Why do YOU hate hydras, as either a player or a mod?

[Kublai Khan]

I wonder how much different this thread would be if I had asked for people to share why they love hydras.

Well, I know I wouldn't have posted because I don't love hydras.

[mykonian]

a lot more people posting that their hydra doesn't have dissonance and that makes theirs better.

[Firebringer]

My hydras have dissonance and that's what makes them great

[LlamaFluff]

If a hydra is ran very well (see Copper) they can be a fun player to have in a game. If a hydra is not ran well (see nearly every other hydra ever) they are very much NOT fun to play with because it inevitable dissolves into one of a few situations

1) Feedback loop of negative tendencies of the players (contentless posting, toxicity, lurking, etc)
2) Having it basically be one player who posts everything defeating the purpose
3) Massive dissonance between heads which basically makes the slot an unreadable and unpredictable element (anti-town)

Hydras tend to exist seemingly more for increasing entertainment of its members without making attempts to increase ability of play or be perceptive of how much other players enjoy them.

[callforjudgement]

Something that astonished me when I learned it, a while back, is that some hydras have no private communication at all and just communicate entirely via their posts in the game thread.

To me, that goes very much against the idea of playing as a single slot; you should at least try to present a unified front.

[Nexus]

Something that astonished me when I learned it, a while back, is that bad hydras have no private communication at all and just communicate entirely via their posts in the game thread.

To me, that goes very much against the idea of playing as a single slot; you should at least try to present a unified front.

ftfy

[VysePresident]

hydras, like meta, are trash

So hydras are godly?

[TheRealGin-N-Tonic]

The only time I hydra is with people I KNOW we can get shit done with. For example, The Wood Cutters is a new hydra and while it's currently ongoing and I can't discuss it's only game so far, I can discuss that when mastina, myself, and Nacho started working together, we worked well cohesively and BAM we nailed the scum team on day 1.

It's just phenomenal because it takes just one night for us to get shit done.

Other person I have hydra'd with is Pine and that's cuz we vibed really well.

I do agree tho the hydra because lol funz lol doesn't bode well.

[Kublai Khan]

The only time I hydra is with people I KNOW we can get shit done with. For example, The Wood Cutters is a new hydra and while it's currently ongoing and I can't discuss it's only game so far, I can discuss that when mastina, myself, and Nacho started working together, we worked well cohesively and BAM we nailed the scum team on day 1.

Yes. Games are fun when you put cheat codes in.

[TheRealGin-N-Tonic]

The only time I hydra is with people I KNOW we can get shit done with. For example, The Wood Cutters is a new hydra and while it's currently ongoing and I can't discuss it's only game so far, I can discuss that when mastina, myself, and Nacho started working together, we worked well cohesively and BAM we nailed the scum team on day 1.

Yes. Games are fun when you put cheat codes in.

For the record, this game was mastina, myself, and Nacho as 3 separate town slots in Camn's Revenge

[Kublai Khan]

The only time I hydra is with people I KNOW we can get shit done with. For example, The Wood Cutters is a new hydra and while it's currently ongoing and I can't discuss it's only game so far, I can discuss that when mastina, myself, and Nacho started working together, we worked well cohesively and BAM we nailed the scum team on day 1.

Yes. Games are fun when you put cheat codes in.

For the record, this game was mastina, myself, and Nacho as 3 separate town slots in Camn's Revenge

Yeah, but you understood what I meant.

[TheRealGin-N-Tonic]

What if I said I dont understand because I'm dense >_>

[Kublai Khan]

What if I said I dont understand because I'm dense >_>

Did you read the rest of the thread?

or the title of the thread?

[TheRealGin-N-Tonic]

I read the thread before, forgot what was in it, and then posted.

Basically it was a re:103

[Wisdom]

I'm apparently in the minority but I find that hydras are easier to read in many cases; two people whose actions you can examine and check for inconsistencies, two people you can talk to in order to figure the slot, etc. Plus, if I am usually not good at reading Player A and he's in hydra with Player B in this game, I can try and read the slot by interacting more with Player B.

This of course assumes that both of the hydra heads actively play and sign their posts - when hydras go "we won't sign our posts, read us as one slot" then no thanks.

I have not felt unfairly disadvantaged against a hydra yet.

[nancy]

Considering hydras are probably the only way I'll ever resume playing mafia any time soon, I find this thread title to be very badly worded!

[Nachomamma8]

I've had the opportunity to hydra with a lot of strong players throughout the years; hydraing with someone better than you (or someone close to your skill level) gives you a unique opportunity to see how another person reacts to the game state it unfolds, which, in my opinion, is the best way to develop as a player. One of the most meaningful games that helped shape my scumgame and set the stage for me to be able to break my lurkscum meta was Outdoorsman Mafia 2, where I hydra'd with mastina; seeing her approach and drive as scum, and getting the opportunity to watch her spend hours and hours crafting a post after we were investigated by a cop (with two guilties, ridiculously enough) just for the sake of fighting and not giving up was something that I still carry with me years and years later.

