internal affair agents

[BeeSting12]

alright so heres the thread for the IAA which replaced double agents. PR is right here: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/26651

So first I'd like to say it is pretty boring after you kill your target. If you do it stealthily then you do nothing the rest of the round. Maybe braindead in a pod or whatever idk. If you don't then just mulligan or maybe kill everyone pursuing you turning into a pseudo murderbone... BWOINK BWOINK BWOINK.

Having nothing to do after your target was dead was the most common complaint I heard. Another one I personally have is that the flavour text is obnoxiously huge and you have to scroll up to read it all.

[Luke Cox]

It needs to be less double agents wannabe and more Spy vs. Spy. The "criminals" should be actual syndies with regular objectives. Maybe scrap the syndie items entirely and give them a bunch of Bond-style spy gadgets.

[cedarbridge]

It needs to be less double agents wannabe and more Spy vs. Spy. The "criminals" should be actual syndies with regular objectives. Maybe scrap the syndie items entirely and give them a bunch of Bond-style spy gadgets.

You understand that DA was meant to be "spy vs spy" in the first place. That was literally the entire point.

[BeeSting12]

Yes but that didn't work so now we're forcing players to play it like that by banning them if they don't. I'd at least like a pref for it so I can turn it off.

[Anonmare]

It needs some proper Syndicate agents thrown in as well

[Luke Cox]

It needs to be less double agents wannabe and more Spy vs. Spy. The "criminals" should be actual syndies with regular objectives. Maybe scrap the syndie items entirely and give them a bunch of Bond-style spy gadgets.

You understand that DA was meant to be "spy vs spy" in the first place. That was literally the entire point.

Precisely, and it didn't work out. It makes no sense for Centcom agents to be killing other Centcom agents. Make it so that two factions are covertly fighting a shadow war on the station.

[onleavedontatme]

If everyone hates being murderspreed, and the game is boring unless people murderspree, doushio?

Something just seems fundamentally broken if people feel like their only choices are to kill randomly or go afk.

[Luke Cox]

What we need are focused antags. People who are highly disruptive, but with clear objectives. It's a shame we can't automate sabotage objectives

[Dr_bee]

having killing your target give you a new target would make it much more fun I would thing. keeping the focus on stealth actually leads to the detective being required. I dislike OOC methods of preventing murderbone, it really should be handled in character, if someone purposefully and willfully blows thier cover, sic an ERT on thier asses or have centcom out them or something

[Luke Cox]

It's a tricky situation. Humans need to be the primary antagonistic force for the game to work, but humans are going to want to powregame and murderbone as much as possible. Sticking to objectives should be rewarded.

[onleavedontatme]

There aren't many rewards you can offer people in a game where you have everything you need to survive from the first second and with characters/gear that wipe every half hour.

Killing randomly is just flat out fun as well, no way around that. Whatever carrot you dangle in front of me probably won't be more fun than just killing the guy next to me.

Robustin mentioned getting TC for every target you kill but I feel like just giving them more guns for killing will eventually lead to them killing at random again after a couple of targets downed, except now with extra TC.

[Luke Cox]

The rewards for the agents should be less lethal and focus more on the "cool" factor. Utility stuff mostly.

[PKPenguin321]

I haven't trialed this yet myself and I'm hopeful for it, but my main worry is that preventing yourself from being killed is too easy (just hide in a locker in the pods or something and AFK until you greentext), and once you've killed your target hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

Maybe unlock pinpointers in the uplink at 15 minutes in or something that leads you to your target?

[onleavedontatme]

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

[PKPenguin321]

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

They're still crew, sure, only there's somebody actively trying to kill them specifically and they have their victory on the line. Saying it's exactly the same is reaching.

[CPTANT]

I think this concept would work way better as a side antag



ANd having different stuff from traitors would make them a lot more interesting.

[Luke Cox]

It's tricky because this is the first antag where they won't have full valid status over the station

[cedarbridge]

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

I mean, realistically, people who think "hey, the chemist is missing. Why is that?" and either send sec to find the AWOL chemist or do it personally. In practice nobody does this because its easier to smash a window to get memefuel and lube and nobody cares if somebody else is doing their job proficiently. I'd wager that most of our players don't even notice or care if their coworkers disappear and some would consider it a boon to have less of them.

[CPTANT]

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

I mean, realistically, people who think "hey, the chemist is missing. Why is that?" and either send sec to find the AWOL chemist or do it personally. In practice nobody does this because its easier to smash a window to get memefuel and lube and nobody cares if somebody else is doing their job proficiently. I'd wager that most of our players don't even notice or care if their coworkers disappear and some would consider it a boon to have less of them.

