The Salt Factory - Mafia Metagame Discussion Thread

[Cheerilee]

You can't scum hunt through emotions, we're not Jedi, we can't just trust our feelings and pinpoint scum

That Jedi reference was a cringe worthy reach of the First Order.

I'm keeping an eye on the thread though.

If I keep posting does that mean you'll keep an eye on me?

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Did swiss have to change? Ryker? Marshy? How about any other players with a unique style?

This is the point your post went from making a point to coming off as "why me?" The rest of your posts just come off the same way, so I wanna address this in particular:

Nobody on this site has escaped criticism their entire career here. The reason you get as much flak as you do is because you don't easily accept your own mistakes and instead try to find excuses.

You mention those three players. While I wasn't here for swiss at his height, I've been playing with drew for as long as he's been playing and I have played against marshy enough to know that both of those two have been criticized for the way they play the game at points in their career. Some have gone as far as calling marshy's playstyle the most anti-town they've experienced and some have rather negative views about Drew's agression, desire to lead, and spontaneous crazy gambits and plans.

Thing is, they had radically different reactions to those criticisms than you did. About 6 months ago or so, drew skyped with me for about two hours discussing his playstyle and where he's going wrong. I pointed out all the flaws I saw in his playstyle from having played with him for so long. He then explained his point of view, and he's been trying to alter his gameplay ever since. Marshy, on the other hand, just ignored everyone and kept on rolling because he knew how to make it work for himself.

Contrast that from yourself, who deflects blame from yourself in every situation you can, but then turns around and complains that you have haters. This is especially irksome to me because you approached me privately asking for help on your playstyle after approaching EE and then coming to this thread complaining that people think your approach sucks. I gave you a detailed look at your faults and how I thought you could improve. Seeing these posts just comes off as an indirect slap in the face.

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

This is the point your post went from making a point to coming off as "why me?" The rest of your posts just come off the same way, so I wanna address this in particular:

Nobody on this site has escaped criticism their entire career here. The reason you get as much flak as you do is because you don't easily accept your own mistakes and instead try to find excuses.

You mention those three players. While I wasn't here for swiss at his height, I've been playing with drew for as long as he's been playing and I have played against marshy enough to know that both of those two have been criticized for the way they play the game at points in their career. Some have gone as far as calling marshy's playstyle the most anti-town they've experienced and some have rather negative views about Drew's agression, desire to lead, and spontaneous crazy gambits and plans.

Thing is, they had radically different reactions to those criticisms than you did. About 6 months ago or so, drew skyped with me for about two hours discussing his playstyle and where he's going wrong. I pointed out all the flaws I saw in his playstyle from having played with him for so long. He then explained his point of view, and he's been trying to alter his gameplay ever since. Marshy, on the other hand, just ignored everyone and kept on rolling because he knew how to make it work for himself.

Contrast that from yourself, who deflects blame from yourself in every situation you can, but then turns around and complains that you have haters. This is especially irksome to me because you approached me privately asking for help on your playstyle after approaching EE and then coming to this thread complaining that people think your approach sucks. I gave you a detailed look at your faults and how I thought you could improve. Seeing these posts just comes off as an indirect slap in the face.

You're misunderstanding me again. All I want to be is not held at gunpoint due to my past actions and/or play in every game I'm in. That's literally it. No, I don't want to be some special snowflake but I do play differently which isn't me saying 'i'll never change' because I wouldn't have bothered writing that PM in the first place if I wasn't looking for some constructive help.

 

[Orboknown]

If you dont want to have the same accusations thrown at you every game then dont com off the same way every game

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

If you dont want to have the same accusations thrown at you every game then dont com off the same way every game

Trying not to

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

EE dropped me a really great wall and I just wanted to share the sentiment I gave him after reading it in a snippet

"It feels like I've committed so many crimes that I try to overcome and try to figure out how to do so but fall flat on my face. That is my problem, and I don't know if you notice but I try to play differently most of the time and I don't even really have a consistent style because I'm just trying to find something that people don't want to harp on me about. I never really had my own style, as crazy as it sounds, which is why I employ emotion because I have no driving force. I suppose in some sense, emotion has become my niche and something I use possibly more than I should.."

