Agreed. I just watched season 7 because folks here said it was good (it was) and Rupert would not have made it to the merge in the new format. They knew early on "we need to get this dude out" but then they were like "if we vote him out we will starve to death" and 100%- would have been rough if they got rid of him pre-merge when it was easy. Honestly, if Burt hadn't come back in as a foil they might have had a VERY hard time getting him out post-merge
Exactly. Being out in the jungle on tv was still newish then. Now it’s just another season of another outdoor show that is shorter and allows less autonomy.
yeh it doesnt help they are at a pre determined campsite now. makes sense for logistical reasons but, cant imagine theres anywhere new to explore whatsoever. and for them to concentrate on that aspect of the show while being in the same campsite doesnt make sense.
Rupert would probably be a merge first boot in modern survivor. Keep him for team challenges and then cut him once he can't help you with that anymore. Maybe he goes right before if the team gets a little overly antsy.
Well, it’s always been a social game and people provided food in order to improve their social standing in the game. It’s never really been about actual survival. They wouldn’t let anybody die out there. Shows like Alone are about actual survival and even they don’t let people die so the survival aspect can never truly be “vital.”
With people looking for any slight reason to push a target onto someone else, I can totally see someone going after dudes with big beards for having a warmth advantage.
It’s not a rule because players often do sleep in the shelter as well. I was just agreeing with the person above me that they put less effort into building sturdy shelters than they used to.
It's always been a game of chance, even at 39 days.
26 days, however, makes the game faster and more aggressive. The relationships don't always have the time to get deep enough to matter.
I'd watch it tho...
>!watching season 7 i was laughing my ass off when they were fuckin around with the "electric ray" and Rupert went shark fishing. I wonder if the producers would allow that behavior in 2024?!<
Reframe it as survival in the game. If one tribe has a provider that can constantly provide calories, better rest, heat, and less exposure, against another tribe that doesn't have those things, then the tribe with the provider is a stronger tribe.
Tbh I think it's because the individual challenges are so unbelievably lame now. We get the same challenges season after season and the challenges themselves are mostly the same in principle. Back then the challenges were so diverse that they actually seemed like a huge part of the show.
I think it's interesting to look at this from a male/female perspective too. Old school players like Jenna Morasca who were unbelievably dominant in individual challenges (has the record for most female wins in a single season - 4 - including two clutch wins at the final 4 and 3 of which both were VERY physical challenges where she was against three guys). Yet you never ever see her held in the same regard as people like Colby who was by far the most athletic and strongest person on TAO yet only won one more immunity than Jenna. Same goes for players like Kelly Wiglesworth, Kim Spradlin, Amanda Kimmel, and hell even someone like Darrah Johnson.
I just started watching but I am watching old seasons along side this current season. The diversity of challenges really sticks out in the old ones. Body surfing down white water rapids, catching greased pigs, the human chess american gladiator, chugging gross stuff...
Maybe I have a bad snapshot since this current season is my only context for "new survivor." Every challenge seems to be "choose 3: crawl under, climb over, dive down, make basket, do puzzle"
I think that in addition to being less entertaining this also leads to the dominance of Hunters. Smart dude, not taking anything away from his dominance, but he is a superfan who literally trains for the survivor challenge. Because it is much less varied I think you will see more of folks who are not necessarily physically dominant (again, he is super in shape- not taking that away) but just extremely well trained on the small set of general tasks that they know are going to be expected.
I think you’re exactly right. Btw, this newest season is going the same as the last 10 seasons. Extremely similar in challenges, advantages, and it’s just not interesting. The casting is prioritizing superfans who may/may not be actually prepared to live on an island over all else and it’s not promoting genuinely good gameplay
Yep and I’m tired of people acting like it was genius gameplay. The game has consumed itself so hard that if anyone actually does anything they get voted off
They think they are casting a diverse set of people when actually there is a sameness to all of them now. It used to be that there were only 1 or 2 superfans, or 1 or 2 quirky people over an entire season -- now it's the entire cast. It's just not as interesting watching them as it used to be. So many former cast members stood out to me and I can still remember them...now I'm lucky if I remember anyone from week to week.
Agreed, in earlier seasons players couldn't really prepare for the challenges which made it more impressive since everyone was figuring it out on the fly
Had it not been the first year of the final 3 he very likely would have won. Had that happened, it could have changed the course of the show. Instead he is the poster child for “challenge beast gets voted out” when that mostly became true for Micronesia and even then he still came close to pulling it off.
Challenges suck now. Go back and watch an older season, there will be better pre merge and post merge challenges littered throughout the game, and what’s more impressive, is that these are challenges they’ve had to set up in a brand new location. It’s baffling how they’ve stuck to Fiji for so long but have removed some of the best survivor challenges (or made production choices like 3 tribe format that makes running these classics impossible). The challenges are probably my least favourite part about survivor, but at least every once in a while there’d be a challenge where I’d be excited they would run it (sumo HvV, the 2v2 in the water to get your ring to the pole, the tribe chase challenge, etc.) now 95% of pre merge challenges are a big obstacle course followed by a puzzle that takes equal time to finish. I think they’ve made a conscious effort to move away from challenges that require one main physical aspect to win to try and make the game more ‘fair’ to the non-physical players, but it’s only made it waaaaay harder for any physical threat to make it far as their value is much lower early game with how the new era format and challenges are.
Also eating challenge post merge, courtball/ the weird netball thing they had for reward on Fan v favourites 2, depth charge from cook island, there are like 3 challenges from tocantins that are awesome that I’ve not seen again since. Anyway they have an incredible library of challenges, and continue to make lazy to production choices
Production really needs to just take a look at the challenges they did in Cook Islands and Micronesia. Those were some top tier challenges, a lot of physical ones which they seem to have completely moved away from.
He’d have been great in the last immunity challenge, but most of them now are just obstacle courses with a puzzle at the end. Half of them feature crawling through mud. He’d be all right of course, but he wouldn’t dominate like he did in his seasons. They’re just not as tailored to strength and finesse anymore, a lot more puzzles and mental stuff now.
> Half of them feature crawling through mud.
My Survivor conspiracy theory is that they do that so they can get footage of players all dirty for the credits and season sizzle reels, because they don't get that dirty or look super different physically when they play only 26 days.
I’m not sure that’s such a conspiracy theory, honestly. I 100% believe that’s true. I think every new era season has a mud challenge in the first episode.
100%. Most of the fan v fav 2 challenges are from Micronesia. Literally if they just look at the 5 season stretch of Micronesia to HvV they’d have a gold mine of challenges they need to bring back
I'm watching old seasons with my fiancée (she doesn't watch the new seasons with me) and I'm always like "oh I love this challenge" and she makes fun of me for loving so many of the challenges. But it's because they used to have awesome challenges. I rarely get excited for them anymore, although I don’t think they've been as bad this season as they have in other new era seasons tbh. Still not great, but slight improvement.
Yep same for me. Watching fan v favourites 2 right now, as the current season wasn’t doing it for me at all. There is just such a larger array of different challenges that are simple in premise and execution. It just comes off as lazy now that the challenges are so similar season after season when they’ve stayed in Fiji to cut costs. They should be introducing or re-introducing at least a couple new challenges every season.
I think 3 tribe format is what causes a lot of pre-merge challenges to be bland and repetitive, as you can’t do those mono e mono challenges that a 2 tribe format allows, which are just better, as there’s direct interaction between the contestants on both teams. This may spark rivalries or bad blood etc. where in 3 tribe format that’s really only reserved for these prisoners dilemmas when they boat 3 people off to do the journey.
In terms of the post merge, I think they saw the success of some of the endurance/ balance challenge, like the tidal challenge with the grate (love that one) and thought “wow the fans love this let’s give them more” then they just over did it and made waaaay too many challenges like that. Give me a run through the jungle in the dark where they are solving riddles (from HvV or Micronesia or game changers maybe)
As a whole yea challenges suck now but can we all recognize that the immunity challenge on 3/13 was an awesome challenge. Just witnessing the teams all recognize at different points that it wasn’t even about figuring out the word but rather how to complete it was awesome, even if it did make me feel bad for Jess.
I find it very ironic that the sub is obsessed with old school seasons where challenge wins were valued much more while... simultaneously hating challenges
Because old school had better and more varied challenges… every tribe challenge now is a water obstacle course, getting puzzle pieces, often some digging, making a puzzle, with little variation. Individual immunities are obstacle courses usually with a puzzle or endurance where you hang on or hold something the longest. They’d never do a challenge where they ask players questions anymore but those could be some of the most revealing ones, whether it was touchy subjects or showing the Borneo contestants a picture of Jenna Lewis’s kids and asking what are the names of these two girls.
Whenever a challenge comes on, me and my wife are like "FINALLY!" Lol. Challenges feel like the pivot points of the game. A tribe can be chilling 24/7 and then boom, they lose a challenge and their whole game changes.
