Gonna line by line responses and then answer your second question
I'm not sure that "getting people to share tribal stories" is an outstanding play. Everyone does that by default. Considering you proposed the Horse/Epona/you F3 and it didn't even come close to happening, that seems like more of a pock mark on your game.
Fair on the first, I think it's more the fervor and detail with which I described my first tribal and my strong work trying to optimize the challenge with Oaki/Peli which made them want to work with me. Of course that's more up to them to say. Still I didn't "do nothing" here.
The latter however I think is a rather unfair assessment. If my intention of making that F3 deal was "I'm going to go to the end with these two definitely" then yeah, it'd be a pock mark on my game. However, I mostly viewed as something that would be nice if it happened, but would grant me a lot more utility in the short term.
If I don't make that deal, I don't end up in ANY of the groups that royal horse mentioned in their early rounds, and I don't have either of their help in the first two rounds. Having me in those conversations are almost exactly why you even considered working with me in the first place, because people vouched for me.
In that case I could easily have become the countervote to Link or just taken out there. I also would have been barely informed of Oaki's attempt to vote me out the following round, which means I don't turn it around and I just go there.
But even if I survive that, I'm probably not in Epona's F6 and I become the easy vote and die in the communication twist round.
And even if I survive that, well now I have a lot weaker relationship with you, you don't use the amibo reader on me and I die on lost woods.
So that's what, four different ways I die if I don't make that deal? I'd hardly count a move that saves me from going home during the first four rounds a "pock mark" on my game. The goal was not to go to the end with Epona and Royal Horse, it was to provide me a few more allies that would allow me to survive into the merge (which would lead to more positive relationships for me) and also give a lot better of what it would look like, because as I mentioned, we literally gave thoughts on every single person in merge, their relationships and what we could do with them in order to make it further.
From my understanding, Oven still intended to target you on our weird 5 person tribe if you didn't win immunity. The fact that he chose Oaki/Patty over you should speak poorly of your "move" working out.
I mean of course? Like Oven still had a lot more history with Oaki and Patty and had a better shot working with the. But without that it would have been a lot harder for us to be lock step the following two rounds and I put myself in the conversation. Also, you were the third person I mentioned cultivating a relationship with and given you gave me the amibo reader that saved both of us instead of just, trying to win and idoling if you needed to, speaks to how well that paid off.
I will give you credit -- when I brought up splitting the vote on Mipha/Patty, you were the one who put the names out there as to who should be split, though I did let you do that because I didn't want it to blow back on me. But you did take lead there.
Man, is there any winning with you? You ask for something I did, I mentioned something I did but now it's "only because I let you", smh Donny boy.
Kohga told me you tried to tell him "Are you playing your own game or Sidon's game?" which lead me to not trust you as much, resulting in you almost going home in the round where Kass went home...
So my couple messages didn't immediately overturn an alliance that was at least 10 rounds old? I didn't expect Kohga to immediately turn on you, it was a risky move, but some risks you have to take. And he still voted you out over me or Mipha at F6, and come to think of it, despite you not trusting me, you still voted for Mipha in that round over me, so I'd say I recovered pretty well.
but the only reason you didn't that round is because the vote was tied on you and Urbosa guaranteed Oven's safety with the rocks item. That makes it moreso Urbosa's play than yours. You still had four people wanting you gone that round because of your play.
Okay, so Urbosa's item certainly helped here, not going to lie, but saying it was more of Urbosa's play than mine is very disengenous. First off, Over was looking at what...a 25% chance of going home without the item in play, , and 3 people who all really wanted to make it further in the game. Like if Oven contradicts me that fine, but I highly doubt that the item was what made that work so well.
Really I think the main question that should be why was that vote 4-4 in the first place. Like seriously, your group had 2 half idols, a steal a vote, an extra vote, a full idol and who knows what else? Like if any one of us had given away the slightest intonation that maybe, just maybe the vote was actually going on Kass and that I wasn't actually in the dark on what was happening, then shit blows up, any one of those items gets played and I'm dead. That round was some collective action, some precise, amazing collective action. Everyone was essential, no one deserves more credit than another on it.
I don't particularly think you marshalled votes on Epona. Kohga and I were already discussing that move. And then, because of your ties to Urbosa, it leaked to her and it wound to Urbosa sniffing out the play and putting her in stasis. Again -- isn't that Urbosa's move?
