Self-Voting Thoughts

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Please keep discussion for the way we're recording self-voting statistics as well as any thoughts on self-voting here, instead of the other thread.

Thank you.

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Disagree
You can get out of being mechanically scum.

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If you're the last scum you should always play until the whistle. :/

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Votes don't always need to be on the opposite alignment to further your win condition. After all, votes impact the game beyond causing lynches & that means players may use them to scumhunt or manipulate or pocket or otherwise accomplish things besides causing a lynch on the object of the vote. And self-voting is no different.

Instead of making an assertion and using it as evidence, I highly recommend providing an example or theoretical situation where this might be true, else it helps the discussion not at all.

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I self vote. I plan to continue doing it. It can help me accomplish my goal.

Instead of making an assertion and using it as evidence, I highly recommend providing an example or theoretical situation where this might be true, else it helps the discussion not at all.

Your mindset with this reply seems to be one of "I disagree and I hope everyone knows about it." First of all, I don't think anyone knows who you are and therefore no one cares, but second, if anyone did know or care, your attitude here is toxic because you're not furthering discussion, you're just being contrary.

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If you're the last scum you should always play until the whistle. :/

I believe that realising when you're done and just not wasting everyone's time is part of being good at mafia

How many times have you seen a wagon on scum get to L-1 but because it sits there long enough, the wagon ends up elsewhere? Even mechanics can be manipulated, CCs can be made, etc.

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VOTE: mbaki

Done posting here. Good luck town.

mbaki uses a self vote and heavy amounts of AtE in Mini 2046 to avoid mislynch and eventually win the game, it wasn't pretty but it worked

Regardless of whether you think it's healthy for the game, it can be a viable strategy to stop a mislynch that would otherwise lose you the game.

The fact that that worked is a detriment to the town in that game and not a bonus to him. I'm not going to discuss the AtE because it's not part of my discussion here- I hate it, it's disgusting, but people use it - I use it (though not intentionally) and it's not something that's going to stop

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If you're the last scum you should always play until the whistle. :/

If I ever /in to a game that you want to play (and you weren't there first) you should reconsider signing up.

Please talk about why you think giving up when you think the game is over instead of playing to your wincon is acceptable play, instead of taking personal stances in the thread based on the tiny amount of mafia experience you have to achieve the purpose of explaining that you disagree with a player who has years of experience on you. I'm not saying this because I think my years of experience makes me right, but because your play is far from good enough to justify your opinion without any supporting evidence or theoretical situations.

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The fact that that worked is a detriment to the town in that game and not a bonus to him. I'm not going to discuss the AtE because it's not part of my discussion here- I hate it, it's disgusting, but people use it - I use it (though not intentionally) and it's not something that's going to stop

The town was not good that game. They did not work well together, there was a lot of objectively bad play.

However, part of mafia is reading the lobby and using the best strategy in that game to get you a win.

In a better lobby it may not have worked, but mbaki knew what sort of situation he was in and that the self vote would be the most effective way to get votes off of him. You might hate it personally, but in some games, notably this one, it can be an effective strategy.

Fair. I can accept this, but my goal is to make towns better by not accepting self-votes as indications of alignment.
I can see this being a proper time and place to do it, although I'd really prefer if post-game there was discussion had of whether or not there was a better way to get out of this situation and whether or not the self-vote was achievable as town or scum.

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Town has a singular goal in mafia: To find and lynch all the scum
This is achieved by reading other player's reactions and working with other players by achieving town reads on oneself.

Self-voting should not achieve town reads on oneself as it is achievable by both town and the very worst of scum (I pulled it off in a recent game, Burden of Proficiency 2) to win a game that I should not have won.

Self-voting does not achieve reads on other players, because responses to it are predictable and have been seen in hundreds of games prior.

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When you self-vote you deprive town of your vote on other players as a note of where your stance is at that point in time (if you don't know why that's particularly bad , we can talk about it, but I'm going to move forward assuming everyone knows), and you manage to do nothing with it but draw attention to yourself. If the goal is to draw attention to yourself, there are less anti-town ways to do that.