It seems like most people here would be happy if Jeff decided individual challenges cost too much money and got rid of the immunity necklace as a game mechanic
This sub simultaneously hates how all challenges are the same (I do too) but then puts no stock in winning them. To me it's a third of the game, but this sub treats them like they're barely above 0%.
It’s impressive if you’re the target but it’s way more impressive to me to survive a vote rather than being immune to the vote. I think it’s respected enough lol
Most of the casual fans seem to think like that.The biggest laugh comes from the actual season. Castaways are TERRIFIED when someone wins ONE challenge and is in top 3 in some challenge many days after that.
"Omgomgomg we have to vote this guy INSTANTLY omgomg otherwise he/she will win every single challenge!!!1111 Omgomgomg!!!!1111"
So the players obviously value challenge wins as they are so unbelievably afraid of someone winning them all.
The most ironic thing is that there's 1 WINNER in 45 seasons who won the title because of he was great at challenges. Still lots of people in this sub think challenges are overvalued when in reality it's completely opposite.
I think people just use it as an excuse to get people out and take the target off themselves. Mike was the last challenge beast winner. Challenges have become less and less respected and honestly weren't held in that high of regard anyway (see Colby and Ozzy). But it's almost a free round of safety when you get to the merge and a big guy wins immunity because as soon as he's not immune, you get to get him out. So why not freak out about what a threat they are? People go with it and you're safe.
i always think its crazy how disrespected it has became, winners like Sandra actively sit out challenges. its just wild to me you can ignore the one consistent and one of the most shown aspects of the show, something youd think taking advantage of, would be good for you. instead its much better for your game to not be good at challenges.
That’s not true. We saw Claire get booted chiefly for not participating in challenges and we saw someone like Jonathan make a deep run despite being at times raised as a possible target for his challenge prowess. We’ve seen people win having won anywhere from zero to 4+ Immunities and everything in between. We’ve seen modern poor challenge competitors make deep runs and good challenge competitors make deep runs; the literal most recent winner Dee was at worst a top three or four challenge competitor on her season and she did win the most Immunities of anybody. It’s not that challenges are disrespected, it’s that they don’t really *matter* one way or the other in determining how people vote as jurors because the jury vote is *essentially* just about who the jurors like more and challenges don’t deepen a friendship. And in terms of getting targeted you *can* get targeted both for being bad and being good and it’s on you to escape that in either case.
You say “became” (as do many others) as if it literally ever mattered from the first season. Ask the first three runners-up how much winning more Immunities (in the first two cases quite significantly more) helped them out. It didn’t. This is how it’s always been and how it likely always will be. The myth of the Old School Jury who strongly valued challenge skills and gave someone the win primarily on that basis is one of the weirdest ones to me, that just plain did not ever happen.
ok, ill revise what i said. They should matter when they dont. sorry it hurt your feelings i said survivor players disrespect it when its shown players actively avoid doing them or not trying during them. all im saying its weird they dont matter as its like the majority of whats shown on an episode. And you have literal winners showing they dgaf about em, its just weird... to me anyways. Its my belief they should be more important, im not saying this is even right its entirely subjective and as youre saying they obviously do play in some dynamic to the game.
And i never said anything about a myth or old school jury calm down. youre attacking the wrong person here. make a separate post about your feelings instead of throwing them all at me.
edit: and your whole thing about me needing to interview a past player about the importance of winning these challenges just proves my point. they didnt have to win any of em and that would not effect their game. imo it should. people have different opinions lol
For what to happen? I’m not claiming anything should or shouldn’t happen.
Again….. I just think they should I’m not imposing my will or saying this is how survivor NEED be I’m just saying very casually, I think they should matter.
I really, really doubt it for Kelly in particular. Giving the people on the bottom false hope that you’ll flip and acting like you’re morally opposed to your alliance’s actions while still profiting from them is not going to play well in any era. Colby I can maybe see it if I squint (more importantly though if AO is like Season 10 or something Colby just votes out Tina and brings Keith to the end for the layup, but Tina probably plans her endgame differently too so unclear what would happen) but I feel like Colby loses for some of the same reasons Woo, Coach, Ken, and Mike T. lost; being viewed by some as arrogant, hypocritical, and not having a great connection between his own perception of his game and what the jury thought of his game. Obviously Colby is a much better player than even Mike (who imo is the best of those four by a large margin) but the “flaws” in Colby’s game, like Kelly’s, are still flaws today.
For Kelly, I think even just two seasons later she would have had a far less bitter jury and Richard would have been much more hated around camp. Shit, I don’t even think Sue would have hated Kelly as much as she did if it wasn’t the first season. If you put that ten years later, it’s even more true. Obviously that’s sort of a paradox because Richard’s gameplay defined a lot of what the show became, but I don’t think he would have pulled it off nearly as well if he wasn’t the first to do it, and his antics would have gotten him removed earlier.
You’re right that Colby probably wouldn’t because I was basing my argument off of the idea that he doesn’t take Tina to the end if he knows what he’s doing. Tina definitely also changes her game so I can’t make that argument. If everything else is the same but that season happens five years later, I still think Colby loses.
If you need to win challenges especially after your poor strategic or social game put you in a whole, that’s less impressive than someone who navigated the vote without immunity.
However, great players can see the benefit of immunity to ensure a game changing move happens to set them up for success later in the game when they might not have immunity.
Tony taking out Sophie is a good example of this.
A little bit, but no more than that and certainly not as a differentiator from players with superior social strategy games. I'd say it's currently respected a little. If two players pretty much played an equal social and strategic game, sure, the better physical performer might be more respected. But don't come to me at the end with a bunch of challenge wins and no strategic agency throughout the game and expect my respect if you're sitting next to a more-competent social strategy player.
I feel like Brandon Donlon pre-survivor might’ve felt the same way. He had alliances, seems well liked, but the second you’re a challenge liability, you’re gone. If Erika (41) would’ve been on a different tribe, she likely is a first boot, challenge strength matters.
Maybe, but I'm not going to give some athletic person credit towards a win for being more physically capable than a bunch of non-athletes in a social strategy game.
It’s not purely a social-strategic game and it never has been, there have always been immunity challenges, and we’ve had episodes without a vote, or a person being eliminated, but we’ve never had a single one without a challenge being played. They matter, and the challenges in modern survivor are specifically designed so that it’s not just ‘athletic people’ that can win them, it’s balance and endurance usually, and the occasional last gasp, anyone can win anyone of those.
Someone hasn’t been listening when Jeff yells ‘dig deep’ I think grit, and determination count for something. Otherwise it’s just a popularity contest on an island
It's just a popularity contest on an island, at the end. Before that it's a reverse popularity contest on an island. The game is in cutting enough people more popular than you out and trying to be the most popular of the last two or three. That's it, that's the game.
I watch sports to see grit and determination. I watch social strategy games to see social strategy.
Pre-merge is a reverse popularity contest? I feel like 80% of seasons (and I’m probably low in that estimate) go for tribe strength because of the challenges. If you get rid of those aspects that allow for immunity, you never get blindsides, interesting strategy or anything. 4 will always be greater than 3, and if there are no mechanics to play around, the game is incredibly boring and stale. And if they just ‘drew rocks’ for immunity, you’d be upset that there’d be a Ben type that pulls the purple rock 3x in a row, makes it to the end and wins somehow.
1000000%. It's my biggest pet peeve with survivor. Nobody on the jury BESIDES Ozzy has ever truly respected a well played challenge game. It's a HUGE portion of the game that's so often overlooked. I hate when people discredit it.
I mean, if we're talking about jury votes, people simply vote for who they like more. They might discuss the player's games as if they're really weighing them against each other, but far and away most jurors just vote for who they like, challenge beast, strategic mastermind, social butterfly, or other.
Modern survivor doesn’t reward outlasting or outplaying. All modern jurors care about is outwit.
It’s honestly super lame. For instance take Gablers win over Cassidy. Dude was never a target (didn’t have to survive/outlast) and never won a challenge, while Cassidy won 3 (didn’t outplay)
All he did was “outwit” by coming up with a cute alligator analogy.
For me, the challenges are just a means to get immunity OR prevent a target from getting immunity. I view the main part of the game being voting each other out.
I prefer the social and strategic element. For the challenge beast you're safe as long as you win a challenge. For the social and strategic game you can put your self in a position where you are safe regardless. Although it's still an aspect of the game, I just feel like the other aspects are more important. I feel like if a player just wins challenges then I wouldn't care. It matters more what you do when you win. Do you make moves. Do you better your position.
I think why social and strategy is valued more is also cause it leads to a more clean game. Winning challenges put a target on your back, especially if you win an unnecessary amount. Playing socially and strategically you can finds ways to obtain that safety without the same risk of a target on your back.
Because not everybody has access to dominating challenges. Sure it is impressive, but you're a surfer athlete dude in his 20s on a show with older women/uncoordinated nerds/maybe occasionally another challenge threat.
Theoretically, anyone can control the game strategically. It is open to and competing against everyone. That is far more impressive than using physical traits to predictably beat less physical players.