 

[Evil Eye]

Can I just say that the idea of "playing with emotions" vs "playing with logic" being two equally solid, different methodologies of mafia play is absolutely silly and ludicrous


Mafia is a game of investigation and/or deception. Yeah, you need to be able to read emotions but that doesn't mean "emotions have their place!!!!!" and it definitely doesn't mean that playing primarily upon emotions is some other unique playstyle that is equally effective and just different in its own right.

Yeah, "people are humans and have emotions", but what's your point? Like, really? People take ****s too, but I don't remember making a point of describing the dumps I was taking between marathon posts in Bioware or Pulp Fiction. But you better believe I stopped to drop a deuce upwards of 3 times during those endgame post write-a-thons. The facts that it happened and influenced my posting slightly and was unavoidable because I'm human, funny enough, didn't make my toilet rituals somehow relevant to the game and my objectives.

I spectated Gheb's mini from early on D1 and honestly, I kind of absolutely loved doing it. Here's why -- it was the game where logic and deduction ruled the day, and the cookie jar lid slammed down on the hand of anybody (of any alignment) that tried to rely on their emotions or the emotions of others. J blatantly tried to use ATE to incriminate (and then defuse) Del when Del was needling Orbo toward the end of D2. J asked him "why are you being so insensitive??" Del countered with "I'm trying to read him; aren't you?" And what a surprise; J's attempts were fake, and Del's were real, and J got lynched. Maven was obviously tempted to follow the easy path of gut vibes and emotions and just tunnel Del, and J lurked in the background helping foster his laziness, but then Maven literally seemed to just rally within himself, made the right call, and suddenly it was like seeing J for the scum he was was some instantaneous epiphany. I consider that moment to be a triumph for DGames and I'm glad I was here to watch it happen! It's funny how obvious the right answers can look when you've eliminated all the white noise and decided to focus on things that truly matter.

If you get suspicious of someone they will bristle; that's human nature. You can spend a million hours trying to read the precise threads of their bristling but... ****ing, why? At its absolute best it's WIFOMy and the idea that you can actually, truly read emotions through a computer screen is ridiculous when even being able to do it in person as a trained professional is dicey and not always reliable. Here's an idea; go back and look at the flips you've got and think about actual concrete reasons person X did thing Y at time Z. It will always, always, always... always yield better, stronger results. Even the few times emotions might yield something of value, there will almost definitely be logic behind it. You know why Orbo looked like town in late D2 of Gheb's mini? It wasn't because he got kind of annoyed with Del dogging his ass flaps, and it wasn't because other people read his emotions correctly either. Because those emotions would be the same regardless of alignment. But there was LOGIC here too, in this somewhat emotional moment -- because Orbo showed that he truly had nothing to lose or strongly invested. He had given his reads and as much substance as he was capable of or willing to offer, and even in the face of a lynch, that was that. Reading his emotion doesn't tell you anything there that couldn't easily mean the complete opposite. Reading his behavior, as objective constructs, tells you everything.

I mean I dunno what to say back in my day I was known for burying my enemy in mountains of logic, evidence, and thoughtful inference. And it seemed to work great as either alignment. While how strong or passive or etc you play will very based on your personality, doesn't that fact just kinda say everything you need to know about mafia? Because I think it does.

 

[Cheerilee]

I wrote something along the same lines in about three paragraphs, but deleted it because I came to realize that the reason this is being contested is for other factors outside of just a false dichotomy comparison between logic and emotion. I actually think that we're all on the same page when it comes to these sorts of things because none of us are really daft enough to perpetuate an argument about this topic. I think topics like these exist or are pursued because there are always underlying reasons that permeate them and reinforce a discussion like this to the surface and the real issues always lie somewhere underneath the general conversation material.

 

[Evil Eye]

We're not, though. Gheb said we need to punish AtE more instead of rewarding it, and he's right. Soup immediately began a debate that hinged on the idea that we falsely label things at AtE, that playing to emotions is a differently abled unique playstyle, and even flat out said "you're all the problem if you don't like it", to paraphrase. J flat out said "no I strongly disagree" when maven said mafia is a game of logic and not emotions. That's actually what inspired my "I take dumps too" comparison, which frankly I think illustrates the fallacy of the "people can't help feeling feels so we should use them cuz they're part of it" argument really nicely.

I don't want to dog at him though because his post here and his reply to my PM suggests he's actually absorbed a lot of the flaws in his logic and will likely think on it all. Maybe we are approaching the same page, but we weren't starting out on it that's for sure.


