Hydra Discussion Thread

[xRECKONERx]

Is this because I was shilling for Rey to win as a returnee or what? I legitimately don't understand what you're even attempting to say with that sentence.

[Cephrir]

I'm definitely in agreement that hydra allowed games should advertise themselves as such from now on. I'm a bit more up in the air on the rest after reading this thread (I was coming in pro- but I think there are some valid points against them)

[tris]

i am not categorically opposed to hydras. i think it was a fun thing to try out for barely survivor, but i think they should be used sparingly. like, i always go a little crazy with not having anyone i can confide in 100%, and having a hydra is a great advantage for that.

[Klick]

'Hi Betch, I'm looking to raise my ELO this year, want to hydra a couple of games '

[Aronis]

This might be really difficult since there's just not a large sample size of games at all, but if you want ELO to stay truly accurate, you could list a hydra as its own account separate from the players in it? So that way if I get carried to the end by somebody really talented it wouldn't inflate my elo but it would still be kept track of and continue counting if we played with each other again.

[Noraa]

Happy scum day Roro!

[pablito]

I agree on advertising that hydras are allowed from outset.

I definitely don't think a mentoring game would've had the same effect for my friend and I playing together. We would not have individually signed up for the game and she would have been destroyed in the game alone and would have never joined again but at least she is considering another one in the future.

I would say our hydra is more an exception than a regular hydra situation. We were a Zack and Cody situation but I inrentionally tried to defer most strategy to her and it was clear we were fairly ineffectual because we had to always had to discuss and we rarely planned in advance. I see why the awoo radja planning sessions helped them be one of the best hydras.

[Radja]

I guess I should voice my opinion here, since I think I benefited the most from being in a hydra slot.

First off, I think there's advantages and disadvantages by playing as a hydra:
Advantages:
- Easy to "tag out" for a while
- allows people in difficult timezones to sleep at a normal time
- allows people that have limited time to have an actual shot at victory
- you have someone to compare notes with, so it might be easier to get a good feeling for your place in the game
- probably other things...

Disadvantages:
- it's hard to keep track of what exactly is going on, because you're not the only one doing the conversations
- you need to be on the same page with your partner at all times, or things will go bad really fast.
- taking over a conversation where you have no clue what is being talked about is hard
- probably other things...

So, the thing is, being part of a hydra could be a big advantage, but only if you have all disadvantages under control.

I'm in favor of continuing having hydrae in Survivor games, but I think it should be limited:
- announced in advance
- only in complex games
- max of 2 heads

This allows players like me to actually still be a part of the LSG community.
I can see why people would not want to play with hydrae, so that's why I think it should be limited.
People who want to play as a hydra still have a chance to play, and players who don't like hydrae can skip these games.

That's my 2 cents.

[CreativeMod1]

Hello you fabulous lot, as someone who has played as a hydra I feel like I should chuck in my 2 cents here.
I played as Zack and Cody with my partner BrighteningSkies, they were interested in playing but had too much anxiety to play. I know that there might be times in which Brightening would struggled to play due to mental health and we worried that it might become to much for them.
We then talked about us playing as a Hydra and what that'd involve so that they could still play but there'd be no pressure if it got too much and they couldn't play anymore. (which did end up actually happening, Brightening struggled to take part after the first week or so)

I think the reasoning why somebody wants to hydra is very important and should be a major part of saying yes or no to a hydra.

[Noraa]

I think equal hydras are scary because you could hit it off with one head and get stabbed and you can't even blame them

First off WTF is this foreshadowing. I didn't mean it to be but DAMN.

Second, I want to share what I think about hydras now having hydra'd and gotten possibly the largest amount of criticism from the specs. I'm not sure I saw a single positive comment regarding us in the spec forum but I could have missed it since I read all of that last night and I was really tired. So first, I won't talk about the id part of our hydra but I absolutely don't agree with most of the comments made on it.

