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Is that person who watched 2 entire seasons in the past week looking for suggestions for more seasons? If so, they should watch 28 or 32 at some point soon. Especially 28. Also: STAC Goat posted:I do (rarely) agree with my fellow Goat that there seems to be a "this is kinda why they throw in so many advantages and idols and tribe swaps to keep things from ever getting too settled and fatalistic." But the dream is finding that sweet spot and its just one episode so far. And early enough in the season that at least it came at a time when we could stand getting to know people a bit more. I would argue that this last episode is an argument *against* frequent twists. In this era of super-frequent swaps where tribes never last more than 3 rounds, what incentive does Bradley's group have to turn on one another? Why should Chelsea or Sebastian or anyone who thinks they are on the bottom of that alliance flip and annoy the vast majority of the original Naviti's when (1) they have a free pass to the next swap, (2) they are likely to swap into a new tribe that is majority-original Naviti at the next swap which they know is probably 1 or 2 rounds away? And even if they did have incentive to flip numerically, is it worth putting their neck out there to form a new slim majority if it's highly possible someone in the majority has a magic secret unknowable superpower that changes the mechanics of the vote in some way? If you can't reliably plan for the future, you are forced to play in a conservative probabilistic way, where you just need to keep the inertia of a giant alliance going because going against it can very likely screw you over in the near future. ETA: If we took things to the extreme and randomized tribes every episode, I bet the meta-game would quickly stabilize into one giant ~12-14-person alliance which would almost always form a majority on a new tribe and have one person from the minority to pick off. mancalamania fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 06:09
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Fast Luck posted:I think a lot of the time swaps mix up tribal lines more which helps prevent a boring post-merge. And in a season like MvX, all three post-swap tribes flipped on their pre-swap majorities. I am fine with 1-2 swaps, I think In MvGX they only swapped once, and the first swap was 12 days in instead of 6 days in so the original tribes had time to fracture. The 3 seasons since MvGX have had much more frequent tribe swaps (5 swaps in 2 seasons, with no tribe configuration lasting more than 3 rounds) and have had much less exciting votes that are generally along tribal lines. The only exciting post-swap pre-merge votes in the past 3 seasons have been when an idol was used or could have been used. Another observation is that the only two seasons that started with 2 tribes of 10 and swapped in Episode 3 ended up merging with original tribe numbers at 9-4. If the next boot this season is another original Malolo, that's three out of three times. Will Ghost Island reverse the curse???
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Mar 30, 2018 04:38
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Lone Goat posted:If they didn't swap tribes then Malolo would probably keep losing tribe immunity challenges and the end results would be.... a bunch of Malolo going home! If you mean the first swap, that might be true but we would have gotten to see more interesting dynamics with Stephanie playing both sides between the Pretty People vs. Nerds division they hinted at when Jacob got voted out and then was never mentioned again after that since all of the other votes came down to what color you wore the first day. Also the reason the first two votes on Malolo were consensus near-unanimous votes was almost certainly because people were expecting a tribe swap in Ep 3. A bunch of the 34 cast members mentioned that as the reason for the first two consensus boots that season. Even though the second vote was supposed to be a climactic close vote between Tony and Sandra, everyone just piled on Tony because why draw a line in the sand and piss of 5 other people when you might swap into a new tribe with them and 5 strangers next round?
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Mar 30, 2018 06:10
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Zesty posted:The later the swap, the more dependent people get on their original tribe's identity and that just leads to pagonging. Maybe in theory, but in practice no recent season (after, say, 24) with a swap in Ep 5 or later has had a Pagonging along original tribe lines. In practice, ~4 rounds or so seems like an ideal time to swap because the original tribes have had enough time to establish a pecking order and a big chunk of people will feel on the outs of their tribe. Earlier than that and the pecking order is too murky, later than that (or no swap at all) and the people at the bottom just get voted off.
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Mar 30, 2018 21:40
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Zesty posted:Tribal Identity is obviously not nothing. If the swap is delayed the weaker social players will get hopelessly stuck to tribal lines. While they may not default to their original tribe, I think something similar would still happen. I think with that little stability you would just see one big 12-14 person alliance of safety trying to ride the wave to the merge. Even if you knew you were on the bottom of that giant alliance, it would be way too risky to turn against it because of its sheer size and because you have no idea who you are voting with next round. Why socialize with the 6-8 outsiders when it's almost impossible they will form a majority on your tribe-of-the-week (and, on the off chance they do, the other tribe can just throw it to save you). This is kind of how the modern giant seasons of Big Brother play out, where there's just so much uncertainty from round to round that people gravitate towards some big giant alliance hoping to ride the wave as long as possible.