Here's a funny thing though, that came to mind when thinking about gheb's Mini. Soup mentions lacking a unique style, or what have you. My book is who cares? I never, ever, ever once thought of "having a style". From my first game I just played to win my wincon, and patterns emerged but I was never consciously playing into any of them really. He even admits he kind of tries to fill this void, possibly, with overreliance on emotions.

But I look back on Orbo's play in Minimafia and I realize that it was actually pretty good play for a guy in the military that's burned out on mafia and could only post on his phone. Obviously he definitely should have invested more time and energy, but outside of that...? He put the first vote on scum while everybody else was tunneling the town PRs on D1. Said scum ended up dying. Throughout D2, despite being tough to get content from, he was obviously evaluating things, because he ended up deducing/agreeing that J had the worst play out of the J/Man From Delamar/Jdietz trifecta. That was the right call, obviously, and then he dropped the hammer on the final scum as well.

There's nothing overly unique about being a barely active guy that makes small posts in between doing penis swordfights with rake gaming sessions and protecting our freedom or whatever, but had he just been more active I would have almost no complaints about his play, despite that it didn't leave some sort of unique impression. You don't need to be unique or special or interesting or... any of that. You just need to look at the right things for the right reasons and say things that make sense.

 

[Evil Eye]

and yeah the salt factory frankly has always been an octopus of a thread where an idea gets talked about and then eighty tangent miniconversations within the conversation get started, but it's not like any of it has been uninteresting or not worth the time and effort to chat about, and it's all related, so hey.

 

[Orboknown]

Thanks ee? Lol.

 

[Evil Eye]

no probs. you haven't changed much since I was around but it seems like your scumhunting compass is a bit sharper than I remember!

 

[adumbrodeus]

I will say this, methodological analysis of emotion and methodological faking of emotion is just as much logic as analyzing voting patterns. Some people are just given to more clear-headed analysis of those areas of a person's reaction, especially if they really know a player.

We're not, though. Gheb said we need to punish AtE more instead of rewarding it, and he's right. Soup immediately began a debate that hinged on the idea that we falsely label things at AtE, that playing to emotions is a differently abled unique playstyle, and even flat out said "you're all the problem if you don't like it", to paraphrase. J flat out said "no I strongly disagree" when maven said mafia is a game of logic and not emotions. That's actually what inspired my "I take dumps too" comparison, which frankly I think illustrates the fallacy of the "people can't help feeling feels so we should use them cuz they're part of it" argument really nicely.

I don't want to dog at him though because his post here and his reply to my PM suggests he's actually absorbed a lot of the flaws in his logic and will likely think on it all. Maybe we are approaching the same page, but we weren't starting out on it that's for sure.


Here's a funny thing though, that came to mind when thinking about gheb's Mini. Soup mentions lacking a unique style, or what have you. My book is who cares? I never, ever, ever once thought of "having a style". From my first game I just played to win my wincon, and patterns emerged but I was never consciously playing into any of them really. He even admits he kind of tries to fill this void, possibly, with overreliance on emotions.

But I look back on Orbo's play in Minimafia and I realize that it was actually pretty good play for a guy in the military that's burned out on mafia and could only post on his phone. Obviously he definitely should have invested more time and energy, but outside of that...? He put the first vote on scum while everybody else was tunneling the town PRs on D1. Said scum ended up dying. Throughout D2, despite being tough to get content from, he was obviously evaluating things, because he ended up deducing/agreeing that J had the worst play out of the J/Man From Delamar/Jdietz trifecta. That was the right call, obviously, and then he dropped the hammer on the final scum as well.

There's nothing overly unique about being a barely active guy that makes small posts in between doing penis swordfights with rake gaming sessions and protecting our freedom or whatever, but had he just been more active I would have almost no complaints about his play, despite that it didn't leave some sort of unique impression. You don't need to be unique or special or interesting or... any of that. You just need to look at the right things for the right reasons and say things that make sense.

But he's right about this being the surface issue and the actual issue being the response to criticism.

Soup wasn't the topic, one of his plays was mentioned as an example of egregious ATE but the discussion wasn't about him or his overall playstyle.

Yet he took it as a personal criticism of him and look what the topic's become.