Onto the hydra part, was it an advantage? I think a lot of people think yes and I'm not sure I agree anymore. I think I put in far more effort this game than ever before. Mist and I got into big fights more often than not? Overall, I do think that I would not have won the game alone. I'm not sure if I can say that for Mist. But essentially, I don't think there were any benefits besides in experience. The entire game, I was controlling our pming basically. I got to chose our allies, our connections, and took a big part in choosing who in the remaining would die. Despite Mist being more experienced, I would say that I was steering the wheel for most of the game. The biggest benefit I saw was that when I was about to crash our game, Mist would immediately start working around that. That most certainly showed that Mist was more experienced than me and was a very clear benefit because I would have just died there instead of fix the problem on my own. But this also shows that Mist was paying attention and reading absolutely everything because they would know immediately when things were looking bad and jump in. Both Mist and I read everything in the game despite having each other and this contributed to a lot of our success because we both knew exactly what was happening.

Essentially, I think that hydras can work out to compliment each other if they put in enough effort. We fought so hard and disagreed on EVERY tiny thing at the beginning. Mist decided Odysseus going was ok but I still wanted radiance. I started distrusting Hermes and Mist just didn't agree. I didn't like Persephone and Mist didn't agree. I wanted to blindside F&K and Mist didn't agree. There were so many fights. In the end, I think that if enough effort is put in, YES hydras are an advantage. However, I do not believe that hydras are an advantage in general. In a hydra there are a lot of things to balance out and if not balanced properly, the hydra will die FOR BEING A HYDRA. A great example is F&K. They died for being a hydra. Had they been separated, they would be similar players to maybe Viy in our books. But we distrusted them because their heads disagreed on things. They seemed like they weren't communicative and we deemed that too unstable. Obviously there were other factors but that was my reasoning when I started disliking them which was the round before they actually died.

As a hydra of two COMPLETE OPPOSITES in every single way possible, we made it work out because of our EFFORT. Had we not put in effort, I am 100% sure that we would've died a pretty early death, possibly not even making jury. If hydras were a big problem, every game with hydras would be won by a hydra. I think a lot of people don't see the effort that these winning hydras have put in/choose to ignore it and say they won because they were in a hydra. Did you see Awoo's strategy thread(55 pages, 814 posts)? Or how long they spent talking about the game behind the scenes? Hydras are, in my opinion, a disadvantage unless the two heads step up their game and turn it into an advantage. There is no inherent challenge advantage in my opinion. I get that we can switch off in the case of a serious conflict but a normal player would get a spec to do the challenge for them. Is there really a big difference there honestly? Hydras switch off doing the challenge and challenge ability is determined by each individual's experience with challenges. That isn't going to magically change because you are in a hydra. I placed last in a good chunk of the challenges but my strengths did show through because I did do ok in some of them and bring back a gold medal in one

For social game, I absolutely think hydras can be advantageous but only if you take the time to realize HOW it can be an advantage. There are also many ways to go wrong despite all of that. If one head really pisses someone off, your whole hydra is just dead in their eyes. It takes a very good social game to fix something like that. I think that hydras are not an advantage unless made into one and honestly, if that level of effort is put in, they DESERVE to go far for it. I think that in Pantheon, we put in a LOT of effort. I'm hesitant to say we put in the MOST effort of all the players in the game because I haven't read everything yet but I think its absolutely possible.

Lastly, as we said in our closing speech, our play styles together created a whiplash effect. I genuinely was willing to sacrifice our game for people whereas Mist was solely looking for how to win. We formed extremely strong bonds but then had to vote them out. It created a lot of issues with jury management and we went into jury getting yelled at by multiple jurors for stabbing/lying to them. Mist was telling me like damn I'm so sorry Noraa this is probably the saltiest jury I've ever seen. We both contributed to this because meshing our plays was very difficult and we struggled all game with it. Despite all of these challenges, I think we fought really really hard and put in TONS and TONS of effort which was the main factor contributing to our win, not the fact that we were a hydra. Being a hydra brought many challenges and I think only overcoming those will make being a hydra an advantage. But the amount of effort required to do that is far more than enough to justify going far in a game.

