The Root of Toxicity in Mafia Games

[Ramcius]

It's competitive team game and in competitive team video games you can't whoop ass, if your team sucks

Also I like this new name for mafia games - social gatherings

[Ramcius]

What is considered toxicity? I'm just wondering how much shit I can say, when I'm frustrated and not look immature

[Ramcius]

Well, calling other people immature is talking shit too, so we all are toxic, hooray

[Ramcius]

But scumreading pisses off people, so that's toxic too

[Ramcius]

Better than average means nothing, it's either 90-95% accuracy on your townreads or not. It's easy to fall into "I'm good at townreading people", when default value is 75% considering scum : town ratio on average is 3 : 1

[Ramcius]

Better than average means nothing, it's either 90-95% accuracy on your townreads or not. It's easy to fall into "I'm good at townreading people", when default value is 75% considering scum : town ratio on average is 3 : 1

Agree to disagree on that. I’d say closer to 75% but higher on certain players. I do better when I can use meta because then you don’t wrongly read playstyle.

You have 75% chance to hit town, when picking random person D1 in most games, so 75% accuracy is same as picking random person and saying it's town. Better less townreads, but confident ones than having bunch of townreads with low accuracy

[Ramcius]

Better than average means nothing, it's either 90-95% accuracy on your townreads or not. It's easy to fall into "I'm good at townreading people", when default value is 75% considering scum : town ratio on average is 3 : 1

Agree to disagree on that. I’d say closer to 75% but higher on certain players. I do better when I can use meta because then you don’t wrongly read playstyle.

You have 75% chance to hit town, when picking random person D1 in most games, so 75% accuracy is same as picking random person and saying it's town. Better less townreads, but confident ones than having bunch of townreads with low accuracy

Yeah, I do see your point and I’m not denying it but I have found in a lot of games, I correctly tr players others wrongly sr.

I know, it feels nice to be right, when everyone else is wrong. But now think, how often you saved or would saved scum with your incorrect townread and that did cost (or would've cost, if people listened to you) you the game?

[Ramcius]

When most have bad reads, being better than most isn't much, tbh

I will give you a piece of advice - do not try read everyone, it's okay to have null reads. If you not sure about your read, just say it, not force your read. Personally I feel like I make most mistakes, when I try force reads as opposed to reads that comes naturally to me

[Ramcius]

When most have bad reads, being better than most isn't much, tbh

I will give you a piece of advice - do not try read everyone, it's okay to have null reads. If you not sure about your read, just say it, not force your read. Personally I feel like I make most mistakes, when I try force reads as opposed to reads that comes naturally to me

+1

I think that’s great advice, thanks. Yeah, sometimes I get asked to make a readslists when I either don’t have or have very few reads. So, I absolutely hate to be asked that. Asking me for reads, fine but I only like to make readslists when I want to and if I do what I’m asked when I’m not ready to make one, it usually gets shit on, so I’ve actually found it’s better to outright refuse than make a readslist you don’t feel at all confident on.

I think being honest about that is best because people can usually read sincerity.

Problem with readlists is that someone taught people that scum have hard time faking reads, ofc I love this dynamic as a scum, cause I just need throw out some readlist that is similar to most townies readlists and I can sit comfy for a while

[Ramcius]

because the game is designed around specifically pulling everybody towards having a 50% win rate, which has the extra side effect of making it take longer to shift what level of play that you're being exposed to every game

it's very easy to hit the point where you don't feel like you're improving at all even if you are

plus the dunning-kruger effect

That last sentence is rude, but I like it

[Ramcius]

because the game is designed around specifically pulling everybody towards having a 50% win rate, which has the extra side effect of making it take longer to shift what level of play that you're being exposed to every game

it's very easy to hit the point where you don't feel like you're improving at all even if you are

plus the dunning-kruger effect

That last sentence is rude, but I like it

As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.

I'm well aware what Dunning-Kruger effect is

[Ramcius]

because the game is designed around specifically pulling everybody towards having a 50% win rate, which has the extra side effect of making it take longer to shift what level of play that you're being exposed to every game

it's very easy to hit the point where you don't feel like you're improving at all even if you are

plus the dunning-kruger effect

That last sentence is rude, but I like it

As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.