Cheerilee's right, this discussion isn't really about the comparative value of emotion versus logic.

 

[Cheerilee]

adumbrodeus Evil Eye

Game of Thrones Spoiler

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/FG3H9E-B464?t=36

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

You're misunderstanding me again. All I want to be is not held at gunpoint due to my past actions and/or play in every game I'm in. That's literally it. No, I don't want to be some special snowflake but I do play differently which isn't me saying 'i'll never change' because I wouldn't have bothered writing that PM in the first place if I wasn't looking for some constructive help.

That's not the tone I was getting from your previous post that I was quoting. That's not what I was getting from all the defense of (ab)using emotion in mafia. Regardless, if you don't want to be a special snowflake, stop acting like one. Stop looking for other players as getting passes and asking why you don't get one. Stop getting upset for people looking at you in any specific way--it's mafia, town's gonna do whatever they can to read you and scum's gonna do whatever they can to kill you. I can't tell you how many games I've had to deal with at least one or two knuckleheads spreading paranoia about me up and down a thread (regardless of alignment, both sides do this to me) because I'm playing well and they're scared I'm scum pulling a fast one. It's easier to roll with the tide than try to change its direction.

 

[Maven89]

Can someone point to a single instance of scum being found out due to realizing their emotions are faked? I don't believe I have ever once seen that. I have only seen scum get figured out due to their logic not fitting their actions or being incapable of defending their logic when pushed. I've seen scum survive by sitting on the sidelines and arm chairing everything, but that's awful play that should get lynched every time, and that working is really saying more about the town they played against then it does scummafia skills.

 

[#HBC | J]

*waves hand*

Hai there.

 

[Maven89]

When have you ever done that?

 

[#HBC | J]

It's been awhile and by that I mean years that like a full case came about from emotion. However, I use emotion to read people in every game then find logic to support my findings since I've learned to speak the language of the audience of DGames.

Emotions are my forte and although people hide it well on this site, everyone uses emotions and there is always a way to see that. It's just because of my background and personal life that makes seeing why I value reading emotions really highly. But that's not something I am here to discuss.

I'm just saying it has been done, is done, and can be done haha. Just not the ways you are thinking.

 

[Evil Eye]

Sorry J but... no.

You tried to use emotions as weapons in gheb's minigame and you basically got swatted down like a fly the second Maven and Del decided to reevaluate their stances and use logic. What does that tell you about your tactics? And that's in a SCUM game, where ostensibly the use of emotions should be easier and the payoff more dramatic and consistently solid.

 

[Evil Eye]

Like yeah okay, you use emotions? Well? How would you read Ryker, who has always had a calculative style that doesn't let his emotions bleed in? Or Overswarm? Or myself? Or Swiss? Or Kataefi? Or the new and improved, so chilled out his heartbeat is a flatline Gheb? Or The Man From Delamar? Or Marshy? Or Laundry?

Or hell, how about Maven. His fake "I don't get why I'm the target of the day" indignance in your popcorn game was ****ing immaculate and dead on exactly what I would expect from a confused town player being looked at -- and yet obviously his LOGIC had plenty of flaws.

Literally any high level player has their emotions in almost perfect check and control, and in the few moments where it would ACTUALLY be impossible not to let their emotions slide through a little, they can be ... not even faked. You literally just have to put yourself in the situation and be like "how would I feel here?" And if you know yourself even a little, you will be able to hit the tone. Because who the hell is actually gonna make a remotely strong argument on the basis of them knowing your quirks and emotions better than you do? I wanna laugh my ass off just typing that and thinking it's something you actually believe you can do, bro

This is all without touching on the fact that playing through a filter of strong emotions makes yo ua pain in the ass considering people are constantly forced to check "are they just in a whiny mood today, or is their logic actually this inconsistent?"

I've had a couple times where I got so annoyed/fed up with a game that it briefly overtook my self-control, and the funny thing is it literally never had anything to do with my alignment or, more importantly, wincon. It was "this game is annoying me". And that's as null as it gets.

 

[#HBC | J]

True, but I've been collared in the past years ever since I decided to become a mod. I used to play a lot harsher than I do now and that much is known. I play lightly and for fun. I play to my win-con to the best of my ability, but I don't let mafia stress me and I make sure that the community is my #1 priority above all else.

