybody else.

Don't I get any credit?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I'd say MvP: Zen

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Don't I get any credit?

Credit? From me?!?

 

[Circus]

Still planning on digging into a lot more stuff tonight, but I have to get to work soon.

Xastrn, I have lots of things to talk to you about.

 

[Dastrn]

You know, it's kinda sad to see you blaming everyone, including the mod, for town losing this game. I think you should probably take a look at how well you actually did, before you start throwing **** around.

This is coming from me trying my hardest not to give you **** about how badly you played this game.

Maybe you missed the post about how I explained how we made a lot of mistakes. See the end of page 52 for that post.

We do think town played like **** from top to bottom, and we do think the game design was poorly balanced. What do you want me to do? Pretend that it wasn't?

@Circus, can you confirm that we were quite kind and appreciative towards you throughout all of our private conversations? We wish nothing bad on Circus, and we don't think less of him for trying out a really risky game. He took on BiM and tried his best to figure out a way to make it better. This was an attempt that unfortunately fell apart.

Kary and RR, it might be time for you two to own up for how bad your tunneling on our slot was for the first 48 hours of day 2.

Trust me, no one found this game more frustrating than we did. I made that line about arguing with you two being like trying to convince a crazy person that he is definitely not a library. That was what this whole game was like for us.

Xatres and I deliberately take on the roles that we do. I'm a very gentle person in real life, but I'm not afraid to state my opinion boldly. In mafia games, I play mechanical for several reasons, primarily because it's in my blood. We are analytical by nature, my brothers and I. We like data, rather than emotion.
We approach conflict differently than most. You don't believe this, and I don't need you to, but I am probably better at conflict management, even under massive stress, than any of you would imagine. Xatres can confirm because he's seen me in action professionally. I spent most of my 20s working with juveniles who were in group homes dealing with major drug, sex, and especially violent issues. I've been hit by bricks and pipes and 18 year olds have tried to stab me and all sorts of things. I've been punched more times than you would believe, and I usually let the first punch land before I do anything.
My point is conflict management and resolution is something I'm better at than most people in the world.
And yet, in this game, the conflict was so poorly thought out and poorly focused that it was pure chaos, and all we could do was try to get people to slow down and consider what we COULD deduce before we started slinging **** and ignoring each other. It was an uphill battle to the Nth degree.

I hope we all garner a few things from this game:
1. Tunnel less. It ruins discussion that can help us find other scum.
2. Consider motivations for night kills. Sure, there's wifom involved, but you have to at least TALK about it.
3. Same goes for day kills. Who's on what wagon, and when did they join it, and how many wagons they were on...etc.
4. Rage less (omg soup, sorry but I might honestly just avoid games if you're in them. that might have been the difference between a win and a loss, all in one rampage.)
5. Go for the sure kill over the speculative one every time. (kill FML d2, not death mountain/ranmaru/pawn....)
6. Stop trusting yourself on your reads so confidently. Lots of you read me as scum D2. All of you that did so were wrong. You didn't present a very serious case. You just didn't like the soup case and kill, and suddenly we were your target and if we hadn't hid behind scum, we would have been dead and the game would have ended 7 days after it started.
7. MODS: Don't design games that put your town in mylo on Day 2. This should NEVER be possible with your setup.

 

[Dastrn]

@Circus, I look forward to it. Thanks again for the game, and for trying new things.

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

please shut up

 

[Xivii]

Welp ignore that last message in the convo lol

 

[#HBC | Kary]

@Kary: You can criticize us for relying too much on our own logic. That's fine. But we'd rather you reply with logic of your own, showing where our thinking is faulty, rather than getting pissed and making emotional posts. That's pretty much been your MO since page 1, and it's detrimental to both the game itself and your relationship with your fellow players.

