-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
NOC Town of Salem NOC - GAME OVER - TOWN WIN
- Thread starter Josh
- Start date
role madness in an open setup seems crazy townsided, or at least insanely easy to get wrong.
There were some enjoyable moments I think : ) but yeah, very hard for scum to win in a mass claim especially when the janitor kill had their role confirmed.
More (but not much more) in post game.
Thanks : )
There were some enjoyable moments I think : ) but yeah, very hard for scum to win in a mass claim especially when the janitor kill had their role confirmed.
More (but not much more) in post game.
Thanks : )
Thoughts
Overall this game did not play out too well because of overreliance on the wiki, even misinterpreting some interactions. Scum did not put much effort in either, and I'm sorry but I refuse to agree that Jalmont could not have avoided being mislynched regardless. Plus, vig not being able to shoot n1 is not hard information to get. Overall I completely get people did not like having the wiki as a tool and part of the game - in the future that is why role pms will be in the OP. I will also be getting a cohost if I host again for when I'm busy and hopefully more frequent vcs. Please lemme know if you have any questions about anything, thanks all for playing.
- UncleSam Da Letter El and LightWolf iirc you were there when I approved and said I should limit any. I went along with it but in the future I 100% believe any needs to be true any (note with tos restrictions, some unique roles cant be called twice, vet/jailor/godfather/mayor come to mind). The thing is, yes true any can break setups, but ultimately this game confirmed my suspicions that without the any option massclaiming skews games way too much in towns favour. With the any as an option it opens up a lot more claims. Yknow what? You can narrow it down. The thing is, with 2 guaranteed scum kills (mafia + neutral killing), town killing, jailor, and other things like bg, if you have 3 tp claims and 3 ti claims and 2 nb claims you dont have time to lynch through everything - the game is too fast paced for that. Sure, confirm some people and roleblock or otherwise stop some kills, but you cant just poe lynch everything because of how shaky towns majority is. Role madness games always have been and always will be moderately swingy, thats just how it is. It can be much better. Any allows most setups to be good, more variety, and an occasional broken setup is never a lost cause because of towns powerful roles.
- In the future full role pms are going in the OP. This was stupid. The wiki wasn't even interpreted right in all cases - notice the lookout interactions with jailor. The first mechanic note under the jailor page: "You will visit your target, which is observable by a Lookout." vs the lookout page "If an Escort, Consort or Jailor forces a Serial Killer or Werewolf to kill them, you will not see the killer visiting their victim." Lookout can see Jailor. The interactions and reasons why are tos in game priority stuff, but the point is putting full role pms in the op fixes that.
- Extending deadline was a mistake that I apologized for. There should have been more notice before any potential extension. HOWEVER, people implied that it is towns responsibility to be active and that day time is just another factor town has to control. I think this notion is awful, this is a social game, and its not supposed to be a game that gets destroyed because some townies arent active. Thats on them. I don't know if I am going to host again on smogon because honestly I find it ridiculous how little activity there was and how people think time is a tool scum should use. That is not how I like to play and I don't like seeing town lose because of a few stupid idlers. The playerbase here just isn't dedicated enough :/ Overall the extenson was stupid and unwarranted and I know that, the rest of this paragraph is unrelated. Just me bitching about how I think 72 hour deadline being a tool scum use is very very dumb in essence.
- Also, people are giving way too much credit to the game being broken by massclaiming. I completely understand Jalmont's anger over the extension but he 100% could've avoided his lynch if he didn't idle the rest of the day and not even bother defending himself. He even had people convinved right up to the dl. Survivor chose to cc Asek when it was unnecessary and Survivor choosing to side with town is both uncommon and something regardless of setup. Scum trying to kill Executioner was not to their benefit, and Ret is one of the worst fake claims ever because its 100% confirmable. Not as bad as Mayor, Jailor, and Spy in ToS but 100% confirmable as it is announced to the thread. Serial Killer idling was horrible for all scum as they also help balance out town (as an nk who weakens towns numbers early on) and everyone who idled this game early on is blacklisted from my future games. I cannot stand idlers, as either alignment, it is just no fun and it is why things like hoods happened (fh vigging cop). Look, there was no stellar scum gameplay regardless. Blazade probably played the best game but got unlucky because there was no chaos to lynch a townie in due to how hard he sided with town - in fact, Blazade was most likely instrumental in town winning. He did a great job at getting townread, so much so that scum decided to kill him (lol).
