Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ganelon
yes, but consistently lurking when town is fighting each other doesn't make you a good/skilled player lol. any fool could win in that situation
Not necessarily. "Wagonomics" are pretty useful, and a big TvT chaos can eventually lead to a game solved status, where everyone is confirmed town or close to it, or a "mechanically locked status", where the number of lynch candidates, by PoE confirmation of other towns, is < the number of kills scum could get.
There ARE times where it can be beneficial to be underground, and to let town destroy itself a bit. However, I believe it should not last more than a day.
Plus, I personally never use lurking as a strategy, as I prefer to have an influence on the game directly, to debate, etc., because it's why I love this game lol.
My point is that lurking CAN be used and has benefits. Used = Can be good, ABused = bad.
Of course, inactivity is a no-no, and should NEVER be used as a strategy, because it is not one; it only hurts your team.
Note that this point of view applies only to "standard" roles, which means that jesters/ghosts/executioners/survivors could want to lurk and it could lead to interesting things. These roles are however not usually fun to play with, and the fact that lurking is interesting for them is part of the problem.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
I haven’t seen an argument strong enough to take away from my viewpoint. So I’m considering it a case closed for me. Lurking is a tool that can be utilized by high skill players.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ganelon
yes, but consistently lurking when town is fighting each other doesn't make you a good/skilled player lol. any fool could win in that situation
I agree. What is the point of playing Mafia if you're going to pretend to be inactive (or actually be inactive). Active lurking should be modkilled or replaced, sucks the fun out of games. Doesnt matter if you can win by doing it if everyone else suffers.
Only time lurking should be tolerated is if the player is not confident enough to speak in day chat as their role.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cryptonic
I agree. What is the point of playing Mafia if you're going to pretend to be inactive (or actually be inactive). Active lurking should be modkilled or replaced, sucks the fun out of games. Doesnt matter if you can win by doing it if everyone else suffers.
Only time lurking should be tolerated is if the player is not confident enough to speak in day chat as their role.
That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Damus_Graves
That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?
He didn't say you must be active 'at every opportunity of the game' though
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gandalfr
He didn't say you must be active 'at every opportunity of the game' though
If you do not post when you have the opportunity to look through the thread it is Lurking.
Lurking is modkillable offense.
Thus my question stand s
Unless I am misunderstanding. Because that could be an issue
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Damus_Graves
That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?
Because Mafia is a social game. The more everyone participates, the more fun it is.
Ok if you were playing in a Mafia tournament, or someone was gonna murder you if you lose.... and lurking woild get you the win... yes, go ahead and lurk. But majority of us play Mafia to have fun! So, why kill the fun part of the game solely so you can win??? When it's still 100% possible to be active AND win?? I dont see the purpose tbh.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cryptonic
Because Mafia is a social game. The more everyone participates, the more fun it is.
Ok if you were playing in a Mafia tournament, or someone was gonna murder you if you lose.... and lurking woild get you the win... yes, go ahead and lurk. But majority of us play Mafia to have fun! So, why kill the fun part of the game solely so you can win??? When it's still 100% possible to be active AND win?? I dont see the purpose tbh.
Clutching out a game through the utilization of each tool in your kit is a method of fun. Using your skill set to manipulate a player into revealing their secrets is a method of fun. Having an array of styles that each have differing levels of activity is a method of fun.
It feels like you are saying that lurking is anti fun and abborhant to the game due to its social nature. But I disagree because part of the nature of this game is the subterfuge and that alone demands you be silent at the appropriate times of the game. Being silent translates directly into lurking.
Yayap utilizes Lurking in his own fashion and still has fun; and for me is fun to play against him even though in the proper games he is one of the more inactive Individuals in those games. An individual who lurks. He doesn’t have to be as active as I am to be having fun and I don’t need his activity levels to collaborate with mine to have fun either.
Inactivity is the true cancer here. That kills the fun wouldn’t you agree? I’m putting forth the disposition that lurking is not the same as inactivity. Do you disagree with that statement or do you believe that lurking is causation of inacitivty? Or do you just hate notion of lurking on the principle?
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Idk maybe I am biased. I have only actively lurked once, and I was disguiser who was waiting for a window to post in so I could match timezones. I hated every minute of it lol. And then I got lynched before I could even get to that window, leaves a bad taste.
I just dont ever see the benefit to actively lurk. The best position to be in any game is Town Leader. No one risks lynching or NKing the town leader without good reason. I dont think you can get into the position of town leader while lurking.
Plus why would you subject yourself to meta like that? When someone sees you lurking, they try to figure out why you're doing so in that game. Especially players here who have stated they would lurk if it was the proper strategy. I'd rather try to play every game the same regardless of my role or alignment, which is Citizen mindset.
Idk I think if you active lurk, you are probably just afraid. Stop hiding and start fighting lmao
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Damus_Graves
That is a strong opinion. Please tell me why I have to be active at every opportunity of the game to satisfy other peoples overall enjoyment?