I also don't think that hydras provide a significant advantage (as either alignment) to justify the "hydras are cheating argument" - as Wisdom notes, hydras with two active heads are typically easier to read since it allows people to pick on a weak link, and as town, getting someone to talk with about the game is certainly helpful, but compromising in good points and minimizing dissonance and finding a way for your reads to mesh is difficult, and means that it takes a decent amount of skill to produce a town hydra stronger than the sum of its parts.

[Accountant]

This of course assumes that both of the hydra heads actively play and sign their posts - when hydras go "we won't sign our posts, read us as one slot" then no thanks.

I've played on a hydra before where I didn't sign my posts because it was easy enough to tell us apart

[Cerberus v666]

Considering hydras are probably the only way I'll ever resume playing mafia any time soon, I find this thread title to be very badly worded!

It's not badly worded. I deliberately phrased it the way I did so as to encourage those with negative opinions to be more likely to post. I wanted the bias in the field of answers to be anti-hydra, so I, someone who enjoys playing mafia as part of a hydra, could hear and refute the reasons given for opposing hydrae...and, perhaps, see the merit in some of these arguments, if any such merit existed.

[mastina]

One of the most meaningful games that helped shape my scumgame and set the stage for me to be able to break my lurkscum meta was Outdoorsman Mafia 2, where I hydra'd with mastina; seeing her approach and drive as scum, and getting the opportunity to watch her spend hours and hours crafting a post after we were investigated by a cop (with two guilties, ridiculously enough) just for the sake of fighting and not giving up was something that I still carry with me years and years later.

In return, it should be noted that Nacho fundamentally caused a shift in my playstyle as BOTH alignments, but especially town: before I met Nacho, I didn't have any clue how to present information, how to be a presence in the game, I utterly lacked charisma, and basically had no game influence.

It was playing with Nacho which gave me a good idea of what worked and what didn't. He had this magical way of talking: when he spoke up, people actually listened to him, and that was inspiring to me. At the time I was basically a directionless child; he's the one who helped give me the direction my play would evolve towards, for better or worse.

[Kublai Khan]

It still feels like the pro-hydra players do not read or address anybody else's problems with hydras. All of their arguments boil down to "

I

enjoyed it and

I

benefitted from it, therefore it's fine."

Because fuck everybody else, apparently.

[Nachomamma8]

Mafia is about having instinct and wrestling with second guessing those instincts or not. Having a second (or third!) person to sound off your doubts to is not something that other players have. It's an unfair advantage.

I also don't think that hydras provide a significant advantage (as either alignment) to justify the "hydras are cheating argument" - as Wisdom notes, hydras with two active heads are typically easier to read since it allows people to pick on a weak link, and as town, getting someone to talk with about the game is certainly helpful, but compromising in good points and minimizing dissonance and finding a way for your reads to mesh is difficult, and means that it takes a decent amount of skill to produce a town hydra stronger than the sum of its parts.

[Nachomamma8]

Plus trying to read a slot means that you're getting a gauge of their personality and determine if a particular action is in character or maybe they did it because of a scummy win condition. If it's two people, then variables are off the fucking wall.

This segment was also addressed in the wall, but here's a clearer rebuttal:

Typically, in hydras, people either sign or the personalities are distinctive. If that's the case, then you have opportunities to read two different players; follow your strongest read. This is why typically playing in a scum hydra is more difficult than playing solo; if your partner is scummy, people can identify them as scum and kill the slot. If they are not, then typically dissonance is not a significant issue and the problems you're talking about simply aren't there.

I also believe that dissonance, even when it exists and is horrible, shouldn't hurt your ability to read the slot all that much. If there is dissonance there is probably decent distinction between heads, which means you have two separate progressions to read the slot by. I have also found that the more effective scumtells aren't "you contradicted yourself here!" (in other words, the Hydra false positive) but more looking when it seems like someone isn't genuinely trying to read someone else, or when their actions benefit a scum win condition in a convenient way, which means as long as you treat two people as two people and not some mindmeld thing, conventional scumhunting on hydras typically still stands.

[Nachomamma8]

It still feels like the pro-hydra players do not read or address anybody else's problems with hydras. All of their arguments boil down to "

I

enjoyed it and

I

benefitted from it, therefore it's fine."

Because fuck everybody else, apparently.

As this is a mafia discussion thread and not a mafia game, your personal enjoyment with regards to hydras doesn't matter much to me. If you wanted to sign up for a game but didn't want to play with a hydra, I would happily split the hydra or leave. In game, if there was something specific my hydra could do to make your game more enjoyable, chances are I would probably do it.

The reason I've shared personal experiences in this thread is to emphasize the value I see in hydras, which I feel is important when discussing them. I've never argued nor implied that I would sacrifice another's happiness for my own; after all, it's not like some people enjoying hydras somewhere means that everyone who dislikes hydras everywhere will be unhappy.

[Socrates]

I think the arguments for why hydras are often valuable experiences for their participants are important, and while I respect and even possibly agree with the perspective that it somewhat goes against the spirit of the game, we can have multiple spirits and multiple games.

I wanna hydra soon myself, but I will want to make sure it doesn't step on anyone else's enjoyment of the game when I do so.