In post 580, Lord Mhork wrote:Mastin I dislike the fact that you lurked so hard here though. It sets up bad habits for future newbies.
Indeed. Speaking of which, apologies for the delay. My power failed saturday night and I had work sunday, soyeah. Have had less time than anticipated. Apologies again.
I'll start this out with the experienced players.
Lord Mhork:
I know you don't want my advice, yet in a newbie game, I feel like I'd be obliged to give you some. However...I have none to give. Perhaps if I scoured your posts for miniscule details, I could find something that could possible, potentially, theoretically be of importance, but really, I have nothing to say that will help you. I think you did the best you could given the state of the game and how you were at the time. You gave a fine example of what a good town player should be doing.
Wisdom:
I also don't have much to say to you, other than...well-done. You've made significant progress since our last encounter. I've got only two points to nag you on. The first being that you're still a bit scatterbrained.
You had me and ETL immediately upon replacing in, but again, you lost it later on. To put it another way, you got distracted by the shiney.
The second point I have is that you were a little bit too harsh when dealing with ETL. You weren't unjustified; she was going through a tough time that left her emotionally compromised and basically unfit to play, but you were a bit harsher than you should have been when delivering that message to her.
But these are basically nit-picky details, though, because honestly...there's nothing that I can say that will really be of use. You already know everything you need to know. You've certainly gained back my respect, and I'll say it now:
This
Wisdom, I will play another game with. This Wisdom, I admire the skill of. So once more, again all I have to say is...well-played.
Nobody Special:
Another player I don't really have much negative things to say. I already hold you in high respect and consider you an equal. At separate points in the game, you had me as scum and ETL/sthar8 as scum. You simply didn't put us together as a team. Though I guess I can start out by basically reiterating what I said in the mafia QT, in that while what I did was, in fact, not a scumtell, you reversed your read on me as if it were a towntell, which it most certainly was not.
Going through a rough patch in life, I was clearly compromised in my ability to play, and it wasn't until near the end that I began to collect myself. Meaning, that while I'd never lurk to gain advantage as scum, and never use my status to gain leverage, I also could still be read on other merits. Basically, in my (lack of) content. If you had built a case on me being scum on other merits (such as my overall refusal to vote the entire game), then you actually could have stood a fairly realistic chance of getting me lynched instead of you. (Because that
was
a valid tell. Outside lylo, a town-me ABHORS not voting. Granted, in a newbie, I will typically be more cautious with my vote, but I generally never flat-out refuse to cast it. That was a scumtell. If you pushed it on me, I'd have had very little defense.)
In other words...you had the right ideas, but the wrong focus. Me not voting, as above, was a sign of my scum alignment (more on that below), but it was not tied to lurking as I guess you'd have assumed. (It's a little bit difficult to give you exact advice, since your style being a bit minimalistic, your train of thought is not the clearest it could be.) Basically, if you do analysis, don't cast it aside off of a faulty assumption, and see if what you're thinking is actually making sense--it almost did, but it wasn't quite right because you never let it be, if that makes sense.
I will say this, though. You're dangerous as a player. Before any other player in the game, you locked onto both me and ETL, basically having done so immediately. I think one of the problems you had was that you didn't have a strong presentation. Your thoughts were hard for a newbie to guess and comprehend. I know that, in general, your posting's fairly minimalistic. (I know, so is mine, some times.
) But while in other forums that may be fine, in a newbie, it's generally not sufficient. You don't have to post walls. But if players aren't following what you're saying (and this game, they largely weren't), then you need to put effort into bridging the gap.
This is mostly just my guess, though. I'll be honest in that I'm not really sure what I can do to help you out. You're someone that if I was town, I wouldn't have pushed, and as a result, I didn't fully grasp the reasons for your mislynch.
