Mini 1962: Magical Girls Mafia II (Day 4)

[mastina]

#SorryNotSorry.

[mastina]

@Scum: GOOD PLAY. ALL 3 of you. Maki is just Maki ... totally unreadable for me.

Eli's use of gladiator was just awesome and it did fool me. Panzer's CC to LLD was a clever move.

I mean.
Aside from Maki.
I can't agree.
Because while the use of the gladiate did look good on D1 (I wrote a longwinded rhyme about it no less), they tanked their townread by D2. Their D2 play demolished what towncred they had pushing them from a top townread all the way down to null-and-worsening. Come D3 they were a scumread proper. Which will become ABUNDANTLY clear when both PTs I was in are released. Elizibereth was the third for multiple reasons.

Panzerjager was scum for me the entire fucking game. Never once did I say anything less than that.

Porkens was a fucking townread of mine and yet I couldn't convey that.
I knew all too well that LLD vs. Porkens was town-town wagons. Which I couldn't fucking convey.

I will admit Maki did play well though, notably having held some good suspicion on the Elizibereth slot with even some held on Panzer. For the same reason I wasn't scum with them, I would have thought she wasn't scum with them.

You're also operating under the assumption I had knowledge which I didn't have. YOU knew Kaito was a claimed cop. *I* did not until AFTER the lynch. Because I was told Kaito targeted the nightkill by you in public--no details, nothing else aside from that. I would not have supported the lynch with your information...but I didn't have your information, I had mine.

And I had my information which you lacked. Information I was all too happy to share--if I had the chance to fucking share it. I did not.

I will accept fault for what I was wrong about. That was Kokichi primarily, with Maki as something I also got wrong yet shouldn't have. I will also accept fault for a lynch on information which appeared to be correct but was only half correct, for lynching hastily off of half of the necessary info, that being the Kaito lynch, though even that is questionable blame given I was one of the first votes and not around during the time period the quicklynch happened in. (I was at work, so I couldn't have stopped it even had I wanted to.)

But you were the one who set me up to vote for Kokichi and you knew that I was going to do so. That was something that removing me ENSURED rather than PREVENTED. If you think removing me from the game THE DAY BEFORE LYLO is a good idea when I go on to CORRECTLY CALL BOTH LYNCH CANDIDATES THAT DAY MISLYNCHES. Then you're dead-wrong because that empowers my beliefs for better or for worse--it tells me that I was at least on the righter track than you were in my mind, because your mind led you to a mislynch that I wouldn't have stood for.

So again.
Sorry, but I'm not sorry.

[mastina]

I will also accept fault for a lynch on information which appeared to be correct but was only half correct, for lynching hastily off of half of the necessary info, that being the Kaito lynch, though even that is questionable blame given I was one of the first votes and not around during the time period the quicklynch happened in. (I was at work, so I couldn't have stopped it even had I wanted to.)

(Basically, what I mean is, I can't be faulted for a lynch I couldn't prevent since to prevent it I'd have to not fucking be working as I was. I should also not be faulted for not knowing he was a cop because I didn't fucking know he was a cop. That was knowledge which WOULD have changed things and made me not want to lynch him, but it is knowledge

I didn't have

so pretending I should have had it when I didn't is unfair. HOWEVER.

That having been said

, I am not blameless because what I CAN be faulted for. What I CAN take the blame for. Is having the read wrong to the point of the initial vote. Which is why I will take the fault for it anyway in spite of it being questionable to do so. The read off of what information I had was wrong.)

[mastina]

Mastina, you quick voted in lylo....

Yes, and I knew the risk when I did so. I knew very full and well and good the exact risk I was taking. It backfired, and when I cast the vote, I was quite aware of that. In fact I even noted that Elizibereth and Panzer who I knew to be scum were hanging around potentially looking for a quickhammer. (Though I wrote it off because I thought that for Kokichi to be town, you would need to be scum and as I didn't think you were scum I didn't back out.) I did it anyway.