I mean, I wasn't the sole proprietor in taking out the biggest threat in the game, and like that round I also made sure to vote you and use my arrow on Epona, so like, I was ready in case it leaked. It's still a big move from Urbosa, but I definitely made sure to be prepared for something to go haywire. Maybe not the biggest thing in the round, but it sure as hell kept me safe.
Also like, Urbosa had items, I didn't, so feels a bit unfair to call out the moves that I literally couldn't have done and call them points against me. That's like asking a regular person why they didn't invest in this super successful Silicon Valley Startup.
My question is -- what did you do this game that Urbosa and Mipha cannot take credit for?
I mean, assuming you take any of my responses well, there's a pretty simple answer, fostering a relationship with you. You've made it abundantly clear that Urbosa wanted no piece of you beyond F9 or 8 and y'all we ALWAYS yelling about the other, how it was bad to even consider working with the other. And yet I persisted. It's because I tried to work with you (and you being gracious enough to accept) that I survived lost woods, and even when you got FURIOUS at me during the revote, did I turn my back on you and go "fuck Sidon", no I kept trying to talk to you and mend that. And hey next round I didn't receive any votes, did I? And when the F6 happened you still wanted to vote with me, didn't you, at least before it was obvious I was voting you out?
Also if you are looking for ONE BIG MOVE that was all mine, well those don't exist. Survivor is a game of give and take. One where you have to work with multiple people and consider all their interests. It is not a game wher you survive with one thing you do, but with incremental improvements of surviving each round. But I fucking tried hard to make sure I stayed alive when really, I should have died five times over, you are one of the reasons I didn't, but don't act like I didn't do anything to help make that the case, cause I sure as hell did.
As the only player at FTC who is actively using gifs, do you think this makes more or less likable? If more likable, would you be willing to give me more gifs? Neighaps of ones to represent your feelings towards your fellow FTC members? Or if you're really feeling the need to make the entire jury groan in despair, give all the jury members gifs (if you haven't done so already in your torchwalks, of course). If less likable, do you have a compulsive need to use gifs to further represent your feelings on a topic, or do you just want the very anti-gif jury to hate you?
Oh horse, I love this question. Simply I do not care if gifs make me more or less likeable, they are a part of me and how I express myself. They are essential to my person and if my use of gifs that causes the jury to dislike me, then I really must ask why that is the brightline. I'll definitely give you more shortly (and you may want to check out my confesh after, I have a slew of gifs just reacting to each round) but proper giffage is an art, so this will be something I do in the morrow, most royal horse. Rest well.
I saved you solely because it would end in Oven or Patty going home instead of you. You were a tool.
So you admit you wanted me alive over Oven or Patty, mission accomplished. It doesn't matter if people want you gone, all that matters is that people want someone else gone more than you.
Revali: By my reading of the game I am in two minds by how to assess you. You played to win the first immunity which had you not gotten you would have been eliminated. And then you managed to navigate to mid game and were saved mostly by not fucking up like people eliminated were. Do you think you had any consciousness of how you made it so far, or do you feel your moved were meditated in the same way that Urbosa and Mipha have expressed in their opening statements?
I hope I'm getting this right and this questions seems to be "did you know what you were doing this game or did you just flop around doing whatever felt like a good move"? Which if that is the question, the former is my answer. This isn't my first rodeo and I'm more than well aware of how to survive long. I usually am very good at an UTR style play and deliberate misdirection, playing up my more...neurotic tendencies to make people think I don't know what I'm doing is usually a big part of my plan in games, actually. It works really well, like sometimes you get murked hard on your first tribe but if you don't you usually last a really long time... like getting to FTC. Of course I also make sure to show my more analytic side to a few people or at least at a few opportunities. Urbosa got a lot of those thoughts.
Now that doesn't mean I form some master plan from the start of the game, rather I form it...well like a game of slay the spire. Now I'm going to go on a relatively long analogy that very few people will get or care about, but it's my FTC, I'll explicate loquaciously if I want to.
So in Slay the Spire you have to build a deck that can beat enemies in a dungeon crawl system, there are typically 3 acts, with about 15-20 floors in each act ending in a boss. In each battle you pick up cards you need to add to your deck to make it better (since the one you start with is TRASH), and sometimes there are things like relics which are extra powerful (well some are, Runic Dodecahedron is trash at anything above Ascension 6 or so) but harder to obtain. There's also other mechanics like resting and shops and events, but we just need the basics.
