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Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 8:08 am
by DemonicKraken
No.

Might as well ask others opinion on this. But no. You could end up revealing important roles, and if you get lucky, thats hardly fair for the mafia.

And the worst part is, its everywhere. It makes games not even fun anymore. TOS is supposed to be a game of playing mind games and figuring out claims. Not a game where you mindlessly vote people up so they give role.

disclaimer: this was mostly a vent thread but srsly vfr is somewhat broken

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 8:19 am
by polypies73
Vfr is good.
Just read town of salem Guide for competitive players.
I’m not even going to try to get into an arguement or anything from now.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 8:50 am
by JoltikIsDubby
Yeah, I don't like VFR either, but it's good for town because it can help narrow down the rolelist/claims, which is the primary reason it's used in the first place. I appreciate you looking at the flaws of VFR, but you can't forget there are some positives as well. Saying there is nothing good about VFR is a huge stretch.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 8:56 am
by DemonicKraken
JoltikIsDubby wrote:Yeah, I don't like VFR either, but it's good for town because it can help narrow down the rolelist/claims, which is the primary reason it's used in the first place. I appreciate you looking at the flaws of VFR, but you can't forget there are some positives as well. Saying there is nothing good about VFR is a huge stretch.


Yes, but its not even fair for evils if VFR. Town does a whole bunch of VFR, and town almost automatically wins. Its not fair.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 9:17 am
by Shilster
Then suggest a change, like how Town should only have 2 trials a day, instead of just complaining.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 9:26 am
by DemonicKraken
Shilster wrote:Then suggest a change, like how Town should only have 2 trials a day, instead of just complaining.

See, thats the worst part. Theres no real, good solution. VFR is a pain and unfair, but there's no solution. This was mostly a vent thread.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 9:34 am
by Shilster
DemonicKraken wrote:
Shilster wrote:Then suggest a change, like how Town should only have 2 trials a day, instead of just complaining.

See, thats the worst part. Theres no real, good solution. VFR is a pain and unfair, but there's no solution. This was mostly a vent thread.

A good strategy is not unfair.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 10:01 am
by DemonicKraken
Shilster wrote:
DemonicKraken wrote:
Shilster wrote:Then suggest a change, like how Town should only have 2 trials a day, instead of just complaining.

See, thats the worst part. Theres no real, good solution. VFR is a pain and unfair, but there's no solution. This was mostly a vent thread.

A good strategy is not unfair.

This one kinda is. It almost always ends up with an automatic town win, in my experience. Mafia/NK/NE should have a chance.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 10:55 am
by JoltikIsDubby
DemonicKraken wrote:
Shilster wrote:Then suggest a change, like how Town should only have 2 trials a day, instead of just complaining.

See, thats the worst part. Theres no real, good solution. VFR is a pain and unfair, but there's no solution. This was mostly a vent thread.

But maybe you should at least try to consider other peoples' solutions before dismissing them? I think town having only 2 trials a day would certainly be more helpful, but you're just like "nah there's no solution and there never will be".

No solution is going to be perfect, but they can be made to improve the situation.


DemonicKraken wrote:
JoltikIsDubby wrote:Yeah, I don't like VFR either, but it's good for town because it can help narrow down the rolelist/claims, which is the primary reason it's used in the first place. I appreciate you looking at the flaws of VFR, but you can't forget there are some positives as well. Saying there is nothing good about VFR is a huge stretch.


Yes, but its not even fair for evils if VFR. Town does a whole bunch of VFR, and town almost automatically wins. Its not fair.

But you're suggesting it's never good, according to the title of the thread. It is absolutely good (but not mandatory) for town.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:05 am
by DemonicKraken
JoltikIsDubby wrote:
DemonicKraken wrote:
Shilster wrote:Then suggest a change, like how Town should only have 2 trials a day, instead of just complaining.

See, thats the worst part. Theres no real, good solution. VFR is a pain and unfair, but there's no solution. This was mostly a vent thread.

But maybe you should at least try to consider other peoples' solutions before dismissing them? I think town having only 2 trials a day would certainly be more helpful, but you're just like "nah there's no solution and there never will be".