I already said I will take full fault for being wrong on Kokichi, and every consequence therein. Up to and including the loss today. It wouldn't have changed anything though if I had waited ten days. Kokichi's claim of being a doctor on two of the nightkills the night they died with no mention of a N1 action would have me believing by occam's razor that Kokichi was a scumfuck because even though it ended up being the case, which would YOU think more likely?
That Kokichi is a town doctor who protected the nightkill twice in a row and yet was somehow foiled by some mysterious ungated roleblocker and/or strongman...
...Or that Kokichi was scum fakeclaiming?

NO amount of time would change the circumstances making that shit look like a scumclaim.
(And, really GIF? You put in an ungated strongman against a doctor with the only investigative being a tracker with a 1x cop? There was no way that could be considered balanced in my mind so I'd never have believed it. That makes the doctor absolutely worthless guaranteed.)

[mastina]

But honestly, I probably lynch you Mastina, so we lose either way.

Exactly. Assume we managed to not have Kokichi vote me and let the scum quickhammer me.

If we lynched Panzer today, how would the night play out?
Probably Chara.

If Chara, then you either lynch me or Elizibereth the following day. If me, we lose then.

If Elizibereth, then the scum's only nightkill options are:
Nobody, me, or Kokichi.
If me, then that leaves Kokichi-LLD-Maki. Kokichi's stances were heavily in favor of voting LLD so scum win then.
If Kokichi, then that leaves mastina-LLD-Maki. This is honestly the scenario with the highest town win percentage, but I can't guarantee that I reevaluate and even if I did if you would lynch me then it wouldn't matter.
If nobody, that STILL leaves Kokichi-mastina unresolved, something I had wanted done from day fucking one and likely to result in a mislynch since the focus would be on everyone

except

Maki. Kokichi would be divided between us, I would be on Kokichi with you as a secondary, and unless you put attention on Maki you'd be focusing on one or both of us.

In most scenarios, we lose regardless.
First IF: me not voting Kokichi.
Second IF: Kokichi not voting me.
Third IF: Panzer being the lynch.
Fourth IF: Elizibereth being the next lynch.
Fifth IF: Who if anyone gets nightkilled before 3p/4p lylo/mylo.
Sixth IF: the mindsets behind players in a 3p lylo (because we never win the 4p mylo and only one lylo is viable for a town win).

That's why I was okay with the Kokichi vote. It was for

precisely

this reason.
If Kokichi was town, I knew that basically no matter what, the game wasn't going to be a town win. A loss today would be less painful than a loss down the road.
If Kokichi was scum, then the hope was that I would force the scum's hand. For instance, I felt like there was a significant chance I could expose Elizibereth as being scum for all the world to see openly (rather than just random tidbits here and there overlapped to vaguely suggest it).

Does that make it right?
Well of course not. It was wrong, the game was lost as a result of it, I deserve the blame for it and will accept the fault for it. But this is why I was okay with forcing the vote. I knew that I was going to be voted, likely by town, without drastic measures. I knew that if I was voted by town, then we would lose. My only hope of not being voted by town was to do something to ensure I wouldn't be voted by town.

The idea I came up with as my best bet for having done so was a 1v2. I considered expanding it even to a 1v3, but since I wasn't confident in Elizibereth and even had I been I wasn't confident in my ability to WIN a fight against Elizibereth, I decided that I'd only vs. them if they decided to gladiate which would expose their scum.

[mastina]

Considering this was one of the most townsided setups I had ever seen

How so?

We had:
-Tracker (not a good PR) with a 1x cop upgrade
-Doctor (against a scum strongman which nullifies the role)
-Conditional IC with a condition ridiculously hard to meet and which if met would be rewarding good townplay (i.e. lynching scum)
-Neighborizer (this is net-zero balance wise)
-Forced-commuter (this, with no neighborhood communication, is a negative utility role and should never have been used)
-Troll role which did nothing except randomly add something trivial (our quotes)
-Commuter/Motivator who has nothing to really motivate
-A one-shot doubler of our power limit which doesn't really do much of anything
-A lategame vig, midgame roleblocker (which probably fails against the strongman making this negative utility), and early-game active-ability-only rolecop (which could not catch any of the scumteam's powers as the scumteam's powers were almost all passives)
-An activated-ascetic motion detector.