Point is when you are climbing the spire, you have to be cognizant of the different enemies you might face and be ready for them. Don't have AoE, well you're gonna get fucked when you face a floor with a lot of enemies? Don't have enough buffs to scale your attacks? Well you are probably gonna die before you can actually kill the bosses. It's all about incrementally making your deck better, knowing what you need, but there still being uncertainty about exactly what you are going to face, with a few certainties (there are a limit to the kinds of enemies you can face in each act), much like survivor. I approach survivor with the same medidation, I take a card or make a play sometimes because it helps me survive the next fight, and sometimes because I know I'll have to deal with that fight down the round, but there is always a good reason for what I do. Furthermore, while you can take a lot of damage in slay the spire, that doesn't matter unless your health reaches zero. Much like how it doesn't matter if you receive 5 votes in a round, unless that's enough to actually send you out. So yeah, sometimes you might get a bad fight, but if you built properly, you'll survive it and still beat the final boss.
Now time for a bonus analogy because no one is going to ask me this question, what kind of deck do you think each of the finalists is?
Well thanks for that question, Revali, I'm so glad you asked.
Urbosa is a shiv or other combo deck. Basically these decks are very deadly if you have the right relics and cards, but mainly focus on dealing a lot of damage fast by playing A LOT of cards. They're very fun and effective but ultimately you are usually dependent on praying time eater is not the final boss, which is a 1 in 3. If it is you are fuckeedd... much like how if Urbosa didn't have all the items they did have they probably would have been voted out before FTC. Still a good deck and hey, time eater wasn't the final boss, but is that really the deck you want to pick.
Mipha is a deck that picks up Lizard Tail early on, it's a relic that literally ressurects you if you die. It starts out okay but ultimately gets killed and comes back with the lizard tale, where it becomes a lot more aggressive but beats the final boss. It's definitely a valid run/win, but once again, wouldn't you rather have a deck that didn't need to use that relic.
I'm a barricade deck. Barricade decks can get very close to deck because they rely on building up a lot of block which sometimes takes a few turns, once they start going however, they aren't going to stop. They will come close to death at times, and often people will wonder "wait how are you going to kill the boss all you are doing is gaining block, that isn't an attack" and then you shield slam for 100 damage and win. Bonus, it's not really weak to any final bosses and as such is usually a good choice if you can get it to work.
Post by Ancient Oven on Jun 7, 2020 3:47:06 GMT -5
Why is this thread focused on traumatic oven persecution stories when I look at it? I'm a bicentennial! I don't deserve this. DesignateRevali, how aware would you say you were of the vote events as they were happening and do you think you can display connections you had that gave you knowledge of what was going on that helped you navigate to the end? Despite the truth in moves being made as a group I believe your case increases in percentile the more you can prove moves specifically benefitted you.
Why is this thread focused on traumatic oven persecution stories when I look at it? I'm a bicentennial! I don't deserve this. DesignateRevali, how aware would you say you were of the vote events as they were happening and do you think you can display connections you had that gave you knowledge of what was going on that helped you navigate to the end? Despite the truth in moves being made as a group I believe your case increases in percentile the more you can prove moves specifically benefitted you.
I'd say that my earnest response to this is "enough", like there are votes where I didn't know exactly what happened, but there was barely a vote going on that I didn't know what was going on as it happened (I mean except the first one but to be fair if anyone asks me about that I have a paragraph or two explaining why leaving me out of that was always a bad move and I didn't expect people to do something so shortsighted at the first tribal) and I usually had enough of a read on the game to have an idea what would happen. Vote by vote is in spoilers though.
Power Tribal : Oh I thought it was a Patricia boot through and through. This one was a bad bad tribal but hey, you literally have no prior knowledge going into the first vote.
Heart Container Tribal: I mean...I knew about almost everything all the way through, the initial plan to vote Mipha, the fact that Mipha probably had an idol from the way they were acting, Robbie making threats that made him the target, the fact that Link was informed. The only thing that was a surprise is that Link received a vote and Mipha received a vote. Both Mipha and Link claimed the last Robbie vote at merge so I was just like "well at least one of them is lying, good to know".
Tarrey Tribal 1: I mean this was a link vote from pretty early on and I literally talked to link who was all worked up about "Mipha apparently targeting Urbosa even though they aren't" and trying to get me onto Horse. I was aware link had a small contingent with him, who I assumed to be people who weren't in the main group that Horse was assembling. I wasn't aware of the hinky votes for Hunnie or you though, but wasn't very concerned about them, some people probably agreed to split off in case link did have an idol.