Yeah but half the time they are missing because they committed suicide somewhere.....

[Cobby]

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

I think the issue is the powergame mentality where you'd rather play to win [that is, ensure victory by hiding in a locker indefinitely] rather than actually enjoy the game, even if it costs you the victory.

[Wyzack]

What about if when you kill your target you get assigned a new one from the remaining agents, until centcom has tied off all the loose ends?

[Luke Cox]

How about this: It starts off with Centcom agents killing off Syndicate agents via covert means. The Centcom agents get a bunch of Bond-style gadgets, Syndies get the usual gear. When the Syndies start to die off, the Centcom agents start to get objectives to kill each other. They won't be told this though, so the Centcom agents will think they're still hunting Syndies.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

How about this: It starts off with Centcom agents killing off Syndicate agents via covert means. The Centcom agents get a bunch of Bond-style gadgets, Syndies get the usual gear. When the Syndies start to die off, the Centcom agents start to get objectives to kill each other. They won't be told this though, so the Centcom agents will think they're still hunting Syndies.

help this is actually a good idea what did you do with the real cox

[DemonFiren]

How about this: It starts off with Centcom agents killing off Syndicate agents via covert means. The Centcom agents get a bunch of Bond-style gadgets, Syndies get the usual gear. When the Syndies start to die off, the Centcom agents start to get objectives to kill each other. They won't be told this though, so the Centcom agents will think they're still hunting Syndies.

help this is actually a good idea what did you do with the real cox

except it might be pretty easy to meta that it's no longer syndie targets after the first one-two guys i kill

safer to just kill them all to be sure

[BeeSting12]

Yeah, continuously giving targets to the IAA might make it funner for them while keeping the mode murderbone free with """"roleplay"""" (as if security won't just meta that with a dual esword and no murderbone, it's IAA).

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

I think the issue is the powergame mentality where you'd rather play to win [that is, ensure victory by hiding in a locker indefinitely] rather than actually enjoy the game, even if it costs you the victory.

Not even about powergaming/greentext, at least for me. It feels like since you rolled a special antagonist role you should be able to do a bit more than kill one person and then be regular crew the rest of the round except you're still valid. Which is another thing: Making IAA valid and not allowing them to valid everyone else isn't fair to the IAA.

[cedarbridge]

Yeah, continuously giving targets to the IAA might make it funner for them while keeping the mode murderbone free with """"roleplay"""" (as if security won't just meta that with a dual esword and no murderbone, it's IAA).

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

I think the issue is the powergame mentality where you'd rather play to win [that is, ensure victory by hiding in a locker indefinitely] rather than actually enjoy the game, even if it costs you the victory.

Not even about powergaming/greentext, at least for me. It feels like since you rolled a special antagonist role you should be able to do a bit more than kill one person and then be regular crew the rest of the round except you're still valid. Which is another thing: Making IAA valid and not allowing them to valid everyone else isn't fair to the IAA.

But see, that's part of the problem. You're putting antag fun above normal fun. You treat it as something desirable above just playing the game normally which creates the idea that one SHOULD be desired above the other.

[BeeSting12]

Not even about powergaming/greentext, at least for me. It feels like since you rolled a special antagonist role you should be able to do a bit more than kill one person and then be regular crew the rest of the round except you're still valid. Which is another thing: Making IAA valid and not allowing them to valid everyone else isn't fair to the IAA.

But see, that's part of the problem. You're putting antag fun above normal fun. You treat it as something desirable above just playing the game normally which creates the idea that one SHOULD be desired above the other.

People DO desire antagonist roles over normal roles. Not all of them, but many players do. Just look at the popularity of shit everyone is antagonist events that admins do to see this in action. If you made a poll for raging mages or nations, it would probably win because it's out of normal and allows players to do antagonistic actions. Part of what makes antagonist roles exciting and fun is that they're rare (depending on how RNGesus favors you) and you can do something different and fun with them. Just killing one person and doing nothing else the remainder of the round feels like a wasted opportunity, like going to disney's best most expensive restaurant and just ordering a soda or something idk I can't really find a good analogy for it.