None of these aside from the vig carry any power at all, given scum had:
-Free power generator OR Rolestopper (thus, nullifying a vig, nullifying a roleblock, nullifying a track, and shutting down literally any of the town's powers targeting scum, removing what utility they possessed)
-Unlimited-shot JOAT with Watcher/Ninja (bypasses the fucking tracker which is already a weak fucking investigative)/Commuter (bypasses the vigilante, bypasses the tracker)
-Unlimited Gladiator/Modified Redirector (this shit's gamebreakingly powerful in of itself)/Unlimited Strongman.

That you have the gall to call that townsided is atrocious.
The town has ZERO power here--the little power they have has not one, but MULTIPLE built-in counters.
Tracker? Ninja, rolestopper, redirector, and commuter.
Cop? Rolestopper, redirector, and commuter.
Vigilante? Rolestopper, FUCKING REDIRECTOR (WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HAPPENS IF A TOWN VIGILANTE IS FUCKING REDIRECTED INTO FUCKING KILLING TOWN), and commuter.
Roleblocker? Strongman, Rolestopper, Redirector, and Commuter.
Modified Rolecop? Natural immunity thanks to their active abilities.

And that? That is the ENTIRETY of the town's offensive power.
The town's defensive power? A doctor?
Strongman and Redirector.

Zero defense.
Offense countered by MULTIPLE methods.
That's ridiculous.

Now if you think this is me mitigating the scum's victory because of a flagrantly-scumsided setup, oh no. Not at all. Scum earned the win fair and square I'll freely admit that. And town deserved to lose I won't claim otherwise in fact I'll absolutely insist on it. That doesn't mean the setup was anywhere even remotely close to balanced though. This is definitely, 100%, scumsided.

[mastina]

Shea's ability cop practically guilties me and panzer becuz we have "scum abilities"

Not by my understanding. They receive ONE, ACTIVE ability. (Which might even have said non-factional?)

You had a non-scum active ability: the gladiate.
Panzer had a non-scum active ability: the watch, and for that matter the commute.

It thus could not catch scum.

[mastina]

Using this ability on the target will allow you learn your target's one non-passive ability.

Okay so it says, "learn your target's one non-passive ability".
But.
Maki's one active ability was a rolestopper--a NAI power.
Panzer's one active ability was a JOAT with three options, two of which were town--NAI unless the rolecop result was all three.
You had TWO active abilities and there's no current clarification on which would be received. If the gladiate--NAI, because that's not innately a scum ability.

I'll consent to the rolecop being stronger if the mod clarifies that yes the rolecop would've seen the ninja and/or the strongman.
HOWEVER.
That does not change my other comments RE: balance, regarding how the rolecop has to FIRST:
-Target scum
-Target scum not being rolestopped
-Target scum not commuting
-Not be targeted for the redirection

The scum had NO LESS THAN THREE counters to the rolecop.
NO. LESS. THAN. THREE.
One for each fucking scum role. As in, even with a scum lynch D1 and the rolecop attempting to use their power on a scum they COULD get a guilty on. Regardless of which scum was dead, they could STILL fucking fail to get that incriminating result.

And this is true for literally every town power. Roleblocker, vig, tracker, cop. Every single one of them has those counters which would prevent them from being used against scum.

Not. even. REMOTELY. townsided. That's flagrantly and blatantly scumsided. Because scum had a counter to literally every fucking town role in the game, shit which would NEVER fly in a Normal Game balance review for damn fucking good reason. Since if scum have a counter to literally every fucking town role in the game, no fucking shit the town roles are going to not help the town and even hurt them.