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Town has a singular goal in mafia: To find scum

*to find ALL the scum

Fixed, thanks.

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The fact that that worked is a detriment to the town in that game and not a bonus to him. I'm not going to discuss the AtE because it's not part of my discussion here- I hate it, it's disgusting, but people use it - I use it (though not intentionally) and it's not something that's going to stop

The town was not good that game. They did not work well together, there was a lot of objectively bad play.

However, part of mafia is reading the lobby and using the best strategy in that game to get you a win.

In a better lobby it may not have worked, but mbaki knew what sort of situation he was in and that the self vote would be the most effective way to get votes off of him. You might hate it personally, but in some games, notably this one, it can be an effective strategy.

I take this back, I responded before I read the game.

It's quite possible this is optimal play here - I spoke out of my ass and I'm sorry for that. :/ This might have been a good time to self-vote. I don't know

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I'm revising my statement to instead be: "I think there are times when self-voting is optimal play, but the majority of it's uses are anti-town."

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If you're the last scum you should always play until the whistle. :/

I believe that realising when you're done and just not wasting everyone's time is part of being good at mafia

How many times have you seen a wagon on scum get to L-1 but because it sits there long enough, the wagon ends up elsewhere? Even mechanics can be manipulated, CCs can be made, etc.

Well, sometimes town is competent

Right, but giving up on the assumption that town is competent isn't optimal play. :/ If town is competent, it shouldn't be hard for the last townie to get on and hammer, and the fact that town is not competent such a large portion of the time supports the idea that playing until the end is a good idea because it can result in a win.

Town has a singular goal in mafia: To find scum

*to find ALL the scum

No, to kill all scum, finding them won't end game

Ha. I knew someone was going to say this so I fixed it before anyone brought it up.

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If you're the last scum you should always play until the whistle. :/

I believe that realising when you're done and just not wasting everyone's time is part of being good at mafia

How many times have you seen a wagon on scum get to L-1 but because it sits there long enough, the wagon ends up elsewhere? Even mechanics can be manipulated, CCs can be made, etc.

Well, sometimes town is competent

Right, but giving up on the assumption that town is competent isn't optimal play. :/ If town is competent, it shouldn't be hard for the last townie to get on and hammer, and the fact that town is not competent such a large portion of the time supports the idea that playing until the end is a good idea because it can result in a win.

I don't know, if you really don't understand or it's just bad attempt to troll. I don't tell you concede every game, I don't tell you concede on "assumption". I'm saying experienced people know, when town is competent and they just concede, which saves everyone's times

Two scenarios:
1. Competent town, game is over for scum - all townies vote that scum player quickly because town is competent - In this scenario, it doesn't matter if the player votes themselves or doesn't
2. Incompetent town, game looks like it's over for scum but it isn't - scum can withhold self hammer and has a chance at winning the game or self hammer and lose the game - In this scenario, the player should not vote themselves.

You're fighting a losing battle here.

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I will say that I think I overreacted a bit to the "self voting is always bad" idea. I don't see particular merit in it, but if it progresses someone else's game in a productive way, it doesn't benefit me to stop them from it.

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I guess I'm trying to push thought before action as a process here since I've seen (and been a part of) a lot of more thoughtless play recently, and I don't see a whole lot of situations where self-voting is productive. :/

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Spoiler:

If you're the last scum you should always play until the whistle. :/

I believe that realising when you're done and just not wasting everyone's time is part of being good at mafia

How many times have you seen a wagon on scum get to L-1 but because it sits there long enough, the wagon ends up elsewhere? Even mechanics can be manipulated, CCs can be made, etc.

Well, sometimes town is competent

Right, but giving up on the assumption that town is competent isn't optimal play. :/ If town is competent, it shouldn't be hard for the last townie to get on and hammer, and the fact that town is not competent such a large portion of the time supports the idea that playing until the end is a good idea because it can result in a win.

