Town Meta Perspective 2020

[Hoopla]

the reason hyperposting looks so town, is because few people are capable of playing scum to that same level of intensity. the problem is too much of the player pool willing to obvtown, and do things they aren't able to replicate as scum (ie; some versions of hyperposting, emotionality, overly transparent thought processes). this in turn creates a strong town correlation with certain behaviours and makes it easier to townhunt and PoE the game within the lurkers/mid-level posters.

the onus is on the individual to take pride in their scumgame and play it as close to their towngame. you're only half a mafia player if you're not willing to burn your town meta (or at the very least curtail behaviours as town you can't replicate as scum). i find it hard to respect players who only have a town game but phone it in when scum.

[Hoopla]

from an enjoyment perspective i find hyperposting selfish and unfun. a handful of players bloating the thread will put the bottom third of posters into permanent catch-up mode, and those that have fallen behind are essentially locked out from having dialogues in the moment until they've caught up. seems like such gamestates are more likely to lead to replacements too, which only further exacerbates the discrepancy in posting frequencies.

i can see why it's an advantage to the individual who hyperposts, though. control of the narrative and being the aggressor (rather than constantly reacting/defending yourself) is a much more proactive position that generally prevents you getting eliminated.

but it's just not fun.

and as a seasonal player, a fun game with a good balance of voices is more important to me now, as opposed to the cutthroat/squeeze every drop of EV from every interaction type games.

[Hoopla]

I think hoopla was mostly objecting to people who don't try as hard as scum or sacrifice their scumgame intentionally so they can appear obvtown as town. You play scum differently from town for strategic reasons, and you can argue in what ways that is/isn't effective, but at least you make an effort to get townreads and win games as scum.

i mean, you'll never be able to

truly

replicate your town game as scum without dropping to the lowest common denominator of both alignments. a theoretically balanced unreadable player would probably be a lurker who votes randomly. so, i'm not advocating for a complete mirroring of one's town game. as scum, you have a different win condition, and to win you have to make (or promote) enough -EV actions for the town throughout the game. that will naturally create an imbalance between your town and scum games if you're a halfway decent town player.

but if you're noticing there are things you do as town every game that you never do as scum, it's worth reconsidering whether you're comfortable with that asymmetry, because after a while, savvy players will pick up on that, and it will completely tank your scumgame.

the unfiltered, stream-of-conscious, transparent hyperposting seems the hardest style to replicate as scum. from what i've seen, many of these players you can simply pick off on D3 or D4 once the game becomes more technical/PoE-heavy, as they slow down as scum, and need to think more. reading these players based on sustained energy levels seems to be most telling.

there's no doubt that posting style gives you a boost as town, as you're mostly un-elimable and get to call the shots early. but often it gets you NK'ed early as town (so you have less say in the game), and probably tanks your scumgame in the long run. even discounting the fun angle, it just seems sub-optimal to me.

[Hoopla]

a theoretically balanced unreadable player would probably be a lurker who votes randomly.

i'm glad we have concluded not_mafia is the perfect player

^did chuckle;)