Vhaltz

Despite what I just said I don't feel like my scumreads are very good this game, but w/e Gonna try to sleep now

Like ffs. I'd really appreciate it if people didn't instantly assume that I'm retarded and that my cases are dumb/bad/wrong just because I heavily rely on context+meta to evaluate whether an action by somebody that is widely regarded as scummy is likely to come from town or unlikely to come from town given their probable mindset at the time. If you want to go ahead and use universal scumtells without looking past your nose then that's fine by me but let me do my scumhunting the way I feel is actually going to catch scum instead of trying to force me into doing it your way just because it's more comfortable for you. I'm not actually angry and don't actually hold any personal issues over this but I still want to word this as strongly as I have it because I feel like this is a big issue. Just look back at Game of Mafia Champions and see how much good it did for the game when some players tried to strongarm other players into playing the game by their rules.

Why should my scumhunting methods be dictated by your pet peeves? I can leave 100% of meta arguments out of my posts if it's going to be THAT terrible for several players that they won't talk about anything else as long as somebody is saying "meta", but it will come at the consequence of incomplete trains of thought and reasonings that are most likely not going to be solid by themselves or that I will have to force significantly, which is just going to end up muddling up everybody's reads. Pick your poison? I'm probably going to keep my vote on Refa because :second guessing:

I mentioned this to Prims when I accepted the invitation but didn't say anything about it in-thread I think. I have some of the more important practicals throughout this week and will have to take a 5-hour trip on top of that during one of Thursday or Friday, so my activity will be pretty compromised for the next four-five days. I don't know when I'm going to be able to check in again (maybe not until 6pm tomorrow, which is like 7 hours to deadline or so?) so I'm not really sure what to do with my vote tbh, when I started writing that large post I figured I'd leave it on Refa for a while longer before going to bed to see what he had to say about it when he came back and figured I'd work from there and other newer posts. Now it's getting really late here and he just isn't on around this time or hasn't appeared, and not much else has happened either. Most of the posts by Refa I've been okay with and I only don't really like his vote on SB based on opinion differences instead of actually scummy things, which I may be biased against because I think SB is town, and it isn't entirely unbelievable from town!Refa. My read on j00 feels really weak atm since it hinges on "scumslip wording" only and I don't really think anything else she did that I was harping on her over before couldn't have come from town. I'm going try to refresh my memory on everybody real fast to see if anything comes to mind, but I should pretty much be in bed already. If I don't come up with anything I might just sheep SB on Scarlet. He hasn't really done anything all phase other than tunneling on SB based on misreps and hypocrisy, it may not actually be alignment-indicative depending on his usual playstyle but I don't have time to look into that atm and I don't think I have anything better.

I got the impression that Scarlet wasn't really putting much into his ED1 posts? There are people who tried to build cases even if they were grasping and there were people who just threw a few questions around and called it a day. Scarlet felt like the second type up until he posted his case on SB, it's probably an issue of barely having seen him play before and you people already having an already-conceived image of what he's like. @Scarlet, what do you think of people who aren't SB? iirc deadline is not that far away and you could be suspecting literally anybody else at this point. I mulled over j00 and the wording for "I don't think either of us feel very strongly about case anymore though." is kind of unlikely to come town? how could she possibly interpret where I was standing on her before I posted my #174? None of my posts really indicated dropping her except maybe the one line in #166 about making a reading misake, and even then I was still pushing her after that, so ???. I feel like I may have let myself be manipulated there. SB should reread my reasons for the townread and his second to last paragraph in #177 and realize that they're the same. @Paper I don't really get what you're trying to say there. Am I throwing dirt out and testing out the waters to see if people agree with my cases? In that case couldn't I have just stuck with my Kaoz case? Otherwise the case is "Vhaltz suspected a lot of people" which is ??? because I'm actively mulling over mafia (when not on the computer), rereading and updating my reads more often than everyone else just by virtue of having more time than most. Either way, I never really suspected eclipse? I asked for meta on her to confirm that reactionary!eclipse =! scum!eclipse because her posts read genuine aside from her last post in reaction to Refa where she voted him. It was an overly strong reaction to suspicion that's likely to come from scum, but probably equally likely to come from town!eclipse if I bothered to check her meta. This isn't really a strong townread so I haven't listed it in my priorities, same with other minor gutreads on Conq/BBM. Other people (Manix, BBM, Kaoz, Scarlet) I haven't followed up on because my reads on them have either changed to null (first two) or are pending on newer content (last two). I could explain where I stand exactly wrt my nullreads on Manix and Scarlet but I'd like to avoid talking about Kaoz if possible. With deadline coming somewhat soon I'll say I don't want to lynch him atm, but that's all.