No solution is going to be perfect, but they can be made to improve the situation.


DemonicKraken wrote:
JoltikIsDubby wrote:Yeah, I don't like VFR either, but it's good for town because it can help narrow down the rolelist/claims, which is the primary reason it's used in the first place. I appreciate you looking at the flaws of VFR, but you can't forget there are some positives as well. Saying there is nothing good about VFR is a huge stretch.


Yes, but its not even fair for evils if VFR. Town does a whole bunch of VFR, and town almost automatically wins. Its not fair.

But you're suggesting it's never good, according to the title of the thread. It is absolutely good (but not mandatory) for town.

I changed the title.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 6:30 pm
by JoltikIsDubby
DemonicKraken wrote:
JoltikIsDubby wrote:
DemonicKraken wrote:
Shilster wrote:Then suggest a change, like how Town should only have 2 trials a day, instead of just complaining.

See, thats the worst part. Theres no real, good solution. VFR is a pain and unfair, but there's no solution. This was mostly a vent thread.

But maybe you should at least try to consider other peoples' solutions before dismissing them? I think town having only 2 trials a day would certainly be more helpful, but you're just like "nah there's no solution and there never will be".

No solution is going to be perfect, but they can be made to improve the situation.


DemonicKraken wrote:
JoltikIsDubby wrote:Yeah, I don't like VFR either, but it's good for town because it can help narrow down the rolelist/claims, which is the primary reason it's used in the first place. I appreciate you looking at the flaws of VFR, but you can't forget there are some positives as well. Saying there is nothing good about VFR is a huge stretch.


Yes, but its not even fair for evils if VFR. Town does a whole bunch of VFR, and town almost automatically wins. Its not fair.

But you're suggesting it's never good, according to the title of the thread. It is absolutely good (but not mandatory) for town.

I changed the title.

VFR was never designed to be fair. It was made to be a town-sided only strategy.

So to answer your question, no.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:40 pm
by Mathelete
VFR can be a nice way for exe to get a win.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:58 pm
by polypies73
Oh VFR isn't fair, it was designed to help town.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:06 pm
by Cut
Ranked is a game that revolves around winning.
VFR gives off the illusion that it increases winrates.

You can do the math here, it makes complete sense for a town to employ a strategy like this if they want to win, which is ultimately what ranked is all about.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 12:29 pm
by JoltikIsDubby
Cut wrote:Ranked is a game that revolves around winning.
VFR gives off the illusion that it increases winrates.

You can do the math here, it makes complete sense for a town to employ a strategy like this if they want to win, which is ultimately what ranked is all about.

I can vouch for this. Players in Ranked nowadays only care about elo, and as Town, they will likely support this strategy, for it is entirely town-sided with very few benefits towards mafia.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:44 am
by Chancell0r
A common misconception is that VFR only helps Town. This is not true.

VFR can easily help evils. Ironically, low elo/new players won't like VFR "because it reveals important roles" (see the OP of this post).

VFR can be effective for town by reducing claim space for evils, forcing evils to claim early (which is always bad for evils) and getting information on voting patterns of specific players.

VFR can be effective for mafia by making townies look suspicious. If a confident mafia claims Investigator day 2, and then during VFR 3 townies slowly claim some TI, they will look more suspicious than the original mafia member who claimed investigator. If one of the suspicious TI claims are hanged (and are town), the focus doesn't switch immediately to the mafia who claimed TI, but to the other real TI townies because they claimed more slowly.

So who does VFR really benefit?

It's quite simple really, it benefits the better players. If you're town and a good scumreader, you should be able to read voting patterns and claims/how long it took someone to claim to figure out if someone is evil. A lot of time in ranked (esp high elo) there can be 3+ accusations day 2. People accusing each other left and right. Your job as a townie is to hang the person who will give the most information. For example, if 2 people are accusing 1 person, if you hang that 1 person and they are town, you expose 2 evils. From the votes you should be able to get another 1 or 2 evils.

