Scummies Ideas, Suggestions and Comments Thread

[AGar]

Well done guys, all of these changes are solid.

[quadz08]

I approve

[Quilford]

Great changes! Huzzah!

[Tony PF]

Best Bastard Mod Game

Edit: For next year, of course.

[Mr. Flay]

Just no.

If it's really that good, it'll fall under Most Enjoyable or one of the other award categories.

[N]

Seeing as I won the last Best New Role, I get to keep it forever, right?

[Venmar]

No.

[N]

The power has gone to your head, Venmar!

[xRECKONERx]

Hey guys, popping back in to bump this thread.

If you guys have any suggestions/ideas, let us know.

I updated the 2013 Scummies page today. We're considering a wiki/records overhaul in the near future, so can you guys point out some things you like/don't like about the Scummies wiki pages, and what kind of stuff you'd like to see implemented?

[xRECKONERx]

New Category Suggestions

Best Town Performance in a Loss
Best Scum Performance in a Loss

Nom: SKOT, Best Performance in Town Loss- Game Ikarga Mafia (Large Theme)

We've had the "Best Losing Cause" idea thrown around several times as a catchall category, but none of our current categories require a win to be considered, so it seems rather pointless.

[saulres]

Has a Best Performance ever been awarded to a losing team?

[xRECKONERx]

I don't believe so, but there's nothing explicitly barring it from being awarded. I know there have been a couple "losing" performances that have been strongly considered in the judging process.

[xRECKONERx]

My issue with Best Town/Scum Performance in a Loss is that it feels way too similar to Best Town Performance. We already have the category that can allow for a losing team to win the Scummie, so it seems weird to create a special category just for losing performances. Should we then change the current ones to Best Winning Performance as Town/Scum? Then it just seems like an "A FOR EFFORT" type award, or like little league where everyone walks home with a trophy.

[SleepyKrew]

I will be very surprised if a losing team ever wins either of the current awards (I could imagine a losing third party still winning).
That said, I don't think losers should get a category.

[quadz08]

I think it boils down to the fact that given two performances that are close to one another in performance, the one that won is always going to win an award for 'best performance' over the one that lost. Sure, one that lost will be in the discussion, but it seems to me that by the nature of the 'Best [Faction]' award, winning is (or should be?) a pretty big factor in determining a winner.

[SleepyKrew]

Oh I just realized that Titus wanted her suggestion to be for individuals, not teams. I think I like that.

[xRECKONERx]

I dislike individual player awards for single games just as a principle. It is very hard to determine which single player had the biggest effect out of a whole team in a single game, since games are RARELY "one guy carries the whole team". That would just invite a ton of single-player nominations from single games, and judging that is pretty difficult. Judging is already an issue for these Scummies and all of our recent changes are towards streamlining the judging process or making categories easier to judge.

[mastin2]

Most of the points have been put forward already, but presenting them together to the best of my ability for the strongest argument I can make:

Be it separate alignments (and thus, multiple awards) or a single award for any alignment, I think the idea has merit. Let's face it: as town, you are not in control of the game. You're one voice, among the many. Sometimes, things really are out of control. You can do literally everything in your power to try and win the game, to try and get people to follow you, and yet, sometimes, instead of it simply "not being good enough", it is

physically impossible

for you to have ever made a difference. We all know the type of scenario. (As just one hypothetical, imagine a town cop has a guilty on you and you're a VT. The result is only possible by trusting in the presence of, say, a framer. If you were any other player in the game, you'd be lynching yourself, but you

know

you're town. Yet there's absolutely nothing you can do.) When faced against people who will not budge, ever, no matter what argument you make, thus, sealing your fate. Especially when they have the backing of the scum. Because town refusing to listen to you and scum trying to make sure that continues can (and often does) lead to a situation in which winning their favor isn't just "well, they simply didn't have the skill to pull the right move". It's that there was no move that could have worked, and they were doomed to fail from the get-go.

The same is true for scum. Often, you will find scum that face insurmountable odds. Such as, say, one against 15. (Yes, it's happened.) With multiple town power roles still alive. If you think scum can win that situation, you're a liar. They face impossible odds, and yet, instead of giving up, they keep up the fight, and get close. But the inevitable catches up to them, as there is only so much you can do as one scum when there is a huge pile of town people (often many of them having evidence clearing them) still alive. One against ten. One against twelve. You get the idea. Many scum players have found themselves in that scenario...but instead of throwing in the towel, trying for the win. Some of them get close (the closest I've seen was Metal Sonic getting to 3P in Xeno), with 5p being a common "run out of time" for them. (There are a TON of examples of 1vMANY that end at that number.)