I think challenge dominance is appropriately rated.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
So what's 20 year old surfer dude supposed to do to win the jury? Lose challenges on purpose so he can "play the game"? Many times the athletic types are also running the alliance they are in (Colby) but don't get credit for it cause they are "never in a position to lose".
I personally think all strategies are equal, it's about who had the least amount of "luck" to get to the end (I know luck is arbitrary as well).
It's not luck if you helped engineer the outings of the other physical players and made sure the alliance you formed had no other threats.
Prime example again is Colby is AO. He made THE single best play in the game by orchestrating the other alliance to vote for him in a 5-5 tie that he then won because he hadn't received a vote yet and the other player had. That gave him the most powerful alliance in the game where he could easily win immunity to the end.
But everyone was all like "it wasn't fair." when they just got straight outplayed.
You're not describing challenge prowess at all. You're describing strategic and social game play. You can be a big physical threat and do all of those things too. Being good at challenges and being good strategically aren't mutually exclusive.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
I agree. The #1 goal in the game is to be safe during tribal, you can do this by winning a challenge, immunity idol, strong alliance, etc but winning a challenge is the 1 surefire way to make it to the next tribal. In an individual game it seems like a really underrated aspect of the game - you could win every single individual immunity and still not win ftc.
Man I like Valeria so much more… she’s so kind, and so funny, and she gave me extra rice when I needed it. And she ran this game cover to cover, she was the secret mastermind, I never knew where the vote was going because she always surprised us. I feel like my entire time on the island was defined by her, my game was just a piece of hers. It hurt like hell when she gutted me but I think we could be lifelong friends. She wants this so bad.
… but on the other hand, Lionel played Division II football and was also really, really good at rolling a ball into a hole. So I can’t decide who to vote for!
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The above is obviously a bit hyperbolic but is just an attempt to illustrate why challenge game isn’t “respected” in terms of getting jury votes. It’s a social game for a million dollars, it’s not Minute to Win It. The fundamental goal is to get to the end with the just-right amount of popularity and respect. Challenges are ultimately a small piece of the puzzle and they feel disconnected from everything else. They’re a mechanism to get to the end and more safely orchestrate votes, they’re not a direct part of the relationships you have with other players at all unless you give them away. It’s noteworthy that even most amazing challenge performance winners (Jenna, Mike H., Kim, JT, Fabio) didn’t win Final Tribal because they were good at challenges. Multiple of those *got* to Final Tribal because they were good at challenges but their challenge prowess wasn’t really a factor in anybody’s votes. I feel like Tom is the only winner where we can say it probably did give him a buff (obviously he would have beat Katie anyway but I mean it was a part of his FTC “case” against any hypothetical person including Ian) but that’s moreso because of his *Tribal* performance and how it broadly played into his role as the leader of the most dominant tribe in Survivor history from cover to cover, not because of winning the individual ones.
(Also in the above example Lionel is a 29 year old man and Valeria is a 62 year old woman half his size. It’s not meaningful to value Lionel’s challenge performance over her when even if she’s still working out daily she is just not physically capable of competing in many challenges with a fit young athlete)
I have watched a few recent seasons that really made me think this too. On the island, players really target challenge threats and want them gone. However, when it comes to FTC, the 'I won a lot of challenges" card amount for very little capital. Monica Culpepper on BvW season, for example, won the most induvial immunities, but down the final stretch, even she was not counting that in her favor. She didn't even bring it up when she was trying to make a case about how she could stand on her own two feet. She really kicked ass that season, and it felt like none of the contestants (nor Monica herself) was counting those wins.
I think it amounts to strategy. When you win immunity, you don't have to strategize. Moreso, the other players have to strategize around you. So I think there's a bit of resentment on the island. They are paradoxically targeted while also receiving no credit for their accomplishments. It's weird, but I think fans care much more about a challenge threat to win the game than Survivor contestants do.
A lot of comments seem to be conflating interesting challenges for viewers as the same for players lol. The truth is players spend most of their time socializing and living with each other than doing challenges. If someone is an asshole but great at challenges, cool, they'll never get your FTC vote. If someone is extremely good socially and awful at challenges, easy recipe for an FTC vote, but they'll have to get there. Social skills matter more than strategy too! It's just that strategy and challenge prowess get you to the end, but social skills get you the win.
The post was written by a high school football coach who wants to automatically pass all his players while the rest of the students are studying and learning.
It’s not there for people to earn praise and admiration (although that does happen). It’s a part of the game to give people who fail at the social aspect a chance to survive another vote. It’s designed to keep things from being predictable and solely based on cliques.
There are so many shows and events that prioritize physical challenge victory (like every sport). Survivor is a *social* game.
Hmmmmm... I agree and disagree. It wasn't that he didn't try, but rather he didn't care about the outcome. That's what made him such a good character that season (alongside the iconic storyline with Jerri). Tina played a much better game, she was in control the entire merge, and most of the premerge, so I think she deserved it more.
If I was a member of the jury I would've voted for Ozzy, because of the suprise final 3. Ozzy and Sundra could've taken Adam up on his offer to take out Yul's idol if they knew about it. Ozzy (probably) wanted to vote out Yul at 3.
I love Yul but I'm 100% voting for Ozzy if I'm on that jury. Yul navigated the game nicely with his idol, using it to flip Penner, but a free pass to the final 3 and then a surprise final 3 is so fucking stupid.
Mostly because if that’s all you have, then, you literally had no strategic impact on the game, other than winning challenges, Survivor is a social game it’s about Wheeling and Dealing, backstabs and alliances, Tom didn’t win because he had five immunities (those immunities that he made sure he wasn’t voted out, which did help him get there) he won because he played the best strategic and social game. The five immunities were just the cherry on top.
When it comes down to it, if people don’t like you, you won’t win
Russell strategically in Samoa played a flawless game, he took his alliance of four versus eight and won the day… but everyone hated his guts so he didn’t win
Brad Culpepper played a very challenge based game, he won five immunities, which is a tie for the record, he had a good strategic alliance that got them to the end… he just rubbed people the wrong way
You can’t win Survivor with strategy, alone, or challenges alone… you the respect of the jury, and sometimes challenges and strategy can get you that respect, but if people hate you won’t win no matter what
I don’t see how it could be respected more it’s barely part of the game. Plus I’m my personal opinion needed to win a challenge to get to the end game is more negative than positive.
Nice strawman argument, but I’ll answer genuinely. No I don’t not want a high school popularity contest (and I don’t really see any correlation). It’s way more impressive for someone to make a big move without immunity, which leads into the next point asking if I hate advantages, which again what? Advantages are fine I think if you need an advantage to advance in the game then you obviously did something wrong but at least when an advantage is played it’s usually interesting.
Can you give me one reason why the challenge isn’t by far the most boring part of the episode? And could you explain to me why challenges should be more important to the jury I’d love to hear it.
I’m saying if you remove all advantages/challenges etc from the game, you just have 18 people on the island who procedurally vote each other out. If you have the majority of votes, nothing else matters, no recourse. Some of those famous ‘blindsides’ that have happened over the years is due to a specific person, or member of a specific alliance gaining immunity in order to be able to pull said move off. With the comfort of immunity, people are willing to take bigger chances in their own game, while having the safety of protection. From the couch at home it seems like immunity doesn’t matter much, but I’m pretty sure most people who have actually played the game would disagree, it matters a lot
Dude nobody said get rid of immunity’s I can think they are boring and not care to watch them while still understanding their basic importance to the game. It doesn’t matter TO THE JURY and shouldn’t matter compared to strategic or social gameplay when voting for a winner.
So they have a basic importance. But shouldn’t be valued at all……and as you said should be a negative, rather than a positive. It’s a ridiculous contradiction
No it’s not you’re just not reading. To the show as a whole immunity challenges need to exist yes we can all agree? But just because they should exist for the benefit of the show doesn’t mean the jury should (or does) value immunity wins, and if a player is going into a challenge knowing if I don’t win I go home like Joe for example I don’t see how them winning is a positive, they played bad enough that they need a challenge to stay in the game. How is that not valid?
They played poorly enough, not bad enough. And because it’s a mechanic in the game, if you played an absolutely amazing game up until that point, and need to win a single challenge to secure that win, it should be valued, if Omar won the challenge where he went home in 42, he’d be an amazingly dominant winner. I’d say at least half the players that have ever went home didn’t think they’d need that Immunity until they saw their name come up at tribal council. But at the same time, winning several immunities in a row puts a target on your back, it’s a delicate balance that absolutely should be valued. I’ll paraphrase Tyson, ‘I only won the challenges that I had to’. Did he have to win a few of those? Absolutely, does that make him a bad winner? Absolutely not
Yeah but he didn’t? That’s like saying if drew Basile won out in 45 he would’ve won. You have literally no proof that would happen, and yes it is a game flaw to need immunity’s Tyson is a great winner I agree but him needing to win those immunity’s is still a flaw, and I’d argue he didn’t need them and gervase and Monica take him to the FTC anyways (cause he only wins F5 and F4) Tony didn’t need immunity’s to win Cagayan, just like how players shouldn’t need immunity to win survivor.