I'm sorry EE, but we shall never see eye to eye on this matter and I am okay with that and I don't push my opinion/views on anyone. I'm just saying don't discount what you don't do nor understand. Everyone has a different perspective of how this game should be played and common decency to how others do is a big problem this site is because they want to mimic "the best".

Then again, I'll stress my main point. It's a game. Not a competition and anything synonymous to that.

Edit: Oh, ninja'd.

 

[Evil Eye]

See that's just the thing. Your AtE post when Del started to hawk in on you right before Maven put the pieces together for good actually rang sincere to me. As in I actively thought "If I was the type to let AtE sway me, this post lines up with what I'd expect from a town J that feels himself digging a grave under his own feet"

But I don't let AtE sway me, so I held onto me early-early-early-early D1 Kaladin/J team read and then you were dead and I was right, and I smiled a robotic smile and thanked myself for cleansing myself of useless emotions

my point being "you faked the emotional tone perfectly, and it did nothing for me because I was using logic and your play was scummy and bad".

 

[#HBC | J]

Literally any high level player has their emotions in almost perfect check and control, and in the few moments where it would ACTUALLY be impossible not to let their emotions slide through a little, they can be ... not even faked. You literally just have to put yourself in the situation and be like "how would I feel here?"

No one ever has their emotions in "almost perfect check". Saying that everyone who is considered a "high level player" can become a cold robot when it comes to mafia is a bit of a stretch because emotions are relevant in everyone's post. You are thinking of emotion in just one vein, but all those players you mentioned (even yourself) have emotion that is different from others.

This is honestly a discussion that could get wally and I'm enjoying some expensive wine so I'd rather not discuss this in grandiose detail haha.

I'm just saying I study emotion, teach it, and live/breathe it every day of my professional career. Everyone has emotion, even in the most logical of battles, whether they choose to or not.

 

[ranmaru]

Wait what do you teach?

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

man its such a burden on decent players to moron check tho. its true cuz ultimately you dont wanna lynch scum but like... its like **** man.

also soup shut up man you dont play well. saying "i play the way i play deal with it" is ****in cancer. like what do you think someone whos been playing ****ty rock n roll for 30 years should just be... allowed to play... ****tily for the rest of his life?

Agreed. That IS really ****ty.

I really, REALLY wish someone would have brought the hammer down on people like me, Swiss, Cello, or marshy. I think we'd still have more players and more interesting games.

 

[#HBC | J]

See that's just the thing. Your AtE post when Del started to hawk in on you right before Maven put the pieces together for good actually rang sincere to me. As in I actively thought "If I was the type to let AtE sway me, this post lines up with what I'd expect from a town J that feels himself digging a grave under his own feet"

But I don't let AtE sway me, so I held onto me early-early-early-early D1 Kaladin/J team read and then you were dead and I was right, and I smiled a robotic smile and thanked myself for cleansing myself of useless emotions

my point being "you faked the emotional tone perfectly, and it did nothing for me because I was using logic and your play was scummy and bad".

Honestly that is totally fair and valid considering I would expect nothing less of you based on your play. However, not everyone is you, EE. That is also one recent game and one where I was scum.

I mean, I don't necessarily get what we are debating here on the forefront? We both have different ways to play and you consider mine weaker, while I consider others weaker. *shrug* We can passionate about it for nights on end, but I've learned that nothing is going to stop use from playing this game to the best of our ability while trying to have the most fun possible as well.

 

[Evil Eye]

We can passionate about it for nights on end

stop trying to seduce me ugh

 

[#HBC | J]

Wait what do you teach?

I'm a theatre teacher and I also work in Denver professionally as a director. I used to do a lot of acting, but I get paid more to manage a theatre and teach haha. After this year is over, I'm going back into being a professional actor though because I have more fun with it and it's what I love to do.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Catching up, but I absolutely had to stop when I saw...

...i mean, I dunno who Swiss or marshy are and I ain't never seen Ryker play, but are they known for playing emotionally and having emotional outbursts? Is that his point? Or what?

If not then what? Being overemotional and whiny and playing on feels and gut and tunneling reads into the ground and etc are not a "unique playstyle", they're focusing on asinine matters and playing poorly, and frankly any good you accomplish on that route is gonna be broken clock twice a day luck.