The truth is, everything Dastrn pointed out in his post were actual problems that contributed to a town loss. Soup self-destructing caused a mislynch. You and RR tunneling us did take up entirely too much time D2. You and Potassium giving FML the time to hyper-post and sow confusion did cost town another mislynch and unfortunately, ended the game. Our trust is Zen turned out to be wrong, and this was a contributing factor as well. All these mistakes by town contributed to the scum victory.

The problem we were faced with this game was that whenever we turned to logic, everyone told us we were stupid to do so and ignored what we had to say. That was the one unifying problem we saw with town the entire game. Logic is a useful tool that town deprived themselves of in favor gut feels and meta. We were perfectly ready to accept when we were wrong, but no one took the time to actually respond in a way that had any chance of convincing us that we were. Rather than respond with a rational argument, most people just told us off for trying to use logic in the first place. We ended up spending more time defending our playstyle this game than actually playing the game itself.

The fact of the matter is, town needs a variety of playstyles in order to be successful. Two years ago, the best town games came from having aggressive, charismatic town leaders (like Cello) combined with slower, more logical players like Dastrn and I. The charismatic players would often have bad reads, but they were active enough and aggressive enough that they got everyone talking and kept scum from hiding perfectly. The logical players then had all the tools they needed to sift through the data and find scum. This is exactly how town won Oddworld (Cello slowing down at Xastrn/EP's request), and exactly how they lost FF6 (Cello refusing to slow down at my own).

The problem today seems to be that everyone is more concerned about themselves than about town as a whole. This is a generalization, and probably not true for every single player in this game, but the atmosphere really struck me as being this way. Town was more of a mob than a team, which allowed scum to hide a lot more easily than they should have been able to.

Just my 14 cents.

Listen, the short version is this. You talk about logic like it can give you answers, when it can't. It doesn't tell you anything by itself.
What you actually need to get ahead are judgements about the way things are- is this scummy, etc.

When you made your judgements, you were wrong about a **** ton of stuff.
And that ain't anyone's fault but your own.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

I hope we all garner a few things from this game:
1. Tunnel less. It ruins discussion that can help us find other scum.
2. Consider motivations for night kills. Sure, there's wifom involved, but you have to at least TALK about it.
3. Same goes for day kills. Who's on what wagon, and when did they join it, and how many wagons they were on...etc.
4. Rage less (omg soup, sorry but I might honestly just avoid games if you're in them. that might have been the difference between a win and a loss, all in one rampage.)
5. Go for the sure kill over the speculative one every time. (kill FML d2, not death mountain/ranmaru/pawn....)
6. Stop trusting yourself on your reads so confidently. Lots of you read me as scum D2. All of you that did so were wrong. You didn't present a very serious case. You just didn't like the soup case and kill, and suddenly we were your target and if we hadn't hid behind scum, we would have been dead and the game would have ended 7 days after it started.
7. MODS: Don't design games that put your town in mylo on Day 2. This should NEVER be possible with your setup.

You could add 'Don't be a condescending prick' to that list.

 

[Xivii]

I haven't read the other posts yet since the game ending, but I typed this during the night phase (so some of it assumes D3 played out).


I think town's downfall resulted primarily from three things:

1. Not realizing the importance of maintaining their weapons.
2. Not fully utilizing the pair system.
3. Scum constantly being far ahead in information.

I'm not sure how many people from town (if any) realized that losing this game wasn't going to come from scum coming to equal numbers with town, but rather by scum surpassing town in kill potential. In lynch-based mafia game, these things are one in the same, but in a shootem-based mafia game, scum can surpass town in kill potential without actually having to reduce town to equal numbers.

1. Town this game was way too happy-go-lucky with their actions! You get one action a day. Using your action as town, REDUCES TOWNS KILL POTENTIAL. The goal of the town therefore should have been to maintain their kill potential while reducing mafias. Xastrn had a good grasp on this Day 1 with his proposed rule set, and Kantrip had a good grasp on this Day 2 when attempting to get his scum reads to make the shot. The success of the mafia came from the fact that were able to squash both of these attempts. Xastrn's rule set would have worked wonders for town, and to my surprise it was actually pretty plausible to pull through with this town. A lot of people were actually down to follow it through at first. Something I wasn't expecting when I first argued against it. Nor did Rake. And funnily enough, we were the first two on Xastrn's radar heh. Another thing about the rule set is that scum, as a matter of fact, weren't actually able to day kill. So if Xastrn's rule set would have gone through we would have been in a tough spot.

