I'm tired of all this uh king bull****

[#HBC | Dancer]

So you should understand then why people sometimes resort to insults, yes?

 

[#HBC | J]

Mhmmm. I just don't see why you need to do that in a game though.

After all, its meant for fun.

 

[#HBC | Dancer]

Sure. But people can become very emotionally invested in just "games" a lot of the times. Mafia is after all a competitive game, and no one likes to lose.

I'm not saying that this is the way it should be, but rather that this is simply the way that it is.

 

[#HBC | J]

Hmm, I can see your point to that because I can know what you mean about getting emotionally invested in games where you put a lot of effort into it and that's fine. When insults become getting personal, that's where I draw the line personally because even if it is competitive, it shouldn't got that far.

It is the way that it is and there is little to do to change the fact. It's just something I wish wasn't just swept under the rug most of the time to "it's just the way it is" or "its just the way they play".

 

[ranmaru]

At least there aren't caps players here. : P

I don't insult people at all, because I want to have fun, not just win.

 

[#HBC | Dancer]

Define "personal" insults. Insulting someone's skills at mafia is one thing, insulting a person in general is another.

 

[#HBC | J]

The latter.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

If Ruy's a paraplegic, I'm not gonna say something like yo the percentage of your body that functions is equivalent to that of your brain. I don't think anyone would do that. But I will NOT hesitate to calling somebody a moron if that's what they're being.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Idk why people think Insults help their argument.

I take it as a null or scum tell, rarely do I think it is a town tell unless I see town AtE.

 

[ranmaru]

Be better if you take it as a null tell, until you figure out WHY they are insulting you.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Tends to be what I do with them.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Mhmmm. I just don't see why you need to do that in a game though.

After all, its meant for fun.

Oh, and it's meant for fun, so I should just let you back off of the ledge. It's meant for fun, so I should just let you walk to first. It's meant for fun, so I shouldn't punch you with my boxing glove.

It's also a competition, bro. I don't think there's a point where I've ever just insulted someone for no reason in a mafia game.

 

[Swiss]

It's also a competition, bro. I don't think there's a point where I've ever just insulted someone for no reason in a mafia game.

I've insulted people because I dislike them, does that count?

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

That's inevitable.

 

[Swiss]

 

[Overswarm]

Who is this ramen person and why haven't they learned to hate me yet

4. Lurking/Coasting/prod dodging the whole game is NOT how you play scum. If you suck at scum this isn't going to make you better. Man this is such a dumb strategy that's just dumb and stoop ed and dumb. Go pro. ho.

You and swiss already covered this, but inactivity is probably one of the best things scum can do. It requires no effort, leaves no trail, and even if someone calls it scummy you have to hope that person can't convince everyone else to lynch you off of "he doesn't post often" and that can be difficult. This is especially true when people have their own reads or when you go through spurts of posting. On top of all of this, when someone finally does say "lurker!" you get to waste nearly an entire day phase bickering with someone, which then weakens their stance.

Lurking is awesome for scum. Especially when there are other townies that lurk, because then you can just be slightly more active and not even really worry about a policy lynch. :D

 

[adumbrodeus]

Come on swiss, I know you only insult me cause you love me.

 

[Swiss]

Well...you know when you're mean to someone because you kinda fancy them?

That's what this is, except without the me fancying you bit.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Well...you know when you're mean to someone because you kinda fancy them?

That's what this is, except without the me fancying you bit.

Yea swiss, I totally believe you. It's ok to admit your feelings, we won't judge you... most of the time.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I judge everyone, but everyone tends to end up as good to me then.

 

[Omni]

Who is this ramen person and why haven't they learned to hate me yet



You and swiss already covered this, but inactivity is probably one of the best things scum can do. It requires no effort, leaves no trail, and even if someone calls it scummy you have to hope that person can't convince everyone else to lynch you off of "he doesn't post often" and that can be difficult. This is especially true when people have their own reads or when you go through spurts of posting. On top of all of this, when someone finally does say "lurker!" you get to waste nearly an entire day phase bickering with someone, which then weakens their stance.

Lurking is awesome for scum. Especially when there are other townies that lurk, because then you can just be slightly more active and not even really worry about a policy lynch. :D

Agreed. Hence why I will always policy lynch inactives.

 

[Overswarm]

Eh, that doesn't really work either. It's a good precedent, but you're going to lose a lot of players. The issue comes with the medium. A lot of inactive players are inactive for legitimate reason. Lynching them won't really fix the issue, and there's nary a game that town can afford a straight up loss of two players, let alone four just to lynch an inactive or two.

I've thought about games that punish inactivity by giving a buff to the opposing alignment for every prod you get or something like that, but that's just attacking the problem rather than the source.

There's no real way to make online mafia work without some sort of initiative on the player's part or by including money/prizes/whatever.


I'd honestly like to see a "score chart" made up where everyone sends in a list of who they think are of anti-town alignment each Night, and for each one they get right they get a point. I did that for a bit with FF: Tactics and it basically said "absolutely no one knows what they are talking about 100% of the time", which was fairly predictable.

 

[adumbrodeus]

I place inactives slightly higher then a normal null read, as long as I don't have a read on them.

What I really hate is when people lynch individuals that don't have much activity, but what they have is screaming "jesus, I'm the towniest person on the planet" because they're inactive.

Or lynching an inactive or somebody that's legitimately very scummy.

 

[Overswarm]

Another benefit to being crazy anti-inactive though is that it makes already strong town players stronger. Currently my go-to strategy when I'm scum is "let them kill each other". Because, honestly, it works. Put two players that like to think they're good in the same game long enough and they'll go at each other's throats and pit people on both sides. But no one can say "Hey, OS is being quiet!" because I, and everyone else, does the same thing regardless of alignment.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I've got a list of people with activity problems and I'm pretty much gonna auto deny them or place them on much much tighter restrictions with what they can do before getting a boot.

 

[Omni]

I think another reason why town loses more often than scum is because having more slots open for one faction opens up the possibilities of more players being inactive, replacing out, and/or getting modkilled.

 

[Overswarm]

That is probably true, I'd wager.

That and scum inactivity is rare by the fact that scum get to say "hell yeah I'm scum" and have one or two other people pressuring them to be active.

 

[Rajam]

I've got a list of people with activity problems and I'm pretty much gonna auto deny them or place them on much much tighter restrictions with what they can do before getting a boot.

Pretty much this. Probably the most effective way to deal with inactivity is pre and post-game. Keeping public track of people with history of being inactive (through prods given or some other measurable method) and/or replacing out, and that way people can join games or mod games having a deeper knowledge of what they can expect regarding players' activity.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Also, I think a single poor town player is more detrimental then a single poor scum player, there are still useful options and it's entirely possible to carry a scum faction alone. Town, not so much

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

That's because any scrap of poor play, even from mates, is helpful to scum. Town plays poor, scum can rightfully join that lynch and further their wincon by helping to eliminate a townie. They leave that player around during the night because that player will be a distraction to town while some borderline scummy play goes unnoticed amongst the cluster**** of an argument. And if it's one of their mates? Bus them to hell and get the town cred for lynching a scum. It's a win/win situation for them regardless of the alignment of the player doing it.