My point there was not that it is desirable above normal crew, because right now IAA isn't- I'd rather be HoS than an IAA. My point was that it should be made more than a "kill one dude and hide the rest of the round praying you don't get validded" antagonist, it should be a spy versus spy mode instead where you always have a target and not suffer from boredom. And I'm not saying that normal crew is boring either- I really enjoy it in fact. But after getting to do antagonistic actions half the round, it feels kinda weird just going back to your job and doing it the remainder of the round. This post kinda rambled on a bit and I definitely didn't get my point across very well but I'm gonna leave it and hope someone reads my mind through it or whatever

[cedarbridge]

Not even about powergaming/greentext, at least for me. It feels like since you rolled a special antagonist role you should be able to do a bit more than kill one person and then be regular crew the rest of the round except you're still valid. Which is another thing: Making IAA valid and not allowing them to valid everyone else isn't fair to the IAA.

But see, that's part of the problem. You're putting antag fun above normal fun. You treat it as something desirable above just playing the game normally which creates the idea that one SHOULD be desired above the other.

People DO desire antagonist roles over normal roles. Not all of them, but many players do. Just look at the popularity of shit everyone is antagonist events that admins do to see this in action. If you made a poll for raging mages or nations, it would probably win because it's out of normal and allows players to do antagonistic actions. Part of what makes antagonist roles exciting and fun is that they're rare (depending on how RNGesus favors you) and you can do something different and fun with them. Just killing one person and doing nothing else the remainder of the round feels like a wasted opportunity, like going to disney's best most expensive restaurant and just ordering a soda or something idk I can't really find a good analogy for it.

This was my point though and Kor and others have made it elsewhere as well. The reason people "roll for antag" and such is we've dedicated so much time and effort and design time and effort into adding toys and features and rules protections to antags that its become the reason that people play the game. Antags can go anywhere and do whatever they like AND they get these fancy murder toys to do it with. We've dedicated so much to this end, infact, that it doesn't matter how good you are at any of the non-antag things you can do on the station since your ability to succeed at being a no-rules antag doesn't rely on any of it. We've made TC trade tools that do all of that for you. This mentality carries on into players asking admins for TC trades for what basically amounts to doing their job for them. Players claim to be "bored" in extended because they've been conditioned into a game design that focuses around antag fun first and rewarding antag fun above other roles and sources of fun. Our non-antag play has suffered from this.

[Luke Cox]

How about this: It starts off with Centcom agents killing off Syndicate agents via covert means. The Centcom agents get a bunch of Bond-style gadgets, Syndies get the usual gear. When the Syndies start to die off, the Centcom agents start to get objectives to kill each other. They won't be told this though, so the Centcom agents will think they're still hunting Syndies.

help this is actually a good idea what did you do with the real cox

except it might be pretty easy to meta that it's no longer syndie targets after the first one-two guys i kill

safer to just kill them all to be sure

Except odds are that they'll have a decent collection of Syndie gear on them if they've stayed alive that long. Are they a Centcom agent who killed several Syndies, or a Syndie who killed several Centcom agents?

[DemonFiren]

How about this: It starts off with Centcom agents killing off Syndicate agents via covert means. The Centcom agents get a bunch of Bond-style gadgets, Syndies get the usual gear. When the Syndies start to die off, the Centcom agents start to get objectives to kill each other. They won't be told this though, so the Centcom agents will think they're still hunting Syndies.

help this is actually a good idea what did you do with the real cox

except it might be pretty easy to meta that it's no longer syndie targets after the first one-two guys i kill

safer to just kill them all to be sure

Except odds are that they'll have a decent collection of Syndie gear on them if they've stayed alive that long. Are they a Centcom agent who killed several Syndies, or a Syndie who killed several Centcom agents?

which is why you kill everyone shortly after roundstart, as usual
which should be easier as syndie, i guess

[BeeSting12]

What about if when you kill your target you get assigned a new one from the remaining agents, until centcom has tied off all the loose ends?

if i knew gamemode code or how to code in general I'd change IAA to this. any coders interested in this please make this a thing because it sounds a lot funner than IAA as it is now

[onleavedontatme]

Pinpointers and updating targets might be cool. It'd make it more of a pain to revert if it keeps diverging away from double agents though, it'd be pretty easy to just cut this experiment short at this point.

[cocothegogo]

have like an objective that is like do 50% integrity damage to like a certain department like blow up medbay idk

[cedarbridge]

Sing this jingle with me~

It's mafia/werewolf, you can surely see?
people gloat of the paranoia with glee.
Each and every round is Captain & security,
Hunting down all crew members with inbuilt impurity.
Escalation memes derive from text green and red,
This has forever been our butter and our bread.
A game offers failure and success,
Crew roles are all a great heaping mess.
What does a simple librarian do?
Or even a bartender think to brew?
After all, it's busywork to play,
That does not others easily sway.
The end only comes when the shuttle is called,
After antagonists, destruction installed.

