Helz

Soo.. Anyone want to build a meat dragon? Not any meat will do. We need orphan meat from mafia children...

Im thinking Shinning and ILikePie is the dunk.

Although it would be super awesome if awesome was one of the scum because then I would have a perfect vote record...

Lets please not dog pile though. Lets actually hunt today and make a train and counter train... Pretty please?

Quite in line with my thoughts.

Its not only a pretty weak function unless there is some other thing added to it but also a 1 use AND also has to be put in a guild to be used.

Hmmm. This claim is some funky shit.

If I may ask- what is it that makes you place Pie as likely town?

Ya got me. And here I thought I was being so sneaky flatly telling the entire town I am a wolf and want to eat your children and elderly. I suck at this game >.<

Vote: ILovePie5

I am interested in starting here while we take time for WF to explain what they posted there just before a confirmed town was killed.

VOTE COUNT

Awesome5000 (3/7): Pie, Shining, Mag1c

Pie (2/7): Rex, Helz

Shinning (1/7): Kohai

Correction. I claimed I was a wolf and wanted to eat your children and elderly two or three times. Then I claimed I am the greatest evil and anyone that wants to be more evil than me must die. Then I think I rambled about when you get the rumbly in your tummy that only hands can satisfy there is only one thing to be done about that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZUPCB9533Y

Lets keep it real. I never said I was a lost wolf : )

Truly. To those that say D1 scum hunting is useless it basically got us 2 wolves. I will say that our D2 is mostly useless. Woulda loved to be able to vet that train but it was not even a train. Just people flogging a slot with the exact same logic which gives us pretty much nothing as we did not open a door for other options to bait wolves onto another player. So our D3 is D1 2.0. That is what it is

So looking at this series of posts #67 #68 #69

Whiteflame randomly says Shadow Exchange. ......Wut?

Then there is a post by Wylted accepting a challenge and declaring themselves king

Then there is a mod action confirmation of killing Wylted

This is a what the fuck level of interaction. 3 bits to consider and I would ask Whiteflame to explain themselves. Could be connected.

I am rather interested in these players today-

ILikePie5

Whiteflame

Awesome

Casey Risk

Shining

Will give more in a bit as I chew on some stuffs.

But lets not rush a hammer please. Fucking control yourselves and lets actually take the day to hunt. While we are lucky to be up in flips we have honestly used the days like dogshit and have very little to go off of in the late game because of it.

Sure. I think a lot of the reasoning on Alyssa is between opportunistic and bad. I think that we crippled our post flip analysis given many are sheeping the same points without even diving into challenge or verify them. I think the way that train was built and focused excused people from having to hunt elsewhere which was toxic to developing further reads.

I think Alyssa will flip scum or 3p. I think the progression in their Thoth interaction reads one of a few ways.

WvW bussing where Alyssa got sensitive to pressure. They pushed in their wolf chat to back off so Thoth evolved from a hard scum push to a town read. W! Alyssa then went belly up scum aggravated at being caught as a wolf but 'for the wrong reasons'

Wv3p where they went at etchother. Thoth (or their team) realized Alyssa could be 3p so Thoth evolved from a hard push to a town read as they equally acknowledged the greater potential of 3p existing in D1 that I outlined. 3p Alyssa went belly up as scum upset at being caught but 'for the wrong reasons'

WvT where Thoth got lucky as the town tunneled hard on the issue their TMI but then turned to focus on Alyssa who was caught in the cross fire of a super angled situation and semantics on what they 'could' have been saying as town ignorantly shoved through a lynch on an innocent player and they said 'Fuck this shit' and left

TvT where Thoth was actually truly town and a high IQ tailor play happened setting up a hatchet job today that the town mindlessly walked into and hardly questioned as Alyssa threw their hands up and quit

Kinda how I see the potentials.

I woulda liked to hear greater positions on other players. Like we have a poisoned player and it woulda been good to get pre-flip reads from players on them for post flip analysis. Woulda also been great to hear more solid reads on Alyssa than everyone just regurgitating the same talking points.

Thats just diving into two critical flips that might happen that will impact our range D3.

To answer the question- What more would I want? A fucking lot. And even a floating dead chat for 24 hours allowing busy people to contribute woulda been nice.

But I am also use to a very different tempo. May be good to extend day phases longer in the future to allow a more relaxed flow of posting in high player count games but players would also need to break away from the raw post count/day phase mindset and think of it more like how many posts per irl day is acceptable.

I get it. Im just putting into context why I probably feel rather differently about a 600 post day phase than the community might. For me its the half way point we should be hitting today with a rather poor diversity of subjects discussed and some players I have very little to consider for reads.

A ton.

We are 1 less player with half as many posts as yesterday. I also was in court all day monday and half of today and hardly had time to really play. Would have been nice to get a lot more imo but I understand this tempo may be something many players here are not use to.