Xastrn seemed to lose his principles upon shooting soup though. On D2 they weren't really looking to keep kill potential within the town (see trying to get Kary to shoot FML), but Kantrip picked up the slack. Fortunately scum succeeded again in preventing town from getting their scum picks to shoot and found a way to get Kantrip to shoot instead.

2. As I said in the beginning of the game, information is scum's biggest advantage in mafia, and this game allowed for town to narrow the gap in information by using the pair system. Town actually did pretty good with this day 1. Our biggest threats the entire game were Raz-Ryker and Sokr-Kantrip. Those pair ups were very dangerous to scum for one because of their ability to read each other and for two because they each contained power players in the game (Ryker & Kantrip). Yes, Kantrip was definitely a power player this game. Definitely the most valuable player for town this game imo. So our goal was pretty much to destroy these. Hence the Raz/Ryker kill on Night 1. If town were able to use these even further, I have no doubt scum would have been in a very tight spot. Hence me preventing Kantrip from pairing with Kary.

Obviously, scum could use the pairing system much to their advantage as well if they were manipulative enough. Soup pairing with me d1 was a blessing. And dabuz' pair with Ruy d2 was so good to us. Especially because we were able to plan around Ruy's role which he claimed to dabuz. And I don't think I would have lived through D2 had it not been for pairing with Kary. Both the pair with soup and Kary allowed me to not do stuff publicly, but when people were weary of my inactivity I could point out that I actually was doing stuff in private. The best thing about the pairs though is that it allowed me to strike with BS cases at the exact right time. I could absolutely not let Ran know I "read" him as scum too early in the day. It would have been downfall for me because he reads me hard core as scum any time I don't town read him. And when people questioned my lack of content I could just be like "nah I have it, I've been telling Kary" or "man Kary I told you I wouldn't be here".

So the other thing town failed to utilize with the pair system was using it to limit scum's kill potential. Man you guys knew that people in support position couldn't attack. You should have been using it to limit the possibilities for scum teams. For example, if Sokr, raz, and say Kary were all in support position one night and there was a kill that night, then it's likely that those three weren't the scum team. You guys could have been using this to figure out possible scum combinations, to judge intentions for pairing/not pairing, to prevent a certain player you felt was scum from doing anything in the night, and to force scum players who may be preserving their weapons to have to do the kill at night (if perhaps their buddies were both in support position).

3. The scum team was so on top of it with info this game. Dabuz' flavor knowledge and FML's keen eye kept us way ahead in info. And because of it, nearly everything thing that happened in the game was calculated. Dabuz deduced the setup up of the game way early (by night 1 I believe). This allowed us to make smart choices on who to kill and push based on weapon use. FML's actually the one who picked up on Xastrn's claim. I would have completely glazed over it xD. That alone gave me such a huge advantage coming into D2. As I said almost everything was calculated: Making the soup case when he was not feeling mafia (I knew he'd react in an irrational way at that time), separating from him during the chaos (our goal was to get Xastrn to shoot soup that day), coming into day 2 with the defense claim of xastrn, pairing with Kary (keeping him and kanty out of contact), getting Kanty to shoot Ran (I think our original goal was to get Kanty to shoot Xast), getting Ruy to shoot FML.

Some failed plans:

-Quick shot on Xastrn. I was somad that Xast paired with FML. But it was actually bitter-sweet because it kept him from pairing with me xD. Wouldn't have been able to separate from him and get a quick shot. But Ruy had used his action and Kanty was too level-headed to quick shoot him. I wonder if it would have happened if FML separated from Xast right away though.