Yeah that was pretty shite but I got syllable consistency until the end for a change so I might be improving even if the flow is godawful.

"I don't roleplay and I'm just here to click sprites so jobs are boring and we need more aimless murder to keep my attention."
Yes, that's basically the problem. People want interesting player interactions but the only player interactions a large portion of players want is applying weaponry to the remaining portion. The "its always been how I imagine it" is a crappy argument and you aren't going to sway anyone looking to create change by appealing to tradition. I mean, by your examples "librarian and bartender aren't interesting" because player interactions involving talking and just generally being semi-human are harder than running around brawling with toolboxes. That's an issue for those players and a player mentality issue tied up in attention span more than anything else. Sure, we can do things with certain jobs to make them slightly more interesting, but that would mean we stop dedicating so much of coder dev time to adding new gadgets and weapons to antag modes (something that should have happened anyway but because they're the easiest thing to do, they keep coming.) Your librarian example is already getting a little love. He's a human language translator now. That gets a lot of potential when we get around to racial languages, secondary bay languages like tradeband or gutter, the crew kidnap a xeno and stuff it in a pen, etc etc. There's a lot of stuff that people do, but as you admit, we just have a current culture built on gotta get those valids and it leads to short, boring rounds.

have like an objective that is like do 50% integrity damage to like a certain department like blow up medbay idk

Why give an objective for something antags do anyway? Objectives should be hard enough to be a challenge but not so difficult that the player is more inclined to skip them and just run around. No round has ever been improved by "Oh, medbay got bombed, again"

[Oldman Robustin]

hiding is nearly all you'll be able to do without getting bwoinked.

I mean, they're still crew after that. Wouldn't this logically extend to 90% of our players each round have nothing to do but hide without getting an admin PM? Is something not terribly broken in our rules or design if that is the case?

For better or worse the danger of murderboners and the satisfaction of validhunting them giving ordinary crew a purpose during traitor rounds.

During IAA? Nobody will kill you if you stay out of their business and while you can kind of validhunt, it loses appeal when the only people antags are killing are other antags. IAA are basically security officers but with less valid kills available to them (IAA won't be able to go around picking fights with assistants and killing them when they lose).



You really just need to throw regular potatoes into the mix so its not easy to metagame that just because agents are on board doesn't mean you're safe or that the guy with an ebow dragging a corpse isn't a threat.

[Luke Cox]

How about this: It starts off with Centcom agents killing off Syndicate agents via covert means. The Centcom agents get a bunch of Bond-style gadgets, Syndies get the usual gear. When the Syndies start to die off, the Centcom agents start to get objectives to kill each other. They won't be told this though, so the Centcom agents will think they're still hunting Syndies.

help this is actually a good idea what did you do with the real cox

except it might be pretty easy to meta that it's no longer syndie targets after the first one-two guys i kill

safer to just kill them all to be sure

Except odds are that they'll have a decent collection of Syndie gear on them if they've stayed alive that long. Are they a Centcom agent who killed several Syndies, or a Syndie who killed several Centcom agents?

which is why you kill everyone shortly after roundstart, as usual
which should be easier as syndie, i guess

Syndies could try to murderbone out of the gate, but that'll out them to the agents who are trying to take them down very quickly. Agents themselves aren't allowed to murderbone.

This does bring up another point though: Centcom Agents would be the first antags who are only allowed to kill specific people. How should something like that be handled? Are they technically even antags?

[Yakumo_Chen]

I like any mode where antags aren't allowed to bomb the station within the first 5 mintues because 'ha ha grief roll' and thus make the next 30 minutes of my job pointless since the shuttle will be called before I can do anything fun

It also stops ChildFlayer from flooding atmos literally every single antag round

[Yakumo_Chen]

Idea: The last one or two IAA agents get 'hired' by the syndicate and get extra TC and free reign.

Solves the 'antag got bored' issue and solves my 20 minute shuttle call problem that I have with most other antags.

[The Clowns Pocket]

As a IA agent, can you still do goofy, gimmicky and (mildly) greify shit?

Being able to let loose and occasionally do things like E-Mag literally every door really is part of the charm of tator for me.