I do not think 600 posts in a 17 player day cycle is very much but I should probably consider whats normal here.

Fair. I think in a much shorter time we could have done much more. If we were just gona smite Alyssa as I figured we would we could have accepted that, stopped obsessing over it and just moved on to examining things of value.

Instead we did very little in a very long amount of time.

As I said earlier. There is chess and checkers.

I was never worried about the decision today and figured it was a given. I was very much worried about our next 5 moves. And as a town we fumbled hard there under this false sense of security that we are ahead (and to quote myself from earlier) "Lethargically stumbling towards an Alyssa lynch"

Im just gona say I am not happy if this hammer goes though. Could not have been more clear that town needed to wake the fuck up and hunt today.

Think about this potential- What if Thoth is Tailord, Alyssa flips town, Poison goes through on a town. Then we have a Mafia NK + another poisoning.

You guys are coasting through this game on cruse control like town is winning. Please wake the fuck up.

I do feel that the early hammer was an awful move. Will have to chew on if its scummy or not.

I also slightly feel at this point Mag1cian is making an active effort to paint me. Framing my statements in a performative way speaking as if they are talking to me while actually speaking to the town to frame me in a specific manner.

If they were actually looking to engauge with me it would not be a "I have given my reasons" and blowing off my response after acting like I did not even respond. I will have to question if this is AI or ego driven play.

I believe Alyssa's ability shifted their required Vote threshold to 10 and not 9. They are at L1 now unless I am misunderstanding their mechanic. I felt Host even clarified that in a post.

Except I literally did. Post #572 which you did get pinged on and did not respond too...

Well why does it have to be either I am TP 'or' someone else is? Why can't I be TP as well as someone else?

And what makes you feel I am TP? I just want to be the most evil player in the game and kill everyone that tries to be as evil as me : )

Interesting question.

While poison makes sense to be the kill function of ants which appears to be our Mafia faction it could also be 3p. Im not sure if being in a with a guild master role blocking would prevent actions but that presents an interesting function.

Hypothetically if it does guild leaders could grab up large portions of the player base and just lock them down leaving a small PoE to hunt through. If the gamestate ever allowed it could open a mech way to sort pools of players. There could be potential to use guilds as mass roleblock tools though.

Sounds about right.

Shoulda said tailor when I said framer. Running on empty tonight at this point. But yeah. Framer changes invest results tailor changes flips.

Good context.

My brain is a little fried and I missed a number of points I should have covered on Alyssa

My real fear right now I will say is that the town is marching twords a numb "Screw it we caught a confirmed scum" when so many bits of just that are not considered and we are not looking at the rest of the players and setting up for a productive D3/D4 etc.

Complacency is a problem and really, I do not know for sure if we are up 1 scum or down a town and about to be down 3 town as we lethargically stumble twords the conclusion of an Alyssa flip.

Are they frustrated mafia caught for the wrong reasons and pissed? Are they just caught for the right reason and ghosting? Are they 3p Mafia lucked out on? Are they town and we have a town that is not even really looking at what the case against them is?

I may not have the time in my life to push what I want to on the subject but we should at least hold conversations on these subjects instead of just saying "Screw it, lets get their flip and lets grab claims from people"

Just my take.

Something came up I had to take care of so I gotta speedrun this bit. Everyone's favorite subject- Alyssa

What is the actual case here?

Starts out flipped scum Thoth slipping on knowing Mestari is a good player while they should not. Insinuation comes that they learned it from Alyssa and Alyssa provides a defense to Thoth. Of note is off the bat Thoth casts as much shade as possible upon Alyssa for them defending. Bussing or shading is a question there.

This carries though. Alyssa hard positions themselves scum reading Thoth from start to finish of D1 while Thoth has an evolution starting with pushing hard scum and then evolving into a town lean as they also evolve their read that Jin Woo was a town initially followed by more of a town lean when they thought Jin Woo was a neutral. Thoth also had a very weird hardline stance on this flavor and on who it could be thats so illogical it feels like they had some reason to have such conviction. That they had some level of legit mech knowledge from their scum chat or such to hold and push such a belief.

After this plays out Thoth swings and flips Mafia. Now D2:

Alyssa leads off overly defensively. They full claim. 2 new issues come up. That there is a hard slip in if they could use their ability without recruitment to a guild and if their claim of popular vs widly admired vs lynchproof is a slip. A few quick thoughts.

I dug and Alyssa never claimed they could not use functions unless recruited. This all draws back to an insinuation that the passive ability could not proc as they directly voiced the other one could. Grey area. Potential for a slip? Sure. But its not some damning thing imo. It is literally a question of if them saying a lack of need to be recruited for their active translates to an active need to be recruited for the passive.