Overall this game did not play out too well because of overreliance on the wiki, even misinterpreting some interactions. Scum did not put much effort in either, and I'm sorry but I refuse to agree that Jalmont could not have avoided being mislynched regardless. Plus, vig not being able to shoot n1 is not hard information to get. Overall I completely get people did not like having the wiki as a tool and part of the game - in the future that is why role pms will be in the OP. I will also be getting a cohost if I host again for when I'm busy and hopefully more frequent vcs. Please lemme know if you have any questions about anything, thanks all for playing.
Yeah I think you're right that a lot went unfortunately wrong for scum, lots of it out of their control (survivor siding with town, Moody lynch not going through, etc.) and so it really skews the opinion of the setup (obviously it's based on tos in any case so it's nothing against you if it's anything). I also think that having former hope confirmed (by a neutral) negated the janitor and was a big deal, because it made mass claim a much better idea and poe much easier.
So Knights targeted DBW night one?
So Knights targeted DBW night one?
Yeah, my N1 target was Wobbuffet. Dropping a vote and flaking put him at a scum lean for me, and I figured on the off chance he was shitty Town, I wouldn't be stepping on any toes by blocking him.
It was very hard not to like your posts from the grave regarding Durza, Blazade . The only one I didn't agree with was not shooting him. Also, I think we could've worked in a win for you without throwing things too far out of joint.
Josh, I'm familiar with receiving death notifications via PM, usually as an explanation for why an NA didn't work.
It was very hard not to like your posts from the grave regarding Durza, Blazade . The only one I didn't agree with was not shooting him. Also, I think we could've worked in a win for you without throwing things too far out of joint.
Josh, I'm familiar with receiving death notifications via PM, usually as an explanation for why an NA didn't work.
some thoughts
First off, I'm not trying to come off as super critical here. I feel like I read somewhere although I can't find it now where you say Josh you aren't sure you wanna host again. Please don't be dispirited in not hosting! Not all games go perfectly, and shit always happens, and mistakes are made. The two NOCs I have hosted on this site have been very bad, but you can't let your mistakes get to you. I hope you can see what happened itg in a learning experience and come back with another game that improves upon this one =]
There seems to be this idea that it's the players' responsibility to not break rules or that using deadlines to avoid lynches breaks the spirit of the game and the players should avoid that is really silly to me. It's the hosts job to provide incentives to ensure that players have no reason to break the rules. If you don't want the mafia to rely on deadline, use plurality. If you think deadlines are too short, then set them to be longer? You're the host, you have control over the game. Don't blame the players if they take advantage of the rules in place when you can easily circumvent the situation.
Blazade is a great player and I feel like I rag on him a lot in postgames lol (sorry man:[). But in this game I really don't see how he played the best game considering that at best he was praying that town would kingmake in his favor. Maybe if you play the game 100 times that will work out to a higher win percentage, but I'm just not a big fan of strategies where you give up control of your destiny to hope that some factor works out in the future (although I will say I def would've given him the win). I would probably say Gronk played the best but imo the real MVPs were the townies who claimed in a reasonable amount of time and kept fighting regardless. moody and beds and knights are those who I would point out for this.
through the course of this year I think I've decided I'm just not a big fan of role heavy NOCs. It's just too much and takes away from the meaning of scumhunting through words. Like why bother when you can just mass claim and figure shit out from there? I know people hate being vanilla but I really think the games that are less role heavy work much better for NOCs, at least for me. Overall I think this game was hurt by roles being weird and a reliance on individual interpretation of what roles do for fake claims + not having plurality + extending the deadline. The game feels a lot worse than it really was imo, I just think the mass claim + killing off the mafia through extending the deadline + neutrals completely working with the village killed off what competitiveness the game had. Unfortunate for sure but it could've been worse.