[Cephrir]

Sorry if there wasnt enough love in the spec area! I think you did great and I'm proud of both of you.

[D3f3nd3r]

I know that at the very least I wasn’t attacking you, I was generally complaining (and once the dust settles, will probably continue to complain) about the concept. Nobody should be giving you/Mist crap for taking advantage of the opportunity you were given.

[Noraa]

Anubis <3 Thank you! And thank you Magnoodles <3

It is an opportunity. But so is everything else in survivor.
Each pm chain you start is an opportunity. You can make the most of it, like Hathor did. Or you can be inactive and be booted fast like O-ren.
Each challenge is an opportunity. You can slay the 3d maze challenge like Hathor did. Or you can get last place on Cassandras swap and a bunch of others that I did like Hathor did.

Everything is an opportunity and just like any other opportunity, it has its advantages and disadvantages. If you overcome the obstacles, it is an advantage.

With pm chains, you can create solid alliances and skyrocket to the top of their rankings like I did with Jesus and many others in this game.
With challenges, you can win immunity like Mist did with that one creative challenge.
On the down side,
You can say one wrong thing and never establish a bond between you and the person
You can not get immunity the one round you need it and die.

Everything in survivor is an opportunity and the possibility of hydra'ing is no different from any of the other opportunities.

[Skelda]

Noraa I enjoyed how much effort you put into the game and I'm happy for you and Mist. You worked together well.

I still don't like hydras as a concept though. I don't know how you can say that hydras aren't an advantage and then in the same post say that you wouldn't have won if not for being in a hydra (which idk that I agree with btw. As you say, you played super great and so did Mist, so it's very likely you could have won individually). I wish the two of you could have proven that individually though.

I do still think hydras are an advantage, especially when both heads are active and putting in effort. Especially at FTC, seeing the advantage of having two people PMing and thinking about the game and bouncing ideas off of someone they 100% trust really became obvious.

Anyway I love you and Mist, you're two of my favorite people on site. Please don't take any comments in the spec forum personally. Congrats on your win.

[D3f3nd3r]

I mean, what it’s starting to turn into is an “if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck” situation. It certainly looks like an advantage, and it’s played out as an advantage (a hydra has won both games where hydras were presented as a feature as opposed to as a twist), so it’s probably an advantage.

Even if it’s a bit contentious at times like you and Mist apparently were, I really don’t think that takes away the massive benefit of actually having another person to bounce things off of. I would imagine that you two did as well as you did because you actually talked through your disagreements, and most of the time your solutions (for strategic decisions, for FTC, and so on) we’re somewhere between what the two of you initially came in thinking. Having two sets of eyes on your gameplay is so unbelievably powerful.

[Malkon05]

Honestly I was kind of on the fence on this topic.

I think we need three things in place going forward if we choose to have hydras be part of games in the future.

1. I think it's going to have to be all-hydras or no hydras going forward. (if we choose to have them in games)

2. I think we need to limit the amount of games that allow hydras each year. 2 at most, probably just 1 or 0 in reality.

3. I do not think people should be allowed to pick their hydra partners going forward.

It's been an interesting experiment to say the least and I very much love the idea we tried something, but I think we have enough games and data about hydras to make more informed choices going forward.

[D3f3nd3r]

Seconding all of Malkon's points. Yes let's please have an all-hydra game of some sort. But also letting two active players pick each other was in my opinion, an incredibly bad decision - I don't hate the way Barely Survivor implemented it (you could "pick" your partner as long as you or they are new to LSGs, as I believe MURDERCAT did), but giving them carte blanche is really bad. And I'm not saying that from the perspective of competitive balance, since presumably that's already being accounted for.

[Skelda]

Oh another thing: if there are hydras, there should be no flexibility with challenges. They should be forced to alternate challenges. Already the challenge aspect is a benefit for hydras since it allows players who lack challenge ability to play with someone who doesn't, but if they have any flexibility, that is a huge advantage over non-hydra players. Shouldn't be a problem if we have all hydra games though.