=/ Unlikely that Kaoz is faking the lack of time. He was originally going to take a break for this couple of months and I didn't expect to get to play with him again until summer or so. Given the circumstances I'll probably post some meta on him near deadline if he doesn't pop back in again by then or I think he's likely to be scum, since he kind of likes killing me N1 when he rolls scum. Actually rereads will have to wait for a little. I'm unsure about j00 now mostly due to "I don't think either of us feel very strongly about case anymore though." sounding off and potentially manipulative, I'll take a break and try to come back in a state where I'm not constantly sucking at reading things hopefully.

I just checked back and this actually never happened, I thought the comment on the end-of-phase thing and the reasoning for voting Manix were in different posts and I'm just really dumb for posting from thread memory.

Eh, I let that escalate a lot more than I should've. I apologize. I can see how you'd understand the BBM/SB thing the way you did now, although I still think that their reasonings were entirely different and that BBM's followup was making reference to another thing SB posted that wasn't the same reason why he voted Manix. ##Unvote ##Vote: Refa Doing this for now and going back to reread Manix and Paper. I also haven't really paid attention to Scarlet's recent post yet.

My reads on SB, BBM, Prims, Conq and Kaoz are going to be inherently more based on meta than my reads on the other people around just because I've either played with them enough or I feel like I know them well enough to do it with certain accuracy. When it comes to the people I don't know I'll make decisions based on what I have and check back on meta if necessary, what I'm not going to do is read back on the meta in literally everybody else in the game just because it would mean I'm "selectively using meta". I'm sorry if I'm kind of annoyed right now but I get tired really fast of "meta is bad" parroting

I'm reading SB as town entirely on meta, I could be wrong since I used the same metaread on him last game and he could've turned it 180º on me, but the fact that he's posting a lot more than he usually does and keeps bringing up relevant points that I agree with make me doubt that's the case, at least this far in the game. Does reading people based on meta make me scum?

Like I don't get how you can still think that the ways SB and BBM were the same. Like how do these look remotely similar to you?

Accidentally hit post there

I saw my mistake when I posted and reread the first line in the part of your post I quoted but had to rush off. 10/10 reading skills. I haven't read any games you were in while I've played with SB several times and have generally been accurate in reading him after I started playing in SF. While true that I should actually check your scumgames I didn't feel like the tells I've been bringing up on you are very likely to change based on meta. You could say I also selectively used meta on Poly and Green Poet last game when I cased many other people, but this was due to having tells that I figured were more likely to be right/wrong depending on meta. You keep misinterpreting my BBM over SB though. SB's reasons for suspecting Manix were sparse but alright, whereas I've already explained that BBM's reasons to vote for Manix were stretched when he delved into the Conq role stuff.

Should've split that up, I didn't get the impression that I had written that much. Anyway brb