Thanks for hosting Josh. gg every1
First off, I'm not trying to come off as super critical here. I feel like I read somewhere although I can't find it now where you say Josh you aren't sure you wanna host again. Please don't be dispirited in not hosting! Not all games go perfectly, and shit always happens, and mistakes are made. The two NOCs I have hosted on this site have been very bad, but you can't let your mistakes get to you. I hope you can see what happened itg in a learning experience and come back with another game that improves upon this one =]
I have said it before and I'll repeat it hopefully one last time: whatever "experienced hosts" told you it was a good idea to extend the deadline were completely in the wrong. The expectation is that if the host decides not to have plurality, then they need to set concrete deadlines because it's otherwise unfair to the mafia. The mafia was essentially punished for no reason other than the fact that the host made a mistake in not providing a votecounts (which I would say is a convenience not something that must happen). The expectation was that deadlines would be 72 hours and that they would be enforced. It is unfair to all of a sudden go against everyone's expectation simply because you feel you should've given them a votecount. I certainly do not believe time should be used as tool for mafia. But that's an easily solvable host problem. You just set it so the lynch is decided by plurality, which not only gives you space to give extensions fairly, but also prevents the mafia from time-stalling of whatever.
There seems to be this idea that it's the players' responsibility to not break rules or that using deadlines to avoid lynches breaks the spirit of the game and the players should avoid that is really silly to me. It's the hosts job to provide incentives to ensure that players have no reason to break the rules. If you don't want the mafia to rely on deadline, use plurality. If you think deadlines are too short, then set them to be longer? You're the host, you have control over the game. Don't blame the players if they take advantage of the rules in place when you can easily circumvent the situation.
IDK man like I just gave up because it wasn't an interesting fight to battle. Like there's nothing to argue over except whether or not it's plausible that I'm lying about what Josh told me. Technically as Asek has pointed out I did win since I wasn't hammered on deadline but it didn't matter. I realized once mass claim happened the game became about solving it, not about the typical things you do in NOC which wasn't all that interesting to me. I wasn't really all that interested in arguing about what the tos wiki says about some role. It's a circular argument and I didn't have the energy to engage in a conversation that was ultimately pointless.
Blazade is a great player and I feel like I rag on him a lot in postgames lol (sorry man:[). But in this game I really don't see how he played the best game considering that at best he was praying that town would kingmake in his favor. Maybe if you play the game 100 times that will work out to a higher win percentage, but I'm just not a big fan of strategies where you give up control of your destiny to hope that some factor works out in the future (although I will say I def would've given him the win). I would probably say Gronk played the best but imo the real MVPs were the townies who claimed in a reasonable amount of time and kept fighting regardless. moody and beds and knights are those who I would point out for this.
through the course of this year I think I've decided I'm just not a big fan of role heavy NOCs. It's just too much and takes away from the meaning of scumhunting through words. Like why bother when you can just mass claim and figure shit out from there? I know people hate being vanilla but I really think the games that are less role heavy work much better for NOCs, at least for me. Overall I think this game was hurt by roles being weird and a reliance on individual interpretation of what roles do for fake claims + not having plurality + extending the deadline. The game feels a lot worse than it really was imo, I just think the mass claim + killing off the mafia through extending the deadline + neutrals completely working with the village killed off what competitiveness the game had. Unfortunate for sure but it could've been worse.