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Mar 31, 2018 00:20
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Here's a nitpick that ultimately didn't affect anything but was still a strategic blunder on the 7 Navitis end: the vote split was badly organized. They ended up putting 4 Naviti votes on Michael and 3 Naviti votes on Libby (let's call this Plan A). It makes much more sense to put 5 Naviti votes on Michael and 2 Naviti votes on Libby (let's call this Plan B): -If Michael doesn't have an idol, Laurel/Donathan can unite the Malolos and get Wendell out on a 5-4-3 vote in Plan A. Under Plan B, Laurel/Donathan are powerless; even if they unite the Malolos it's a 5-5-2 vote and Michael goes home on the re-vote. -If Michael DOES have an idol and plays it but Laurel/Donathan don't know about it, under Plan A Laurel/Donathan can still get Wendell out on a 5-0-3 vote. But under Plan B, even if Laurel/Donathan *want* to flip, they think flipping is pointless because it would be a 5-5-2 vote and almost certainly would not flip (even though they technically would get Wendell out on a 5-0-2 vote). -If Michael does have an idol and plays it and Laurel/Donathan do know about it, then Laurel/Donathan can get Wendell out on either Plan A or Plan B if they can gather the Malolos. In 2 out of 3 scenarios Plan B is safer than Plan A, and in the third scenario both Plans are equally dangerous. Given that the second scenario ended up being the most relevant, had Laurel/Donathan decided to flip Wendell would have gone out because of a completely avoidable error.
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Apr 19, 2018 03:50
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Over the summer, I was listening to some RHAP podcast about Big Brother where they pointed out how weird it is that these shows are so crucially built upon lies and yet it's surprisingly rare for someone to actually lie about an Event happening or not happening. Instead, 99% of the lies on Survivor are about who is alligned with who, who is *planning* to vote for who, who has or doesn't have an idol, etc. The podcasters questioned why players never try this other type of lie, where they just make up some super specific Event and just emphatically insist that it happened or didn't happen; the theory was that because this type of lie is so rare and unexpected on these shows that it would probably end up being surprisingly effective if someone tried it. Anyway, that thought has been stuck in my head for like a year now, and I'd like to thank Desiree for illustrating that it's a bad idea after all. But A for effort! And the fact that Kellyn believed her for so long (especially given that Kellyn left Des out of the Chris vote just a few days prior!) is evidence that maybe there's still a kernel of a good idea here for the future.
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Apr 27, 2018 15:10
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ApplesandOranges posted:I'm not even sure taking out Dom/Wendell would work now; Ken took out David and he didn't even get any credit for it. If Laurel *did* manage to get both Dom and Wendell out it would involve a much bigger and more elaborate heist then Ken voting out David at 4. Because of the firemaking at 4 (which the players this season know about) there are only 3 votes left and Dom/Wendell have two idols between the two of them (and Dom has won two immunities in a row). A universe where Dom/Wendell actually go out before 7 probably looks like Laurel blindsiding Wendell next week with the idol in his pocket, then flushing Dom's idol at 6, then making sure he doesn't win Immunity at 5 to vote him out there (all while making sure he doesn't find these re-hidden idols). I think that would be an impressive enough series of events for the jury to turn around on Laurel (although, unfortunately for her, it also seems like a series of events that would be very difficult to pull off). ETA: I think a great analogy to make would be Natalie in season 29. It's easy to forget that until Final 8, Natalie hadn't actually "done" much and was considered fairly nonthreatening and under Jon/Jaclyn's wing. Then she pulled off a series of crazy moves from 7 through 4 and really won over the jury and won in a landslide. I think Laurel has a harder road ahead of her than Natalie did (Natalie only had to disarm one idol instead of two, and had an idol of her own), but it's still possible. mancalamania fucked around with this message at 04:59 on May 11, 2018 |
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May 11, 2018 04:50
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I don't think the show's problems over the past few seasons are as simple as "too much strategy" or "not enough characters" or anything. To me the issue is the current game is too unwieldy to really strategize around. Advantages with unknowable powers, very easy to find idols in high quantity*, and frequent tribe swaps (even post-merge!) are very hard to strategize around and just result in players playing conservatively to avoid getting caught in the chaos. What's the point of deviating from Naviti strong when you are going to swap the next day onto an almost certainly majority-Naviti tribe? Why go through some crazy plan of trying to flush Dom and Wendell's idols when both will be immediately re-hidden and probably found by the exact same people? The wacky game mechanics actively suppress a lot of strategy and, to make matters worse, have to be explained and re-explained in confessional taking away screentime from developing characters. I don't think Season 36 (and 35, 34, etc.) hasn't had too much or too little strategy, it's just had a lot of people talking about how they're ready to make move X but can't because of reason Y (which is usually directly or indirectly related to new game mechanic Z).