I don't know, if you really don't understand or it's just bad attempt to troll. I don't tell you concede every game, I don't tell you concede on "assumption". I'm saying experienced people know, when town is competent and they just concede, which saves everyone's times

Two scenarios:
1. Competent town, game is over for scum - all townies vote that scum player quickly because town is competent - In this scenario, it doesn't matter if the player votes themselves or doesn't
2. Incompetent town, game looks like it's over for scum but it isn't - scum can withhold self hammer and has a chance at winning the game or self hammer and lose the game - In this scenario, the player should not vote themselves.

You're fighting a losing battle here.

What about town lynching scum after long discussion? Or lynching someone else first and then lynching scum? Or having PoE'd scum and someone else and having enough lynches for all of them?

If you against that competent town as you describe in your 1., then you're dead before you even have time to consider concede option

Exactly my point. If you have time to consider whether or not you should concede, you probably shouldn't concede.

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Your point is to be petty and waste time, but you're right, I can't convince you

No, my point is that you don't know the minds of the other players and what's winnable and isn't until you try to win it.
If you want to build up my argument as something it's not so you can put your defeatist attitude on display, please make your own thread to do that.

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i was in lylo as scum with a cop inno and a gunsmith inno and confirmed no godfathers and i won. never give up.

Are you telling that these people were competent?

Are you actually going to just assume things about players you know nothing about in a game you haven't read because you believe your point to be true?

I promise making your evidence match your conclusion isn't going to go very far in proving your point to anyone but yourself.

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Votes don't always need to be on the opposite alignment to further your win condition. After all, votes impact the game beyond causing lynches & that means players may use them to scumhunt or manipulate or pocket or otherwise accomplish things besides causing a lynch on the object of the vote. And self-voting is no different.

Instead of making an assertion and using it as evidence, I highly recommend providing an example or theoretical situation where this might be true, else it helps the discussion not at all.

First votes in the game don't need to be on scum to further town's win condition, they help town scumhunt without necessarily causing a lynch on the object of the vote, and that applies whether it's a self-vote or a vote on someone else.

First votes in the game on yourself don't further a town win condition. Responses are predictable and therefore borderline useless as far as finding who is scum, and voting yourself does not help other players read you because it's easily replicable as town and as scum with similar likelihoods (AFAIK). In addition, votes on yourself give no indication of your immediate and unaltered thoughts on other players - a big part of mafia as scum is knowing who is easy to mislynch and who isn't and responding to the town attitude and reads by building cases on who they think is mislynchable enough w/o giving away they're playing opportunistic. In the first phase of the game, however, there are no thoughts on who is scum and who is not, placing your vote on someone else is the beginning of associatives w/ that player and can be used in PoEs/VCAs to to narrow down who you could be scum w/, who that player could be scum w/, etc. A self-vote withholds that information and makes the player more difficult to read.

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Self-voting does not achieve reads on other players, because responses to it are predictable and have been seen in hundreds of games prior.

Responses to self-votes are not predictable. Please provide evidence for this assertion.

Also, please provide evidence for your assertion that doing things with predictable responses doesn't achieve reads.

Also, maybe follow your own advice of not making assertions without providing evidence?

You getting flustered over me not providing reason for my reasoning for my statement is different from me getting flustered over you not providing reason for your statement.

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When the topic of the thread is "self-voting" you saying "i like self-voting" doesn't further discussion. me saying "i don't like self voting because" does further discussion. If you need me to go into detail on the "because," ask.

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When a player self votes other players will respond by voting the player in question or not voting the player in question. These responses are not useful to read anymore, because the push on the player could easily be one of disgust for self-voting and the refusal to push could easily be one of support for self-voting. The play is no longer about the alignment of the original player, it's about the singular play the one player made.

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When a player self votes other players will respond by voting the player in question or not voting the player in question. These responses are not useful to read anymore, because the push on the player could easily be one of disgust for self-voting and the refusal to push could easily be one of support for self-voting. The play is no longer about the alignment of the original player, it's about the singular play the one player made.

By self-voting, you allow scum to push you based on something that is not your alignment, giving them an opportunity to push for your mislynch for the remainder of the game based on something no one can read them on because it's not play indicative.