So in both cases (and both happen a fair amount), the player in question is devoting everything they possibly can to their alignment. They are trying, fighting, for the win harder than the call of duty obligates them to. As town, you could just give some reads, and give a defense, and if you get lynched, oh well. As scum, you can put in some nightkills, make some basic posting, and if you get lynched, oh well. A "best performance", though, is much, much more than that: the player goes above and beyond that call of duty, to try and truly win the game, putting in more effort than any other player does. It is them giving their best, in spite of facing odds that would tempt others to give up, even if they are ultimately unsuccessful.

Of course, this means the player nominated obviously is going to have skill, right?
Not necessarily. Sometimes, you have a player who has a single game where they shine, and that's it. (It's why Best Scumhunter and Cunning Manipulator are body of work awards, after all.) A "best performance" scummy can recognize that player, even though they didn't win. Furthermore, even if they

are

good enough, skilled enough, to be worthy of a scummy. As has been so said many times, realistically, who's going to win the scummy? The player who performed well in a game and won, or the player who performed well in a game yet lost? If their body of work is about equal, then the former will win 100% of the time, because of the mindset (conscious or not!) of, "Oh, the latter lost because they weren't as good as they could have been", when as discussed above, that is rather often not the case and their loss was out of their control. Naturally, in THEORY the player nominated for a loss could win. But in reality, they never, ever, EVER will, and again, if you think otherwise, you're being hopelessly naive.

It is basically a scummy that would be covering something that is worthy of acknowledgement, and yet not covered by other scummies. That's why I think the idea has merits. (Note that I'm presenting the strongest argument I can think of for the change; you'd be able to counter and dissect most of these points if you strongly disagreed enough to advocate against it.)

[xRECKONERx]

I don't feel that having one good game is worthy of an award, though. There's a reason why every

single

person award we have is Body of Work. Everyone has a fluke, or a good game. There's always at least one person who looks good at the end of the game, because someone had to be right or less wrong than everyone else. I'd much rather see mods implement their own "end of game vote" for who the playerlist thought was the MVP or something, because that's pretty cool and rewarding to be recognized like that. But awarding ONE scummy out of the 100+ games that are run on the site each where, where the vast majority of those games are going to have at least one person who stood out as a great performance... sometimes multiple people... that's just silly.

I also, again, don't think a losing cause scummy is necessary because a win isn't required to be considered for an award. I'd be happy to edit the language to point out that much, but I don't particularly see the value in creating an award just for losers. That would make the other awards just for winners by default. Then we start moving across the board, and well, third parties should also be considered if they lose, right? So why not break that one out a little more? And what about scum

teams

instead of single player? We should probably create a win/lose dichotomy in the awards for whole teams as well.

But, I don't think mastin was particularly arguing for a 'losing cause' scummy so much as a 'single player, single game' scummy. It is my personal opinion that such an award is too broad and would encourage too many nominations, bogging down both the SSC's process and the judging process. I mean, just going through my recent games:

999 Mafia: Everyone universally agreed that Gamma carried the town that game, he was the MVP.
Air Combat Mafia: GreyICE saved the town from losing almost by himself, universal agreement.
MS Fantasy Camp 2: UT & Cerulean balled out of control and rolled the town by being universally townread at endgame.

Those are just the most recent three. And I feel like, if I went and read every recently completed game with a good playerbase, there'd be 1-3 people in each of those games who obviously stood out among the town. If, as you said above, having an outstanding game isn't necessarily indicative of skill, then I don't think it's deserving of a Scummie. The game-related Scummies are meant to reward skilled players, not mediocre players who just got lucky one time.

[SleepyKrew]

Whoa
Reading the first and last sentence of each paragraph actually works

[Faraday]

Best performance in a loss is not really something I've any desire to see come back.

[Untrod Tripod]

Best performance in a loss is not really something I've any desire to see come back.

+9999999999

[zoraster]

I wouldn't mind it as an "Honorable Mention" category that didn't come along with an icon and whatever, but it's not a category that should be a scummy.

[SleepyKrew]

I don't see why a group working together or on similar things shouldn't be able to share.

[xRECKONERx]

Eh, my personal feeling is that it should be a solo person award (as that's how it was designed).

It would be cool as a group though, I imagine the idea behind the scummie is just helping make the community better. In this case the wiki is not done by one person so it seems wrong to make it "who can do the best edit", there have been a few people working hard changing a lot so it feels wrong to compare them as they all help in different aspects. Also if a group of people works on something then comes the question "who gets the credit?".

Previously, wiki edits and the like were covered under "Professor Mafia". That portion of the award was rolled into Community Contributor this year, which makes this a gray area.

I've always envisioned the award as a singular award. Things like "Name Should Be In Orange" allow for group wins, but I think this is recognizing a single person. It's also a Body of Work award -- so it's not just this one thing that'll be considered in the judging process, it's EVERYTHING from the whole of 2014. It's very hard to consider a group's Body of Work.