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.
Q1: Overplaying is playing harder than you need to, usually to the point where you're making it worse for yourself. It's that simple.
Q2: It depends on what you're comfortable doing and what you think you can get away with. Also on what's going on the game itself. You should ally with someone only because you actually want to work with them in some way. If you want to ally everyone just to have all your bases covered, you're doing it wrong. "Better than nothing", you say, but you're hurting the perception people have of you, and people will say you're overplaying and not trustworthy. Even the people that you actually want to work with won't trust you.
Sometimes, you'll find yourself working with certain people that you didn't work with all game, and if the relationship you guys had before was nothing but fake, good luck making it work now. Compared to an understanding that you guys were each playing your own games and now have to cooperate, which is much more likely to be a successful alliance.
Q3: This is harder in EM games only because the people voted out tend to blacklist instead of watching the game unfold, thus they don't have the chance to appreciate your UTR play. So really, the best way to win jury is to have the players like you as they get voted out. They will be bias for you and give you a higher spot in their blacklist even if they didn't see much of a game in you.
It's not a great solution but it's the best I can think of. Obviously, if you could just explain your game at the finale it would be great, but I'm assuming that isn't an option.
Absolutely. Someone gets robbed whenever they lose because of factors out of their control and things they just couldn't prevent from destroying their game. They do everything right, and still lose. After all, survivor does have a relevant luck element to it.
The easiest example would be a tribe swap, where someone gets swapped into minority, and the majority want nothing to do with them. They try their best to integrate with the new tribe, socialize as hard as they can, they do everything right. But it still wasn't enough. Yes, it's probably possible to apply godly manipulation techniques or the likes to save yourself, but most players can't do that, so I do think saying they were robbed applies.
The first question I'd ask myself is: how loyal would they be to me? Because wild-cards are often seen as dangerous, but they can also be a weapon and a source of information that you wouldn't get anywhere else. What's important about wild cards, is that they can severely damage your game if you're not careful around them. Which means, don't give them the opportunity to blow up your game. Limit their power as much as you can. Do not associate yourself with them more than you need to.
No one is a true 'wildcard' though. Every player is motivated by a different thing. Some players want to win, some just want to make friends, some feel like "keeping the game interesting", and so on. So, how can you give the wildcard what they want?
The easy way though, which I do recommend especially for those playing games based on calculated moves, is just get rid of the wildcard.
Don't surgeons and magicians have dexterity training exercises? I'm sure you could improve your dexterity by doing these exercises.
But from personal experience, I do believe dexterity can be improved through training. Back when I played a lot of guitar hero, I would be able to nail the solos and parts where you had to be really quick with your fingers. But now, I'm unable to, my fingers are too slow. If I were to play a lot again, my dexterity would improve again.
If you have a game that works for you, don't change it. The fact that it's a trophy game shouldn't alter your playstyle, because doing that is a great way to get premerge boot. The only thing I would change is: put more emphasis on playing with your head and less your heart.
Also be aware that players are likely going to be more cutthroat, I guess. It's the big stage, after all. Don't let the magnitude of the game distract you from making the decisions that you know are good for your game.
Play to win, don't play to trophy. First, I will respect you less as a player if you play for a trophy. But second, I feel like the trophy you earned will feel less like an achievement and more like a stain in the long run.
Meta is information. Use it correctly. In games I enter, I always use meta, and always even have new 'meta' to use before the game starts, just by looking at interactions pre-game. So really, you don't want to let meta dictate what you should be doing, but you want to use meta to know what's going on. Compare the meta with your observations of the current game, and make a decision from it.
Yes, meta is rampant in games. It's why newer players have more trouble surviving the first votes. It's why people tend to have the same allies, because there's already a level of trust and understanding established between them.
And yes, there are players that I will always (or almost always) ally in games. I try to not make them a priority because I am aware of the meta surrounding me and I do various things to counteract the meta that will be used against me.
Despite that, I would always manage to find new allies to work with, have secret connections that would serve as my outs once my apparent strategic options were depleted, and always position myself in such a way where getting rid of me was bad for everybody else's games. I'd also manipulate HoHs into doing things that were good for my game. Most notably, getting shinny to nominate one of his closest allies under the belief that they were just being pawned. I ended up sending that ally home on that day.
In that game, I've perfected the art of 'being untouchable', using nothing but my social and strategic abilities.
Because I don't remember my 2012-2014 games well enough, I will omit them.
A game I remember playing which I think I did fantastic in was one of evolpz's BBs. Players I remember from the game are: HardCarry, Cosmostylin, Annajane, Shinnyhoopa, Soda, CJN, and FDP.
The way I played this game was a bit special because from final 20ish (start of game) till final 4, I did not say a single word in the public chat. Which meant I didn't participate in the challenges unless they were whisper based. Needless to say, I didn't win a single comp until final 4.
