In post 2921, Nero Cain wrote:Wasn't in love with Masina's reaction to getting scum read and the "as promised" seems slimey to me.
It's the most effective defense I have. (Well, that, or claiming. Not sure if the locksolid meta of the night/day difference between my towngames/scumgames, or roleclaiming, is the better defense, but between the two, those are definitely the most effective defense I have--and given that I'd very much rather avoid the claiming defense, I opt for the far-more-readily-available, much-easier defense to put forward.)
Mind you, "most effective" does not mean "only". I can point out multiple things that, fuck meta, are objectively town things I have done, it's just that those defenses are weaker than the meta ones and also things I'd rather not spend time on. Self-meta takes me ten minutes tops to do because I know my own meta well enough to reference it at the drop of a dime. Towncasing myself disregarding meta is ten times harder and takes two-hundred times longer to do because it requires 1: going through the game, 2: figuring out how to
remove
meta from the defense (which is hard to do since a lot of the things that make me town are already a part of the meta towncase), 3: type it all up, and probably more that I'm not remembering.
And I have better things to spend my time on, namely, scumhunting.
At this stage, I feel like there are many many many reads of mine which are, in various ways, having some flux to them, and I feel like that's important for me to go into depth about. It's mostly about townreads, and the doubts I have on them, and determining if those doubts are sound or if those doubts are just paranoia. (Most of my scumreads have pretty much no doubt.)
To reference my last readslist:
In post 2856, mastina wrote:Nero Cain
No łynch/Voted
Auro
Vecna/TrueSoulEnergy
Miss Lynch/OkaPoka
Quick
Hoctac
Elements/Nahdia
Alchemist21
davesaz
Saudade
farside22/gobbledygook
Tchill13
Flavor Leaf
50 Judge Powers
Jake the Wolfie
5G Tower
momo/Creature
Aristophanes
I have zero doubts about anyone in the Miss Lynch/OkaPoka tier and above. Nero Cain this game is absolutely never scum. No lynch/Voted is literally an innocent child and thus cannot be scum. Auro is also at locktown of locktown stages (and frankly deserves to be protected by a doctor given just how town he is--Vecna versus Auro would've been tough to choose on, but while TSE is just as town Vecna's a better gamesolver than TSE whereas Auro is comparable to Vecna); this is not him as scum. Vecna was firmly in his towngame and literally nothing TSE could do would ever ruin my townread there (not that TSE could, given that TSE is also playing to
his
towngame, too).
Miss Lynch was also in this tier due to everything being town, and also being town for Enter. OkaPoka's posting also continues the trend, as he is playing in a way that I don't think he does if he were scum.
When it comes to everyone below that tier, there's obviously doubts on everyone, save for Creature and Aristophanes (who I remain pretty sure are scum--not 100% absolutely, I do have doubts, but those doubts are paranoia more than legitimate).
Quick has been overwhelmingly acting as I would expect him to if he were town, from my memory of him as a player. Everything he does just radiates the aura of being town, and his progression in reads displays a nuance I wouldn't expect him to be able to display as scum. He has reads and reasons that show a trajectory of thought to them that, moonlogicky as they can be, have a reasonability to them that show what appears to be actual, genuine thought in them, in a way that I don't think he can fake as scum.
The doubt comes from a combination of not having seen him play in a long time, not being all to familiar with him now, not having perfect memory of him, others having displayed suspicion on him and many of said players suspecting him also being townreads and me wanting to trust their assessments of him, and that it's not utterly impossible for a scum player to play the way he has.
He is my strongest non-locktown read because while those aforementioned doubts are strong enough to keep him from being in the locktown tier, I feel like they are more in the realm of paranoia than reasonable doubt.
Hoctac is also equally as town to Quick, due to a similar presence. Hoctac's posts contain a unique mixture of shitposting and gamesolving in a way that is incredibly hard to balance as scum, and I can trace where Hoctac's more serious gamesolving posts come from as well as see why Hoctac's less serious posts are being made. Overwhelmingly, Hoctac radiates the aura of a town player who is at ease in this game, and I struggle to see how scum could do what Hoctac has done so fluently and naturally.