[mastina]

+ 2 all town nhoods + conditional IC + A50 gettingmeta confed

Neighborhood are innately NAI. They were all town, sure. Players had no way of knowing that and by the mod's own account--if anyone had source material with three picks, that'd be enough for a 'hood...even if it contained scum. Assuming all town, while accurate, would from a theory standpoint be a mistake.

You judge the players by their individual play.

Almost50 being essentially conftown was not something which a balance review would account for nor should it.
And as mentioned--the conditional IC had a condition nearly impossible to fulfill. The role by my understanding was one-shot: one chance, and one chance ONLY. It needed to be activated the night BEFORE a scum lynch by my understanding. So the conditional IC had to guess when scum would be lynched.

FURTHERMORE.
Given an ungated strongman, the strongman just auto-kills the IC if successful. This only fails if the strongman is dead by that point. Odds are not in favor of that outcome.

The absolute MOST this game could get in the way of conftown is two players: a cop innocent and the innocent child. The doctor is easily bypassed, be it through strongman or redirect. This leaves said conftown wide open to the nightkill.

The town absolutely needed more, or rather more accurately, the scum needed WAY FUCKING LESS than what they had.

Ultimately, I don't think it mattered that much as far as the outcome of the game is concerned. It was not poor setup design which made the scum win this game. But that doesn't mean the game had good setup design, because it most definitively HAD poor setup design. In short, while it didn't contribute to the scum win, the game was still mechanically scumsided. Scum would and did win without setup-based merits, but the setup was in favor of them. NOT the town.

[mastina]

I mean being obv is fine if ur always the second choice.

Third choice, actually. And one I didn't pursue rather deliberately since I didn't think I could win against you without you more blatantly revealing your hand. I couldn't lynch you D4. The only way I'd be able to lynch you D5 is if you reacted poorly on D4 in such a way where the case on you would write itself without me needed to do so.

I do acknowledge you had solid play on D1 tho. It's just that after that, you got worse and worse. I was expecting this trend to continue. Your D2 play was worse than D1 (rather, Mulch's post at end of day was HILARIOUSLY scum, but it was only one post so there wasn't more evidence aside from it). Your D3 play was much worse than D1 and significantly worse than D2. (And this time both heads were responsible.) The commentary about backing off of LLD with the faked hydra dynamic felt dead on the money, but it still didn't feel like enough.

Today I was anticipating your D4 play would look even worse than D3, and with it, I'd be able to lynch you in the future.

You towned it up, but you can't keep that level of town up. It's too much effort, too much work. And I picked up on it. I just didn't have the confidence yet to commit. I was too afraid of being wrong, of it being paranoia, of my original townread being right and that it was just a degradation of townplay. But by POE if nothing else. You were a scumread. And there were reasons to scumread you outside of POE. And combining the two is why I would have lynched you...but not today.

[mastina]

Go read our gladiate, its conflated with forced redirect.

I did read the gladiate. You couldn't use both, but you could use the forced redirect and that is NOT a scum role, inherently. It is a role which scum benefit from more,

yes

, that is true, but only a moron sees a forced-redirector and assumes it's a scum role.

The forced-redirect doesn't involve yourself, either. It doesn't force your targets to visit you, it forces them to visit each other. This means that you can GUARANTEE that their abilities hit one another rather than hitting scum. And using this power is not innately scum. You can use this power as scum on two town players with whatever believable justification you can bs up, there's literally hundreds of ways I can think of to claim it.

So no.
Still not a guilty to a rolecop, unless incompetent scum ASSUME it's something they can never claim.

[mastina]

This is definitely, 100%, scumsided.

Then explain after lynching a vig and a cop day 1 and day 2 we still were almost PoEd out day 3 and had to panic in scum chat

That's called you being fucking idiots to have fucking panicked, and the town not being absolute fucking morons (even if they were mostly moronic) by fucking scumhunting.

The strongest town roles were out of the game by D3.
But you were called scum NOT by town roles.
You were called scum by fucking scumhunting.

That aint townsided roles.
That's townsided play combined with scum panicking about nothing.