I'm well aware what Dunning-Kruger effect is

Your point?

Well then, Dunning-Kruger effect is that stupid people value themselves way higher than they should and they value others way lower than they deserve, so saying that toxicity comes from Dunning-Kruger efect is same as saying that toxicity comes from people's stupidity. While calling other people stupid is rude, I completely agree with this idea

[Ramcius]

There were two parts to that, the second was that smart people undervalue their own capabilities and over value others but you’re right, pretty sure Ank meant the former.

I also think it’s fair to say that you need a bit of an ego to play mafia in general and apparently an even bigger one, to play league.

People don't get toxic, when they undervalue themselves, so that part isn't really relevant. Ego is integral part of Dunning-Kruger effect - it's natural to have bigger ego, when you think really good about yourself and really bad about others, ofc it goes backwards too, your ego is lower, if you undervalue yourself

[Ramcius]

There were two parts to that, the second was that smart people undervalue their own capabilities and over value others but you’re right, pretty sure Ank meant the former.

I also think it’s fair to say that you need a bit of an ego to play mafia in general and apparently an even bigger one, to play league.

People don't get toxic, when they undervalue themselves, so that part isn't really relevant. Ego is integral part of Dunning-Kruger effect - it's natural to have bigger ego, when you think really good about yourself and really bad about others, ofc it goes backwards too, your ego is lower, if you undervalue yourself

I agree there is no connection between having a lower ego and toxicity but I think that the obvious conclusion of the D-K effect would seem to be that one’s ego has a direct effect on accurate assessments. If you have a big ego, you are more likely to trust bad reads than if you have a low one. If you have a lower ego, you would be more likely to mistrust good reads but the real issue is whether of not one’s opinion of one’s play/reads etc. is based on actual evidence or just wishful thinking. If player X has over an 80% accuracy rate of nailing scum for example, than a “big ego” would then be justified but otoh, if you lack complete trust in your play/reads, being town in any game would be painful. Iow, how does one even begin to play mafia without some sort of larger ego?

Well, first thing that comes in mind, when you think about mafia isn't convincing people, but finding scum. Finding scum doesn't require huge ego

As for complete trust in their reads - who even has that? I admit that I often feign my confidence in my scumreads, because if people will feel my doubts, there's no way they'll listen me. Not that they listen anyway...

[Ramcius]

Disagree with you on that. In The Room Odds, I correctly nailed Persivul as scum right out of the gate but was unable to convince anyone of that, so we ultimately lost.

I dunno with what you disagree tbh. Being confident in your scumreads doesn't make everyone magically to trust you. All I say is if you say something like " I think X is scum and we should lynch them", people won't listen you ever, but dropping "I think" part and feigning confidence might work sometimes, when you have doubts

[Ramcius]

Postgame flaming in this site is already bad enough too

That's constructive criticism, not flaming

[Ramcius]

Rankings are for bragging rights, not for determining who's better

[Ramcius]

You can't let people rate other people in the game, it literally invites more toxicity and ratings for likes/dislikes. But if good/experienced mods rated players in their games, then we might get something out of it

[Ramcius]

Agree, so put more effort in looking towny/become easier to handle and there will be no toxicity in mafia

[Ramcius]

I think toxicity is also directly tied to saying literally anything other than "gg" when a game is over

[Ramcius]

I find that games that have a dynamic that puts the emphasis on town hunting > scum hunting, to generally be less toxic in general.

Townie: Let's be friends!
Scum: Yes!
*Scum stabs townie in the back*
Scum: Sucker!

[Ramcius]

I think the rule about discussing ongoing games contributes a lot to onsite toxicity. It doesn't permit players from doing stuff like post in a passive aggro way in reference to ongoing games without explicitly mentioning the game in question.

This rule is to protect ongoing games integrity and is very important. Maybe it should be enforced more strickly then, if people think that they can break it by avoiding to name ongoing game