The doubt here comes from utter unfamiliarity with Hoctac as a player. I have no clue what Hoctac is like as town and scum, no frame of reference for whether this is normal from him as any alignment, no real idea of whether Hoctac is town or scum by meta. (Plus, multiple slots being suspicious of him and me wanting to trust that they're onto something with said suspicion, and him being a borderline-lurker.) I will say that, disregarding meta, Hoctac would be one of my strongest townreads this game, and it is only this lack of familiarity with meta keeping Hoctac from being locktown.
Given that, that suspicion is firmly in the realms of mostly-paranoia.
Elements might've initially struck my scumdar, but later Elements posting greatly improved this read, because it actually looked like what I expect from Elements when he is town: radiating the aura of mislynch bait, but with content that shows a town mindset to it rather than a scum one. This was enough for a reasonably strong read.
Nahdia since then has been largely net-neutral to that read, neither strengthening it nor really weakening it, doing pretty much nothing to the slot, outside of paranoia of "what if I was wrong?" due to Nahdia not being as gamesolvey as I would like. So maybe, maybe a bit weaker than when the slot was Elements, but if so, due to feelings that are more borne from paranoia than anything else. The doubts I get from Nahdia don't actually feel like they're alignment indicative, so much as it is I am probably doubting Nahdia for being...well, Nahdia. So given that the doubts probably spurn from paranoia rather than reasonable doubts, the townread remains fairly strong.
Alchemist21 is below Nahdia for good reason. I initially thought that this might be a lurker-scumgame from Alchemist, and that feeling hasn't entirely subsided. He's still overall fairly lowkey this game and things feel like he
could
be a scum player contributing to the scum planning. He's the first read where I feel like my doubts aren't paranoia, but actually reasonable doubts to have due to him not radiating town everywhere. With Alch, instead of radiating town, it's more like we get bouts, small bursts where he shows he's more likely town, followed by a bunch of posts (or even a lack thereof) that basically nullify that boon. There's also a number of slots that have held him as suspicious, too.
...But, that having been said: I just get the gut feeling that Alch is town here. He's one of the strongest gut-based townreads that I have in this game. If not THE strongest gut-townread I have. It's just, between not thinking this is his scumgame and thinking that he looks town, I get the strong sense that he is town.
davesaz is definitely below Nahdia, albeit not by much, but I'm not actually sure if he's below, above, or equal to Alch in levels of townness. I will say that, overwhelmingly, he does feel town to me, but I admit, this is actually more effort than I'd expect from davesaz in a game--that's counterbalanced though by it being more effort than I'd expect from davesaz
regardless of his alignment
, so that means regardless of town or scum, he's performing at a higher level than I would expect, meaning that tryharding is almost assuredly not a scumtell.
Basically, my doubts on davesaz come from: I'm not intimately familiar with his meta; I don't expect him to perform at this high of a level; there are many players suspicious of him and I want to trust that they are onto something; I don't think I have a historically good davesaz read-rate so my townread on him could be an erroneous one borne from me not knowing how to read him.
I don't think these fears are entirely unfounded, so it's not
entirely
paranoia, but I think it's so close to being basically paranoia that it might as well be paranoia. By and large, this feels like a case where he should be town, because my reasons for thinking he wouldn't be are, by and large, not solid, and self-evidently flawed. With the reasons to think that he's not town being self-evidently flawed, and the reason that I think he's town being fairly solid (he's putting in a strong performance here when he has little reason to as scum), that means that balance of probability, he is far more likely to be town than scum.
Saudade is where he is at for good reason. I'm tempted to die on a hill and double down on defending him here because yes I see he is being wagoned right now (I was caught up as of me starting to post, that is, I read everything before
3245--haven't read the stuff after that, will do so after finishing here), but truth be told he's one of my most-conflicted reads. This entire tier, him, the farside slot, FL (he's listed below in a tier but he's also among the conflicted reads), and Tchill, are precisely that;
Of all the reads in the game, these four are the three I am most back-and-forth on.
Saudade in particular, I did initially scumread him and his content, but his later posting showed a direction that I thought was town-indicative. But, I am very much not familiar with him as a player and there's a wagon on him driven by multiple players who I trust to be town, and also to be more familiar with him, and those are reasonable doubts to have.
farside radiated town to me, but never to the extent where I could locktown her as part of the locktown tier. She may have been one of my strongest townreads in the non-locktown tier, but Turkey has utterly killed that townread altogether--the turkey that I am seeing here is
not
the Turkey that I've come to know and respect as one of the best scumhunters in 2020. The Turkey that I know is hyper-active, a hyper-poster who produces boatloads of content and is one of the best damn solvers around. This Turkey has done none of that. The Turkey I know is utterly an overachiever, putting in a ton of extra effort into games; this game he...isn't.