We had NOTHING role-wise to counter you by that point. EVERYTHING we were doing which was correctly clearing town players and correctly POEing and calling scum players was done by scumhunting, not role, merits.

We lost the game on play, we could have won the game on play.
Don't fucking pretend otherwise.

[mastina]

"like a fucking IC, global motion detector, cop tracker, and vig + other stuff flipped
three of those give full to semi clearing info"

The IC was ridiculously conditional. NOT ONLY was it one-shot (meaning if it failed once, tough luck), NOT ONLY did it require them as the HAMMER VOTE, it ALSO required a scum lynch. FURTHERMORE, even as conftown, even if the role succeeded, LOL WHOOPS GUESS WE STRONGMAN KILL THEM. And there's nothing to fucking counter that except for the strongman already being dead. It's a role which rewards good townplay but has to be ridiculously specific.

The cop was one-shot.
The tracker you had a FULL FUCKING UNGATED NINJA to counter, NOT EVEN going into rolestopper (which means the tracker/cop gets "no result") or redirector (which means the tracker/cop targets town) possibilities.
The vigilante was LATEGAME, and you had a ROLESTOPPER to stop it, a COMMUTE to stop it, and a REDIRECTOR WHICH WOULD GUARANTEE THE VIG SHOT TOWN. A. Fucking. REDIRECTOR. Which would ENSURE. A TOWN VIGILANTE. SHOT TOWN. IN THE LATEGAME. That's a recipe for a guaranteed scum win. Imagine scum the day before lylo 1v1ing a town player. They win the 1v1 through a series of lies. The vig shoots the lying scum, knowing they have a shot on scum...only LOL WHOOPS GUESS REDIRECTOR MEANS THE SHOT IS ON TOWN, scum insta-endgame when combined with their own nightkill.

The global motion detector means nothing other than confirming abilities were used in the way they were claimed to be used--and with a competent scumteam telling minimal lies, that means nobody gets caught.

The town had a few powers in terms of offense--but literally all the scum's powers are counters for literally all the town's powers, both offensive and defensive. The town had nothing which the scum could not reasonably bypass. And that's absolutely shitty game design, no two ways about it.

[mastina]

"something has to be off with how the nhoods kids are confirming each other"

And yet.
There WASN'T.

That shit was by play.

Not role.

By PLAY.

The neighborhoods were confirming each other.

And simultaneously, doubting the other--something you conveniently overlook because as scum you saw both of them confirming each other.

There was zero role-based reasons. I didn't townread Hardcore Monkey for their claim (which was made known to me at the same time as it was everyone else since it was made public first). I didn't townread Chara for its claim. HardcoreMonkey and Chara did not townread me for my role, it was a shitty troll role which was NAI. They townread me off of my PLAY.

The neighborhoods, balance-wise, are net-zero. They are not. alignment. indicative. NAI. Null. Net-null, zero, zilch, power-wise. Mechanics, game-wise. They mean absolutely NOTHING. It was purely off of play that our neighborhood was a masonry. It was purely off of us all townreading the others' play that we were saying we were town.

And you cannot say otherwise.

[mastina]

Then how were we PoEd almost day 3 despite killing the best town power roles

Because you fucking sucked play-wise to a certain extent.

You played well enough to win--and that's it.

Not more.

This was not a stellar scumgame, and you'd have to be absolutely arrogant to believe it was (aside from maybe Maki who has right to that).

It was more a scum win than a town loss.
The roles being ridiculously scumsided also did not factor into the scum win.
Given that, you deserve a certain level of acknowledgement.

But don't pretend you were playing some amazing game against an OP town.
The town was ridiculously underpowered given your scum abilities; the town made misplays; the scum made enough good plays to win and moreso than these other two factors; that the scum won by play more than the town lost by play more than the balance contributed to the outcome, does not mean that the scum play was godly-good.

Just good enough.

I won't claim you didn't play well enough; you decidedly did.
I will claim that you didn't play amazingly because you didn't aside from Maki.

