If Dylan can provide any instance of me bussing as scum beyond that game, I will be astounded.
I probably can't, just because I'm not going back and looking at your scum games to find out. I don't think this is the kind of play that anyone really has a meta for, it's just something that plays out naturally. Like I don't think scum!you said, "Hey, I'm going to [insert the narrative I laid out above here]." I think it's more likely you simply made an early decision to include EFHW in your scum reads but didn't plan on hard busing the whole game, and the game flow largely left you alone and let you maintain that stance without any real support or pushback on you until now.
Huh, I disagree about not having meta for bus-related play, because I think more risk-averse people (which I'd class Didds as, since she feels like me in that respect) are less likely to be comfortable with it, and less likely than not-risk-averse players to do it aggressively.
How much of the distrust of meta is just because you don't have time to invest in looking for the old scum games, and how much is genuinely that you just disagree on whether it's something people do quite habitually? Do you believe my conclusion that Joth is really unlikely to be non-traitor scum based on the fact that mcmc voted for him hard in D1, in spite of the fact that in all the other recent scum-games I could find, mcmc really never seemed to bus?
Oh, meta definitely affects people's likelihood of busing. And I clearly think that, given how much mcmc vs joth has colored my read of joth since mcmc flipped. However, and this is something I think I've either tried to distinguish already or I've just been thinking about, there is a difference between a soft bus and a hard bus. I think a hard bus like what mcmc did to joth D1 is more affected by a player's meta/playstyle/risk-aversion, because it is a much stronger statement that is more likely to be used as evidence. A soft bus, like including your partner as a scum read is much easier to do, and is something everyone should do at times (not everytime) just as a basic skill to mask your alignment.
So I think where our disagreement has come from, Space, is that my memory was that Didds had done mostly soft busing, and the moments they hard bused were those that there was no real pressure on EFHW already, and they didn't stay there long enough to build pressure. I guess I could be wrong about that, which would push me more towards Joth/EFHW rather than Didds, but I think it's totally possible (if not probable) that EFHW started out with a soft bus, and as the game went it was just natural and easy given game flow to keep that up and increasingly add to the bus beyond what they would normally be comfortable doing.
Also, I think every good mafia player (including Didds here, because I genuinely think so) would be willing to bus in the right circumstances, because if you never do, it makes it a lot harder for your partners in late game PoE if you flip scum in the mid to late game. So even if a person normally doesn't, I'll always consider that they might. And as I type this, I realize I was leaning into mcmc's meta so much that I really need to read joth again apart from that. Ok, before the deadline, I will iso EFHW and joth myself. I will probably not post all my thoughts, but I will share my final opinions on both before voting.
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Topic: M134: Conference Call Mafia V 2.0 - Game Over - Skum Wins! (Read 118244 times)