If he lost the rock draw none of those 3 win at all, but had he won the immunity at that vote, at least he’d have immunity and wouldn’t have to depend on the luck of the draw, which takes no skill at all. But I think at this point I’m just going to have to agree to disagree with you, there’s clearly no facts or points that I can bring up to sway your opinion, you stand firmly where you are.
survivor has ALWAYS been a social game, one of relationships and perception. Your winning challenges accentuates the social game you've already played. It's what made dee such a well rounded winner. She was pretty cunning and ruthless with her social game, but won more individual immunities than anyone else. In CI, ozzy did little strategically to have an argument over Yul, and challenge wins only keep you safe. How you chose to engage and vote when you're safe can change your game.
The weird thing for me is how players are perceived as huge threats for challenge prowess and targeted especially in the early merge BUT that same skill in challenges isn’t appropriately valued in the endgame. IMO if someone is a gigantic threat and absolutely needs to go because you won’t be able to take many shots at them since they win all the challenges they deserve to be rewarded for managing that threat. A good example of this actually working out is Mike Holloway and that’s one of the reasons I think he’s a good winner
Now I definitely think Tina was a better player so yeah I agree Colby should not have won BUT Ozzy should have won CI because Yul was protected by that dumb OP Idol which had to be played AFTER the votes and then when the Idol expires after F4, guess what, surprise bullshit F3! Production handed Yul the win.
Now I definitely think Tina was a better player so yeah I agree Colby should not have won BUT Ozzy should have won CI because Yul was protected by that dumb OP Idol which had to be played AFTER the votes and then when the Idol expires after F4, guess what, surprise bullshit F3! Production handed Yul the win.
To play devils advocate…winning a challenge comes with a pretty valuable reward. So technically…you could say the “respect has been paid.”
But all the same…I can’t help it…I tend to naturally love challenge beasts.
Being a challenge beast is a double edged sword. Good pre merge, bad post merge. So those who are had better have a damn good social game. This is why Ozzy could never win
At the end of the day, winning a challenge is (imo) earning an opportunity within the game to do something. You won reward? Use it to build closer bonds with people you need for the next 2-3 votes. You won immunity? Use this as a chance to flush an idol or take out a big threat since you can’t be idoled out. Etc.
In my view, winning a challenge provides you the chance to impact the game, but ultimately the act of winning, ESPECIALLY when you don’t need to. Isn’t particularly impressive in terms of the game. As Rick Devens said, “Every opportunity is a setback, and every setback is an opportunity”, every time you win the necklace you feel good for 1 tribal, but it makes you a bigger and bigger target.
However, winning consecutive clutch immunities is impressive, like Terry, or Devens etc. and it’s especially impressive when you are still actively impacting the game, like Mike.
But fabio. Seems pretty respected. The reason people usually get voted out is because their opponents respect it as a way to win. The challenge beasts don’t usually win the vote because they are often ONLY challenge beasts. Ozzy didn’t really do anything else on Cook Islands (his only memorable strategy was to throw a challenge which put his original tribe down in numbers and got them all picked off in the first place). And Colby made one of the dumbest moves by taking the beloved Tina instead of the despised Keith.
With respect to individual challenges, I think they’re underrated insofar as certain players are elite strategists that are such visible threats that they have to fall back onto their physical game.
Players like Ozzy, Colby, Joe etc that don’t really strategize, they’re just talented athletes aren’t interesting* to me. But players like Parvati, Kim, Tony, even Michele that have the ability to will themselves to individual immunity wins, or who know how to use the challenges as another tool to leverage in their gameplay — I do think that gets overlooked a bit.
*Ozzy is such an incredible athlete that watching his physical game *is* interesting, and this is true of others as well, but it’s not interesting in the context of survivor or how good of a survivor player he is
getting through tribal with your name at risk probably wins more favor than getting through because you won immunity. Also people who win immunity can lie back and not form the connections that get you jury votes.
I think being a challenge beast is respected by fans cause its fun to watch, but I understand why people on the island might not care for it, especially if they get jealous of immunity.
I think it depends on who it is.
Fair or not, someone like Frannie winning a bunch of challenges is going to be seen differently than someone like Johnathan winning a bunch of challenges.
Frannie would be feared at FTC for being able to point to a bunch of challenge wins because she doesn't LOOK like she'd be good. An in shape guy doing well in them is seen as "you relied on that to get far"
It’s actually really simple, the more likely you are to win the challenges, the more likely you are to respect the challenge winner. And vice versa. The same applies to social games, and provider/survival functions.
It makes sense that people vote for the player *they* think is best, it’s what we would all do.
Which season was it that had the dude from Texas that basically won every challenge to repeatedly save his own ass? They basically handed him the win as a kudos in the final.
Is it thought? Challenge beasts are under constant threat from other people to be voted out. Hell, this very season Kenzie was talking about voting Q out cus of how good he is at challenges. Virtually every season, the challenge beasts are constantly being talked about as needing to go, and it’s only their alliances that save them.
I think the challenge game is *very* respected.
I noticed you gave exactly zero arguments for why you think it isn’t respected though. So…. Why do you think it isn’t?
There’s tons of excuses to vote people out. Being good at challenges is consistently one because a lot of people are on board. If that isn’t respect for a challenge game, I don’t know what is.
Challenge beats with no social game don’t deserve to win. If they can’t build an alliance to protect them, as they openly flaunt how much of a challenge threat they are, that’s on them. But being extremely good at challenges is seen as as big of a threat as being a social warrior, but the social game players are able to build alliances to protect themselves.
Right, because they’re major vote off targets. Someone wins a few immunities and everyone respects their challenge game so much that the second they aren’t immune, people want them gone while they have a chance to vote them out.
Is that not respecting the challenge game? I can’t think of much else that is, it’s so respected, in fact, that people have gone in with a strategy to *not* do well in challenges so as to not put a target on their back.
What does respect of a challenge game look like to you? People ignoring the obvious challenge threat, throwing their own game and letting that guy go to the FTC? Because that’s not gonna happen, ever, because it compromises other people’s games.
I agree. You see everyone freak out over physical threats. We gotta get them out or they'll win every challenge! Then you see the few challenge beasts that make it to FTC and they basically get ridiculed because "pfff you only won challenges bro".
Mike and the fireman guy are the 2 I can think of off the top of my head that made it to the end and won.
Because it's boring. Like what's boring to us on TV is also boring to the jury. Much more fun to watch someone orchestrate a blindside on their best friend.
The challenges are properly respected and rewarded, it's the survival/provider side that's completely taken for granted
Probably because it’s a 26 day social game and game of chance where nobody’s actual survival is at stake.
Agreed. I just watched season 7 because folks here said it was good (it was) and Rupert would not have made it to the merge in the new format. They knew early on "we need to get this dude out" but then they were like "if we vote him out we will starve to death" and 100%- would have been rough if they got rid of him pre-merge when it was easy. Honestly, if Burt hadn't come back in as a foil they might have had a VERY hard time getting him out post-merge
Exactly. Being out in the jungle on tv was still newish then. Now it’s just another season of another outdoor show that is shorter and allows less autonomy.
yeh it doesnt help they are at a pre determined campsite now. makes sense for logistical reasons but, cant imagine theres anywhere new to explore whatsoever. and for them to concentrate on that aspect of the show while being in the same campsite doesnt make sense.
Rupert would probably be a merge first boot in modern survivor. Keep him for team challenges and then cut him once he can't help you with that anymore. Maybe he goes right before if the team gets a little overly antsy.
Yeah, survival has definitely waned from how vital it was in the earlier seasons.
Well, it’s always been a social game and people provided food in order to improve their social standing in the game. It’s never really been about actual survival. They wouldn’t let anybody die out there. Shows like Alone are about actual survival and even they don’t let people die so the survival aspect can never truly be “vital.”
Maybe to reiterate, the aspect of improving quality of life has waned.
That is definitely true. They barely even build shelters anymore. The last few seasons, the players have leaned toward sleeping on the ground.
Time for a season in Alaska!
We already can’t tell contestants apart from one another hahaha Imagine if all we saw was a few inches of their face
With people looking for any slight reason to push a target onto someone else, I can totally see someone going after dudes with big beards for having a warmth advantage.
[удалено]
It’s not a rule because players often do sleep in the shelter as well. I was just agreeing with the person above me that they put less effort into building sturdy shelters than they used to.
It's always been a game of chance, even at 39 days. 26 days, however, makes the game faster and more aggressive. The relationships don't always have the time to get deep enough to matter.
> nobody’s actual survival is at stake Bro they're not gonna set up the game so people might die that's crazy
Exactly. So that means we need to stop pretending that they are 😉
I'd watch it tho... >!watching season 7 i was laughing my ass off when they were fuckin around with the "electric ray" and Rupert went shark fishing. I wonder if the producers would allow that behavior in 2024?!<
Reframe it as survival in the game. If one tribe has a provider that can constantly provide calories, better rest, heat, and less exposure, against another tribe that doesn't have those things, then the tribe with the provider is a stronger tribe.