[VashtaNeurotic]

Seconding all of Malkon's points. Yes let's please have an all-hydra game of some sort. But also letting two active players pick each other was in my opinion, an incredibly bad decision - I don't hate the way Barely Survivor implemented it (you could "pick" your partner as long as you or they are new to LSGs, as I believe MURDERCAT did), but giving them carte blanche is really bad. And I'm not saying that from the perspective of competitive balance, since presumably that's already being accounted for.

Okay so if the issue isn't competitive balance, then what is the issue here? Like I feel like the main issue with carte blanche is just creating an OP hydra combination (which I'd expect any modteam to be cognizant of and try to avoid). So is it instead that people might have to spend 2 months with someone they know they'll get along with? Like I've always felt that was the lowest bar a hydra should clear, being trapped in a chat with a person making each other miserable sounds like a world to avoid at all costs.

Also nthing the idea of an all hydra game, since at the very least any game that has a hydra produces this conversation again with few people shifting in opinion, but that pretty much goes away in an all hydra game.

Oh another thing: if there are hydras, there should be no flexibility with challenges. They should be forced to alternate challenges. Already the challenge aspect is a benefit for hydras since it allows players who lack challenge ability to play with someone who doesn't, but if they have any flexibility, that is a huge advantage over non-hydra players. Shouldn't be a problem if we have all hydra games though.

I mean I feel this point of view is a bit austere. Hydras shouldn't get to just pick and choose who gets to do each challenge, but the only situations where we violated the must alternate position was when there was a known availability issue that would similarly require a substitute to be used (which is expected when hydras are in part made because of lack of availability), and any time it did happen we made sure that the total number of challenges done by each half evened out. The situation with P&D was a bit nuanced as we didn't want to softlock a hydra because of time zone issues (and would not happen if we didn't decide that to alternate a hydra head must actually participate in a challenge first, but I stand by that view) and it was definitely a better solution than any other one available at the time.

Also you do realize if someone without challenge ability is hydraing with someone who does, then someone who does have challenge ability is hydraing with one who doesn't? So if it helps one person it hurts the other person the same amount.

[D3f3nd3r]

I mean, there are a lot of potential issues but they can be highlighted pretty clearly by the fact that immediately upon realizing that Noraa was one half of M+H I was seriously considering Mist to be the other half of it despite having absolutely no evidence that that playerslot was Mist

[D3f3nd3r]

(Also to be abundantly clear I'm only saying that the additional issues with players picking their hydras are not competitive balance related, I do wholeheartedly believe that in general hydras do have a competitive advantage as I made abundantly clear in the rest of my posts in this thread.)

[VashtaNeurotic]

I mean, there are a lot of potential issues but they can be highlighted pretty clearly by the fact that immediately upon realizing that Noraa was one half of M+H I was seriously considering Mist to be the other half of it despite having absolutely no evidence that that playerslot was Mist

I mean that feels like more of an issue with people and letting IDs affect their decisions, which is a very different discussion. I don't see that as a significant hydra issue as if someone IDs half a hydra, they MIGHT ID the full player slot, whereas if you ID a player...you just ID'd the full player slot. If it was like a partners twist I could see that as in issue as you might ID two players, but re: a hydra, not sure that is a significant issue.

[Silverclaw]

Why are we talking about ID'ing players as if this is a thing that should be weighing into how people play? Because it really shouldn't be.

[VashtaNeurotic]

Oh in case my statement was unclear. Yeah, IDs shouldn't factor into decision making whatsoever, I don't think anyone here does believe that. I think the underlying point was that the more IDing that happens the more likely it is to occur that someone allows it to affect their decision making, which is bad and I do agree with. I think the other point was that hydras can cause this to happen more in a significant fashion, which I dispute.

[Haschel Cedricson]

Unpopular opinion here, but imo hydras shouldn't have to swap back and forth on challenges. If they are gonna occupy one slot, treat them like one slot.

If that puts a target on them because it gives them an advantage in challenges then oh well, that's the breaks.