I also dug into if Alyssa ever claimed popular. Never happened. I need dig more to see exactly where this line came from but while the other one I feel could have merit for catching scum slipping this one looks like some bullshit to me. A bunch of people arguing about what qualifies for what in semantics without regards to why it matters. I would like to hear someone explain to me logically how it matters what the words are. It feels pretty dumb and I do not understand why its been such a focus.

Past that I question why a scum would reveal a lynchproof/popular/whatever you want to call it function. I could ramble about what I would do with that as scum but it does not matter.

I think there is a few potential conclusions and I will strongly push the town to stop looking at Alyssa as some slam dunk confirmed mafia and start really hunting and questioning how valid the case is. I see 4 potentials

1- Its just gravy train and Alyssa is belly up mafia caught with their team mate bussing

2- Its kinda more fucked but still good with flipped mafia actually pushing until they realized 3p potential (more likely imo)

3- Its just town shoving town without bothering to think or verify details. The awful potential

4- Weird world the mafia have a framer and are driving some clever misslynch as we think we are up 1 mafia but could actually be close to having a situation where we are down 2-3 town adding in the poisoner

Things to consider. And btw, Poison sounds like a logical killing thing for an ant. Hmm

So a couple of things to unpack. This will be wordy and I am sorry that spoilers do not exist to make this less of a wall. Normally I could format better but I will try to use color codes to signal points to consider. I promise I am cutting out a substantial portion of my thoughts. These reads centered around digging through Thoth (and sadly kinda half ass by my standard)-

For Mestari on post 85 they pump the breaks on the Mestari lynch then in 111 they hit the gas and vote them putting them at L3. It is of note at the time the push was Alyssa, ILikePie, Mestari, Kohai and Wylted. I have exactly 1 town peg between those players at this time which is a good look for Mestari. There is a lot of tangential focus on their slot and a point I have never herd from anyone is the question of if Mestari was actually aligned with Thoth. Everyone is obsessed with this “How could Thoth possibly know they are a good player” situation and nobody has even breached that subject. Kinda glaring that subject was never breached.

My D1 reasoning on Mestari remains even if it edges on angleshooty things that should never have been brought into this game but I have not herd my thoughts echoed by others and my paranoia is building from the lack of a very simple conclusion being mentioned. Just pointing out a pattern here.

Thoth follows up pushing against VNTL and advocates for flavor claims then pushes for no recruitment voicing both teams winning which also means neither develops TPR’s. Then 290 they push that Mafia are likely inside at least one guild which creates distrust. My take away from this is simply that it gives me less paranoia that Thoth was framed and more that they were a legit flip.

409 Thoth voices discomfort with Kohai and that they will ISO them. Thoth never posts an ISO on Kohai. Thoth grows more flavor focused already looking at Jin Woo in 457. 550 they hard claim Sung Jin-Ah (D2 flip calls them Red Ant) 648 they poke Kohai again which is consistent (although an ISO was never voiced.) Nothing solid but slightly a good look for Kohai

605 is where they start to get into the Alyssa entanglements. Thoth leads off calling Alyssas defense “Desperate,” “Reachy,” and “A pocketing attempt.” My initial reaction here is that it leans in too hard. They are not just displacing concerns of being aligned but they are absolutely hammering distance with pretty strong rhetoric. The level of emotional reaction is quite extra. I would more of expected a “Oh, its weird they defended me like that. Wtf” level of conviction as opposed to the immediate hardcore FOS.

Thoth then follows up in 630 shading Alyssa more with another poke on 734 on the same narrative that they must be town or scum attempting to pocket. 791 they double down with a substantial defense of them not being aligned with Alyssa. There is something of note in tone here though. Things started out in 605 with hard rhetoric and developed into softer views followed by 791 where they are now either a misguided townie or pocketing. There is a notable progression as the issue keeps being discussed. 735 read wall has Alyssa as their strongest scum read but when they follow up on 1493 it’s a town lean. The progression is clear in that context. 1229 they enter the town potential and 1230 they give some “Too scummy to be scum” logic for Alyssa’s defense of them. 1233 they flatly ask Alyssa if they are Jin woo. This is more notable with 1277 where they soft knowing who Jinwoo is and 1316/1338 voing they may have an inno reasoning on Helz/Alyssa/Rex. So this tracks for Helz being town read and Rex getting a weird null read in their first read wall but why go at Alyssa so hard early in 605-791 if they had reason to believe one of the 3 is confirmed town to them mechanically? And why the evolution in the Alyssa read in opposition to the evolution of their belief that Jinwoo was town into believing they are neutral?

To unpack that Jinwoo progression they first hint in 1277 knowing who that flavor is followed by the hard claim in 1316 with the hard claim of being a backup to them and town read them at the time. They flatly push Alyssa for a claim of if hey are JinWoo earlier in 1233 and push later that they shifted their read of Alyssa thinking that player could be JinWoo at the same time as they are evolving their position of what Jinwoo is from being a confirmed town into a neutral.