But I was also thrown a bunch of unusual obstacles. For instance, HardCarry just wanted to see my physical prowess and would nominate me to force me to try in veto. Much to his disappointment, I did not participate and got saved anyway.
Cosmo would do nothing but try and sabotage my game, just to troll me. At every opportunity he would try to obliterate my strategic options (taking out shinny and NovaTerra for instance) and force me into working with him as my only path moving forward. HardCarry would also aid Cosmo in sabotaging me.
Even though I was working with Soda, he would constantly call me out in public about how I'm throwing challenges. "Just a reminder that High has been throwing all the challenges and is still in the game!" stfu man!!!
deletedabout 7 years
What would you consider to be overplaying?
Is allying everyone a good or bad strategy? Explain.
How do you effectively play an under the radar game and STILL win the jury vote?
First, the mentality is important. If you're thinking "I probably need to make a big move", you're thinking the wrong way. You need to be thinking: "Am I in a good spot? If not, what can I do to improve it?" and that's where the idea of making a move appears.
The ability to understand the future is important to make decisions like this. What is the future going to be like, and is your change good or bad for you? Because that's what a move ultimately does: change the dynamics of the game.
The example I'll give is in the first morning trophy game I played as Kasbow. At the final 7, I flipped on my core alliance who I've worked together with all game. This created a situation where both sides had no choice but to cater to my demands if they didn't want to be picked off. They knew exactly what I was doing and that I was going to flip flop until FTC, but there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop me. If they did, they ruined their chances of making it to FTC. I had everyone strategically trapped. And that is why I flipped in the first place, because I knew this situation would happen and that it was extremely beneficial to me
Yeah, juries can often be unfair and 2nd or 3rd place can be more than deserving to win as well. There are also situations which are out of your control such as:
a) a banned user using scripts and magically becoming a challenge god winning FInal 4 POV and voting you out b) a host miscounting the votes and accidentally voting you out (TWICE)
To be honest, I'm not sure myself. I try my best to not work with complete wild-cards or I'll try to vote them out if I don't need them. When i do my numbers calculations, I usually assume the worst and assume that the wild card will not vote for me.
Honestly, the absolute worst is when you're stuck with a wild card for a vote and you need them to pull off a big move or else you're going to get voted out soon. You just have to hope that they're not a complete wild card and that you can create enough fear/knock enough sense into them to vote with you for that vote. Prayers might also help. Emile might have more insight into this.
Also my philosophy on meta is not so much about alliances and stuff like that but knowing how certain players play and being able to make decisions based on it. Like it's stupid to be like "well I know this player always plays like this but since I don't want to use meta I'm just going to ignore that fact" because then pretty much everyone else who knows that player will have a leg up on you.
I think that in the Survivor Lobby, people often equate ruthlessness and willingness to make big moves with being good and what ends up happening is that a lot of players go into a Trophy Game and try to play more ruthless and different from how they usually do. I'm sure that a lot of players who wouldn't normally have a lot of f2s have tried making a lot of f2's because they see players like Voice or I doing it and succeeding and assume that it's the right playstyle for them when it might not be. What ends up happening is that people don't know how to manage their f2's or get exposed and get fuckked.
In a different vein, there are players in trophy games who are simply playing for trophies so there are a lot more players who are just hanging on to bigger players for a free ride to Final 3.
The strategy remains the same, I would employ the same strategy that I use in regular games since I'm still aiming for a win, but I'd take into consideration the different playstyles of everyone else. I'd absolutely vote out the people just trying to coast to a trophy because they're probably going to be useless for my game.
Yeah, I feel like meta is shittyy in games, but why not use it if it's available to you right? I think a lot of players' games can be easily exploited through meta because players who are bad at adapting to new situations are just going to ally the same players over and over again. For example, if I saw Ally and Anthony in the same game together, I'd pay closer attention to how Ally talks about Anthony as an ally or if she's getting the same information that Anthony is. Use meta as a guide to hone in your feelers for your information collection. At the same time, people can also break meta so make sure that you're using meta as a GUIDE and not an actual like main deciding factor in your decisions. You still need to assess if the meta is accurate, but it would be a good idea to start with meta.
Yeah, there's a lot of meta in games. I'm sure that strong players have been targeted because of their reputation and strong players have been given jury votes for their reputation when maybe they didn't deserve it. I'm also sure that new players have to initialize more conversations than do veteran players. Then finally, there's people getting targeted for being challenge threats even if they may be throwing challenges, players getting targeted because of their connections with other players.
Yeah of course there are people that I ally with a lot. It's natural for people to ally with people that they're friends with outside of game and people who have proven that they're trustworthy. I feel like I can usually trust jessys or nattless because of our friendship outside of game.
Probably my season on the Main ORG. I think I controlled a large percentage of the game and I was able to predict everyone's moves 2 votes prior and adjust accordingly to ruin their plans. It's probably the most cutthroat game I've ever played. Also, fuckk Dean.