IKD:
So I'm not going to focus on improving your process, as much as I am on getting you up-to-speed on current site meta. Generally, site meta nowadays isn't focused on logic, as much as it is getting to know a player. Games aren't won by who can make the most logical argument (scum are actually better at this than town, generally), but by the town player who best understands each of the players in the game (both correctly reading them and swaying them to their side), and by the scum player who best understands each of the players, for a different reason (in this case, manipulating them).
The two sound different, but are actually quite similar. In fact, reasoning (I don't exactly call it 'logic') is the main driving force behind this understanding. Basically, there is a HUGE importance in explaining where your thought process comes from, and why you're seeing what you see. Pattern recognition is a big piece of this, too, in that the scum will have trends you can eventually latch on to. But there's basically no predefined tells to use; any tells are going to be player-specific. (For instance, me not voting.)
I'll put this a simpler way: town win games by trusting town and being paranoid of scum; scum win games by earning town's trust and directing paranoia to be between different town players. You put in a lot of effort into this game, and it was good effort...but to some extent, you had the same issue as skitzo just in a different way, in that...well. Your posting was all over the place. It didn't have a target audience. Though more memorable than skitzo's, your posting still came across as being more out-of-touch than it should be, and I do think this is largely that old meta in your mind.
But this is just my best guess as to what you need. I can't really say I'm sure. You're clearly a good scumhunter. Your analysis was basically right on the spot, both reads-wise and reasoning-wise. There's nothing wrong with your process, and you performed beautifully, having good activity and doing everything right. I think that, overall, it's basically that your weakness is a tone that sounds more "distant", and that in the current site meta, you'll be more successful if you learn to be more welcoming and friendly, if that makes sense.
Sorry I don't have anything more concrete. I will say this, though: had you actually claimed jailkeeper, you mighta screwed us over, so you might want to consider claiming your role in lylo if there's suspicion on you.
ETL:
<3
You're a great scum player who just went through a tough time in your life, and I do hope you are recovering. Knowing that you weren't exactly in the right mindset this game, and knowing that your future games will presumably have a better one, I'm not really sure there's anything I can do to help you.
sthar8:
So I'm having trouble critiquing your play. My 'scumread' on you was in part convenience, and in part because I-as-scumbuddy knew you were more scummy than you actually were...but while it's true that I didn't want to lynch you...it's also true that I felt your play was legitimately "off" your towngame, and that if I were town, I'd have scumread you. (That part wasn't faked. I really did have trouble explaining my read! Because I'm still having it even now.) I'm not sure how to explain it...but something in your game this time didn't seem to match the feeling of a town player, and I'm not exactly certain what it is.
It's something you might want to look into, since while you did okay, even the players in this game who didn't know you caught on, and a player who knew you most certainly would have. I guess it might have been...that they felt artificial? Your posting this game felt exactly what it undoubtedly was: highly calculated, logical, and precise. Artificial and a bit manipulative, meant to mislead town players. This is good strategy, but it works best if people don't catch onto you doing it, and this game, they did. I wish I could be more precise. I wish I could hone in on what, specifically, is giving your scumgame that 'off' feeling so that you could correct it. But this is, sadly, the best I can do.
Will say this, though. You still pulled it off. You're a strong scum player. And there's nothing in your actual play for me to criticize. You did well.
On me:
Basically, I started this game recovering from a rut, only to find myself in a different one. I was in the middle of sorting out a critical element of my life (that you might have observed if you pay attention to my profile), and that meant that my investment in this game was not nearly what it should have been. It was bad form. I kept posting often enough to avoid getting replaced, but not making a notable contribution to the game. Though this was more advantageous to my scum wincon, it's a HORRIBLE example to set of what good scumplay should be like. Sure. A good scum player knows the value in NOT speaking at times, yeah. But this game was well in excess of that. The best scum players win not by lurking, but by manipulating, by being invested in the gamestate and being right there the whole time.
