Welcome to UAQ With HighCarry: carrying you so high, you reach the top! AKA
Unfrequently Asked Questions with HighSpace and HardCarry!
Emile and I love talking about Survivor gameplay and we also feel like a lot of you may have questions about how we approach different aspects of the game so we decided to create this thread where we answer any questions you may have.
A thing that I like to do is look at every player and see how I can be useful to them. For example, if at Final 5, Player A is the biggest threat left but is bad at challenges and I know that I'm the 2nd biggest threat left, I'd vote off a player that isnt Player A because the other players will need me to help them vote off Player A at Final 4.
You can also just vote off players who are going to sweep immunities around Final 6 or so and that will stop your problem as well. Survivor is an art, there are many different paths you can take depending on the situation; these are just some ideas.
Finally, you can also just try to work your social game to make it so hard for players to vote you off that they don't. This requires a lot of time/commitment/social ability as well as the ability to read the players you're playing with, but it worked for players like Zeezo in EMBB.
You can't really improve your challenge skill as there is a bit of a cap on how good you can be. You'll get better with experience, so I guess just try to play more and you'll get better, but you can't really rely on challenge skill always to get to where you want to be.
I think the first step is to identify why you're getting voted out. A LOT of people think that they're getting voted out because they're the biggest threat left, but it might actually be because you didn't have a great read on the game and people were just keeping you in as a vote to use before voting you out.
If/once you're sure that it is because you're the biggest threat left at Final 4/Final 3 that you're getting voted out, I would recommend trying to work your game in a way where people don't see everything that you're doing. Try to be less explicit in the way that you present yourself and try to hold more cards to your chest so people don't have the full idea of your game. If people don't know completely what you're doing, you won't be seen as a threat and they won't vote you out. Of course, you'll have a harder time at FTC convincing the jury of your impact on the game, but it might be worth the tradeoff if you're facing this problem a lot.
And when I host Survivor games, when I type whatever challenge and await the answers, I always think "wow, they are so slow compared to the games that I play in", which is not the case, they are receiving my lag from the other end. In case you think I am making excuses at being bad at challenges!
I don't think so, I think it's just the way that we define a "villain" and a "hero." Very rarely are there instances where someone can win without having to lie a bit/manipulate others and people tend to equate that as being villainous. I feel like a lot of the time, people think that heroes are people who do none of that which is very rare and people tend to remember the games where someone wins by being super villainous/cutthroat over the games where they might have won by being virtuous/friendly .
I guess, to do an exercise to demonstrate my point: Try to make a list of the Top 15 Survivor Lobby players and then classify them as Hero/Villain. There are going to be some players who are going to be obviously Villainous like Voice and some players who are obviously heroes like nattless. For the people that you're unsure of, I'm sure that you're going to think of more instances of them lying/manipulating than instances where they were honest which will lead you to classify more people into villains than heroes.
As a bottom line, elements of both a heroic/villainous game are needed to win, but people tend to remember/put more weight on the villainous part because that's what we celebrate.
As someone who goes far in my fair share of games I play, how do I overcome this hurdle: I am BRUTAL at challenges. I just don't have the speed. I think it's because I am in Ireland, whereas most other players are in Northern America. I feel like there is maybe a 1/2 second lag for me which means I can rarely win challenges as most are speed typing based. I find I go far, then lose control of my game as a stronger challenge competitor inevitably wins the final 4 & final 3 challenges and I have to hope I get taken to the final 2 by them and therefore I look like a weaker competitor who was lucky to be taken to the end, even though I might have had a lot of control of the game when there were more players. It's something that keeps coming up for me and it's frustrating :/
I don't really have anything to add to HighSpace's answers. They're fantastic.
I think a problem with this is that most strong players are probably going to be classified somewhere in the villains/anti-heroes category. You're going to be hard-pressed to find a lot of strong players in the heroes category. Also, it's just hard to find a difference between some of these categories.
Just taking the Main ORG as an example with the upcoming HvV2 season, I feel like the Villains Tribe is probably going to be objectively filled with players that understand the game better than the people in the Heroes tribe or there's going to be some sort of mismatching going on.
I think there should be a survivor season wich is heroes vs villans vs anti heroes and anti villains (although i think these are harder to find in an org setting)
Yeah, lmao. You already had left the site when I revealed the alt. As for that friend request, silly Kasbow didn't even know there was a profile page! (I think?)
Some people just give you no way to win, it's very hard to make things work with them. You have to remember, if they are gonna be upset with people that lie to them, they'll just end up upset at everyone, because it's rare people will tell you they are voting you out.
If you do tell someone you have to know what they are capable of. "Ok, they know. What's going to happen now? How can they damage my game?" etc. What you DON'T want to do though, is go silent on someone the entire tribal. Lying to them is better because absolute silence is the biggest form of cowardice of them all.
In my opinion though, 1 jury vote is not worth having your game blown up for. I think these unreasonable people are rare enough for this not to be a consistent problem when you play.