Thanks for hosting Josh. gg every1
O yeah, I really wish people would stop perpetuating the myth that villages on Smogon never win NOCs. It is decidedly untrue - if you look all NOCs that did not have a fatal design flaw and ended up being competitive games, then you would clearly see that villages do win often enough. It's been meme'd often enough that people have started to believe it even though it's complete nonsense in reality.
Jalmont the two big things that hampered my game were me getting jailed D1 preventing me from claiming anything and mafia/Durza doing so poorly night 2. I had a lot planned for D3, and maybe a little bit of leeway in fighting to make the lynches work for me, but I fucked up and had to claim and even if I didn't I was so heavily outnumbered I didn't have a shot anyway. But yeah imagine like Haruno and Gronk dies instead of Lightwolf+SK+Janitor. On average that's what I expected to happen and I thought I had really good reason to inspect Beds that cycle so I thought I was in a good position.
I wasn't planning to claim to town except as a last resort and I was trying to feel things out whenever I could but it was hard enough to even escape suspicion at times and Beds was just idle and coherent enough to not make any sense to push w/o evidence. In a position where I have to improvise, I just try to get a solid town read and use that later and I thought I did a decent job of that at least lol.
Like I think your criticism is fair and I definitely didn't play the best game but I'm legitimately curious what you would have done differently.
Last edited:
Gronk was killed and he pushed it onto you because he thought you were mafia
From my point of view, and I am not a ToS expert by any means, it seems to me you were too reliant on getting a "guilty" onto Beds when I think you could've easily pushed a lynch on him regardless say day 1 (as mean as that would be :/). I understand your logic in pushing for a massclaim and yeah, you did get unlucky, but I feel like it would've been much better for you if things had played out like a normal game with no claims and you just attempted to get Beds lynched naturally, if that makes sense.
Working with the village only ended up hurting you I think and made you overly reliant on things outside your control. I think if you had tried harder to push a Beds lynch day 1, it could've been possible. I would've pushed for it. I think if you play a little more passively or a little more neutrally, you could've put yourself in a situation where lynching Beds as scum would've been a plausible option for the village.
Working with the village only ended up hurting you I think and made you overly reliant on things outside your control. I think if you had tried harder to push a Beds lynch day 1, it could've been possible. I would've pushed for it. I think if you play a little more passively or a little more neutrally, you could've put yourself in a situation where lynching Beds as scum would've been a plausible option for the village.
claiming sheriff is a relatively common exe strategy. honestly its really hit or miss, some games town sheeps and some they dont. i dont like it personally; my goal is just to stay alive til lategame beacuse scum wants to lynch town just as much as exe. usually later in the game amidst the chaos a lynch is doable. otherwise, your target getting nightkilled and you becoming jester is ez sometimes if maf have already tried to kill you and figured youre immune.
generally you want to appear townie. HOWEVER, you dont want to actually help town, which I think is what blazade did. definitely no small task but your goal as exe should be to appear townie while also hurting town as much as possible. blazade did a great job of getting lynched and getting jailed n1 is unfortunate; honestly id claim exe to jailor a lot of the time and offer to help town win in exchange for lynching beds. if you make a deal in advance thats much different from a pity win; you say that matters more here than tos due to community but honoring deals is good in tos ranked too, because if people regularly honor deals exes are more likely to help town overall etc. its why survs are usually lynched by town in ranked; survs typically help scum win there if given the chance.
generally you want to appear townie. HOWEVER, you dont want to actually help town, which I think is what blazade did. definitely no small task but your goal as exe should be to appear townie while also hurting town as much as possible. blazade did a great job of getting lynched and getting jailed n1 is unfortunate; honestly id claim exe to jailor a lot of the time and offer to help town win in exchange for lynching beds. if you make a deal in advance thats much different from a pity win; you say that matters more here than tos due to community but honoring deals is good in tos ranked too, because if people regularly honor deals exes are more likely to help town overall etc. its why survs are usually lynched by town in ranked; survs typically help scum win there if given the chance.