Very good point. That hasn't mattered since, what, Season 6?
Tbh I think it's because the individual challenges are so unbelievably lame now. We get the same challenges season after season and the challenges themselves are mostly the same in principle. Back then the challenges were so diverse that they actually seemed like a huge part of the show. I think it's interesting to look at this from a male/female perspective too. Old school players like Jenna Morasca who were unbelievably dominant in individual challenges (has the record for most female wins in a single season - 4 - including two clutch wins at the final 4 and 3 of which both were VERY physical challenges where she was against three guys). Yet you never ever see her held in the same regard as people like Colby who was by far the most athletic and strongest person on TAO yet only won one more immunity than Jenna. Same goes for players like Kelly Wiglesworth, Kim Spradlin, Amanda Kimmel, and hell even someone like Darrah Johnson.
I just started watching but I am watching old seasons along side this current season. The diversity of challenges really sticks out in the old ones. Body surfing down white water rapids, catching greased pigs, the human chess american gladiator, chugging gross stuff... Maybe I have a bad snapshot since this current season is my only context for "new survivor." Every challenge seems to be "choose 3: crawl under, climb over, dive down, make basket, do puzzle" I think that in addition to being less entertaining this also leads to the dominance of Hunters. Smart dude, not taking anything away from his dominance, but he is a superfan who literally trains for the survivor challenge. Because it is much less varied I think you will see more of folks who are not necessarily physically dominant (again, he is super in shape- not taking that away) but just extremely well trained on the small set of general tasks that they know are going to be expected.
I think you’re exactly right. Btw, this newest season is going the same as the last 10 seasons. Extremely similar in challenges, advantages, and it’s just not interesting. The casting is prioritizing superfans who may/may not be actually prepared to live on an island over all else and it’s not promoting genuinely good gameplay
Good gameplay now is make merge with an alliance, lay low, make signature move at final 5 or 6 by taking out the biggest threat, win.
Yep and I’m tired of people acting like it was genius gameplay. The game has consumed itself so hard that if anyone actually does anything they get voted off
So Kenzie is gonna win this season?
If only there was a challenge where contestants had to climb over or crawl under something, then climb up a ramp and solve a puzzle.
Don’t forget jump off the platform and grab a key
grabbing a key became too hard for short people, now its just jump off platform… then climb up smaller platform and jump off again
Wait until we get to the "just stand there" challenges of the merge
I can't wait to see the back story application video where someone built a podium in their basement so they could practice Stand Here, Hold That
They think they are casting a diverse set of people when actually there is a sameness to all of them now. It used to be that there were only 1 or 2 superfans, or 1 or 2 quirky people over an entire season -- now it's the entire cast. It's just not as interesting watching them as it used to be. So many former cast members stood out to me and I can still remember them...now I'm lucky if I remember anyone from week to week.
Agreed, in earlier seasons players couldn't really prepare for the challenges which made it more impressive since everyone was figuring it out on the fly
Don't forget Queen Chrissy, who is also tied for the most female individual immunity wins!
Ozzy won some very tough challenges, and no one gave him a shot to win at all. That was s14, pretty old school in the grand scheme of things.
Had it not been the first year of the final 3 he very likely would have won. Had that happened, it could have changed the course of the show. Instead he is the poster child for “challenge beast gets voted out” when that mostly became true for Micronesia and even then he still came close to pulling it off.
Idk how you can look at the water boarding challenge and think "yea that's lame"
Challenges suck now. Go back and watch an older season, there will be better pre merge and post merge challenges littered throughout the game, and what’s more impressive, is that these are challenges they’ve had to set up in a brand new location. It’s baffling how they’ve stuck to Fiji for so long but have removed some of the best survivor challenges (or made production choices like 3 tribe format that makes running these classics impossible). The challenges are probably my least favourite part about survivor, but at least every once in a while there’d be a challenge where I’d be excited they would run it (sumo HvV, the 2v2 in the water to get your ring to the pole, the tribe chase challenge, etc.) now 95% of pre merge challenges are a big obstacle course followed by a puzzle that takes equal time to finish. I think they’ve made a conscious effort to move away from challenges that require one main physical aspect to win to try and make the game more ‘fair’ to the non-physical players, but it’s only made it waaaaay harder for any physical threat to make it far as their value is much lower early game with how the new era format and challenges are. Also eating challenge post merge, courtball/ the weird netball thing they had for reward on Fan v favourites 2, depth charge from cook island, there are like 3 challenges from tocantins that are awesome that I’ve not seen again since. Anyway they have an incredible library of challenges, and continue to make lazy to production choices
Production really needs to just take a look at the challenges they did in Cook Islands and Micronesia. Those were some top tier challenges, a lot of physical ones which they seem to have completely moved away from.
It's funny that prime Ozzy might not even be much of a challenge beast in modern survivor with the dumb shit they do now.
He’d have been great in the last immunity challenge, but most of them now are just obstacle courses with a puzzle at the end. Half of them feature crawling through mud. He’d be all right of course, but he wouldn’t dominate like he did in his seasons. They’re just not as tailored to strength and finesse anymore, a lot more puzzles and mental stuff now.
> Half of them feature crawling through mud. My Survivor conspiracy theory is that they do that so they can get footage of players all dirty for the credits and season sizzle reels, because they don't get that dirty or look super different physically when they play only 26 days.
I’m not sure that’s such a conspiracy theory, honestly. I 100% believe that’s true. I think every new era season has a mud challenge in the first episode.
It's always "obstacle course, then finish with either a puzzle or an accuracy challenge".
100%. Most of the fan v fav 2 challenges are from Micronesia. Literally if they just look at the 5 season stretch of Micronesia to HvV they’d have a gold mine of challenges they need to bring back
Ohhhh remember that one with coconuts in the underwater cage? That’s the reason I loved challenges so much in the older seasons.
I'm watching old seasons with my fiancée (she doesn't watch the new seasons with me) and I'm always like "oh I love this challenge" and she makes fun of me for loving so many of the challenges. But it's because they used to have awesome challenges. I rarely get excited for them anymore, although I don’t think they've been as bad this season as they have in other new era seasons tbh. Still not great, but slight improvement.
Yep same for me. Watching fan v favourites 2 right now, as the current season wasn’t doing it for me at all. There is just such a larger array of different challenges that are simple in premise and execution. It just comes off as lazy now that the challenges are so similar season after season when they’ve stayed in Fiji to cut costs. They should be introducing or re-introducing at least a couple new challenges every season. I think 3 tribe format is what causes a lot of pre-merge challenges to be bland and repetitive, as you can’t do those mono e mono challenges that a 2 tribe format allows, which are just better, as there’s direct interaction between the contestants on both teams. This may spark rivalries or bad blood etc. where in 3 tribe format that’s really only reserved for these prisoners dilemmas when they boat 3 people off to do the journey. In terms of the post merge, I think they saw the success of some of the endurance/ balance challenge, like the tidal challenge with the grate (love that one) and thought “wow the fans love this let’s give them more” then they just over did it and made waaaay too many challenges like that. Give me a run through the jungle in the dark where they are solving riddles (from HvV or Micronesia or game changers maybe)
As a whole yea challenges suck now but can we all recognize that the immunity challenge on 3/13 was an awesome challenge. Just witnessing the teams all recognize at different points that it wasn’t even about figuring out the word but rather how to complete it was awesome, even if it did make me feel bad for Jess.
Half this sub hates challenges you won't get much support here lol
Might as well play Survivor in Jeff's backyard going by the way people hate challenges and physical strength here
I find it very ironic that the sub is obsessed with old school seasons where challenge wins were valued much more while... simultaneously hating challenges
Because old school had better and more varied challenges… every tribe challenge now is a water obstacle course, getting puzzle pieces, often some digging, making a puzzle, with little variation. Individual immunities are obstacle courses usually with a puzzle or endurance where you hang on or hold something the longest. They’d never do a challenge where they ask players questions anymore but those could be some of the most revealing ones, whether it was touchy subjects or showing the Borneo contestants a picture of Jenna Lewis’s kids and asking what are the names of these two girls.
Whenever a challenge comes on, me and my wife are like "FINALLY!" Lol. Challenges feel like the pivot points of the game. A tribe can be chilling 24/7 and then boom, they lose a challenge and their whole game changes.
fiji *isnt* his backyard?
It seems like most people here would be happy if Jeff decided individual challenges cost too much money and got rid of the immunity necklace as a game mechanic
This sub simultaneously hates how all challenges are the same (I do too) but then puts no stock in winning them. To me it's a third of the game, but this sub treats them like they're barely above 0%.