It seems your concern is jury votes though, and you're willing to sacrifice a lot to get them. Honestly, if your bonds were meaningful enough, what you're worrying about shouldn't matter. I think you had a glimpse of that in canadienne: From what I read, it's the first time the jury awarded you the win, but you said you also formed meaningful friendships which doesn't happen in the other ORGs you played. There might be a correlation there.
I have a question for Hardcarry! Were you ever able to tell I was Shapeshifterr as Moomo, in terms of gameplay? I acted like a tard on both accounts so exclude personality.
A big problem in orgs I have is knowing when to lie or when not to lie when someone gets voted out.
A lot of the times when I tell a player I'm voting them or they are getting voted out they turn the tribal into a mess and it can potentially blow up in my face and blow up my game. (Which is understandable cause who wouldn't try to save themselves)
But when I don't tell them the truth about their boot (in the jury phase) they get bitter in jury complaining how you lie to them and all they wanted was honesty about their boot.
How would you balance that? Or solve this double edged sword?
Do what makes you feel more comfortable. What matters is that you seem like a strong contender at the end of the game. Or at least, stronger than who you're sitting next to. But there is a question you should ask yourself here: What's easier: Convincing the jury to vote for you after a lategame emergence, or convincing the players to keep you in the game for multiple tribals despite you being the clear biggest threat? That should tell you which path you should take.
A rule I think would be useful to follow is: Have a stronger game than what you're portraying, otherwise you will get caught. When in a game, you'll have a perceived threat level to you and the players will formulate a plan that will beat what they think you're capable of. So if you're stronger than the method they used to beat you, then you will survive. This can be in the form of a secret ally, a hidden idol, a lowkey strategic game under a social front, an immunity run, hidden jury management, misinformation propagation, etc.
This is why good players keep cards close to their chest, it makes it more difficult for the others to beat them. When you let everyone know what you're doing, who you're with and what you're capable of, you will have to face an attack designed to beat that. So if you're gonna play leader, have something that can defeat the multiple attempts to overthrow you.
You'll need to give me a more specific situation if you want more help. Well, maybe saying "is there something you're not telling me" might help.
I do want to say though, a lot of the time, excuses are a big reason why people won't side with you and stick to what they're comfortable with. They make a decision based off emotion and then try to justify it from a strategic standpoint. "Oh, I could flip but I think I'll win the last few challenges so I won't." or "I think someone's gonna make a move soon anyway, don't need to get blood on my hands" without assessing which individual would actually pull it off. "I don't want to anyone off, they might not vote for me in jury" that's a good one. So depending on the player, AtE can really be helpful here and is more likely to persuade than cold logic.
The first thing that comes to mind when I see this Q is... what makes you think you're the best option for their game? Do you really know everything about their gameplan?
What makes this game difficult from the persuasion standpoint, is that you're trying to fight a case in which you don't know what the other side is arguing. Players always keep some cards close to their chest, there are things they just won't explain because it would damage their game or spill some information that was better kept secret, at your expense. Since you can't debunk their main motivation to voting not-your-way... they really won't think going with you is the right option strategically. This is why paying attention to interactions and overarching motives becomes important. You might just pick up why they ACTUALLY aren't going with you and have a better case to present.
Let's say you are their best option though and they are making bad decisions. What is that decision out of? Emotion? Naivety? Who has a hold on them? Do they even believe you? You need to figure out why this is happening, it'll give you an idea on how to solve it. For instance, if someone is controlling them, try to persuade the person controlling them. If they're being willfully blind, you have to make them ask the questions themselves so they can come up with their own conclusions instead of trying to force your ideas on them - People tend to be instinctively against you when you say "No, you're wrong." And it becomes a lot harder to convince them.
would you say it's better to play strongly throughout the game in an attempt to control the game so you can win easily, or play perhaps more poorly early on so that you aren't initially seen as a threat and can then turn on the gas so to speak in the lategame so you can reach the end (even if it may be more difficult to achieve victory in final 2/3)
How do I convince people to work with me when I'm the best option for their game but they're willing to throw the chance away by voting with someone else? The problem has come up for me in ORGs where people are voting for me against their win condition, when if they worked with me they'd have a far better chance and I just can't seem to make people realize that.
Sure, the other side has to choose, but whatever they do, it won't really change anything. Just a bit of "sorry but you were both my allies, I hope you understand. I didn't want either of you out" is enough to remedy the situation. That group still has a common enemy and so they'll stick together.
There's also the fact that your alliance are likely to all vote out the same person (usually go for the bigger threat of the 2), which accounts for a good portion of the vote. Making it easy for everyone else to not have an opinion and "vote with the house".
So it's possible it causes rifts on the other side, but I don't think it'll change your situation
I actually disagree that nominating the two strongest players from the other side only reduces their numbers by one. What it does is it forces that side to pick and choose between those players which can cause divisions within that side that you can take advantage of
