Most valuable tool for scumhunting

[T3]

What are your thoughts on how different tools should be weighed? (eg. meta, associatives, general play, setup spec)
Like, should a player who exhibits a subconscious meta tell that makes them scum be limmed even though other than that they were very towny?

[Ramcius]

First of all, sorting people in "towny/scummy" is a really bad habit that most people have. Just think how often scum were towny and townies were scummy and you'll see how ridiculous whole thing is

Meta is very occasional thing as most people don't have obvious meta and having good meta on people takes effort and time, you can't just claim meta for 1 or 2 games, or without taking both alignment in consideration, just because person do something as one alignment doesn't mean same person can't do same thing as other alignment, also, commitment to the games is important for meta too, when people are committed to game they play differently than when they are laid back

associatives can work, but good scum can make fake associatives too, still, it's a good way to progress game at the very least as you have something to discuss

setup spec is pretty neutral thing, i feel it's more of a personal preference/playstyle, still, it can make scum to slip with TMI

General play is a broad term, so I just narrow it a bit and tell what works for me - mindset. Scum and townies have different goal and their mindset are different to achieve these goals. When someone does something that have or looks like it might have strong impact on the game, you have to ask who it would benefit? What is the goal of an action and you'll have better idea of a person who's doing the thing - scum would never do something that benefit town without a hidden agenda

Lastly, reaction tests, they can be very accurate, if applied properly and you get lucky, but success chance are low and requires really good understanding of what answer you're looking for and you have to disregard anything that isn't what you're looking for, you can't force them

[Infinity 324]

The best towntells are ones that scum would have a lot of difficulty faking, especially from someone who tends to have a weaker scumgame. The best scumtells are the ones that scum wouldn't think to avoid (as long as you have reason to believe it's AI of course).

[Nancy Drew 39]

I use a lot of different tools: assessing mondset of slot, VCA, reads progression, associative tells, meta, etc.

I’ve found in general that that town will find something that scumpings them and tend to follow that up with further questions, reaction tests, other forms of analysis and tend to appear as though they’re sincerely trying to form a read on X players, where as scum will - more likely than not - tend to FOS on something totally nia and try to orchestrate a miselim on that player. Town wants to make sure their read is solid, where as scum obviously won’t care for obvious reasons.

Disregard reactions to being scumread. People bizarrely put a lot of stock into this and it’s pretty much meaningless. The conventional wisdom is that scum will react more strongly but in my experience, that is not necessarily accurate. Some townies get upset, some scum act chill and vice versa.

I do find that town are more likely to be upset rather than panicky and are less self-conscious on the whole. I only get accused of having tmi or scumslipping when I’m town for some reason.

[mastina]

Every tool is just that--a tool. No tool is an end all, be all solution. No tool can be used in every situation. No tool has a 100% success rate. Every tool has a time and place to be used and every tool you use should ideally augment each other.

Tools I make use of include, but are not limited to:
Selective application of extremely confident pushes on slots, applying pressure to them;
Votecount Analysis (this has multiple levels to it);
Mechanics Analysis (this also covers setup spec);
When applicable, flavor analysis;
Listening to my gut;
A set of "general tells" that encompass generic general behavioral expectations I have that, lacking player meta, are the default I assume town/scum will adhere to (this probably has many many many sub-tools honestly);
Meta, that encompasses specific behavioral expectations I have that are specific to a single individual (also slightly multi-layered);
Crowdsourcing, where I listen to the voices around me, take their input, and refine my opinions;

Probably more but those are the ones I have on my mind right now.

[Gamma Emerald]

The best towntells are ones that scum would have a lot of difficulty faking, especially from someone who tends to have a weaker scumgame. The best scumtells are the ones that scum wouldn't think to avoid (as long as you have reason to believe it's AI of course).

This point about scum tells makes sense, a good chunk of tells I’ve developed myself deal with corner case situations so it would be kinda silly to expect someone to play around it