Discussion on stupidity in Town of Salem

[MysticMismagius]

People in Town of Salem are really stupid. This is well-known, I'm fairly certain everyone reading this has at least one story in which stupid players fucked them over. Yet, the problem of stupid townies is so pervasive that it has become a universal talking point. Whether you play Ranked, All Any, Dracula's Palace, or even Coven, we are all connected by the fact that in almost every round we play, at least one person is horrendously, indefensibly stupid. So, that raises some questions about the pandemic stupidity that plagues the Salem playerbase.

1) Why are so many players so dumb in the first place? How did the playerbase get to this state?

2) Why is Ranked no exception? You would expect that, with the extra requirements to get into Ranked and the incentive of ELO encouraging people not to be stupid, that you'd see no or at least a lot fewer complete dumbasses in Ranked. Despite this, it appears that stupidity is just as prevalent in Ranked as it is in any other mode.

3) What can be done about it? Clearly this isn’t a self-solving problem, or it would have solved itself by now (the game’s been going on for 5 years). So how does one go about solving it?

[BlastingOff]

1) Many possibilities:
a) People trying some unconventional strategy that clearly doesn't work (see Siana tactics or whatever they are called)
b) People being inexperienced
c) People not making their research and seeing what's actually good (someone once wanted to report me for revealing as Jailor Day 1)
d) many other possibilities

2) Ranked's requirements are not very high, you just need to play Classic and Ranked Practice enough times. Also, you get ELO if your team wins, so if you get lots of town roles, you can still get ELO even if you are horribly bad because your teammates may potentially be very good. And since evils don't have a high winrate, it is not hard to imagine why low-quality players are seemingly in Masters ELO.

3) I think the reason for that is that a lot of the good strategies are metagame trends, combined with the fact ToS does not have a good tutorial (lol the SK one). If players had easy access to metagame trends (such as Jailor meta, VFR, passing out code words so Mediums can confirm themselves, etc.) and there was a tutorial that explained better ToS's aspects, we likely would have new players that actually know what they are doing.

Also, we have things like Sheriff's role card not giving out crucial details, like that Godfather is seen as inno despite being Mafia, that WW is only susp on even nights, that anything not SK or one of those is inno, or that players could be framed or hexed. There are some things that could be tweaked to make it more clear to newer players.

[MysticMismagius]

Interesting. I don’t agree with teaching meta strategies to players, because that would require constant updates to catch up with the community, but I do think that the game should do more to fill in the gaps in knew players’ knowledge. Especially the sheriff thing, holy hell that gets annoying quick.

[Transcender]

you cannot solve stupidity
especially mass stupidity

[RealZippyK]

you cannot solve stupidity
especially mass stupidity

Yeah especially since a lot of players are kids.

[kyuss420]

people should be breathalysed and drug swabbed upon logging in to ToS, any non compliance will result in lobbys deactivating for them

[Transcender]

people should be breathalysed and drug swabbed upon logging in to ToS, any non compliance will result in lobbys deactivating for them

the toxic hs/h-ers and the kids arent drinking when they hurt the game
in fact, I can imagine the people who are drinking while playing tos have a much more enjoyable time

[BlastingOff]

Interesting. I don’t agree with teaching meta strategies to players, because that would require constant updates to catch up with the community, but I do think that the game should do more to fill in the gaps in knew players’ knowledge. Especially the sheriff thing, holy hell that gets annoying quick.

Point was that a lot of the "non-stupid" plays are based on metas that we expect everyone to follow. Idk how many times I have seen someone call a TP or LO claim retarded for not being on the TP/LO requester night 1 when they show their will. Which is what causes the more experienced players to see the non-meta followers as stupid.

Though to be honest, not following some metas like the TP/LO one is stupid but that's another topic for discussion.

[ICECLIMBERS]

1) Why are so many players so dumb in the first place? How did the playerbase get to this state?

Because smart people don't play Town of Salem.

[Transcender]

1) Why are so many players so dumb in the first place? How did the playerbase get to this state?

Because smart people don't play Town of Salem.

they tend to stay away from this place entirely
dont blame em

[EgyptFalcon]

people should be breathalysed and drug swabbed upon logging in to ToS, any non compliance will result in lobbys deactivating for them

the toxic hs/h-ers and the kids arent drinking when they hurt the game
in fact, I can imagine the people who are drinking while playing tos have a much more enjoyable time

ToS is 1000% the best game to play while drunk. I just like to make it clear I'm inebriated so no one gets mad.

