Why isn't daytalking standard?

[Mr. Flay]

Daytalking overbalances things towards scum - it also slows down the game, something this site needs NO help with.

[Mr. Flay]

Would it change things if I said that that daytalk makes the lynch much less likely to hit scum except in a very controlled way?

If you could convince me of that. I highly doubt that.

Daytalk can make it easier for scum to manipulate the town, in the short run, but scumhunting still works, scumtells still work, everything still works. It's still up to the town to figure out who's town and who's scum, and to lynch the scum. It's still entirely a matter of skill, of reading people, of figuring out what's going on.

A balanced game is usually one where town would win something like 35%-40% of the time by just random lynching and random use of power rules. Adding daytalk will not unbalance an otherwise balanced game; town should still do better then random.

Let me guess, you also don't think hydras imbalance the game?

[Mr. Flay]

It makes it hard to impossible for the town players to gambit though. I don't mind it as a mechanic sometimes, but tie it to a role in the mafia that lets them do that. Don't hand out unlimited day talk like cookies, that's just silly.

I mean a day to plan is one thing, but letting people tailor their plans on the fly is something else. It's like if during a lynch meeting, the mafia members could freeze time, stop every townie, and have a long discussion, then unfreeze time. That makes all the questioning and cross examination a tad harder, neh?

Thank you. That's what I was trying to get at.

[Mr. Flay]

Daytalk is exceptionally overbalanced for scum. Not slightly, not a small benefit, but it is a huge benefit for them (same with masons if they get it).

It also means the scum need LESS skill to win. Should we be making it easier for scum to win?

Daytalk means scum can discuss everything themselves before every commenting on situations if they so choose, which allows them to constantly work situations to their own benefit, as opposed to how it's normally played in which they have to plan ahead during the short period of time they get, and then put it into play afterwards. That is much more skillful than rushing to your scum buddies to say "right, where do we go from here?" in the middle of the day.

If Scum always consult with their buddies before commenting on anything, it will quickly become apparent.

Not when the normal posting cycle is 12-36 hours. It works on Marathon Days, maybe, but not in normal forum games.

[Mr. Flay]

Sens, the only way daytalk would be used badly is if the scum are useless in every way anyway. In which case the daytalk wouldn't effect anything.

Oh, that's certanly not true. There are a number of "daytalk errors" that scum can make that can get them caught. Daytalk makes it easier for the scum to work together to manipulate the town, but on the other hand it also increases the risk that all the scum kind of "sound the same", and often once the scum do make a mistake (and the idea that they'll make no mistakes because they can daytalk is pretty silly) and one of them gets caught, it's often easier to tie them together if they've been in constant communication.

Daytalk may have made a scum sweep feel easier in that game you're talking about, but it can also let the whole scum group go down in flames together.

It makes it considerably harder for town to ever read scum because if there's a weak scum member they can run important posts by their team prior to posting it (and unless you're meant to be posting OMGNAO! Nobody will bat an eyelid to the wait), and remove any possible slips etc. that are in there.

That can work, but again on the other hand, helping to write and edit each other's posts can lead to that "everyone sounds alike" thing I was talking about. It can also cause people to divert from their normal meta, which can stick out. Beyond that, if you already know what your scumbuddy's going to say word for word before he says it, that can make it harder to react naturally in thread when he does say it.

And strangely enough, almost every daytalk thread I've seen relies heavily on feedback to make sure they DON'T all sound the same. We're kind of talking in circles here, Yos... you're starting from an assumption of no effect, and others are starting from an assumption of constant effect.

[Mr. Flay]

Yes - when scum can't coordinate behind the scenes, they're a lot more likely to make trackable strategic votes.

[Mr. Flay]

I can agree with that , Yosarian.

[Mr. Flay]

Yes - when scum can't coordinate behind the scenes, they're a lot more likely to make trackable strategic votes.

no

What is this I don't even... can you offer some sort of rebuttal, at least? Are we using strategic in different ways. Do you disagree with the ways people have talked about daytalk being used to mask scumminess and votes? Throw me a bone here, ort.

[Mr. Flay]

Nothing about the purpose nor the means of scum voting changes due to daytalk, unless they use votes as code. How do you think daytalk can mask votes?
"

vote: A

; but I have daytalk, so you can't see that I'm on this townie's wagon!"
Seems like a peculiar assertion that needs justification before ort will be able to rebut.

Overall, they never have to coordinate bandwagon hopping where the town can see them - it means that their general behavior is lost in the noise.

I don't think I've ever tried to "coordinate bandwagon hopping". I don't even know what that means.
Maybe that's why I don't play scum as well as town.

Fine. It means scum never have to worry about hopping on a wagon to give it momentum, only to have their buddy do it five posts later. It means scum never have to worry about whether a quicklynch will work. It means scum will never have to worry about whether their buddy will flip out if they bus them. It means scum will never have to, in short, make

any mistakes

with respect to utilizing their votes (i.e. the main Day Power of the game) in a detectable way.

[Mr. Flay]

We're kind of talking in circles here, Yos... you're starting from an assumption of no effect, and others are starting from an assumption of constant effect.

[Mr. Flay]

I would say that in the first and third examples, the daytalk is only helping to cover for a buddy with less experience or skill; there's no reason why decent scum couldn't avoid these problems without daytalk.
And I definitely agree that daytalk helps scum to cover for a lack of experience or skill in weaker team members. But I don't think that makes an almost guaranteed win.

I don't think I ever said it DID create an "almost guaranteed win" - just that it removes a lot of the chances for catching scum.Are you responding to somebody else with that part? It changes the balance point of the game, and historically we're already scum-tilted on MafiaScum. If you don't account for daytalk in some way with your game design, it WILL result in many more scum wins.

The second example is true, but there's no reason why the scum shouldn't be able to arrange a time of day during the night before lylo when they will both be online, and there's no reason the scum can't see each other posting and start posting themselves to indicate that they're ready to quicklynch.

Except you don't really KNOW the person is there/still there, unless you can actually ask them outright. That's the risk I'm talking about with #2.