[mastina]

I think town players correctly reading ppl in their nhood is expected play while you think its good play.

Neighborhoods are ridiculously easy to manipulate as scum, that's why I wasn't trusting of the claims that Kokichi was scum "off of hood reasoning" and to a lesser extent, Kaito. I demanded IN-THREAD reasoning for that very reason.

I also very specifically said to my neighborhood that it was NOT the right decision to townread me off of my neighborhood content. Neighborhoods are a scum player's best friend. That's why they are NAI. Because any half-way competent scum player can with a ridiculous level of ease blend in seamlessly and become the epitome of town in the neighborhood regardless of in-thread opinion, thanks to a simple factor--

The smaller your audience, the easier it is to tailor your arguments to that audience. With an audience of ~13, you have a LOT of work to do; with an audience of ~3, you've got minimal work to do. Scum are going to be townread in neighborhoods; town are going to be townread in neighborhoods; we as players have no way of knowing what combination of town/scum the mod will use; this is why neighborhoods are NAI, net-neutral. They provide nothing.

I wasn't townreading Chara off of Chara's neighborhood content, nor Hardcore Monkey. It was off of their IN-THREAD posting that I townread them. And I told them to do the same for me, because that's the only correct way to read players in neighborhoods--off of what's PUBLIC, not what's private.

Being correct in a townread, if you're relying on neighborhood posting, is luck. Not skill, just luck of the draw as far as I'm concerned. Being correct in a townread, if you're relying on IN-THREAD posting, is probably skill. Sometimes lucky, sure, but it's usually just you having gotten the right idea.

You ARE talking about a game hosted by the fucking mod who put a scum-scum neighborhood in the game--yes, he received harsh criticism for that decision come postgame, but that was a reality lesson in what GIF's viewpoint on neighborhoods is; they can have any combination of town and scum in them and when they have scum in them the scum WILL get towncred from it. I expect nothing less. So I wasn't reading my neighborhood partners as town because of their posting in it and I expected them not to read me as town because of mine.

[mastina]

I won't claim you didn't play well enough; you decidedly did.
I will claim that you didn't play amazingly because you didn't aside from Maki.

Another way of saying it:
Scum played good, but not

great

.
I will acknowledge scum played good, because they did.
I will acknowledge town made many mistakes, because we did, and further acknowledge these mistakes were not the reason scum won. Scum won because they played good rather than because town made too many mistakes.
I will acknowledge the setup did not contribute to the outcome of the game, because roles did not contribute to the scum winning. Scum won because they played good rather than because they had those godly-good roles.

However, that doesn't mean I'm wrong. The game from a theory standpoint was HILARIOUSLY scumsided. It being scumsided role-wise isn't why scum won, but it is still a fact.
The town made many mistakes, but also was close to correct. They were more wrong than right overall, regardless of how much this contributed to the town loss.

So the scum played a good game--but not a GREAT, really impressive, game (possible exception, Maki).
And I maintain that thinking otherwise is arrogance.

[mastina]

Only skimmed but I think i've have a 100% nhood readrate over a nontrivial samplesize so i'll politely disagree for now

You are also a Paragon nominee.

I'm telling you that us town plebeians can't do that shit.

Yeah

, I am the poster child for the mason gambit, claiming neighborhoods are masonries. Yeah, my success rate so far is disproportionately high. However, I'd be the first to admit. My "masonries" being so? Purely luck of the draw. Not skill. I don't have a magical, mystical, reads-my-neighborhood-correctly, skill. I just treat them as if they're town and most of the time because statistically speaking players are more likely to be town I end up being right.

My neighborhood accuracy reading-wise rate would in fact be exactly what you'd expect it to be. 60-80%, leaning more towards 75%. 3/4ths of the time townreading them I'm right, but sometimes I am disastrously wrong. If I tried to actually read my neighborhoods rather than just assuming they were town. I would encounter trouble every single time. Because I CANNOT read them nor should anyone claim they can.