Tarrey Tribal 2: So let's see. Epona and Urbo both straight up told me early on about Oaki setting me up as the countervote as did Horse. So those early relations I talked about, yeah came through here. I floated the ideas of not taking out a straggler like Hunnie or Oven to Sidon early on and it was apparent Horse was close with Hunnie, I also floated Mipha's name to Urbo overnight. Then I was also responsible with assigning people so that Patricia would be the majority on the split vote (since I wasn't sure if you or Hunnie would go for Mipha) and I even heard about Patricia getting mad at Sidon so him receiving votes here wasn't surprising in the least. Only thing I missed was it was meant to be 6-3 in favor of Patty not 5-4, but eh, minor kerfuffle.
Tarrey Town Tribal 3: I mean I knew almost everything about this round from Epona, who also told me about the attempts to put votes on me. I knew that pretty much everyone would be on horse and even horse's late attempt to move a vote onto Kass. Considering I was only able to talk to 2 people, I'd say I was very well informed on this vote.
Lost Woods: Let's see, I just logiced out that if Sidon didn't win immunity my best bet would be voting for him and that if he was immune I'd probably be in a bad spot. As for the actual votes post immunity, I lobbied hard for Patty to both Sidon and Oaki, but I didn't know which threw a vote onto you for security, I'd assume Oaki though but either of them could tell me of I was wrong.
Hyrule Tribal 1: A LOT of talking to Sidon and Kohga and everyone here (mostly Sidon and Kohga and Urbo though I would also talk to Epona for updates but not exactly for arguments), like I'm pretty sure the only person I didn't give a lot of info to was Mipha and Oaki and the latter was because he literally wasn't around. I was aware of the early wagon on you and fought like hell to keep it off of you, then there was a period it was clear people were going to "vote their mind" which just meant split between Oaki and Mipha, and I was aware near the end thanks to Urbo that you and Kohga weirded each other out and instead of a 4-4-1 vote where Mipha goes home on the revote, it was 8-1 Oaki to save face. Something that only those who swapped were aware of before the end. I also tried hard to push Kass off of you here. Oh I was also aware the Urbo was saying Oaki to Kass despite wanting to vote for Mipha, which probably led to your confusion here. Oh and I went on a tour saying "NOOOO URBO IS NOT TARGETING KASS OAKI IS LYING" not long in despite us totally wanting to target Kass.
Hyrule Tribal 2: This one was fun. So I knew I was getting fed you as the vote despite in my confessional me being like "I mean the smart move is to kill me" and I was prepared for the 4-4 vote and all the ways it could go wrong. This was a round where I figured the 4 would be in lock step and we had mipha on our side, so yeah, was pretty aware, though I wasn't 100% sure which of us was the actual target.
Hyrule Tribal 3: Let's see, this round was on Mipha most of the round iirc, and Urbosa REALLLY wanted Sidon dead, to the point where you just let them keep believing that. Then at the very end there was a swap with Epona using their steal-a-vote, but if they didn't have that item, you me and mipha should have been on Epona (Which I argued really hard to make sure y'all stayed there) with Urbo on Sidon in case there were 3 votes on Mipha (since they were idoling) and 3 votes on Epona ( and they idoled. Unfortunately we didn't know the exact items the other side had so couldn't see this one coming.
Hyrule Tribal 4: I mean everyone was voting Epona and it was obvious from my conversations with Urbosa that they sussed it out so I split my vote on Sidon since I figured if the round ended there, an item would get played on Epona and Sidon would go home instead of potentially me. Then in the revote it was a pretty straightforward Sidon vote that I kept quiet about and knew the second that Kohga leaked cause uh...Sidon was not happy that day, and it seems he has yet to find something that sparks joy since.
Hyrule Tribal 5: I mean Urbosa and I were negotiating all roudn on this and they told me exactly what they were going to do (well not decide to not play their idol, but all the other stuff sure) and I was constantly talking to Mipha and Epona and Kohga about where they were voting. Mipha came around to Epona about halfway into the phase and Kohga was just on Urbo the entire way through. The two things I didn't know were that Sidon gave his extra vote to Epona (Kohga told me it was with Urbo, not sure if he lied or Sidon did) though Mipha seemed to know that. Though I heard that about that the same time Kohga was freaking out about everyone immune despite me saying it was "likely impossible". I probably knew the most this vote aside from well, Urbo, since they actually had the items and I didn't. Oh I didn't actually know if Epona was voting for me or Mipha, didn't matter since Fury was being played on me so no matter what they'd go.
Hyrule Tribal 6: I mean no reason for obfuscation, we all voted Kohga and he felt there was a better chance of arguing I would be a better person to vote out instead of trying to get us on Mipha. He went out with a lot of grace and I applaud him for that.