As I said people may not be unemotional robots but it doesn't mean ya gotta barf all your innermost thoughts straight onto the keyboard. The option is available to chill out first. There's a fancy button called the Backspace and I use it liberally to trim unnecessary hogwash outta every post I make, every time. And yeah, sorry, but "I'm upset" is an example of as much.

Get angry/sad/whatever out of game. Get MOTIVATED IN game.

Amen. A like isn't enough.

 

[#HBC | J]

stop trying to seduce me ugh

Literally laughed like a hyena for a good minute.

'Preciate that EE, buddy.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Side note. I love J to death. One of my favorite people in thus group, but I want to lynch him every game FAR worse than I wanted to lynch Zen every game, and who knew that was possible.

And it isn't like he does the same thing every game, sometimes it's the same, but it comes out as a natural read of mine consistently.

 

[#HBC | J]

I feel the same about other players as well haha.

However, you still treat me fair and we let each other do what works best for each other.

 

[ranmaru]

I'm a theatre teacher and I also work in Denver professionally as a director. I used to do a lot of acting, but I get paid more to manage a theatre and teach haha. After this year is over, I'm going back into being a professional actor though because I have more fun with it and it's what I love to do.

That's actually pretty awesome. Teaching is definitely something I'd like to do but I'm in the wrong profession already. Glad you are doing something you love man.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

I've been holding back on this because I didn't know a good way to phrase it without sounding like a **** but since it came up naturally, here we go! It's probably better that I talk about it this anyway so it stops coming up in every mafia game I play.

True, but I've been collared in the past years ever since I decided to become a mod. I used to play a lot harsher than I do now and that much is known. I play lightly and for fun. I play to my win-con to the best of my ability, but I don't let mafia stress me and I make sure that the community is my #1 priority above all else.

I'm sorry EE, but we shall never see eye to eye on this matter and I am okay with that and I don't push my opinion/views on anyone. I'm just saying don't discount what you don't do nor understand. Everyone has a different perspective of how this game should be played and common decency to how others do is a big problem this site is because they want to mimic "the best".

Then again, I'll stress my main point. It's a game. Not a competition and anything synonymous to that.

Edit: Oh, ninja'd.

I've made it painstakingly obvious to you that I dislike your methods of playing mafia and why I dislike those methods; however, you're not alone in my disdain. I don't like Soup's approach, but Soup at least attempts to fix his issues on occasion. I don't like Orboknull's playstyle, but the man is doing the Herculean task of playing mafia on mobile in the military. It is physically impossible to demand more of him at this point. I don't think Ruy's improved his play in the years I've been here. There's a couple of other players that earn my chagrin here and there but none of these players anger me to the point of making passive aggressive comments about their play in every game I play with them.

You, J, are alone in that regard at the moment. I just never had a great way of explaining it until I saw this post and the analogy became very clear to me: you're that guy that goes into Solo Queue, locks in Top AP Blitzcrank, gets 100 CS by 35 minutes, misses every hook, gets so far behind that you get blown up in every fight, and then when you get inevitably flamed you defend yourself with, "it's just a game guys, I play to have fun."

Yeh, you're right, this is a game, but making statements like that is directly ignorant of the competitive aspect to this game. You quite blatantly call the game "not a competition" but that couldn't be further from the truth. It is a player vs. player game, where you are competing against other people of a different alignment than yourself. Acting like it's not makes you no different than that Blitz player and you spit in the face of everyone who recognizes that this game is a competitive game by nature and wish to improve as a player. The only difference here is there is no normal queue to tell you to **** off to so the people who wanna tryhard don't have to deal with your attitude every game. As a result, people are very frustrated with you, especially when you sign up for every game that shows up around here recently.

Also, as an aside, marshy was a mod and you should know very well how he acted in mafia. Even Raz (also a mod) doesn't prevent himself from calling someone a ****head when he thinks they're being a ****head in game. Saying that you being a mod is a reason why you've mellowed out is a cop-out and your position on the site shouldn't influence the way you play mafia.

Honestly J, if you've gotten the impression that I hate you recently, I don't. Outside of the game, you're genuinely one of the nicest people here and you go out of your way to be a good person to everyone around you. I've never really seen you stoop to a catty level outside of game and I've never had a problem with you as a result. I actually like you a lot. The only reason I've been so outright rude to you in-game is not because of your play itself, it's because of your attitude surrounding it. I just wish you'd acknowledge that instead of blowing somebody off as "not seeing eye to eye" whenever they disagree with your point of view.