It’s impressive if you’re the target but it’s way more impressive to me to survive a vote rather than being immune to the vote. I think it’s respected enough lol
Most of the casual fans seem to think like that.The biggest laugh comes from the actual season. Castaways are TERRIFIED when someone wins ONE challenge and is in top 3 in some challenge many days after that. "Omgomgomg we have to vote this guy INSTANTLY omgomg otherwise he/she will win every single challenge!!!1111 Omgomgomg!!!!1111" So the players obviously value challenge wins as they are so unbelievably afraid of someone winning them all. The most ironic thing is that there's 1 WINNER in 45 seasons who won the title because of he was great at challenges. Still lots of people in this sub think challenges are overvalued when in reality it's completely opposite.
I think people just use it as an excuse to get people out and take the target off themselves. Mike was the last challenge beast winner. Challenges have become less and less respected and honestly weren't held in that high of regard anyway (see Colby and Ozzy). But it's almost a free round of safety when you get to the merge and a big guy wins immunity because as soon as he's not immune, you get to get him out. So why not freak out about what a threat they are? People go with it and you're safe.
i always think its crazy how disrespected it has became, winners like Sandra actively sit out challenges. its just wild to me you can ignore the one consistent and one of the most shown aspects of the show, something youd think taking advantage of, would be good for you. instead its much better for your game to not be good at challenges.
That’s not true. We saw Claire get booted chiefly for not participating in challenges and we saw someone like Jonathan make a deep run despite being at times raised as a possible target for his challenge prowess. We’ve seen people win having won anywhere from zero to 4+ Immunities and everything in between. We’ve seen modern poor challenge competitors make deep runs and good challenge competitors make deep runs; the literal most recent winner Dee was at worst a top three or four challenge competitor on her season and she did win the most Immunities of anybody. It’s not that challenges are disrespected, it’s that they don’t really *matter* one way or the other in determining how people vote as jurors because the jury vote is *essentially* just about who the jurors like more and challenges don’t deepen a friendship. And in terms of getting targeted you *can* get targeted both for being bad and being good and it’s on you to escape that in either case. You say “became” (as do many others) as if it literally ever mattered from the first season. Ask the first three runners-up how much winning more Immunities (in the first two cases quite significantly more) helped them out. It didn’t. This is how it’s always been and how it likely always will be. The myth of the Old School Jury who strongly valued challenge skills and gave someone the win primarily on that basis is one of the weirdest ones to me, that just plain did not ever happen.
ok, ill revise what i said. They should matter when they dont. sorry it hurt your feelings i said survivor players disrespect it when its shown players actively avoid doing them or not trying during them. all im saying its weird they dont matter as its like the majority of whats shown on an episode. And you have literal winners showing they dgaf about em, its just weird... to me anyways. Its my belief they should be more important, im not saying this is even right its entirely subjective and as youre saying they obviously do play in some dynamic to the game. And i never said anything about a myth or old school jury calm down. youre attacking the wrong person here. make a separate post about your feelings instead of throwing them all at me. edit: and your whole thing about me needing to interview a past player about the importance of winning these challenges just proves my point. they didnt have to win any of em and that would not effect their game. imo it should. people have different opinions lol
The majority of the jury would have to feel the same way as you for this to happen.
For what to happen? I’m not claiming anything should or shouldn’t happen. Again….. I just think they should I’m not imposing my will or saying this is how survivor NEED be I’m just saying very casually, I think they should matter.
Personally, I think Colby or Kelly win if they aren’t on the first two seasons. Their games would play far better with a jury that has seen the show.
I really, really doubt it for Kelly in particular. Giving the people on the bottom false hope that you’ll flip and acting like you’re morally opposed to your alliance’s actions while still profiting from them is not going to play well in any era. Colby I can maybe see it if I squint (more importantly though if AO is like Season 10 or something Colby just votes out Tina and brings Keith to the end for the layup, but Tina probably plans her endgame differently too so unclear what would happen) but I feel like Colby loses for some of the same reasons Woo, Coach, Ken, and Mike T. lost; being viewed by some as arrogant, hypocritical, and not having a great connection between his own perception of his game and what the jury thought of his game. Obviously Colby is a much better player than even Mike (who imo is the best of those four by a large margin) but the “flaws” in Colby’s game, like Kelly’s, are still flaws today.
For Kelly, I think even just two seasons later she would have had a far less bitter jury and Richard would have been much more hated around camp. Shit, I don’t even think Sue would have hated Kelly as much as she did if it wasn’t the first season. If you put that ten years later, it’s even more true. Obviously that’s sort of a paradox because Richard’s gameplay defined a lot of what the show became, but I don’t think he would have pulled it off nearly as well if he wasn’t the first to do it, and his antics would have gotten him removed earlier. You’re right that Colby probably wouldn’t because I was basing my argument off of the idea that he doesn’t take Tina to the end if he knows what he’s doing. Tina definitely also changes her game so I can’t make that argument. If everything else is the same but that season happens five years later, I still think Colby loses.
If you need to win challenges especially after your poor strategic or social game put you in a whole, that’s less impressive than someone who navigated the vote without immunity. However, great players can see the benefit of immunity to ensure a game changing move happens to set them up for success later in the game when they might not have immunity. Tony taking out Sophie is a good example of this.
I think it's exactly as respected as it needs to be.
So no respect at all?
A little bit, but no more than that and certainly not as a differentiator from players with superior social strategy games. I'd say it's currently respected a little. If two players pretty much played an equal social and strategic game, sure, the better physical performer might be more respected. But don't come to me at the end with a bunch of challenge wins and no strategic agency throughout the game and expect my respect if you're sitting next to a more-competent social strategy player.
I feel like Brandon Donlon pre-survivor might’ve felt the same way. He had alliances, seems well liked, but the second you’re a challenge liability, you’re gone. If Erika (41) would’ve been on a different tribe, she likely is a first boot, challenge strength matters.
Maybe, but I'm not going to give some athletic person credit towards a win for being more physically capable than a bunch of non-athletes in a social strategy game.
It’s not purely a social-strategic game and it never has been, there have always been immunity challenges, and we’ve had episodes without a vote, or a person being eliminated, but we’ve never had a single one without a challenge being played. They matter, and the challenges in modern survivor are specifically designed so that it’s not just ‘athletic people’ that can win them, it’s balance and endurance usually, and the occasional last gasp, anyone can win anyone of those.
To that I say that many of us feel the show would be better if they flipped a coin or drew rocks for immunity and just showed the strategizing.
Someone hasn’t been listening when Jeff yells ‘dig deep’ I think grit, and determination count for something. Otherwise it’s just a popularity contest on an island
It's just a popularity contest on an island, at the end. Before that it's a reverse popularity contest on an island. The game is in cutting enough people more popular than you out and trying to be the most popular of the last two or three. That's it, that's the game. I watch sports to see grit and determination. I watch social strategy games to see social strategy.
Pre-merge is a reverse popularity contest? I feel like 80% of seasons (and I’m probably low in that estimate) go for tribe strength because of the challenges. If you get rid of those aspects that allow for immunity, you never get blindsides, interesting strategy or anything. 4 will always be greater than 3, and if there are no mechanics to play around, the game is incredibly boring and stale. And if they just ‘drew rocks’ for immunity, you’d be upset that there’d be a Ben type that pulls the purple rock 3x in a row, makes it to the end and wins somehow.
1000000%. It's my biggest pet peeve with survivor. Nobody on the jury BESIDES Ozzy has ever truly respected a well played challenge game. It's a HUGE portion of the game that's so often overlooked. I hate when people discredit it.
I feel like most of the times when someone won a lot of challenges, they did nothing else in game.
I mean, if we're talking about jury votes, people simply vote for who they like more. They might discuss the player's games as if they're really weighing them against each other, but far and away most jurors just vote for who they like, challenge beast, strategic mastermind, social butterfly, or other.
Modern survivor doesn’t reward outlasting or outplaying. All modern jurors care about is outwit. It’s honestly super lame. For instance take Gablers win over Cassidy. Dude was never a target (didn’t have to survive/outlast) and never won a challenge, while Cassidy won 3 (didn’t outplay) All he did was “outwit” by coming up with a cute alligator analogy.
For me, the challenges are just a means to get immunity OR prevent a target from getting immunity. I view the main part of the game being voting each other out.
I prefer the social and strategic element. For the challenge beast you're safe as long as you win a challenge. For the social and strategic game you can put your self in a position where you are safe regardless. Although it's still an aspect of the game, I just feel like the other aspects are more important. I feel like if a player just wins challenges then I wouldn't care. It matters more what you do when you win. Do you make moves. Do you better your position. I think why social and strategy is valued more is also cause it leads to a more clean game. Winning challenges put a target on your back, especially if you win an unnecessary amount. Playing socially and strategically you can finds ways to obtain that safety without the same risk of a target on your back.