-Getting Falchion. We tried so much to get this. FML was originally going to try and get it from pairing with Xast. Then we were thinking of getting it from Ruy after he killed Xast, but neither FML or Ruy could do anything day 2 -_-. I thought for sure we could make it happen by dabuz putting out the falchion-kill theory and then me coming in being like "yo that's some interesting stuff, Xast you can disprove that if you trade it". But nah this guy too stubborn.

-Getting the rest of the people who could use weapons into support position. I was trying sooo hard to get Kary into support position. First by just asking him to pair with me, then by trying to get him to switch with me for protective reasons. Had he done this all we would have needed to do is NK Sokr, and then get Ruy to switch with dabuz at the start of d3. The game would have been won at that. ALL We needed was Kary to go into dang support position. You can imagine my frustration when he didn't buy it.

[collapse=Xast]Dude I loved your play. I felt so bad for harping on your play style because I actually was admiring it. Had I been town I would have been in support of your style. You're very logical. Very investigating. I hope you stick around (you should join GS3). You lost a lot of credibility from town when you did the soup kill. I see why you did it though. But I can also see why it was very suspicious.

Man I'm not sure if people used to provide full out safe claims in your day, but that's pretty common now. Obviously that caught you off guard. I do think I played the part pretty well though. I made sure that I mentioned that "end the day phase" thing before you, and tried to make sure that my play lined up with genuinely having the role (saying you could live once I saw your crumb, defending you as town when no one else wasn't, bluffing that I could use/trade the beaststones). I do wonder if you actually thought that it was illogical for my role to be a safeclaim, or if you were just arguing that because you had a genuine town read on me based on how I went about it?

Also you were right on the MONEY with FML. The real reason why I disappeared during all that was because I didn't know what the **** to do lol. I feel responsible for the whole thing because FML was trying to tell dabuz and I how grimy it would look if they separated, but we were pushing really hard for them to do so. Had I known what was going on in your convo, we probably would have went about it differently. [/collapse]

[collapse=Ran with a bit of jam]You and your accurate reads -_-. Seriously with the skimming though? You weren't paying attention to so much stuff. Especially with regards to the mechanics and set up of the game. That came to my advantage in the end. I was so glad when Rajam took me off the scum list. I thought for sure you guys would come after me once you saw how hard I was pushing you. I was just hoping that the results of walmart mafia would hold you back. FML being "obvtown" is the only thing that threw you off. Had he not achieved that you probably would have had the entire scum team down.

@rajam: just saying you were scum reading me due to me not being hyperactive. That doesn't necessarily indicate me as scum. I posted that walmart game for you for that reason. I was scum read there because I was trying to be more level headed than hyperactive. [/collapse]

[collapse=Rykeraz]

[/collapse]

[collapse=Kantrip]So freaking good. You scared me the most out of anyone this game. I hope you know that me being mad and an asshat was just an act. You were really so good this game. The confidence that you were portraying was so hard to play against. It made me feel like every single thing I was saying was scummy as **** >_<. When I made that stupid argument about Ranjam only having safe scum reads and you caught it I was so mad at myself, because I had debated with myself on whether or not to add it on. You were spot on with so much and you were actually trying to play cautiously and limit scum's kill potential. If just two or three more people played like you, town could of have had this. Seriously man great game.[/collapse]

[collapse=Kary]Gosh dam you man. Why did you separate?? Do you think you would have done so had I not mentioned my reasoning for not pairing with Ran (the person in front is in control)?

Not a bad game. I just wish you'd be more assertive and less passive. If you think someone is town, you don't let them die :/. I feel like sometimes you don't take action because of the repercussions of being wrong maybe. You give your thoughts but you never really push, you stay really close to the fence. I think you just gotta realize that stuff isn't going to happen unless you make it happen. [/collapse]

[collapse=3 in 1]Sokr: Decent reads. Just need to be more active and push what you wanted to push. I will say that, you and Kanty together scared me. Out of curiosity would you have quick shot me D3?

