massively
underestimating--and I do mean MASSIVELY underestimating--the sheer natural, inherent advantage scum hold in a game just by having the abilities scum naturally do.In meatworld games, scum are ridiculously easy to spot--even the players with the absolute best poker faces have tells which become easy to spot, not even keeping in mind that said players can, in a live environment, easily slip up when put on the spot. In a live, real-time environment, where you can actually see each other, the mafia are under a lot of pressure, so the game is hard on them.
In most mafia cultures, the game is placed on an accelerated time scale. On EpicMafia for instance, there's still the live, real-time environment, and so, scum are forced to think on the spot, make split-second decisions, and make posts rapidly. That is still an environment which is hard for scum, because if they make an incorrect move, they're dead, and potentially their whole faction will follow.
In games using a Blitz timeframe, where days are 24-72 hours long and nights are 24-48 hours long, the scum have it
slightly
easier, but are still going to face pressure: they only get one or two chances per day phase to post. That means that by the time they are online to post, they may have an insurmountable wagon formed on them. Or, an insurmountable wagon on town...and their interactions in regard to said insurmountable wagon (regardless of the wagonee's alignment) exposes them for future day phases.In other words, mafia still must make split-second decisions, which face real consequences.
...On mafiascum, however...the mafia have the edge. For a start, they have the natural advantage of distance that computers, that online playing, provides: you cannot see, you cannot hear, the mafia. This is true of all online mafia, of course. And is one reason why mafia in the above games still win a decent amount of times--you can only guess at the tone behind a post. You can only guess at the emotions a player is experiencing. You can only guess what they are saying means. So the natural psychology is much harder to pick up on. (I mean, I've gotten good at it, but most players, especially those new to the game, haven't a clue how to.)
Then, and this is the MOST deadly part, you add in the benefit of time. Mafiascum is one of the ONLY sites in existence where the days last for weeks--as a result, the scum can take their time crafting each and every post they make, fine-tailoring it to remove the mistakes they would make in a faster-paced environment. They have time to scrutinize the thread, picking up on PR tells. They have time to scrutinize the game and figure out what NOT to say. They have time to figure out what they need to say in order to not stick out.
They have time to manipulate their tone. They have time to prepare each and every post of theirs to perfection. They have time. Time is their weapon. Not the town's. Time, this extended time, allows for them to fine-craft scenarios in which they don't need to do much of anything. They don't need to scumhunt. They are allowed to simply sit back and let time make towns forget about them.
This is particularly deadly when paired with the other natural advantage scum have: as the informed minority, the scum have the advantage of information. Players MASSIVELY underestimate just how fucking important this advantage is. A scumteam knows who is town and who is scum. A scumteam, knowing their own PRs, knows what claims from the town are true or not, and also knows as a result what to expect. A scumteam, knowing what they know about the game, has an idea of the setup before the town could ever possibly hope to know. A scumteam, knowing who the other scum are, and working as a team, can coordinate what to do: with the benefit of daytalk, they know exactly how and when they can create a fabricated interaction between one another which looks organic. Knowing who the scum are, and by paying attention to timing, they know exactly when to bus one another and have it look good.
And, knowing who the scum are, they know exactly who and when
not
to bus, and can let the town eat each other alive simply by not doing so. (Most scum lynches, we're talking like 9/10 here, have at least one scumbuddy bussing, because it's virtually impossible to get a lynch through on scum and have it be all town. It's definitely probable to find both scum on a scum wagon even, especially on a D1 scum lynch, because lynching scum when the town is at full divisive force and lacks information from roles and lacks information from flips is nearly impossible unless the scum deliberately let them do so.)Are those advantages perfect? Fuck no, you need to learn how to use them.
Are those advantages foolproof? Fuck no, they'll always have gaps--but you need time and experience to learn how to see, to find, them.
And most players in Normals are newbies to mafiascum. Maybe they have experience elsewhere. Most probably do, in fact. Yet the vast majority of them are inexperienced at understanding these natural tools scum hold. So telling town to get better is literally impossible. How do you explain to the town all of these facts at once? How do you teach them that scum hold this powerful advantage, and that they basically need scum in order to lynch scum?