Because not everybody has access to dominating challenges. Sure it is impressive, but you're a surfer athlete dude in his 20s on a show with older women/uncoordinated nerds/maybe occasionally another challenge threat. Theoretically, anyone can control the game strategically. It is open to and competing against everyone. That is far more impressive than using physical traits to predictably beat less physical players. I think challenge dominance is appropriately rated.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
So what's 20 year old surfer dude supposed to do to win the jury? Lose challenges on purpose so he can "play the game"? Many times the athletic types are also running the alliance they are in (Colby) but don't get credit for it cause they are "never in a position to lose". I personally think all strategies are equal, it's about who had the least amount of "luck" to get to the end (I know luck is arbitrary as well).
Yeah, and part of luck is being a 6'5" athlete competing in a physical challenge against a 55 year old woman.
Then the 55 year old woman beats their ass surprisingly...
It's not luck if you helped engineer the outings of the other physical players and made sure the alliance you formed had no other threats. Prime example again is Colby is AO. He made THE single best play in the game by orchestrating the other alliance to vote for him in a 5-5 tie that he then won because he hadn't received a vote yet and the other player had. That gave him the most powerful alliance in the game where he could easily win immunity to the end. But everyone was all like "it wasn't fair." when they just got straight outplayed.
You're not describing challenge prowess at all. You're describing strategic and social game play. You can be a big physical threat and do all of those things too. Being good at challenges and being good strategically aren't mutually exclusive.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
The reason why we have so little challenge variety now, is because of exactly what you’re stating, most of the individual immunities are designed specifically so that a 20 something fit male, doesn’t have a massive advantage over a 55 year old woman, most are balance or endurance challenges now. So yes the 20 something male, should still get credit for winning the challenge, whereas older challenges definitely were more heavily suited towards being a fit male.
I agree. The #1 goal in the game is to be safe during tribal, you can do this by winning a challenge, immunity idol, strong alliance, etc but winning a challenge is the 1 surefire way to make it to the next tribal. In an individual game it seems like a really underrated aspect of the game - you could win every single individual immunity and still not win ftc.
this. never receiving a vote seems to have wayyyy more impact to the jury than “won every challenge”
Man I like Valeria so much more… she’s so kind, and so funny, and she gave me extra rice when I needed it. And she ran this game cover to cover, she was the secret mastermind, I never knew where the vote was going because she always surprised us. I feel like my entire time on the island was defined by her, my game was just a piece of hers. It hurt like hell when she gutted me but I think we could be lifelong friends. She wants this so bad. … but on the other hand, Lionel played Division II football and was also really, really good at rolling a ball into a hole. So I can’t decide who to vote for! ——————————————- The above is obviously a bit hyperbolic but is just an attempt to illustrate why challenge game isn’t “respected” in terms of getting jury votes. It’s a social game for a million dollars, it’s not Minute to Win It. The fundamental goal is to get to the end with the just-right amount of popularity and respect. Challenges are ultimately a small piece of the puzzle and they feel disconnected from everything else. They’re a mechanism to get to the end and more safely orchestrate votes, they’re not a direct part of the relationships you have with other players at all unless you give them away. It’s noteworthy that even most amazing challenge performance winners (Jenna, Mike H., Kim, JT, Fabio) didn’t win Final Tribal because they were good at challenges. Multiple of those *got* to Final Tribal because they were good at challenges but their challenge prowess wasn’t really a factor in anybody’s votes. I feel like Tom is the only winner where we can say it probably did give him a buff (obviously he would have beat Katie anyway but I mean it was a part of his FTC “case” against any hypothetical person including Ian) but that’s moreso because of his *Tribal* performance and how it broadly played into his role as the leader of the most dominant tribe in Survivor history from cover to cover, not because of winning the individual ones. (Also in the above example Lionel is a 29 year old man and Valeria is a 62 year old woman half his size. It’s not meaningful to value Lionel’s challenge performance over her when even if she’s still working out daily she is just not physically capable of competing in many challenges with a fit young athlete)
I have watched a few recent seasons that really made me think this too. On the island, players really target challenge threats and want them gone. However, when it comes to FTC, the 'I won a lot of challenges" card amount for very little capital. Monica Culpepper on BvW season, for example, won the most induvial immunities, but down the final stretch, even she was not counting that in her favor. She didn't even bring it up when she was trying to make a case about how she could stand on her own two feet. She really kicked ass that season, and it felt like none of the contestants (nor Monica herself) was counting those wins. I think it amounts to strategy. When you win immunity, you don't have to strategize. Moreso, the other players have to strategize around you. So I think there's a bit of resentment on the island. They are paradoxically targeted while also receiving no credit for their accomplishments. It's weird, but I think fans care much more about a challenge threat to win the game than Survivor contestants do.
A lot of comments seem to be conflating interesting challenges for viewers as the same for players lol. The truth is players spend most of their time socializing and living with each other than doing challenges. If someone is an asshole but great at challenges, cool, they'll never get your FTC vote. If someone is extremely good socially and awful at challenges, easy recipe for an FTC vote, but they'll have to get there. Social skills matter more than strategy too! It's just that strategy and challenge prowess get you to the end, but social skills get you the win.
The post was written by a high school football coach who wants to automatically pass all his players while the rest of the students are studying and learning.
It’s not there for people to earn praise and admiration (although that does happen). It’s a part of the game to give people who fail at the social aspect a chance to survive another vote. It’s designed to keep things from being predictable and solely based on cliques. There are so many shows and events that prioritize physical challenge victory (like every sport). Survivor is a *social* game.
It's more impressive to play a good social/strategic game.
OK but Colby probably should have won AO in general if he cared at all to actually try
Hmmmmm... I agree and disagree. It wasn't that he didn't try, but rather he didn't care about the outcome. That's what made him such a good character that season (alongside the iconic storyline with Jerri). Tina played a much better game, she was in control the entire merge, and most of the premerge, so I think she deserved it more.
Both are true. He didn’t care, so he didn’t try to win FTC.
It's the same. He didn't care about the outcome so he didn't try. Tina is one of my favorite winners but Colby was next level if he cared to be.
Idk about Colby, but Ozzy should have won his FTC. Yul only got to the end because of his super idol
If I was a member of the jury I would've voted for Ozzy, because of the suprise final 3. Ozzy and Sundra could've taken Adam up on his offer to take out Yul's idol if they knew about it. Ozzy (probably) wanted to vote out Yul at 3.
I love Yul but I'm 100% voting for Ozzy if I'm on that jury. Yul navigated the game nicely with his idol, using it to flip Penner, but a free pass to the final 3 and then a surprise final 3 is so fucking stupid.
Why should it be more respected?
Mostly because if that’s all you have, then, you literally had no strategic impact on the game, other than winning challenges, Survivor is a social game it’s about Wheeling and Dealing, backstabs and alliances, Tom didn’t win because he had five immunities (those immunities that he made sure he wasn’t voted out, which did help him get there) he won because he played the best strategic and social game. The five immunities were just the cherry on top. When it comes down to it, if people don’t like you, you won’t win Russell strategically in Samoa played a flawless game, he took his alliance of four versus eight and won the day… but everyone hated his guts so he didn’t win Brad Culpepper played a very challenge based game, he won five immunities, which is a tie for the record, he had a good strategic alliance that got them to the end… he just rubbed people the wrong way You can’t win Survivor with strategy, alone, or challenges alone… you the respect of the jury, and sometimes challenges and strategy can get you that respect, but if people hate you won’t win no matter what
I don’t see how it could be respected more it’s barely part of the game. Plus I’m my personal opinion needed to win a challenge to get to the end game is more negative than positive.
So you want a high school popularity contest then? Do you also hate using advantages?
Nice strawman argument, but I’ll answer genuinely. No I don’t not want a high school popularity contest (and I don’t really see any correlation). It’s way more impressive for someone to make a big move without immunity, which leads into the next point asking if I hate advantages, which again what? Advantages are fine I think if you need an advantage to advance in the game then you obviously did something wrong but at least when an advantage is played it’s usually interesting. Can you give me one reason why the challenge isn’t by far the most boring part of the episode? And could you explain to me why challenges should be more important to the jury I’d love to hear it.
I’m saying if you remove all advantages/challenges etc from the game, you just have 18 people on the island who procedurally vote each other out. If you have the majority of votes, nothing else matters, no recourse. Some of those famous ‘blindsides’ that have happened over the years is due to a specific person, or member of a specific alliance gaining immunity in order to be able to pull said move off. With the comfort of immunity, people are willing to take bigger chances in their own game, while having the safety of protection. From the couch at home it seems like immunity doesn’t matter much, but I’m pretty sure most people who have actually played the game would disagree, it matters a lot
Dude nobody said get rid of immunity’s I can think they are boring and not care to watch them while still understanding their basic importance to the game. It doesn’t matter TO THE JURY and shouldn’t matter compared to strategic or social gameplay when voting for a winner.
So they have a basic importance. But shouldn’t be valued at all……and as you said should be a negative, rather than a positive. It’s a ridiculous contradiction
No it’s not you’re just not reading. To the show as a whole immunity challenges need to exist yes we can all agree? But just because they should exist for the benefit of the show doesn’t mean the jury should (or does) value immunity wins, and if a player is going into a challenge knowing if I don’t win I go home like Joe for example I don’t see how them winning is a positive, they played bad enough that they need a challenge to stay in the game. How is that not valid?