Overall a few things here and there I missed and if that's what matters then, oh well, but I was pretty well informed on how votes developed.
Mon ami oiseau, it has been some time since last we spoke. And last we spoke, we both knew I was going home, and you asked for any criticisms or advice about your game.
My response was the last message I sent to anyone in the game, so it stuck with me somewhat. It was also potentially the only totally honest message I sent you in the entire game. I told you three things:
- I hadn't been in a good spot to see your game, so I wasn't the best person to give advice
- People thought of you as Urbosa's right hand man, so if you intended to go to the end with her, you needed to at least look like you were taking the lead
- Epona would beat any person she was against at F3, so you couldn't go to the end with her (although this was common knowledge anyway)
The first point, I was hoping would change when I got here and was able to read up on your FTC speech, see what moves you made and where you had an impact. But, there's really nothing there that I wasn't aware of, which makes it seem to me like that... nothingness I was seeing really was all there was to it. And there's even some stuff I know is untrue:
"Meanwhile I immediately ran up to Kass and Patricia and we talked about not targeting each other as if one of us went, the rest likely followed (which is pretty much what ended up happening to Courage). "
As far as I'm aware, I brought this up with you the day after we merged, and prior to that we had almost no conversation at all. The end result was still us agreeing not to target one another, and ultimately didn't have much of an impact on the game, so this is very nitpicky on my part.
In any case, you did successfully eliminate Epona, so you followed the last point of my advice - but that wasn't hard and was something most people wanted to do anyway. So my question is this - what do you feel you did to differentiate your game from Urbosa's? Do you feel you ever were able to take the lead?
Your StS analogy is interesting, but to an extent it's just saying 'I played the game best suited to get me to the end'. But Survivor is competitive, you have to have done better than the other players who got to the end. And your barricade strategy really hasn't scored you many points in my eyes.
First off apologies. When writing my speech I skimmed my PMs and assumed the PM where you said that was just all about Limbo of the Lost since that was the video, and I read the one immediately below where I agreed to not target you (which I already wanted, like my thoughts on you right before merge were literally, I'll work with them if they don't immediately try to kill me). I got the order wrong but I agree, point is goal achieved and it was mutual.
If you don't mind before I answer your question I have a couple for you on your reaction to my your first piece of advice. What would have impressed you? Or rather I guess, was there anything I did wrong in your eyes? If you were in my position was there something you would have done that I didn't do or didn't try to do that I was capable of?
I mean from F7 on I did try to differentiate from Urbosa. I actually talked to Sidon which they weren't even trying to do, I talked a lot to Kohga and Mipha about getting rid of Urbosa the moment they lost immunity. If I had known about Kohga's Ancient Arrow I would have probably told them about Oven's Nullifier so we could at least attempt to wombo combo Urbosa or someone of equal status out of the game (since I'm not sure how easy it would be to get oven to agree to that with Urbo specifically), but unfortunately those pieces of info were separated by an elimination and a half.
At F5 I tried to win immunity but an extra 1 kept me out of the final round (which given I was playing along in my own discord I would have won), though that wouldn't have made much difference due to the number of items they had. By that point Urbosa and I were openly talking about how I was voting them if I thought they'd die but well, they weren't going to.
At F4 I worked on the jigsaw for hours upon hours, like I literally pulled an all nighter trying to get my score down but I'm just, not as good at jigsaws as Kohga or Urbo despite using the same method I figured they were. Like I tried really hard to turn on them and they just, had item after item and challenge win after challenge. I didn't just follow their lead to the end though, I barely talked to them on most votes at that point (so much so Urbo actually was concerned because well, I had stopped talking strategy with them as I previously had).
I'm not sure if that counts for you since well, I didn't successfully vote them out or counter their items or anything, but I tried, I tried really fucking hard to. Like I came *this* close to just voting Urbosa with Kohga anyway on the hope they didn't have the idol or weren't playing it, but like, why wouldn't they? They obviously had it, I hadn't lost my read on Urbo in the period I talked to them less.
Also on that last line, I mean I think it's a difference of frameworks. I earnestly think that a game that got you to the end this time but would fail to 90 out of 100 times, is not more valuable than a game that would get you there say 50 times out of 100. Like it just confuses me that a game that lowers your rate of survival would be a better game than one that doesn't in the game of...Survivor. Like am I supposed to just jump across the chasm yelling PARKOUR because it looks cool when there's...literally a bridge right over there? That kind of idolization of risky behavior just sounds...well reckless and silly.