Yeah

, there are certain neighborhoods where you can read the people just fine. If I got a neighborhood with Ginngie, fuck yes I'd be able to tell she was town or scum from it. But if you're paired with some random scummer, as I was this game? NOPE. Noooooooot a clue. We figured it out EVENTUALLY, but it took in-thread posting for us to do so because we don't have that close connection with them.

[mastina]

Re: Doc and strongman, you can basically consider the doctor the ability that only works after the strongman dies, like enable/disable mechanic without actually using those mechanics.
Because enabler role sucks.

A mafia doctor enabler would be far more balanced than strongman and also more NAI. If you had turned the strongman into a doctor enabler, BAM. Problem solved right then and there. The doctor works until one specific scum player dies.

This is FAR better design than the inverse--the doctor NOT working until one specific scum player dies.

One is more likely to happen than the other, ESPECIALLY with scum protecting players.
Scum are more inclined to protect a strongman; scum are more inclined to let a doctor enabler die.

Also it's not like them having a doctor enabler tells them there's a doctor any less than the strongman already did.

[mastina]

but seriously mastina I dunno how you didn't scumread that shit and push it their push on our bp fakeclaim was basicly a scumclaim and only me and bee being the ones to push it makes me think how much attention were you really paying attention to in For Us.

I did say at the time that if I had a townread wrong it was Maki. I did agree with many of your points.

But you had stopped pushing her before the day's end. And Maki continued to do things which made me not want her head.

[mastina]

[My point is that it's easier to read ppl you're in a nhood with than ones you're JUST in the game thread with just because you're able to try more stuff. I think you agree with that?

As a matter of fact?

No, I don't. I disagree. It is ONLY easier to read the person in the neighborhood if it is someone you hold a degree of intimate familiarity with--otherwise, the neighborhood makes sorting their alignment genuinely

harder

, rather than easier. (That's one of the motivating factors behind my mason gambit, in fact: I would just rather assume town than put in the effort of sorting the player because I find it difficult to impossible to sort the player.)

I find all-town nhoods VERY scary as scum because it's really hard for us to manipulate what's going on in them.

And I am telling you that your fear of them is unjustified and was showing a lack of creativity as scum. You can't manipulate what's going on in them, sure, but you can manipulate what's going on outside of them--including by suggesting there is manipulation going on inside of them (i.e. that scum have used the neighborhood).

They are not scary. LEAST of all when the existence of both is established from the onset of the game.

You are blaming something that doesn't exist. Neighborhood bias was absent this game. I repeat. I did not townread Chara or Hardcore Monkey for their neighborhood posting. It was for their posting in-thread. I did not townread Almost50 because he was in a neighborhood. I townread him for his and his slot's play. The main fucking reason I was suspicious of Kokichi and Kaito? The reasons given for townreading the two of them were stated to be neighborhood posting rather than in-thread actions.

[mastina]

I don't take hood spec into consideration when balancing things.

Exactly.
Neither does the NRG.
And neither does any competent mod assume an all-town neighborhood is +EV for the town.

Because me? The mastina school of thought? That is, treat-neighborhoods-as-masonries?
...Is the

exception

to the general town rule.
Which is.
"I don't know your alignment because I am town and a neighbor".
And thus.
Neighbors are treated if anything with GREATER suspicion. They are NAI balance-wise. They do not make for town strength. Quite the opposite. They are often a source of scum strength.

[mastina]

Like hoods just depend on who is in them to make the most of them.

Exactly. Which...is not something you can build a setup around. It is not something you can anticipate in advance. It is not a fucking thing. Which you can call mechanics, which you can call the setup. Because it is the fucking PLAYERS who make the difference. And thus it is the fucking PLAY which makes the neighborhood hold meaning.

Thus.

Balance-wise.
Neighborhoods are net-neutral power-wise.

This is the stance of competent moderators across the site.

[mastina]

idk if you remember but back in the day I took neighborizer everytime I could in PYP or anything similar because I basically think of it as a delayed cop + masonizer if they're town.

Yeah.
NEIGHBORIZER.