This is pretty much entirely a debate of replacement versus original holder of the slot. If I were judging by farside's content, I'd call the slot rock-solid town; judging by Turkey's content, I'd call the slot arguably just as strong a scumread as the likes of Creature and Aristophanes.
Tchill's too low on the list as posted above, since he should be above both farside/Turkey and Saudade. By content and by meta, he'd be a townread because I've liked what I've seen and from what I know of his meta this looks to be him as town since it doesn't seem to match what I know of his scumgame. He's similar in Quick in how he's someone that is producing thoughts that, while I may not agree with, I understand where they come from and can trace the thought of, and is incredibly active, and has a meta that I have some awareness of but not perfect awareness of.
It is that lack of perfect awareness, similarly to Quick, where the doubt on the townread comes from. He is someone who could be hyper-active scum; of all the slots in the game, if this game were to have a hyperactive scum, he is by FAR the most probable contender. I am not intimately familiar with his meta, and his content is not something scum could never ever produce, and those who scumread him do bring up some valid criticisms of his play, and I want to have faith that they are onto something.
So, the doubts on him don't feel like they're paranoia, but on the other hand, in spite of the doubts feeling reasonable, not feeling like paranoia, they also don't feel right to me, because him being town feels right. He's definitely not the strongest gut-townread I have, but I'd say he's among them, because while I may not have any solid evidence that this is him as town, it
feels
like he's town. I still have twangs of doubt, where I think, "what if he's scum? He could be, given X Y Z", but overall he's more town than scum to me.
FL is...well. Flavor Leaf. If you think that he's an easy read in general, it's a dubious claim at best. Saying he's an easy read in
this
game would make you an outright fucking liar because he isn't. I still lean town on him more than scum, but like. *hitoshrug* It's very hard to get a read here.
50 Judge Powers is a read which is weaker so the low placement is appropriate, but unlike the reads above, this one doesn't have much doubt to it so much as it is, that's basically the only really appropriate read to hold I feel. I feel like Almost50's content this game isn't enough to earn him a locktown or lockscum status, but between my own read and wanting to trust the others' reads on him, I do think town is more likely than scum, albeit not to the same margin as some others who have him as town.
Jake the Wolfie is a case of a read whose contributions shifted overnight. On D1 Jake was a lurksack of lurksacks, doing absolutely fuckall of anything, being a worthless zero-content slot who never did anything. While the current Jake of D2 hasn't been the MOST content-filled, there's a night and day difference, because this Jake I get townie vibes from his posting and what he's doing, and that he's been giving things which look town.
If Jake has a meta of being a lurker as town and active as scum, my read on Jake would be that Jake was the N1 infect, originally town but currently not town. But otherwise, if that's not Jake's meta, then...fucked if I know. The improvement makes it less likely that he's an original groupscum, but I have no clue.
5G has done basically nothing town the entire game other than lurk. This isn't a lockscum read, but more a POE solve read, in that I have townreads on most of the other players and 5G is not among them.
momo, I feel like I had a legitimate initial reason for the scumread on the slot: momo confirmed, but never posted. Creature came in and then proceeded to...lurk. While Creature has stepped up more recently and his meta has changed, where he can have inactive towngames and hyperactive scumgames, he still has the tendency to, as scum, not give effort in a game until there is a need to give it--which fits this game.
Moreover, there is a particular thing that I look for from Creature when he is town compared to when he is scum--and even in his more recent posting, this is absent. I'll hint at this when I quote his posts in a bit (after I finish this wall, I've still got pages of pages to respond to and the content I am referring to is in there), but basically, there is a critical factor that is absent from Creature that I'd expect to see if he were town, and simply put, I haven't seen him yet.
Aristophanes is, simply put, in his scum meta. This is him as scum. I'm not referring to the utter lack of content from him, though that is a contributing factor; the content he
has
given is
still
his scumgame. Basically, there's Aristophanes scumtells unrelated to activity, and he's tripping them. (That said, yes, the lack of content from him is still, contrary to his assertions, an indicator that he's scum. Similarly to Creature above, just because his meta has shifted where he can be hyperactive as scum and can be a lurksack as town does not mean he doesn't have a predisposition to vastly favor being a lurksack as scum.)