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If this push results in a policy lynch, the scum bear no responsibility, because it is the original players crappy play that lead to their lynch, not the push of the mafia.

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When the topic of the thread is "self-voting" you saying "i like self-voting" doesn't further discussion. me saying "i don't like self voting because" does further discussion. If you need me to go into detail on the "because," ask.

Your hypocrisy is annoying but I'm not going to tell you to behave differently, you're welcome to be whatever kind of person you want.

Why not just say "I think you're a hypocrite" instead of being passive about it?

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I strongly disagree that your two examples of what players "could easily be" are the only responses to self-votes. Why are those the only possible responses? If I'm confronted with a self-vote, you're going to see a lot more nuance than that, and if you look at games with self-votes, you'll definitely see other responses beyond these two.

I also strongly disagree that those responses aren't AI. Why can't those responses be AI for some players based on their personality?

This is entirely circular. Scum aren't responsible for policy lynching self-votes because self-votes are crappy play. Self-votes are crappy play because ... scum aren't responsible for policy lynching them. What am I missing here?

How do you disagree that the two possible responses to anything in mafia are to vote or not to vote? Yes there is more nuance to it. There is more nuance to everything. But the general response is the same. And reading people in mafia is about WHY they do things. The "why" when you self-vote is already answered - that player does or does not have a stance against self-voting.

What is AI about your beliefs on optimal mafia play?

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When the topic of the thread is "self-voting" you saying "i like self-voting" doesn't further discussion. me saying "i don't like self voting because" does further discussion. If you need me to go into detail on the "because," ask.

Your hypocrisy is annoying but I'm not going to tell you to behave differently, you're welcome to be whatever kind of person you want.

Why not just say "I think you're a hypocrite" instead of being passive about it?

Also irrelevant

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This is entirely circular. Scum aren't responsible for policy lynching self-votes because self-votes are crappy play. Self-votes are crappy play because ... scum aren't responsible for policy lynching them. What am I missing here?

Self votes are crappy play because they're not alignment indicative and they generate no alignment indicative responses.
Scum aren't responsible for policy lynching self-voters because self-votes are crappy play.
This makes self-votes even crappier play.

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How do self-votes prevent townies from voicing their reads?

I didn't say this.

Why can't a townie self-vote while expressing their reads through other words (e.g. "X is town, Y is scum, and I'm self-voting because of Z."

I didn't say this either.

Why can't self-votes be a valid way of drawing attention to oneself?

Just responded to this again. Basically - it doesn't help people read you, it doesn't help people know who you're aligned with and who you're not aligned with, it just draws attention for the purpose of drawing attention.

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Do you think it's impossible for a townie to give "immediate and unaltered thoughts on other players" while self-voting?

Nope, but saying you think someone might be scum and voting for them are two different matters entirely.
The best justification I remember seeing for saying you think someone is scummy but not having your vote on them is that you think that someone else is scummier.
So, following this, if you think someone is scummy, but your vote is on yourself, what does that say?

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Why doesn't your reasoning apply to normal votes? Why can't players have NAI responses to votes on other players?

People CAN have NAI responses to votes on other players. The difference is with a self-vote responses are very likely to be NAI, with votes on other players, it's very different. Pushing another player is very difficult as scum, especially making a serious push. Therefore, putting your vote on other players and pushing them can help other people read you, can help other people know what players you are and are not likely to be aligned with, and can help you read the player you're voting -> votes on other players are far superior to votes on yourself.

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How do you disagree that the two possible responses to anything in mafia are to vote or not to vote? Yes there is more nuance to it. There is more nuance to everything. But the general response is the same. And reading people in mafia is about WHY they do things. The "why" when you self-vote is already answered - that player does or does not have a stance against self-voting.

What is AI about your beliefs on optimal mafia play?

You described two possible actions & two possible responses. The two actions -- to vote or not to vote -- are indeed the only two. The two responses -- disgust at the self-vote or support for the self-vote -- aren't. I used the term "response" to describe the "why." I'm saying there's lots of other responses besides the two you describe, many that aren't predictable, and either way there's no reason these responses can't be AI. If a player has a stance against self-voting, fine. That player still has to evaluate whether you're town/scum & they have to weigh whether they want to push a policy lynch or defend you based on a bunch of other factors (e.g. how towny they view you outside the self-vote, how much they respect you as a player discounting the self-vote, etc.). There's an entire calculus of decisions a player makes that aren't limited to criticism or support of self-votes.