Ruy: wrt to my town play, if you scum read me I'm probably town. If you town read me than it's null. I don't play wacky as scum (unless I know people will town read me from that meta), but as town I tend to play more reckless because I'm not playing for survival.

soup: Man the case I made on you was actually legit. I genuinely thought you were indy at the time >_>… I guess you were just depressed -soup. [/collapse]

[collapse=Scumteam]Excellent. Seriously awesome playing with you guys. Will be excited if we ever happen to land scum together. dabuz your insight on the flavor put us at a huge advantage. Seriously getting that the setup was all children characters by night 1, just excellent. Obviously the only thing you need to work on is posting more during the day, but I heck Ranjam was the only one who picked up on it so idk. FML you being obvtown was what made this game for us. Great job. The only thing that bothered me was letting Xast pair with you and then dragging it out for almost 72 hours >_<. If you seperated from him right away we could have gotten a quick shot on him, and that situation with the FB logs wouldn't have happened. It would have been best to have stay paired with Ruy, have Ruy kill Xast and then trade falchion to you. Other than that though awesome game. [/collapse]

Circus: Seriously awesome game. Most fun I ever had as scum. Really fun over all. I think the game can even be hosted again as a semi-open if it's revised

 

[Xatres]

You could add 'Don't be a condescending prick' to that list.

The same could be said to you. Dastrn can be passive aggressive, true, but you have taken more offense than necessary to a lot of things and then stayed agree about them far longer than is reasonable. You also instantly respond with aggression to anything someone says that you don't like. I'm actually VERY disinclined to play another game with you because of it. Soup flips out he thinks everything is falling apart around him; you flip out when someone eats the last cookie in the jar. Big difference.

Listen, the short version is this. You talk about logic like it can give you answers, when it can't. It doesn't tell you anything by itself.
What you actually need to get ahead are judgements about the way things are- is this scummy, etc.

When you made your judgements, you were wrong about a **** ton of stuff.
And that ain't anyone's fault but your own.

Logic CAN provide answers, if literally anyone else in the game is interested in talking through it. Every single townie in this game was wrong, frequently, about many different things. Bad choices were made all around. At best you could argue this game shows that neither "gut feels" nor logic has any advantage.
I happen to believe that if even a single other town player had been willing to engage in logical discourse, then the the scale would likely have tipped in logic's favor.

 

[Kantrip]

Thank you Zen. Your kind words mean a lot and make me feel a bit better.

Your getting angry and swearing at me was really effective, btw. My confidence was partially faked and having people ***** me out made me falter on it, so props to you on that.

 

[Dastrn]

You could add 'Don't be a condescending prick' to that list.

Notice how I didn't say "don't be a prick" to anyone, and you take things farther than I do? That's been the story of our conflict from the very start. I talk about mechanics and decisions and logic and you respond emotionally. If a play is bad, I'll call it bad. You go OMGUS and call me a prick, or to f(ck off or something.

People who made bad plays deserve to get called out. Same is true for me or you or anyone.

Why are you taking it so personally? I'm trying to have an honest discussion, and while I think the game design was broken, I have posted several times that I appreciate what Circus was trying to do. Xatres and I repeatedly said in our own talks that we really like what he's doing here, and if we're wrong about the Zen thing then we'd just have to talk about the game design

A great idea would be to give the matching roles to town and let us breadcrumb for each other. We banked on this, and we had to abandon our scumread on Zen because of it. All D2 I kept thinking "Zen is playing like scum but he HAS to be town." That was our bad on that, but we had to take it to the bank. Perhaps if soup hadn't exploded, and FML had been shot and stuff like that, we would have sniffed Zen out eventually anyways. OR one of you could have just made the kill without our approval and proved us wrong. Those options were all there.

 

[Kantrip]

Oh believe me Dastrn, one of us killing Zen without your approval was very close to happening, lol

 

[Dastrn]

@Zen Thanks for the encouraging words. I'd definitely hydra with you soon if you want. Next small?

