izigame.me

NOTE: REVIEW IS TOO LONG. READ THE COMMENT SECTION AS EXTENSION.
As the Steam stats show, i have thousands of hours on the clock, but that is not including the other countless hours i spent on the browser version. Needless to say i am a strong player, with in-depth knowledge about game mechanics, strategies, and the rules. Or maybe not...
This review is written for advanced players with dozens, hundreds, thousands to dozens of thousands of hours played. Things will not be explained in detail where new players and people that have not played the game previously can understand.
Also, i will be referencing my ban appeal which You can find on the official Town of Salem forum, under: Board Index > Feedback > Report Players > Appeals >
Appeal: SlSaana (Saana)
First, i'd like to talk about the rules and the strike system. The rules look basic and intuitive. Everyone understands that gamethrowing should not be allowed, and is a bannable offense. But what exactly is considered gamethrowing? Fake claiming isn't gamethrowing regardless of the faction (Town, Mafia, Neutral, other) You're in. But some specific sequences such as claiming Jailor to Jailor in jail, or claiming Jailor day 1 as Veteran then alerting, is considered gamethrowing. Those are, however, nowhere documented. You have to browse through individual reports on the forum, social media posts, etc, to find them.
More importantly, the strike system. Apparently, each ban increases the strike count, up to the fourth which results in a permanent ban. Some actions like cheating, or even just claiming to cheat, will result in a permanent ban without a strike. Now if You get a strike, it will never ever be removed. You could be like me, playing this game almost everyday and less than once per year do a small rule break, and end up permanently banned in a few years time. It is very understandable to make one mistake in thousands of games, but the developers and moderators don't care. It only gets better, or worse, depending on how You look at it! Any reports prior to November 1st, 2020, which is almost 3 years ago, cannot be appealed, as the data of the reports was lost. The report is so long ago that the data is lost, but the strikes still remain.
i have 4 strikes on my account, so eligible for a permanent ban according to the rules. 2 of them are archived and unappealable because they were before November 2020. i made my account on 24th June 2017, which means i got those 2 reports in 3 years of playing. The 3rd report, i got on 1st May 2022, and 4th and last report on 17th May 2023. There is more than a year interval between each guiltied report, and a total of 4 reports across almost 6 years of playing.
At this point, its already crystal clear how broken the report system is. But its only getting better from here onwards, so grab some popcorn while You can!
Now we're going to build up towards the climax of absurdity and talk about the reports individually and in detail whereever possible.
The first report was about gamethrow. That one is totally valid and i will make no excuse. i was Medium, i got jailed night 1, claimed Jailor to Jailor, got executed night 2. Totally fair report and ban.
The second ban is for hate speech/harassment. i honestly do not remember the details of this report. i never appealed it, i just tanked the week ban, and considered it an extended break.
Now the third report: Allegedly gamethrowing. i highly recommend to open my appeal topic, where the replay of the game can be seen, and my detailed defense can be read.
A very short summary of the game: i am Blackmailer in this game. Night 1, i notify my team of a Veteran. my Godfather attacks that Veteran regardless, so Mafioso dies. Invest finds GF, and GF claims Sheriff to Jailor. So obviously Jailor jails them n2, but does not execute and keeps him jailed for the rest of the game. At this point, the game is completely lost, as Mafia can never ever get a kill. Anyone with 100 ranked matches understands that this game is not winnable. So i went AFK. Note that this was a patch where there was no Neutral Killing.
There is absolutely no way this can be considered gamethrowing. Mafia literally got 0 kills the entire game, because we are completely locked. There are dozens of similar cases where people do something that is technically a gamethrow, like a Sheriff voting a confirmed Lookout in a 2v2 against 2 Mafia members. In practice, nobody considers this gamethrowing. Its regularly done to speed up the game since they have no win condition. Going AFK when Mafia cannot ever get a kill is in no way gamethrowing. Other games like Valorant even offer an 'ff' option which would be nice to help reduce frustration when having a bad team. Why can other games 'ff' and not consider that gamethrowing, but in Town of Salem, its considered gamethrowing? i personally do not think an 'ff' option is feasible in this game, but its a good reference to how other game companies handle players giving up.
The fourth report is for 'spamming'. What i did was whisper multiple people the same message - a tech widely accepted among the community with several applications. For example, if You're Invest and check a player n1 that somehow died that night, You can quickly whisper Your results to as many people as possible before their Last Will show up to increase fidelity of Your claim. It is important to whisper as many people as possible, because if You whisper only one or a few players, and they end up being evil(s), it defies the point. (Note that if You do not whisper the results prior to the Last Will showing up, You can even get hanged for it!)
Another strategy is camouflage. Say You are blackmailer and have important information to share with Your Mafia team, but You're about to be lynched. You cannot just whisper a Mafia member as that creates a whisper notification for all players, and that's basically outing Your team member. So what You can do is whisper all non-Mafia members a random message, say just a dot. But whisper the mafia members the information You wanted to share. Now, there is no way for Town to know who is Mafia and who is Town, as the whisper that contains the crucial information is camouflaged by the fake whispers.
The moderator told me whispering creates a (whisper) notification, and thus whispering multiple people, even if just once per person, is considered spamming. So i brought up the comparison to being blackmailed and spamming votes, as that also creates a (vote) notification. The moderator actually told me this, and i am quoting: "Spamming votes is different from that for now. Votes are not visible in reports, thus you can still vote 4 times that to signal you being blackmailed." Basically, they are saying it should be reportable and bannable, but they just cannot detect it yet. So i asked him: What if i record someone spamming votes. Does that get them banned? CHECKMATE. He had no way to defend himself. But instead of admitting that the punishment was issued wrongly, he resorted to the famous trick of "our opinions on this differ", and stopped replying.
The second moderator didn't even bother replying and saying what was wrong about what i did. She just straight out posted some copy-pasted message and locked the topic.
The moderators are completely detached from the game and the community. Saying that spamming votes when blackmailed is bannable essentially makes every player in a position where they can get banned. The only thing needed is a piece of FLUMMERY rule-sharker to fill in the report. Everyone, every single player, spams votes when blackmailed. No exceptions. And if You don't spam votes when blackmailed, then claim blackmailed on stand, You will get hanged. So the rules put You in a position where You either lose the game, or lose Your account. No game should EVER have a rule that puts You in such a default position where You either lose the game or lose Your account.
Looking at how the moderators op