In defence of “Playing with randos”

I have made numerous complaints of how common leavers, hackers, pouters (People who sit around and refuse to complete their tasks), spammers, and Discord cheaters are in this game.

Every time I get told the same things:

"Stop playing with Randos."

"Play with friends or don't play at all."

"Get the official discord servers."

First off… lol most of these happen when I join games posted to the organized Discord servers. IF I manage to get in a game, that is.

Second, people often have their own tells. The more you play with them the more you learn them. It isn't just "Arson Sam always moves anticlockwise", "Brian's a bad liar", or "Sans can only communicate via memes". They can also be "NineT walks primarily in straight lines and right angles", "Postman never uses the vent", "Kira tries to position himself in the middle of a crowd to kill randomly but will avoid crowds as crew", or "Glados is very VERY good at finishing tasks so they follow everyone".

Recently I played with a bunch of friends. For a few games I was in bliss. No leavers. No hackers. No pouters. But at the same time? People learned things very fast, such as how some people are very good at completing tasks, which caused impostors to go for them first. Which in turn caused them to start moving around in groups… which meant people who were crewmates were voted out just "so the game can begin". This became very dull fast since we would see people standing in areas nobody could exit without having vented.

Meanwhile whenever I get in a game with randos that aren't pouters, leavers, spammers, etc… they don't know who I am. And I don't know who they are. I can't default to "Brian's a bad liar" or "So and so always stalks one person for an alibi", I have to watch their behaviour and notice their own patterns. I can zip through my tasks and then watch others, and watch out for people who intentionally try to behave erratically to make them hard to follow, or people who set up camp in the security hallways.

It is almost like it is… much more mentally engaging to play with mostly strangers than with friends whose tells you learned long ago. I have even found out "Cottoneye" was postman simply cause I noticed he was walking in straight lines and right angles… and I asked him over Discord if he was in my last game. Surprise he was.

I find randos much more engaging, when they aren't pouting, spamming, hacking, or leaving. I don't get annoyed by the crew making stupid calls, this is part of real life. People will not believe you even if you are absolutely right.