I wasn't. So I do apologize for that. It would have been worse if I was town, too. Not contributing basically anything like I did is basically unacceptable. Do as I say, not as I did. While I think that I do have the ability to teach well, I don't think I can teach well until I've sorted out the issues in my life, and while each month gets me closer to that (I'm much better off mentally now than I was in, say, November), I'm still a far way off from being competent. As a player, this was a weak showing. As an IC, an even weaker one. My teachings weren't well-timed or well-executed. However, in spite of my horrendous attitude, you can still learn some things from this aside from what NOT to do. (Don't lurk, don't half-ass, and don't only partially analyze; actually follow through and DO.)
Mainly, you can see it in the idea (rather than execution) of what I did. While my questions were meant to teach, and I ask them as town as well, they serve to benefit a scum-me just as much as they benefit a town-me. In this case, by asking about other players, I could establish basic profiles of them, so that I could sort them into tiers. Players to nightkill. Players to mislynch. Players to buddy. And once I had that basic info, I was able to create a plan: kill players who were competent regardless of their current accuracy. (This is smart scum play, by the way!) Not focus on hunting power roles, but being on the lookout for them. And to focus attention, via manipulation, onto making town players suspect other town players.
To put it differently...while I didn't contribute anything, this was not entirely a bad thing, if I had handled it with greater care and attention that I had. I've had EXCELLENT scum games where I did well because I managed to encourage town players to fight town players, while not leaving anything incriminating to my scumbuddy(/ies) in case I would die. To put it a different way...I did say that on a player-scale, if you see someone who could be scum with anyone, it's generally a bad sign on your part. But it can also be something they do intentionally as scum. Not being able to find my scumbuddy would ensure that even if I got lynched, he'd have a good shot at victory.
Strong scum play is having a plan and managing to obscure that plan from the town. It involves keeping the town from working together. It basically boils down to stopping the town from unifying, or if they do unify, having it serve your agenda. You can see elements of that in what I did. I killed players who I knew could present that threat, and I largely planned the mislynches that we got. I managed to predict and prepare for things, and set up those fights. If I had been more active and invested, this would have been more apparent.
In essence: though lurking has its place (particularly as scum), this was overkill, and exactly what others have said: extremely bad form and a poor example.
Speaking of low activity, I might as well cover this before I move onto the newbies--
On the gamestate:
I said it before, and I'll say it again. Good games have neither too much nor too little activity. We started with too much...and crashed into too little as a result. Apathy is a bad game environment. While more beneficial to scum than town, it's simply not fun at all. It's contagious; if one person's hit by it, it drags all the players down. A healthy game might drag at times, but it will not consistently be that slow. A good player will know that they need to kick-start it. And not just a few days before deadline. Ideally, you get everyone talking to everyone, but not so rapidly that they drown each other out. I can put it a different way:
You need enough interaction to have thoughts...but enough time to let those thoughts sink in. If there's too much activity, you might read...but you're not processing it efficiently. And if there's no activity at all, you're not thinking at all.
This is one area where I as a player wouldn't be a miserable failure, but I as an IC was. Because I didn't set that pace properly. Too fast, too slow, and never a proper balance between the two. More than any other player, the IC can have that power, and I failed to use it effectively. This resulted in an environment where the newbies could not as effectively post, and as a result, not as effectively learn.
But I will say this, though. As I've hinted at...well, for the most part, this batch of players doesn't need much teaching at all, anyway. You all have what it takes to be successful players on MS.net; I can tell you that right here and now, to not only be among the better players, but potentially the elite. Almost all of you were above the average level I'd expect a newbie to play at (and I typically hold newbies to a higher standard than most!), and as a result, my advice is largely not going to be on teaching you, but rather, on giving little bits of tips and tricks to help, because you all share the same requirement of needing that experience, and not needing a rethink of your methods.
(This is part of the reason I largely played this game more in the mindset of a player than a teacher. I might have given lectures, but my actual play this game was basically identical to a lesser scum game of mine, with no differences because of my teaching. And this was because on some level, I guess I basically didn't feel you really needed the teaching, and were handling yourselves nicely without me. You're all awesome, and just need the time to realize it. But I still have to try, even if what I say is nothing you don't already know.)