Not neighbor.

Neighborizers get to choose their neighbor--this means that, depending on who they pick, they can get a really good read on the player.

Neighbors you get no choice. You're stuck with who you're stuck with, regardless of their alignment or role. And if you have little in the way of baseline for them...then you have extra nothing in terms of reading them.

[mastina]

I mean you only think they're net neutral because you don't think it makes it signifigantly easier to read people. That's where our core disagreement lies.

They make it significantly easier to read a player if you know the player before-hand. Give me a neighborhood with Ginngie and I'll peg her alignment before the game's even begun. (Easy reference for this, Yume's Cutsie UPick where there was a neighborhood which was essentially a masonry between The Wood Cutters--Nacho, Ginngie, and I--and Sappho, JaeReed/nancy. WAYYYYY before the game began, we had each other solidly down as town.)

In that scenario, I'd all too happily agree with you that it's easier to read the players.

In 90% of neighborhoods, this will not be the case.

And since players in the neighborhood knowing each other is not something the moderator can design balance around, it is NOT something the moderator can take into account when making the setup. It is overpowered when you have the perfect storm of town players, and utterly worthless if not detrimental when you have the wrong combo of players. What does that make the neighborhood? It makes it, from a moderator setup design point...net-neutral.

A neighborhood CAN be easier to read players in.
CAN.
But a neighborhood can ALSO be NOT-easier if not HARDER to read players in.
With no way, from the design of the neighborhood in of itself, to tell the difference between the two.

Only when you add players can a difference be made.

If it's only when you add the players that the difference between the two is made...then the neighborhood is NOT inherently one or the other.

[mastina]

You have everything you would have had to read them with if there wasn't a neighborhood PLUS the neighorhood.
I don't see how that could make it anything but easier and at my personal statistics fall in line with that.

Human nature doesn't match statistics. Human nature is prone to paranoia. Human nature says, "Oh you're NOT conftown to me? Well, then, you're probably scum!" to town neighbors, more or less. And human nature makes it so that scum neighbors can easily appeal to their target audience and say what they need to say, feed what needs to be fed, and the town neighbor will eat it up for the most part.

Human nature means that when you get the neighborhood, a town neighbor is unlikely to convince you they are town (especially if they are suspicious of YOU), whereas a scum neighbor is disproportionately likely to fool you into thinking you're town. I've seen literally hundreds of neighborhoods. The time I've seen accurate townreads from neighborhood content is a mere fraction of the total. The times I've seen pointless paranoia on the basis of "You're NOT conftown so I refuse to call you town!", and the times I've seen scum tailor their arguments to their specific smaller audience, make up the VAST majority of neighborhoods I see.

Maybe I'm the anamoly and we can check people's read accuracy on people they're in nhoods with sitewise vs. there normal read accuracy but I'm far too lazy for that.

The NRG may have done something like this.
Ask mhsmith--he won't back you up though, because anecdotal evidence is that neighborhoods are net-neutral and neighborhoods containing scum are MASSIVE +EV for the scum (and scum neighborizers have either a perfect win streak or NEAR perfect win streak).

Neighborhoods are player-dependent. If you get players who suck, so too will the neighborhood suck. And if the role is entirely player-dependent. Then it cannot be used as something inherently protown when it is only with specific players that it COULD be protown.

[mastina]

But I'll concede what you saying is probably true for most players and they're probably what games should be balanced around for the most part.

I mean.
Again.

You're a fucking paragon nominee and frankly have all-but won the award. I honestly would go so far as to say I legit don't think anyone else eligible deserves the award as much as you do.

Maybe you're right that others SHOULD think the way you do--but they

don't

. Maybe the way you think is why you're a paragon nominee and others not thinking that way aren't but the simple fact is, they don't think that way.

And for the most part, yes. Setups are in fact meant to be balanced around how most players play. You cannot account for the outliers who play particularly bad or the outliers who play as fucking Paragons (i.e., you); you CAN account for the play of those who are somewhere in the middle.