Progression Traitor Feedback

For feedback on the game code and design. Feedback on server rules and playstyle belong in Policy Discussion.
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oranges
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by oranges » #658506

Bottom post of the previous page:

Kassori wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:33 pm The issue with progtot in its very nature is that it incentivizes the lowest common denominator to interact with the station and it's crew as little as fucking possible so you can plow through low-risk bullshit in a laundry list. Contractor kind of worked because you had to opt in and actually had to interact with the other players to get that sweet bonus premium currency. The idea of earning more TC isn't bad in and of itself, but it needs to be done much more narrowly and to a limited degree, so it's optional. Progtot has reduced the average Manuel morning round to 7 antags, 20 pop and multiple people running around with 40+ TC. It's actually insane how much dynamic spams these 3 cost progtot sleeper agents, but that's a dynamic and weighting thing in and of itself.
Don't blame progtot for manuel administration and players approach to conflict
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CPTANT
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by CPTANT » #658512

oranges wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:45 pm
Kassori wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:33 pm The issue with progtot in its very nature is that it incentivizes the lowest common denominator to interact with the station and it's crew as little as fucking possible so you can plow through low-risk bullshit in a laundry list. Contractor kind of worked because you had to opt in and actually had to interact with the other players to get that sweet bonus premium currency. The idea of earning more TC isn't bad in and of itself, but it needs to be done much more narrowly and to a limited degree, so it's optional. Progtot has reduced the average Manuel morning round to 7 antags, 20 pop and multiple people running around with 40+ TC. It's actually insane how much dynamic spams these 3 cost progtot sleeper agents, but that's a dynamic and weighting thing in and of itself.
Don't blame progtot for manuel administration and players approach to conflict
I don't think it's weird to blame progtot at all. Progtot incentivices this behaviour greatly. Picking risk avoiding goals -> more TC's and loot. If you want to reward risk the rewards for actually dangerous tasks needs to be far higher. Also I think it's a good idea to reduce the amount of tasks people can choose from so you are sometimes forced to pick something dangerous.
Timberpoes wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 3:21 pm The rules exist to create the biggest possible chance of a cool shift of SS13. They don't exist to allow admins to create the most boring interpretation of SS13.
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blackdav123
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by blackdav123 » #658520

CPTANT wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 11:38 pm -snip-
prog traitor isnt entirely at fault for creating these boring rounds. dynamic is just doing the shitty thing of creating 6 or 7 antags per round whether there are 20 players or 90.
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Kassori
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by Kassori » #658533

oranges wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:45 pm
Kassori wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:33 pm The issue with progtot in its very nature is that it incentivizes the lowest common denominator to interact with the station and it's crew as little as fucking possible so you can plow through low-risk bullshit in a laundry list. Contractor kind of worked because you had to opt in and actually had to interact with the other players to get that sweet bonus premium currency. The idea of earning more TC isn't bad in and of itself, but it needs to be done much more narrowly and to a limited degree, so it's optional. Progtot has reduced the average Manuel morning round to 7 antags, 20 pop and multiple people running around with 40+ TC. It's actually insane how much dynamic spams these 3 cost progtot sleeper agents, but that's a dynamic and weighting thing in and of itself.
Don't blame progtot for manuel administration and players approach to conflict
I do not understand what you mean, would you please clarify?
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by Imitates-The-Lizards » #658537

CPTANT wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 11:38 pm
oranges wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:45 pm
Kassori wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:33 pm The issue with progtot in its very nature is that it incentivizes the lowest common denominator to interact with the station and it's crew as little as fucking possible so you can plow through low-risk bullshit in a laundry list. Contractor kind of worked because you had to opt in and actually had to interact with the other players to get that sweet bonus premium currency. The idea of earning more TC isn't bad in and of itself, but it needs to be done much more narrowly and to a limited degree, so it's optional. Progtot has reduced the average Manuel morning round to 7 antags, 20 pop and multiple people running around with 40+ TC. It's actually insane how much dynamic spams these 3 cost progtot sleeper agents, but that's a dynamic and weighting thing in and of itself.
Don't blame progtot for manuel administration and players approach to conflict
I don't think it's weird to blame progtot at all. Progtot incentivices this behaviour greatly. Picking risk avoiding goals -> more TC's and loot. If you want to reward risk the rewards for actually dangerous tasks needs to be far higher. Also I think it's a good idea to reduce the amount of tasks people can choose from so you are sometimes forced to pick something dangerous.
I think a better idea would be limiting the number of safe tasks each person can get. Like make it so each traitor will only ever get a maximum of 2 "kill pet" objectives, a max of 2 "bug room" objectives, and a max of 2 "bug object" objectives, while making it so kidnapping, steal eyes, steal heirlooms all remain uncapped. I don't think "behead" and "kill and plant calling card" are very good objectives, though, since those are usually a round removal. They should also be weight lowered. But the three I mentioned before are very very good objectives which we should see more of, since they lead to direct conflict without round removing people, usually.
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by CPTANT » #658545