 

[ranmaru]

EE dropped me a really great wall and I just wanted to share the sentiment I gave him after reading it in a snippet

"It feels like I've committed so many crimes that I try to overcome and try to figure out how to do so but fall flat on my face. That is my problem, and I don't know if you notice but I try to play differently most of the time and I don't even really have a consistent style because I'm just trying to find something that people don't want to harp on me about. I never really had my own style, as crazy as it sounds, which is why I employ emotion because I have no driving force. I suppose in some sense, emotion has become my niche and something I use possibly more than I should.."

I think you shouldn't use emotion and instead remain stoic. I think you get good observations but also think you should try to not stretch points. It's a problem I always had, even my own hydra partner told me I was reaching as town. Also, some of it is because of your good scumplay, and it has some people fearing you or automatically being skeptical of you since you have fooled them already. Also, you attacked Maven (in ghebs mini) with some reachy stuff, that's bound to go bad. It went bad when Bardull had a legitimate argument against Maven. So I say be careful who you attack. Finally, I think you need to improve on handling pressure. I think if your slot doesn't come under pressure, you'd play well because you'd make good observations and you would not be in danger of doing crazy things.

 

[#HBC | J]

I never can quite fully understand why you keep trying to make me "see the light" when regarding your views, Laundry. However, I will say that I am not arguing nor even fancying a debate with you because sadly I know where it will go due to past tribulations. I'm sorry you feel that way about the way I truly do because I do not know why you are so vexed by me as a player. I mean, I absorb your walls and I'm just saying you are allowed to have your opinion, you allowed to voice it, but you shouldn't be forcing it down my throat every chance you get. It kind of feels like you were waiting to pounce on a post of mine to make it about one of our classic old age debates. (which the old me would have pounced on, but I'm tired of our debates and emotionally numb to them. I don't trust myself being my calm/reserved self if I open that can of worms haha.)

I sat here for a good while trying to think of what I want to say, but a lot of what I'd like to is not something that needs public airing nor things I am comfortable with speaking publically. If you would like to discuss this more, feel free to message me, but I am done having these type of conversations in the public atmosphere with you, Laundry, and I would like to ask you to respect that.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Holy crap. That's extremely harsh.


Regardless, one thing to consider is that league has multiple modes including ones aimed at more casual players and ones aimed at those interested in heavy competition and improvement. Our mafia community is small so the people with differing objectives in the game are forced to play with each other, so a certain amount of forbearance is called for considering that people certainly have differing goals in mind.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Idk man emotions based playstyle is legit but the ceiling is pretty low in forum mafia unless you become better than Swiss/Kuz/me at picking up wording tells which honestly I haven't seen anyone even attempt and even then against really high level players it'll be hard, but hey if that's what floats your boat. I personally think it's a high effort low payout playstyle until you become a near-god at mafia and seeing people fail at it is frustrating because they become borderline useless but hey, you'll never get there until you try.

That said, if you don't take the competitive aspect seriously it is disrepectful to those who do, and knowing dGames near everyone does l m a o. If you really do prioritize the community you oughta consider what the community wants out of a game. Then again I don't really play anymore so take my 2 cents for what u want, it just be what it do.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Here's a funny thing though, that came to mind when thinking about gheb's Mini. Soup mentions lacking a unique style, or what have you. My book is who cares? I never, ever, ever once thought of "having a style"

Preach it, brother.

I remember back when we had that interview thread thing going on people asked me how I'd describe my "playstyle". And I said something along the lines of "there is no such thing as a playstyle" and people didn't know what I was talking about.

I play lightly and for fun. I play to my win-con to the best of my ability, but I don't let mafia stress me and I make sure that the community is my #1 priority above all else.

That's fine [with me at least].

Make no mistake though, you gotta understand that some people care about winning a bit more than you do and you can't fault them for being annoyed when a game is lost because people fall for petty AtE. You can pay respect to a person's emotions without letting it interfere with a logical approach ... if you choose to do so, that is. People like July and Kat used to play 'lightly and for fun' too but that never stopped them from playing a 100% logic-based game. They were nice and fun people but put a gun in their hands and they'll blow your scummy brains out, no amount of anime sadface could have protected you.