Beliefs about optimal mafia play are the basis of why anyone does anything in mafia and as such it's the basis of all attempts to sort town/scum. Someone's non-theoretical stance on self-voting, as discovered by actually self-voting, might help you read that player in light of something else they did, based on your read of whether their previous behavior squares with the personality of someone who disapproves of self-voting.

I can't go into detail about every possible variation because there's too many to even speculate about. My point is that there's a lot of nuance to scumhunting & getting someone's stances about optimal play absolutely has a role in that, especially in terms of figuring out their overall personality and tendencies in the game as well as figuring out whether their play squares with that.

... This is a lot of speculation that I inherently disagree on and that would be significantly easier to discuss in detail when we're allowed to discuss it in detail. I am not interested in calling you wrong here until I can discuss this further, and until that point I think this part of the argument boils down to opinion.

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Is voting randomly somehow not as easily replicable as self-voting?

Unless you use an RNG, random voting is never random.

What's your evidentiary basis for saying that town/scum self-vote with similar likelihood?

Do you think the specific tendencies of each player & their personal likelihood to self-vote as either alignment in RVS or elsewhere is irrelevant to scumhunting?

This is a project we're currently working on and I'll get back to you once I've got more data on the matter.

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Her response was not relevant to the conversation unless the bolder was not true, so I stated the bolded. There was no intent to be rude or nasty, some statements don't belong in certain places.

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The fact of the matter is this, self-votes don't cause harm by themselves. The impact of a self-vote turns on how other players respond to it. If I self-vote in RVS, no harm has been done until other players respond. If other players ignore it, no harm. If other players respond without AI information, no harm. If other players respond with AI information, benefit for town. If other players push a policy lynch on the self-vote, harm.

The impact turns on how other players respond.

I understand that you personally feel unable to develop AI information from self-votes, Enter. But that doesn't mean others can't use self-votes to scumhunt. You're not the only player in the game & I don't see any reason to prevent other players from using their toolbox just because you don't find it personally helpful. I also don't think it's fair to limit available actions in mafia when your knowledge of the game is incomplete and you never know when something you usually find useless might suddenly become a game-winning action.

You say that nothing is random in RVS. I agree. Nothing is random, including self-votes and responses to them. Everything is AI if you look at how to piece it together in the bigger picture, including self-votes and responses to them.

That mindset is wrong - why would you make a move in RVS without the intent of being provocative - I'd especially like a specific example of a good reason to self vote that isn't with the purpose of being provocative in RVS. So if no one responds, then you've failed to be provocative.

I disagree on the "no harm" players responding with no AI information, but I can discuss this more later.

The rest of this I'll think on. I think everything you can do with a self vote, you can do in another, more creative and less potentially harmful way, but if self voting helps you specifically...

I'll think on it more. You're right that it's not my place to dictate how others play, but there is an extent to which bad play should be discussed and the public made aware of it so it is minimized long run. If this is based on a failure on my part to interpret information, I'd rather fix myself than try and negatively impact the community, I just haven't seen a lot of examples of self votes tha positively influence town or even self votes that achieve something other, less harmful play could not.

Regardless, you make some good points, I think, and I don't want to respond immediately, so I'll concede for now.

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i know and care who maryjolisa is

Noted.

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New to site - check
Female - check
Hmmmmmm. :p

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Tbf the competent players tend to die before lylo

Competent town =/= competent players. Competent town is, when people work together and know how to find scum instead giving in to paranoia/apathy. Also, if your game reached LYLO/MYLO, it's probably was not very competent town to begin with

Therefore, self-voting to end the game is a bad move.