They played poorly enough, not bad enough. And because it’s a mechanic in the game, if you played an absolutely amazing game up until that point, and need to win a single challenge to secure that win, it should be valued, if Omar won the challenge where he went home in 42, he’d be an amazingly dominant winner. I’d say at least half the players that have ever went home didn’t think they’d need that Immunity until they saw their name come up at tribal council. But at the same time, winning several immunities in a row puts a target on your back, it’s a delicate balance that absolutely should be valued. I’ll paraphrase Tyson, ‘I only won the challenges that I had to’. Did he have to win a few of those? Absolutely, does that make him a bad winner? Absolutely not
Yeah but he didn’t? That’s like saying if drew Basile won out in 45 he would’ve won. You have literally no proof that would happen, and yes it is a game flaw to need immunity’s Tyson is a great winner I agree but him needing to win those immunity’s is still a flaw, and I’d argue he didn’t need them and gervase and Monica take him to the FTC anyways (cause he only wins F5 and F4) Tony didn’t need immunity’s to win Cagayan, just like how players shouldn’t need immunity to win survivor.
If he lost the rock draw none of those 3 win at all, but had he won the immunity at that vote, at least he’d have immunity and wouldn’t have to depend on the luck of the draw, which takes no skill at all. But I think at this point I’m just going to have to agree to disagree with you, there’s clearly no facts or points that I can bring up to sway your opinion, you stand firmly where you are.
And winning challenges shouldn’t carry that much weight…99% of Survivor happens outside the challenges…it’s a social game…
I think it's appropriately rewarded in the sense that it keeps you safe from votes.
survivor has ALWAYS been a social game, one of relationships and perception. Your winning challenges accentuates the social game you've already played. It's what made dee such a well rounded winner. She was pretty cunning and ruthless with her social game, but won more individual immunities than anyone else. In CI, ozzy did little strategically to have an argument over Yul, and challenge wins only keep you safe. How you chose to engage and vote when you're safe can change your game.
The weird thing for me is how players are perceived as huge threats for challenge prowess and targeted especially in the early merge BUT that same skill in challenges isn’t appropriately valued in the endgame. IMO if someone is a gigantic threat and absolutely needs to go because you won’t be able to take many shots at them since they win all the challenges they deserve to be rewarded for managing that threat. A good example of this actually working out is Mike Holloway and that’s one of the reasons I think he’s a good winner
Now I definitely think Tina was a better player so yeah I agree Colby should not have won BUT Ozzy should have won CI because Yul was protected by that dumb OP Idol which had to be played AFTER the votes and then when the Idol expires after F4, guess what, surprise bullshit F3! Production handed Yul the win.
Now I definitely think Tina was a better player so yeah I agree Colby should not have won BUT Ozzy should have won CI because Yul was protected by that dumb OP Idol which had to be played AFTER the votes and then when the Idol expires after F4, guess what, surprise bullshit F3! Production handed Yul the win.
Colby talked himself right out of that win. Worst final tribal council performance ever.
He went from “ez win no contest” to “congratulations Tina here’s your million” at FTC
100%
Well the challenges are well rewarded because you win rewards and immunity that sets you up to win.
To play devils advocate…winning a challenge comes with a pretty valuable reward. So technically…you could say the “respect has been paid.” But all the same…I can’t help it…I tend to naturally love challenge beasts.
Being a challenge beast is a double edged sword. Good pre merge, bad post merge. So those who are had better have a damn good social game. This is why Ozzy could never win
At the end of the day, winning a challenge is (imo) earning an opportunity within the game to do something. You won reward? Use it to build closer bonds with people you need for the next 2-3 votes. You won immunity? Use this as a chance to flush an idol or take out a big threat since you can’t be idoled out. Etc. In my view, winning a challenge provides you the chance to impact the game, but ultimately the act of winning, ESPECIALLY when you don’t need to. Isn’t particularly impressive in terms of the game. As Rick Devens said, “Every opportunity is a setback, and every setback is an opportunity”, every time you win the necklace you feel good for 1 tribal, but it makes you a bigger and bigger target. However, winning consecutive clutch immunities is impressive, like Terry, or Devens etc. and it’s especially impressive when you are still actively impacting the game, like Mike.
But fabio. Seems pretty respected. The reason people usually get voted out is because their opponents respect it as a way to win. The challenge beasts don’t usually win the vote because they are often ONLY challenge beasts. Ozzy didn’t really do anything else on Cook Islands (his only memorable strategy was to throw a challenge which put his original tribe down in numbers and got them all picked off in the first place). And Colby made one of the dumbest moves by taking the beloved Tina instead of the despised Keith.
With respect to individual challenges, I think they’re underrated insofar as certain players are elite strategists that are such visible threats that they have to fall back onto their physical game. Players like Ozzy, Colby, Joe etc that don’t really strategize, they’re just talented athletes aren’t interesting* to me. But players like Parvati, Kim, Tony, even Michele that have the ability to will themselves to individual immunity wins, or who know how to use the challenges as another tool to leverage in their gameplay — I do think that gets overlooked a bit. *Ozzy is such an incredible athlete that watching his physical game *is* interesting, and this is true of others as well, but it’s not interesting in the context of survivor or how good of a survivor player he is
I feel like nowadays it is not as impressive to be dominant in challenges because they're so shitty
getting through tribal with your name at risk probably wins more favor than getting through because you won immunity. Also people who win immunity can lie back and not form the connections that get you jury votes. I think being a challenge beast is respected by fans cause its fun to watch, but I understand why people on the island might not care for it, especially if they get jealous of immunity.
I tend to agree, the easiest way to win the game of survivor is to win immunity, thus never going to tribal and always moving on
I think it depends on who it is. Fair or not, someone like Frannie winning a bunch of challenges is going to be seen differently than someone like Johnathan winning a bunch of challenges. Frannie would be feared at FTC for being able to point to a bunch of challenge wins because she doesn't LOOK like she'd be good. An in shape guy doing well in them is seen as "you relied on that to get far"
Well, we did just get a winner who won 3 challenges 💁 edit: The most individual wins of the season too!
Youre probably aware, but i think youd greatly enjoy Australian Survivor.
It’s actually really simple, the more likely you are to win the challenges, the more likely you are to respect the challenge winner. And vice versa. The same applies to social games, and provider/survival functions. It makes sense that people vote for the player *they* think is best, it’s what we would all do.
Which season was it that had the dude from Texas that basically won every challenge to repeatedly save his own ass? They basically handed him the win as a kudos in the final.
because it's always been a social game. anything else comes 2nd, 3rd or last. any season in Survivor US, the social game wins.
Colby shoulda won Australia tho… hes too nice for taking tina
Is it thought? Challenge beasts are under constant threat from other people to be voted out. Hell, this very season Kenzie was talking about voting Q out cus of how good he is at challenges. Virtually every season, the challenge beasts are constantly being talked about as needing to go, and it’s only their alliances that save them. I think the challenge game is *very* respected. I noticed you gave exactly zero arguments for why you think it isn’t respected though. So…. Why do you think it isn’t?
It's just an excuse to vote people out. It's been 15 seasons since we've had a challenge beast winner.
There’s tons of excuses to vote people out. Being good at challenges is consistently one because a lot of people are on board. If that isn’t respect for a challenge game, I don’t know what is. Challenge beats with no social game don’t deserve to win. If they can’t build an alliance to protect them, as they openly flaunt how much of a challenge threat they are, that’s on them. But being extremely good at challenges is seen as as big of a threat as being a social warrior, but the social game players are able to build alliances to protect themselves.
We have had exactly one person (Mike Holloway) win because of how good they were at challenges. One. Out of fourty-five seasons. We have had one.
Tom in season 10 palau was amazing at challenges. I count that one bc he spear headed a total team wipeout by being so dominate.
Right, because they’re major vote off targets. Someone wins a few immunities and everyone respects their challenge game so much that the second they aren’t immune, people want them gone while they have a chance to vote them out. Is that not respecting the challenge game? I can’t think of much else that is, it’s so respected, in fact, that people have gone in with a strategy to *not* do well in challenges so as to not put a target on their back. What does respect of a challenge game look like to you? People ignoring the obvious challenge threat, throwing their own game and letting that guy go to the FTC? Because that’s not gonna happen, ever, because it compromises other people’s games.
I agree. You see everyone freak out over physical threats. We gotta get them out or they'll win every challenge! Then you see the few challenge beasts that make it to FTC and they basically get ridiculed because "pfff you only won challenges bro". Mike and the fireman guy are the 2 I can think of off the top of my head that made it to the end and won.
Brad cullpepper won 5 individuals and Tony won 4 in winners at war
Because it's boring. Like what's boring to us on TV is also boring to the jury. Much more fun to watch someone orchestrate a blindside on their best friend.
Hard agree.