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May 23, 2018 23:01
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The problem with changing the prize money structure (either to make 20th-2nd the same or do one flat pay for pre-jury and one for post-jury or whatever) is that it solves the problem of playing-for-2nd/3rd but creates a bunch of new problems. If the prize structure was flat there is no incentive to stay in the game once you think your odds of winning are very low. If I'm in the minority alliance and about to get voted out somewhere in 9th-6th place why would I voluntarily starve myself and fight for an extra ~10 days when I can just ask to go home in 9th? Obviously it's not completely rational behavior since majority shake-ups happen all the time, but the people that play this game aren't always very rational. I think you see this sort of behavior in Big Brother which has a flat-rate post-jury prize money. People fight really hard to make jury and then once they make jury they basically throw in the towel as soon as they think their odds of making Final 2 are less than ~5% (regardless of whether their odds of making the Final 2 are *actually* less than 5%). Maybe they'll still try to win a clutch veto or something but I think in general the minority alliance gives up a little too quickly in the post-jury Big Brother because they'd rather go get some privacy and watch Netflix in the jury house than continue to play a losing game since their pay is the same either way.
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May 31, 2018 19:28
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I predict a returnee will be the first boot. The types of people they cast now are not the types of people they casted back in 22 and 23 that let the returnees get so deep; nowadays they cast superfans desperate to make a Big Move as soon as possible and voting out the returnee is a very simple and tempting Big Move staring them right in the face. Moreover, they all know there's going to be a swap after like 2 episodes anyway so there's no concern about dooming your tribe by voting out strength. Instead, early quick swaps encourage "easy" consensus votes like that. On the other hand, I suspect whichever 2 or 3 returnees make that first swap will go pretty deep. After the first swap the priorities will shift to voting out minority tribe(s) and there will be more fear of returnees already having idols since they'll be coming from different camps. Just to call my shot, I'll say David and Aubry are the first two boots in that order, Joe goes out around ~12th place, and Wentworth makes it to the finale but not the Final 3.
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Jun 2, 2018 19:46
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STAC Goat posted:Why does everyone hate Joe? I barely even remember much about him except that he was big and good at challenges, seemed generally likable to his other castmates, and Fishbauch got kind of obsessed with him and it kind of messed up his game. If Joe did something offensive or something I've somehow completely forgot it. Like I'm not excited to see him again or anything and he's not some favorite of mine, but all four players got the same "eh, ok" reaction from me. I think he stands out since the other 3 were big strategic presences in their seasons and each pulled off at least one exciting move, whereas Joe seemed to outwardly avoid strategizing. The only thing that comes to mind is a half-hearted fake idol attempt in his first season that never seemed fully thought through. He was also a bit of a sore loser when he went out his second time IIRC.
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Jun 2, 2018 21:53
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 12:54 |
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I thought NZ S2 was a really good season and much better than NZ S1 (which is probably in the running as my least favorite Survivor season). As a word of warning for anyone starting to watch it now: the pre-merge is pretty rough at times but the post-merge is where things start getting really great. I do wish they would cut the episodes down from ~66 minutes to ~44 minutes; I always said I'd love a regularly extended runtime for Survivor but these international versions are really causing me to second-guess that. That might also be a side effect of the NZ version casting more "normal" people rather than kooky characters on screen though; when AU S2 ran longer it was much more bearable since the cast on AU usually pops more and feels like the US version. Speaking of casting, I do think got NZ S2 dodged a bullet with how things played out. It seemed like they made a big deal going into the season that they were casting more people ready to play the game than S1 but I think really only ~6 people were ready to play (Kaysha, Dylan, JT, Matt, Adam, and Lisa) and the show got really lucky that 3 of those 6 went deep into the game. 6 game-players is still not really enough to guarantee a good season and it's easy to imagine an alternate universe where those 6 all go in the first half of episodes and then they have another S1 on their hands. Of course, me saying the show "got lucky" might be sort of underselling just how good those three (especially ____Lisa_______) were at the game.
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Jul 31, 2018 17:43
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