[Transcender]

people should be breathalysed and drug swabbed upon logging in to ToS, any non compliance will result in lobbys deactivating for them

the toxic hs/h-ers and the kids arent drinking when they hurt the game
in fact, I can imagine the people who are drinking while playing tos have a much more enjoyable time

ToS is 1000% the best game to play while drunk. I just like to make it clear I'm inebriated so no one gets mad.

I think I need to make town of fuckbois a think now

[EgyptFalcon]

people should be breathalysed and drug swabbed upon logging in to ToS, any non compliance will result in lobbys deactivating for them

the toxic hs/h-ers and the kids arent drinking when they hurt the game
in fact, I can imagine the people who are drinking while playing tos have a much more enjoyable time

ToS is 1000% the best game to play while drunk. I just like to make it clear I'm inebriated so no one gets mad.

I think I need to make town of fuckbois a think now

Town of fuckbois IRL --> part 5

[Transcender]

people should be breathalysed and drug swabbed upon logging in to ToS, any non compliance will result in lobbys deactivating for them

the toxic hs/h-ers and the kids arent drinking when they hurt the game
in fact, I can imagine the people who are drinking while playing tos have a much more enjoyable time

ToS is 1000% the best game to play while drunk. I just like to make it clear I'm inebriated so no one gets mad.

I think I need to make town of fuckbois a think now

Town of fuckbois IRL --> part 5

Drunk vigilante

[kyuss420]

People in Town of Salem are really stupid. This is well-known, I'm fairly certain everyone reading this has at least one story in which stupid players fucked them over. Yet, the problem of stupid townies is so pervasive that it has become a universal talking point. Whether you play Ranked, All Any, Dracula's Palace, or even Coven, we are all connected by the fact that in almost every round we play, at least one person is horrendously, indefensibly stupid. So, that raises some questions about the pandemic stupidity that plagues the Salem playerbase.

1) Why are so many players so dumb in the first place? How did the playerbase get to this state?

2) Why is Ranked no exception? You would expect that, with the extra requirements to get into Ranked and the incentive of ELO encouraging people not to be stupid, that you'd see no or at least a lot fewer complete dumbasses in Ranked. Despite this, it appears that stupidity is just as prevalent in Ranked as it is in any other mode.

3) What can be done about it? Clearly this isn’t a self-solving problem, or it would have solved itself by now (the game’s been going on for 5 years). So how does one go about solving it?

1) Havent you read the forum complaints?
- Im too dumb, can you change stuff so that my dumb ass can win without thinking?
- VFR is unfair! Town shouldnt start playing the game until day 4 at the earliest!
- Jailor shouldnt claim, so TP can protect randos and LO can visit randos. This is the purest form of ToS, randomness until day 4 (at the earliest) is how the game is
meant to be played

2) Ranked? - ooooh theres a rolelist, Im medium but I wont give any info until someone else claims the TS slot day 5, then i can counter claim when we dont have majority to lynch!
- also see 2nd and 3rd points above
- Im a rando sherrif, I wont claim until I find someone sus....(pity i wont actually find anyone until its a 4v4 and the mafia are obvious)

3) Ive been watching in coven for a while now. 18 months ago there were really smart players there. As it is a smaller community than classic, constantly playing with smarter players, seeing what they did as certain roles, watching how they caught you when you were evil, and using all the good plays yourself, made for smarter players on the whole.
Every time there was a free weekend, there was an influx of stupidity for the next month. A bunch of newer players, all learning the ropes, after a month or so, the game quality went back up cos they learned the role mechanics and learnt from the smart players.
Then there'd be another free weekend and it'd be back to stupidity.. but over the past 12 months, 80% of those smarter players have disappeared, or only show up once a month, so now, they have no one to learn anything from (except from other stoopids)

[Transcender]

The smarter people left because of said stupid people. I play like, once every month or so now when i feel like it

[James2]

ToS has always been full of dumb people because human societies in general are full of dumb people. Those of us who've been around longer (and know what we're doing) notice it more acutely as time goes on because we come to understand the game better as time goes on.

[Transcender]

ToS has always been full of dumb people because human societies in general are full of dumb people. Those of us who've been around longer (and know what we're doing) notice it more acutely as time goes on because we come to understand the game better as time goes on.

>James2