If the evil plays well, they will make themselves look town, mislynch townie (not in a 1 for 1), conflict with fellow evils if necessary, get the right kills etc.

The onus is always on the evils to make the most out of VFR. If neither town or evils are really trying during VFR, normally town will win. This isn't saying it benefits Town mostly, it just means if no-one is playing well as evil, you can expect town to win (this should be the case for all Mafia type games IMO, the onus is always on the evil to deceive rather than the good guys to spot liars).

A strategy that benefits town more than VFR is the Day 1 Jailor claim meta. This is really difficult for evils because it limits the claimspace of a lot of roles unless they pull off some fancy RM visiting jailor trick. Plus the Jailor is p much literally unkillable N1. A lot of the very best players in the game have realised this and therefore don't participate in the meta (if you always play optimal as town, i.e. taking part of the d1 meta, your town winrate will be ~75%, but your evil winrate will be very bad because you are expected to play optimally as town. However, if you don't play optimally as town (i.e. visit someone else than jailor n1 lookout), you give yourself the possibility of doing this when you are evil, therefore increasing evil winrate. Town winrate is more important than evil winrate because you get Town more than evil and tbh there's not a massive difference in elo from winning as town/evil. So you'd have to make sure your drop in town winrate is less than half of the increase in your evil winrate.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 3:58 pm
by Tharok
It sounds to me like a "common misconception" is that VFR skews the winrate in towns favor. This is simply not the case. VFR can very easily end up costing the town huge players that they desperately need.

Re: Is VFR ever good?

PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 7:22 pm
by TofuDaDwagon
DemonicKraken wrote:
JoltikIsDubby wrote:Yeah, I don't like VFR either, but it's good for town because it can help narrow down the rolelist/claims, which is the primary reason it's used in the first place. I appreciate you looking at the flaws of VFR, but you can't forget there are some positives as well. Saying there is nothing good about VFR is a huge stretch.


Yes, but its not even fair for evils if VFR. Town does a whole bunch of VFR, and town almost automatically wins. Its not fair.



There is a very large difference of opinion between here and the original post. If town almost automatically wins with vfr, then town should always vfr and vfr is of great use to the town. Personally, I don't think the town always wins with vfr. When I am evil and "confirmed" as a town, I will always encourage vfrs to kill off town people. I've definitely won games when the town either lynched a key town on accident doing a random vfr and didn't believe the claimed role (poor bodyguards!), but evil can definitely profit from getting to know extra town roles from inno'd trials.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 8:33 pm
by strenuus
It's easy to win as non-town with VFR. You just need to get better.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 8:18 am
by BasicFourLife
There are many solutions how to fix VFR and D1 Jailor meta, with certain changes.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:50 am
by DestructionII
VFR is IMO, a bad strategy. It forces important town roles to reveal their potential valuable role to evil roles and makes the evil roles aware of who you are.

One time I was a Mayor in one game and someone VFR'd me so the other people in the game conformed and voted me up. I had to reveal myself. Due to the lack of TPs, I was killed the next day. RIP me.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2018 2:18 am
by Gobln
VFR isn't fair to mafia. It's that good.

Image

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Mon Jun 04, 2018 11:40 am
by Tharok
It depends on the town. If it is a town in high elo, then it probably is not going to be fair for mafia. However, everywhere else mafia can actually get town to lynch some of their own because the strategy is not really that effective. I mean like Destruction says, it reveals roles to the mafia without mafia having to really do anything.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:09 am
by dyaomaster
strenuus wrote:It's easy to win as non-town with VFR. You just need to get better.

The only problem is you have to get a lot better to use VFR as non-Town than how good you have to get to use VFR as Town.

Re: Is VFR ever fair?

PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2018 5:34 am
by squosher
dyaomaster wrote:
strenuus wrote:It's easy to win as non-town with VFR. You just need to get better.

The only problem is you have to get a lot better to use VFR as non-Town than how good you have to get to use VFR as Town.


Is this not the inherent problem with all uninformed majority vs informed minority games? Non town will always have a sharper learning curve than town IMO.