 

[Raziek]

Why are you taking it so personally? I'm trying to have an honest discussion, and while I think the game design was broken, I have posted several times that I appreciate what Circus was trying to do. Xatres and I repeatedly said in our own talks that we really like what he's doing here, and if we're wrong about the Zen thing then we'd just have to talk about the game design

Your tone really says otherwise.

You're not discussing, you're pretty much just laying blame and being mad that people didn't listen to you. Taking some of the blame yourself doesn't change that.

You may not think that is what you are doing, but practically every person here is perceiving it that way.

 

[Raziek]

@Zen: Can I request some actual critique from you, rather than just the trolling? xD

 

[#HBC | Kary]

The same could be said to you. Dastrn can be passive aggressive, true, but you have taken more offense than necessary to a lot of things and then stayed agree about them far longer than is reasonable. You also instantly respond with aggression to anything someone says that you don't like. I'm actually VERY disinclined to play another game with you because of it. Soup flips out he thinks everything is falling apart around him; you flip out when someone eats the last cookie in the jar. Big difference.

Yeah, but it doesn't have the same ring to it.

Oh, and please continue to attack my character on the basis of one mafia game you've played with me. It endears you to me.

Logic CAN provide answers, if literally anyone else in the game is interested in talking through it. Every single townie in this game was wrong, frequently, about many different things. Bad choices were made all around. At best you could argue this game shows that neither "gut feels" nor logic has any advantage.
I happen to believe that if even a single other town player had been willing to engage in logical discourse, then the the scale would likely have tipped in logic's favor.

You don't understand logic. Or you don't know what logic means. I don't know.

 

[Sokr]

Yes Zen, I would've quick shot you almost immediately D3. I even had a gif lined up and everything cause I knew I'd probably get **** for that.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Notice how I didn't say "don't be a prick" to anyone, and you take things farther than I do? That's been the story of our conflict from the very start. I talk about mechanics and decisions and logic and you respond emotionally. If a play is bad, I'll call it bad. You go OMGUS and call me a prick, or to f(ck off or something.

People who made bad plays deserve to get called out. Same is true for me or you or anyone.

Why are you taking it so personally? I'm trying to have an honest discussion, and while I think the game design was broken, I have posted several times that I appreciate what Circus was trying to do. Xatres and I repeatedly said in our own talks that we really like what he's doing here, and if we're wrong about the Zen thing then we'd just have to talk about the game design

A great idea would be to give the matching roles to town and let us breadcrumb for each other. We banked on this, and we had to abandon our scumread on Zen because of it. All D2 I kept thinking "Zen is playing like scum but he HAS to be town." That was our bad on that, but we had to take it to the bank. Perhaps if soup hadn't exploded, and FML had been shot and stuff like that, we would have sniffed Zen out eventually anyways. OR one of you could have just made the kill without our approval and proved us wrong. Those options were all there.

Well the funny thing is that most people already know not to be a condescending prick. Or at least they know not to be condescending.

Maybe if you hadn't almost lost the game single-handedly, I would have a bit more patience for you giving everyone else ****.
What would be even better is if you could actually just give constructive feedback.

 

[Dabuz]

popcorn.gif

 

[Dastrn]

Yeah, but it doesn't have the same ring to it.

Oh, and please continue to attack my character on the basis of one mafia game you've played with me. It endears you to me.


You don't understand logic. Or you don't know what logic means. I don't know.

Nobody needs your endearment. We want to play a game. But if you're going to just be a tornado of swearing, ALL CAPS, name-calling, and tunneling, then no, you shouldn't expect people to judge your online persona any differently than the way you're being described.

Were you the person I asked about his age? Settle a bet for me. I had someone outside this game read along and I want to see which of us is right. We set an over-under. I won't tell you what side of the line I took.

 

[Orboknown]

Yes Zen, I would've quick shot you almost immediately D3. I even had a gif lined up and everything cause I knew I'd probably get **** for that.

We had a plan for that