If you honestly think reaction tests get you anywhere close to getting towncred in SF you should reevaluate your everything. [spoiler=Responses to useless questions (except maybe the BBM stance)]I have no idea why understanding the purpose of the reaction test should be an issue to anybody, I posted my jokevote on Paper, then noticed that faking a dayvig would be a good way to get out of RVS and tried to nudge SB into pretending he was actually a dayvig so that he'd put more people in the circle for reactions. It didn't cross my mind to claim to be the dayvig myself because it would've been terribly obvious that I was just reminded of the existence of dayvig tests and nobody would've taken it seriously. Either way, just because it stopped at SB going "wtf" doesn't mean that's as far as it intended to go. Wrt BBM the case was a logic tell + meta, logic tells suck so I don't put much/any stock in them past ED1, the meta on finding the early tunneling odd still stands but isn't something I'd cast a vote over, would rather look at other people atm. SB clearly suspected Manix for different reasons (overdefensiveness) than BBM (fluff + no sense wrt Conq role stuff), you could've gone back to read the exchange and easily tell the difference. The whole case here reads like "you reaction tested which is scummy, your votes are bad and you haven't responded to every one of the dozen questions that people asked you", there's no explaining why anything is scummy anywhere and every argument that justifies his sticking to his vote feels more like attempts to twist things into accusations or to stall the case by demanding responses and calling things null/bad (meta is null: -theory discussion-, your votes are weak, answer to ED1 questions) than actual scumhunting looking for scum intent. j00 should stop invoking universals and look back at my posts at the time when I made the code to explain what I did that he thinks was scummy and justified scum!me backtracking/covering things up by making up the whole test deal. j00 > Scarlet was mostly a tone gut thing that I didn't really explain well at the time I voted. If I had to explain it somehow it's that Scarlet's post felt like "ED1 whatever let's poke some people to produce content" that I don't think is alignment-indicative, whereas j00's posts felt like he was actually trying to push a case on me based on "reaction tests are universally scummy because x, y z" which felt like policy lynch-ish "this universal thing is scummy, go lynch" argumentative. Speaking of Scarlet, he has continued to be apathetic in his recent posts and I honestly don't know what to make of them, SB's comment wrt scum!Scarlet empty unvoting when he felt like he couldn't BS a case anymore is good but not something I'd vote him over atm (I can think of an alternate explanation from town!POV). Scarlet should invest more into the game and engage in discussion more instead of just going "nothing else caught my attention". I agree with SB wrt Refa's latest vote being based on opinion disagreements rather than actual scumhunting. The wall of text he put out that didn't really achieve anything reads-wise aside from poking at SB, and while he mentions being not-so-suspicious of Clipsey and Manix anymore as a justification for the switch he doesn't really drop them either. Feels like scum parking their vote off-wagons where it won't gather as much attention and leaving their options open for later. I wasn't big on the Refa case last night because I didn't think the deal eclipse brought up was alignment indicative but now I'd like to see a Refa update. SB being more aggressive than usual is more likely to make him town that's on a roll after his recent games than scum not caring where their vote goes. SB!scum tends to have a harder time making up cases on townies so I don't think his reads would flow as genuinely as they have so far, nor do I think he would've been switching around so much. Nothing feels knee-jerky enough to come from scum!SB and I've found myself agreeing with several of his reads so far so I don't really want to lynch him D1 unless something exceptional happens at deadline or w/e. Atm I'd go j00 >> Refa > rest > SB Kaoz an Scarlet would go somewhere in between Refa and the rest but I'm leaving them out until I see more from them. My read on Kaoz in particular is a clusterfuck of meta speculation and I doubt anybody wants to read me go into detail on that atm. I'd like to hear people's opinions on j00 and Refa. Also Kaoz's read on Paperblade because I've confirmed several times that I can't read Paper worth crap. Cut by Scarlet posts, gotta get lunch right now before my parents get mad so putting this out

I didn't think much of j00'sposts at first glance. Felt irked that he justified a jokevote since it's a relatively common move by scum trying to avoid attention by moving their vote around, but shrugged it off because I figured I was just being biased due to the vote being on me. bedtimes

I was getting ready for bed and you guys suddenly start walling @Conq you mention Scarlet, but what about j00? they're both very similar wrt calling out the reaction test so why mention one and not the other? @Manix I don't think it qualifies as mudslinging here though? specially when Refa was pushing Eclipse so openly by spamposting about it and asking Paperblade and whatnot, as opposed to the subtle ways I've seen people do it when they're scum. I'm getting a bit of a headache by forcing myself to process everything right now. Despite having a lot of time this weekend I've had a bit of a shitty week at uni and I'm missing sleep so I'll just call it a day. I get the feeling that I've forgotten to mention some stuff so I'll go through my notes tomorrow morning.