Furthermore. How do you warn them that every player needs to be playing in top-form in order to thwart the scum's fundamental weapon? The scum hold a nightkill--the reason so many mountainous games tip towards scum is that the moment scum kill off the most competent town players, the players remaining lack coherency and eat each other up. Attempts have been made to stack the town up to counter this...yet inherent in that was a flaw, because stacking a playerlist with good players created a
scumteam
which was competent as well so the competent scumteam killed the most competent town and the remaining town while certainly competent in their own right were unable to gain coherency and lynched each other to death.And then there's the basic problem: the game is not static. It evolves. Even if you are experienced enough to know these things! The scum grow at the same rate a town does. So as the town catches onto the scum's old tricks, the scum invent new tricks. And thus, the town players who fought so hard to become competent in doing a particular style of analysis are forced to start over from scratch when time and time again their older style proves fruitless because the scum changed their game.
So it ABSOLUTELY is hard, no, absolutely is impossible, to "just get better". The town holds so many weaknesses in a game. They know none of the scum. They do not know who their allies are. They are under fire, and most town players have egos. It's almost impossible to see all these players attacking you and think, "maybe I've done something wrong". And if you analyze yourself and conclude with careful thought, "no, I'm pretty sure I'm not at fault here", it's nearly impossible to sort out the nature of the attacks on you: who is town that is misguided? Who is scum making an argument they know to be town? The two aren't identical, sure, but discerning which is which is incredibly difficult. And even if you DO manage that! Even if you correctly finger the scum attacking you...then you have to deal with accusations of OMGUS, and must explain how your attack is not OMGUS, which most players find hard to accept because most players don't understand what OMGUS actually means anymore.
Even if you don't have to deal with attacks. You have to face the fact that your reads are, statistically speaking, more likely to be wrong than right. Most players have trouble coping with this. (Especially if they've got a strong ego.) Most town players don't understand that they need to carefully consider the odds.
Even if all of this is addressed! Most town players don't know how to keep their focus. They get distracted. They think focus = tunneling. So, either they tunnel thinking that it's synonymous with staying on target, or they refuse to stay on target because they want to avoid tunneling. When in truth, both are wrong because focus is not synonymous with tunneling; they are two different concepts entirely. Most players can't grasp that. They will have something, and then lock onto that something in ignorance of everything else (tunneling), or they will have something, but discard it in favor of the newest something (distractions).
But let's say. For the sake of argument. You get a player. They know how to make themselves look town. They know what to focus on. They know how to avoid confirmation bias. Then they need to convince others! And then! Then they need to consistently be right, and even the few players who fall into this category cannot be right 100% of the time.
And even if they were! Even if you get this magical, mythical figure of a town player. Who is always town. Who is always right. Who always knows what to look at. Who is able to convince others that they are right.
...Well that's one player, easily removed via nightkill, out of ten.
And once they are gone, their voice is lost. They are unable to give updates off of new information. So the town moves on, and will now lack the guidance of their legendary leader. So the town will make mistakes, because this mythical player was their best player, and now their best player is gone so all the town's play from that point onward is going to be inferior to their play prior to that player's death.
If it's that hard to get ONE player who fits the golden standard...and the removal of that player is easy...
...Well, just think about how hard it is to get TEN of them. Or for that matter, five! (Five would be enough.)
It's quite literally impossible.
Thus, there will never be a town game where just "getting better at the game" will allow the town to win.
Power roles aren't a crutch.
Power roles aren't there because we're weaker than what we could be.
Power roles are there because we're (almost) as good as we can be,
and our best isn't good enough
.So power roles serve as a countermeasure to the scum's inherent advantage in the game. They should not be relied upon, yes, that is true. They are, however, a necessity, to give some sort of method for the town to counter the scum with anything resembling effectiveness.
The response of "lol" serves largely to be demeaning to the person we are loling at, and because most members of mafiascum do this to others, the result is that we appear "above them"...aka, elitist.)