Victor:
I've said it before, and will say it again--I see in you great potential. You'll see comments in the scum QT about how I viewed you as the largest risk among the newbie players, and that holds true. You have a lot of potential, and you showed it. You have fairly logical thoughts. You have excellent balance as a player. You're reasonable, you're intuitive, you have a good head for the game. I might be able to give you little pointers here and there with some closer inspection, but my main thought about you is, basically, "DON'T SCREW THIS UP!" By which, I mean exactly that--you have that talent, so don't let it be wasted by getting into the wrong mindset as a player.
The one thing that I see as your most likely potential future problem is as mentioned above a concern that in future games, you might be prone to confbias. (ESPECIALLY since it actually worked out in your favor this game, given that it was right!) If you keep an eye on it, you're probably going to be golden. I think if you run an iso of yourself, you can see why this is a concern of mine that I picked up. To some extent, it's there in your WBO push, and then the Nobody Special push after that. Of course, also the correct mastin2 push on me during D3, but yeah. You
should
be fine so long as you're aware it
could
be a problem.
I'll say it basically like this: there's not really much I can tell you that experience won't do better for you. You largely have the right ideas. The right focus. The right mindset. Basically, with a little refinement here and there (and keeping a lookout for that mindset potentially getting worse, basically my only concern with you), and you'll be among the top players on the site. You're definitely among some of the top newbies I've seen. (Just don't let that get to your head.
)
skitzo:
And as the mafia QT shows, you're the player I saw the second-most potential in, right behind Victor. (Basically, the only reason both you and Vic were in lylo is because Wisdom was more of a threat.) I said it before, I said it in there, and to put focus on the central issue in your play, what you need, above all else, is that much stronger presence in the game. Your posts need some extra "oomph" to them, in essence, because of how they don't stand out. Though this can occasionally be advantageous, it is far more often than not a large drawback.
And while I promised I'd try to elaborate, I'll be honest in that I'm not exactly sure what I can really do to help with that. While it's an issue I've had before, it's been so long since I've had it that I've forgotten what I did to fix it. The best I can think of is what you, yourself already pointed out: if you are slightly more proactive, it does help a lot. Engaging who you're speaking to is a huge boost--in my experience, talking to a general audience is less effective than speaking to a specific one. Mafia being a social game, talking to a specific person generally helps you understand that person much better than if you're just coldly analyzing them from a distance. By actually conversing with a player, you're more notable to that player at the very least. I've also found in my experience that it helps raise awareness of you as a whole, even if you're just speaking to that one person, because others are paying attention to your interaction with them, whereas when you're talking to a general audience, they have a habit of skipping over your posting.
It might be worth giving a try, if you can grasp this. You do a bit of it in your posting, but for the most part, when I take a look at your iso, I do think it was mainly not talking to players, but to nobody specific. I guess a different way of thinking about it is this: by speaking to a general audience, you're not only using a more "cold" logical approach, but also relying on it yourself. By talking to a specific player, you're not only appealing more specifically to players, you're also getting a more intimate read of that person, because they're going to open up to you just as much as you open up to them.
But again, this is just my best guess as to how to fix the problem. I'm truly sorry that I cannot offer you better advice than this. I do think you are a strong player. Like Vic, one of the main things you need is simply more experience than what you have now. I can scour your posts and maybe I'll find a slight flaw, but really, I can't find any obvious fault in your process; it's solid. It's just not memorable--so if you spend time focusing on honing in and refining that to BE more memorable, and you're going to be a winner, since the rest is already there.
Though this is the feedback for the majority of players, I still need to give Docthorr, Jackel, and WBO some feedback, too, since they're still around from the looks of things. (Or even if not, look like they could be in the future.) So consider this part two of three, with them being the final part.
Again, wish I could give better feedback than this.