Twisting crypt's words -vote Damus_Graves
Seriously... Noone is saying you should be active as soon as you can be. But leaving for more than a day intentionally shouldn't be tolerated. Freedom of play must not encroach on freedom of other's play. Inactive games are not fun, and it is each player's right to have a fun game.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
There's something that wasn't mentioned, though. Inactivity favors lurking, and vice versa. That causes the meta's corruption, and it makes games less fun. Yes, using everything you can in order to win is a way to have fun, but not for everyone, and not at the cost of the greatest majority of other players.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
I'll wait till Auckmids FM is over before sharing my thoughts.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Imo there's active lurking with a demand and some form of pressure towards others preceding, and there's passive lurking where the lurker is the one being (or just feeling) pressured and uses it as a way of escape. First one is good, second one is bad.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
This also means that at all times a minimum of half the players in a game can not be in a position where lurking is the right way to move forward for them.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Tho that's basically what Damus and MM already said I guess
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
I assume the distinction between lurking and inactivity is that lurking is an exceptional choice made not to post during a fixed interval while inactivity refers to a general approach of not talking. Grey areas between the two aside, I'm sure we all agree inactivity is very bad.
That said, outside of specific early-day 1 strategies, lurking is something I also rarely see executed well in practice, even if I can see the theoretical justifications on paper. For the record, giving a particular player the silent treatment, posting slowly and carefully or keeping quiet for an hour to watch an argument play out does not fall under lurking in my eyes, it falls under "repressing the urge to talk about everything to everyone at all times". Real lurking, where someone intentionally goes quiet for almost 24 hours, say, or intentionally goes quiet during a critical moment like a chinese fire drill, is not something I see executed well.
I've seen people lurk "defensively" - lurk through part of LYLO / MYLO, try to lurk their train to death, exc. Obviously, it almost never works out. People are stubborn and if you start lurking at that critical moment they'll assume they've "caught you" and come down even harder. I've heard people give a range of explanations, some of them really fancy sounding, but in the end they almost always still get lynched in practice lol. If you're on the block, being as real as possible is always the best idea imo.
I think a lot of people who do that sort of thing suffer from a sort of stage fright where, under high-stakes situations, their mind goes totally blank and they lose the ability to produce profound thoughts, and they don't ever fully own up to it because they're scared they're revealing a big weakness to be exploited in future games. Making people like that feel bad is dumb and what the community used to do. But letting them think their play is fine is also not right imo.
I'm not convinced someone can successfully lurk aggressively, even theoretically. Obviously not responding to someone while you continue to talk to others can be very effective, but just generally lurking outside of some early-game WIFOM strategy seems like it can only diminish your credibility. Making yourself LHF in the early-game is already playing with fire, and I've seen good players destroy themselves doing so. So indulging in that kind of risk by lurking on later days without a very good reward is absurdly reckless.
The closest thing I saw to this working was when a player refused to talk about nothing but a certain player, then made a point of going silent when people didn't want to talk about that player... it did sort of force people to continue talking about it, but then he got lynched because his strategy "felt manipulative" :P.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
I fundamentally disagree that the common player is responsible for the overall satisfaction of the entirety of those playing the same game. Each player should be in charge of ensuring they are following a previously set upon rules that govern the overall expectation of conduct and manage their own toolkit accordingly to ensure they enjoy the game as it unfolds. There shouldn’t be unwritten rules that are expected to be followed such as being active or being friendly or refraining from angleshooting.
In terms of lurking the host needs to set forth an expectation of their players that are reasonably attainable. In my own mind; a 48 hour dayphase is plenty enough time for players to make 20 relevant posts and to be considered active as such. If that player chooses to lurk after meeting the base requirement then I believe it is that players right to do so
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
I absolutely hate lurking. Calling not playing a 'strategy' is offensive to me.
It should be read as a very disrespectful move to the other players in the game. In essence its a way to avoid interactions which is all playing is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cryptonic
R u playing to win, or r u playing 4 fun u lil shit
I feel like this sums up the discussion in a few words. It can help you win but you cant take pride in that win and it ruins the fun for other players.
To Damus' contention I do agree that low posting/interaction can be a positive play for an experienced player but I would not call it lurking. I particularly remember playing a FM with Yayap where he was a PR and did very strong scum hunting while not drawing any attention to himself. Whenever I poked him for inactivity he had strong original thoughts to contribute and pegged a player for their dissociated speech as scum.
-But-
In that situation he was playing really hard. He was not kicking his feet up to float to the late game or using other players lack of good play and calling it a good play on his part.
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Helz again.
I don’t have anything I can immeditely think of to counteract that. It seems to establish lurking as a separate definition from the method I had been arguing for it
Re: Lurking : Strategy & Mistakes
Ah the classic resolution to a mafia argument -
Both sides realize they fundamentally agree but were simply misunderstanding what the other was talking about