This was mostly the feeling that I was getting after seeing the absolute lack of anything from eclipse!scum in ITTD, but was worried about the overreaction to Refa. I don't agree that the Refa case is good though. He managed to get a reaction out of eclipse just fine without throwing his vote her way, and I don't see why analyzing/pushing a secondary suspect while voting your top scumspect necessarily amounts to being scum. I could see mudflinging accusations being telling when a player is attempting to shove suspicion onto somebody while avoiding their wagon (see: scorri last game with both the Prims wagon ED1 and my wagon lateD1) but this doesn't look like it's the case. If scum!Refa wanted to avoid beef with Eclipse I doubt he would've started pushing her in the first place. It just feels like the same kind of playstyle difference as when BBM accused me of parking on Shinori while I was trying to test Prims.

I apologize if I was hurtful, but I can either drop meta and be inherently suspicious of an OMGUS and be dumb by not evaluating things in their context or I can at least look through some past games briefly to get a general idea of what it actually means in relation to the player. Saying "meta is bad and you shouldn't be using it" is a popular thing to say and it will be right if cases are made entirely on meta, but you guys use it either consciously or unconsciously all the time when figuring out whether some universal tells are going to be meaningful in telling somebody's alignment, and of course I'm going to want to check it myself.

@Anybody No offense meant, but is Clipsey generally reactionary like this as town? could I get a link to a game with eclipse!scum that isn't ITTD?

crap I cut things off of that post along with my notes Kaoz also pings me somewhat, his only post is laying low and his questioning of Paper and me feels like fluff. 1) If I have a scumread on somebody I'm not going to keep myself from voting them just because they're away, having my vote there until I find something better isn't going to prevent me from looking into other people and switching my vote if I want to pressure somebody or think someone else is more likely to be scum. 2) he could've answered for himself by just going back and looking at what all had happened by the time I posted (only BBM/SB/Manix had participated out of RVS). The only thing I didn't explain was SB being null and discussing nullreads is a waste of time unless it's upon request. Overall lines of questioning that I don't really see going anywhere wrt finding scum. I want Kaoz be more vocal about his reads starting now, even if it means reassessing them later if he changes his mind, I want to see thought processes and not just token questioning.

Reasoning on BBM. May require reading back on posts #54 to #66. wrt SB I’m not very worried about him because I think I get good reads on him as the game goes on, his reasons for voting Manix and I have been alright even if I don't agree with either. I don't have anything big but there's some particular people that bugged me. j00's #71 irks me pretty badly. He brings up "reaction tests are bad" as a universal thing that always makes people scum (do you think Prims is scum when he fakeclaims cops/vigs etc for reaction tests?) and explains why reaction tests in general are scummy but doesn't make an attempt to apply it to the current context or explain why the way I went about it is scummy. It feels like a repeat of Kay last game abusing the "self-meta is bad" universal tell to justify a vote without doing anything with it. ##Unvote ##Vote: j00 Scarlet is also guilty of the same somewhat, but his wording kind of implied a questioning of my motives? doesn't read like the same "lol you reaction tested that's scummy". I haven't fully processed stuff on page 5 yet and still have a few other things to comment on, I'll post again in a bit

Wow like zero people understood my BBM case, go me.

Post where I voted Paperblade was initially a jokevote, then figured I could turn it into a reaction test if I called it serious and he thought SB was actually a dayvig. SB posted later like "wtf" which clearly gave away that he wasn't, but I was hoping to hint at SB that it was a test and drag it out to see if Paper came back and reacted to it. The code I put out after trying to nudge him into pretending to be a dayvig reads "TEST" after transforming codons into aminoacids. Not likely to get any reactions now that SB continues to not go along with the dayvig thing so w/e. This was dumb and far fetched in retrospect and I'll probably drop trying to reaction tests, I'm bad at them and I don't want a repeat of last game. Somewhat dislike BBM. The point he brings up about Manix's aftervote-post being fluff is alright, but the way he followed it up after Manix explained feels like he's just trying too hard to stick to the vote Manix's reason for voting Conq in his first vote post was just to ED1 build wagons so ??? Then there's Manix's response to ED1 votes being switching from one vote-for-the-sake-of-wagon to another vote-for-the-sake-of-wagon which is also bugging me. @BBM/Manix You should both post more things on other players when you're back around. I don't want Manix-BBM back-and-forths to be the only thing you guys post. ##Unvote ##Vote: BBM I'll be around but not posting much to avoid muddling up the thread since I don't really have any good tells atm.

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