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It's not bad, just pointless and wasteful, it doesn't change outcome

It's bad
and pointless and wasteful

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It's poor sportsmanship
It's not playing to your wincon

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Tbh, I find it contrary - surrendering and saying "good game" to your opponent, when you are clearly beaten is good sportsmanship

Also, if you resort to self vote, you already accepted that you're lost, so it's self vote to prolong game till enough town will check in and votes or concede

You haven't been clearly beaten until the mod posts the final votecount.

You've already admitted multiple times that rarely is town competent in mylo/lylo. Even if there's a .1% chance that you win by someone else just making a dumb vote or a stupid mistake
That's you coming out with a win where it seemed almost unlikely

Unlikely wins don't happen if people give up when winning is unlikely

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Surrendering and saying "good game" to your opponent after the final vote count is posted is good sportsmanship

Giving up and not letting your opponent play their game until the end is poor sportsmanship almost every time.

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If you going into MYLO/LYLO without a plan for victory (you should plan ahead of time who you're taking in LYLO/MYLO), then you ofc should concede. That said my point is that you should concede, if you're not in LYLO/MYLO yet, but you're last scum and town has way too much power left to fight them solo.

That's poor sportsmanship.
That's giving up.
I strongly disagree with you.
I'm not interested in playing a game as town where scum will decide for me when I've won and won't let me try to actually finish them off.
I'm not interested in ending the game early as scum just because the game feels won for the other side.

Like I think I can see where you think you might be coming from, but my only thought for that is that you haven't played enough games on the winning team and you finally get the chance to feel victorious after fighting for so long and the opponent just gives up on you and doesn't let you ever have that sense of being in control. And you haven't had enough games where it felt like you were going to lose but you held in there and managed to pull a win out against all odds. These are the two reasons to play games. The thought that there are people like you who would take that from me makes me sick to my stomach.

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If scum are mechanically locked in a scenario where they have literally no chance of escaping but it could take 3-4 days to actually end the game, I would concede.

I have difficulty imagining a situation like this happening. :/

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playing scum is torturous. :/

I ... dislike the idea of giving up, even when it sucks to keep playing and it looks like you've lost. I haven't been there in a game recently, though, so maybe my opinion will change if I experience it again.

I like to think in the past playing through rough spots was what made the game enjoyable for the other side.

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Playing through rough spots yes

If you manage to not find the one pr that manages to clear the rest of the lynch list and there's enough mislynches to get through the rest... then what's the point of continuing lol

or if there's enough associative information in the game where too many town are cleared systematically

or scum fall into a gambit that essentially clears half the playerlist

situations like that DO happen, mistakes are made all the time and some of them create a decisive disadvantage that would be pretty much impossible to come back from

plus, morale is a very strong attribute that is necessary for any defense. if the scumteam can't find any way to come back, the morale evaporates and there's no defense left.

both of those together are a good case for conceding

I trust you to make a reasonable decision, Ank.

I won't speak to either of these specific situations because I haven't been in them and I'm a bit conflicted between my respect for you and the way I was raised.

I think I'll say that I'm against giving up when there's a chance of pulling through - concession rarely feels right to me - but making overarching statements is rarely anything but an exercise in foolishness. My goal is to combat the idea that it's optimal to concede, and I think I've made my point to the extent that it needs to be made. I'll admit that situations should probably be treated on a case-by-case basis.

Yeah. That's all the thoughts I feel comfortable sharing right now.

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It's excessive but it counts

There are absolutely scenarios that occur where the game is essentially over but it can still take a good amount of time for it to be actually finished

those scenarios are absolutely torturous to play as scum

An example. As soon as Javajoe24 hammered No Lynch, the remaining scum (Something_Smart) was mechanically caught, although town didn't know it until two real-life days later when Night ended. Nonetheless, I started trying to break the setup even harder, allowing for the outside possibility that SS was town who'd done something monumentally stupid rather than the simple explanation that he was scum (while still guaranteeing a 100% town win if SS was scum, which he was). The game could have stretched out quite a while if scum hadn't surrendered, three real-life days after the original No Lynch; it'd likely have lasted two more game Days, each which would have been around four real-life days long.

Is it possible he could have won with the reasoning that he might have been monumentally stupid?