So they scum read Alyssa when they thought that flavor was town and then as they evolved into thinking they were 3p they started to town read them eyh? Interesting. Also interesting their position of Helz/Rex/Alyssa remained consistent throughout reflecting a potential that this was a truly mech driven position given how illogical it is otherwise.

On 723 we have Thoth’s first readwall and on 1493 they post a second one. Worth looking at. I will cut out my thoughts of how things changed between them for now but will post them back to back for comparison-

“Townlock by guild-leader claim: Lunatic, wylted

Strong town by behavior: Helz

Good gutreads: WF, Mestari, Mag1c

Bad gutreads without concrete evidence: Pie, Casey, Wryly (I've been very wrong about scum gutreads on Wryly, though)

Lean scum: Kohai, I don't like his claim.

Somewhat harder scumlean: Alyssa

Inactive pool: Vader, Shining, Airmax, Banana

No verdict: Rex”

-------------------------

Town-confirmed: Lunatic, wylted

Solid town: Banana, Wryly

Lean town: Mestari, Alyssa, Mag1c

Null: Vader

Lean scum: Pie, Kohai (I still don't buy his claim)

Strong scum: whiteflame, Casey

Likely 3P: Helz, Rex (if not 3P, then Rex is lean town and Helz is solid town)

For Casey 746 they follow up with their read walls position voicing a bad gut read on Casey. They do maintain this line down to 1488 still focusing that view which is again mentioned right around their read wall. I have mixed feelings on this. Seems both times they are voicing limited concerns right about the time they are the most aware of the external optics. A consistent negative narrative from Thoth regardless between bussing only around when they are focused on external optics and just a benign take. Worth considering.

I figure I should break the post in half at this point. Already a kinda stupid wall.

I get why its done. I just think there is a time and a place. Early D1 we had people shoving for flavor claims which has massive PR hunting implications and very little scum hunting value at best. Early D2 we have people giving lists of demands for full mech claims and discussions on forcing a total mass claim D3.

Im just saying- I get why it holds value but this is kinda excessive and way too fast. I think we should be shoving people for reads and not claims right now 100%.

Still working on that post and I apologize if its a monstrosity. The formatting tools I have are limited.

You can chew on rocks if you think your getting me to claim : P

Btw, Whats up with this weird focus on getting claims? What happened to actual hunting and giving reads?

Before I vomit a wall on the thread how would you summarize your view of the Alyssa situation?

Just throwing this down as I am digging so its noted for the thread and not just in my notes. Thoth readwall post #723

"I'd have to think about it some more to classify everyone, but right now I'd group players into:

Townlock by guild-leader claim: Lunatic, wylted

Strong town by behavior: Helz

Good gutreads: WF, Mestari, Mag1c

Bad gutreads without concrete evidence: Pie, Casey, Wryly (I've been very wrong about scum gutreads on Wryly, though)

Lean scum: Kohai, I don't like his claim.

Somewhat harder scumlean: Alyssa

Inactive pool: Vader, Shining, Airmax, Banana

No verdict: Rex"

Working on some stuffs but some quick thoughts-

On Alyssa I do not understand the big AI deal about if its lynchproof 1x or popular. I dont remember them using either term ever and I really do not see how the semantics of what you call their function even remotely matter. People call mechanics all sorts of different things but they hard claimed exactly what their role did.

Mag1cian being poisoned has a lot of implications.

It lines up with my 2nd kpn theory to balance lobby size.

It also semi clears Rex and whoever Wylted recruited 'if' they were role blocked last night as the guild leaders recruited.

But that targeting is very odd. Why target Mag1cian? A few potentials:

-(As they said) maybe their reads hit on a poisoner?

-Could be a cautious player recognizing the low potential of Mag1cian being watched/protected N1?

-Could be 3p targeting potential mafia/avoiding their town reads?

-Could be a player that uses hard RNG for kills to break analysis

Regardless there is a lot of town read / high pull players in the game from what I am reading of the community feeling who would have made a better target for an evil to gun the town down without some reason. It is of note

I will also say up front if someone can heal they should not reveal as doing so after doing it. Keeping a healer hidden with a poisoner in the game has more value than confirming that Mag1cian is not pulling some gambit (which is possible but I won't unpack now)

I have said a bit on that already. There is more thoughts I have that I am avoiding saying as I watch what people say and do. To be blunt I do not want to dog pile Alyssa and I do not want to defend them.

With you in particular I am interested in hearing your fresh take diving into the game on some reads on players. Outside of the one popular issue I keep trying to open up the chat to discussing other players and views. What are yours? Surly with a thousand post D1 there is something that caught your attention on somebody.