[Dr_bee]

Getting new targets and a TC reward after each kill would make the mode a bit more interesting. the problem of antag TC snowballing isnt really an argument with a normal traitor typically looting the corpse of the kill anyway making the total gain potentially another 20 TC worth of items. Robustin's proposed idea to give Agents less TC than traitors but TC rewards will not only prevent roundstart murderboning but will also reward a bit more creativity. large amounts of TC are a crutch that antags shouldnt really need, they are hugbox for antagonists.


Also I dont think muderboners in this mode should be handled via OOC admin communication and bans. It would be more fun and more interesting if the game master or admins reacted in character to the agents actions, so sure you can murderboner but centcom is going to get pissed and ERT you if you do it for long enough. Some simple RP guidelines for administration as well as a clear warning that agents is a mode where the admins are allowed to get involved in character will soften the blow of any agent who thinks admin action "ruined" their antag round. This would require the mode not to be rolled when there is no admin on however, unless some sort of automation could be coded.

[BeeSting12]

Also I dont think muderboners in this mode should be handled via OOC admin communication and bans. It would be more fun and more interesting if the game master or admins reacted in character to the agents actions, so sure you can murderboner but centcom is going to get pissed and ERT you if you do it for long enough. Some simple RP guidelines for administration as well as a clear warning that agents is a mode where the admins are allowed to get involved in character will soften the blow of any agent who thinks admin action "ruined" their antag round. This would require the mode not to be rolled when there is no admin on however, unless some sort of automation could be coded.

Giving the murderboning IAAs no protection against admin intervention would be an acceptable solution also. Like not something shitty such as tossing a rod through him or deleteing/gibbing/BSAing, but sending out ERTs or deathsquads, or creating traitors with the murderboning IAA as the target would be allowed.
edit: oops broke the quote

[onleavedontatme]

ERTs can't fix that player nuking the engine roundstart or bombing medbay within 30 seconds and generally making it so that nobody else is going to get to do anything but wait for the shuttle.

ERTs also screw over the rest of the players in the game because now the round revolves around a handful of all access space marines who usually try and force a shuttle call.

[BeeSting12]

i mean yeah thats true and there's not much that can be done about that besides OOC restrictions placed on the antagonists.

[Atlanta-Ned]

Hey, uh, Kor how has this gone since merging?

I'm interested to hear if this has gone well, since, uh, it's probably an improvement on the old DA just being traitor where the targets are traitors.

There are only four rounds of Internal Affairs logged in the DB at the moment.
EDIT:
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69664
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69697
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69698
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69804

[Armhulen]

I played at least two of those as an iaa and I hated both rounds, even though I think I greentexted on both. It's just not fun getting your traitor stripped from you after you kill your target and wait to get murdered by another lad who will be sad about not getting to do anything.

[Jacough]

XTDM had an interesting idea in this thread for traitors having overlapping objectives that could make for an interesting take on IAA/DA. Basically agents have the same theft objectives as each other but only the agent who actually escapes with the objective gets the greentext. The goal of the idea would be to create scenarios where what starts as a race for the objective turns into a game of cat and mouse with agents trying to hunt each other down for the item.

[lzimann]

Hey, uh, Kor how has this gone since merging?

I'm interested to hear if this has gone well, since, uh, it's probably an improvement on the old DA just being traitor where the targets are traitors.

There are only four rounds of Internal Affairs logged in the DB at the moment.
EDIT:
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69664
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69697
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69698
https://atlantaned.space/newSS13tools/r ... ound=69804

Haha. I'm surprised how much gets stored and in such a readable format. Someone did a beautiful job on this. Ta!

Read the website name and the one who posted!

[Oldman Robustin]

Since this idea is middling and I'm not even that excited about MY solutions, I'm slowly going to be adding limited traitor roles that work the way that DA should have.

As I'm working on the first set of heists, I will start putting together a traitor role that seeks to prevent these heists from succeeding. The heist-hunter won't have perfect intel about their targets or the planned heist, but enough to know where to start looking. Like the heist team, the heist-hunter will start with a limited TC budget - but will get more TC for completing their objectives. To avoid metagame issues, these heist-hunters will be a roughly 50% chance for every heist.

I have always felt it was silly that we would consider changing our core rules to try and "enforce" a new mode but we never even tried using IC-motivation to get people to at least do objectives before they slip back into mindless murderboning.

[BeeSting12]

This PR is a step in the right direction: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/26921

[Nilons]

Should limit an internal affairs agents tc items to sneaky shit instead of regular items