Imitates-The-Lizards wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 7:40 am
I think a better idea would be limiting the number of safe tasks each person can get. Like make it so each traitor will only ever get a maximum of 2 "kill pet" objectives, a max of 2 "bug room" objectives, and a max of 2 "bug object" objectives, while making it so kidnapping, steal eyes, steal heirlooms all remain uncapped. I don't think "behead" and "kill and plant calling card" are very good objectives, though, since those are usually a round removal. They should also be weight lowered. But the three I mentioned before are very very good objectives which we should see more of, since they lead to direct conflict without round removing people, usually.
Round removal is a good thing. Traitors were supposed to be scary.
Timberpoes wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 3:21 pm The rules exist to create the biggest possible chance of a cool shift of SS13. They don't exist to allow admins to create the most boring interpretation of SS13.
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by BrianBackslide » #662129

As I play progtots more and more, I have come to genuinely hate it for its unbridled assault on the sandbox element of the game. (also the nerfing of surplus crates is completely unforgivable) I want to be able to do dumb gimmicks and I just can't without waiting forever or getting sec on my ass early. It doesn't even really make sense that the Syndicate wouldn't supply their agent with equipment until they do some good boy chores for them. I'm about 50% just turning off traitor entirely because I just don't find it fun anymore.

But what if, instead of rep locking items out, it instead gave discounts/markups based on rep? So, for instance, a desword at the beginning of the round would be 24tc, that naturally ticks down as the round/rep progresses until it reaches its baseline. You still typically have to work toward it, naturally, but it gives added incentive for traitors to work together (which progtots sorely lacks) and, for most items at least, would enable gimmicks without the waiting even at a 50% markup. Hell, make it 100% markup if you feel you have to. It would also make the surplus crate a fun gamble as you MIGHT get something cool out of it, rather than lame stuff. Let's face it, rep locked surplus crates are just bad, sad, and makes me mad. It's already a gamble, so why rep lock its contents? Under a rep = discount system, you can get something powerful, but you might only get one or two items.
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CPTANT
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by CPTANT » #662206

The splitting of objectives into primary and secondary makes me feel the progtraitor aspect is less justifiable even more. The secondary objective tab feels like a weird distraction now.

I still feel everything that was aimed to be achieved with progtraitor can be achieved with a simple timegate on some of the traitor weapons/bombs. Just say the uplink is calibrating or something.
Timberpoes wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 3:21 pm The rules exist to create the biggest possible chance of a cool shift of SS13. They don't exist to allow admins to create the most boring interpretation of SS13.
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by Annihilite111 » #664481

I have been wondering about why i have such a hard time doing fun stuff as progtot, and i think it's down to one simple, possibly overlooked fact: Progtot is MMO-psychology.
It's concerningly similar, actually. Just like the grindy gameplay loop of most modern MMOs, you're rewarded with loot (TC) and experience (rep) that let's you become stronger for its own sake. I am personally very vulnerable to dopamine traps (as my playtime in ss13 might suggest), so perhaps i feel the effects to a greater degree than normal, but anecdotally i've noticed a marked drop in both gimmicks and non stealth traitors. We used to get plenty of traitors doing unique things and playing around with the upload gear, because there wasn't this constant temptation for more power if you only do X task. I also think most people who do these gimmicks just get demotivated by having to do all these tasks (and possibly lose any goodwill the crew might have had for their gimmick) before they can even get started.

Heretic - as much as i love that antag - should have been a massive red flag when progtraitor was first proposed. Even compared to progtots, the heretic gameplay loop is incredibly narrow in its scope. There is exactly one gimmick i've ever seen one do, and that is selling heretic robes in the comissary. I've seen it happen twice in significantly more than a thousand hours of playtime, and i'll bet you that the aquisition of knowledge points is the main culprit.

Why did we need to turn the fun, do whatever you want antag into a different flavour of heretic? Surely the shiftstart medbombings and desword bones could have just been dealt with through policy or time locking the literal three items that were responsible for 90% of early calls (revolver, desword and syndiebomb). Can someone explain in what way (aside from the mentioned early bones) progtot has actually improved rounds?
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by sinfulbliss » #667331

Kidnap objectives are comedically bad now. One of the ones I rolled offered something like 1 (2?) TC and less than 60 rep. Kidnapping is by far the hardest objective type because unlike murder, you need to restrain them and drag them through possible witnesses to the location (which is often a pain in the ass to find on top of this - no one knows what the fuck "Lesser Aft Maintenance" means).

Contractor, to contrast, gave upwards of 10 TC for a single contract, although I believe they scaled with difficulty since kidnapping, for instance, the HoS and delivering them to the AI upload is probably making you work for your money. Personally I've never found the kidnap objectives engaging in progtot, I wonder if they could be off-loaded into contractors with the tablet and kit to become their own personal flavor of traitor. It definitely felt cooler and easier to roleplay when your character’s kit was redesigned for the task. Somehow it was still hard enough back then to often not get chosen despite the huge TC rewards - I reckon that’s a result of kidnapping just being intrinsically difficult.
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by sinfulbliss » #688792

I think passive rep is too slow. It takes 30 minutes of passive rep to get to 300rep, LRP round times average 45 minutes so you're sorta forced to do objectives to have an impact as a traitor.

Maybe working as intended? But here's another thing. The early-tier objectives are significantly harder than late-tier objectives.
Here's a screenshot of the early-game objectives, taken at around the 18 minute mark of a round (5/22/23):
Spoiler:
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Ones below were more kidnap and a destroy family heirloom objective.

The graffiti, kidnap, and poster objectives are particularly bad choices on LRP where you can be RR'd if found to be valid. You're very likely to get outted for them, and although kidnap objectives give an ample TC reward now, the predominance they hold over earlygame objective rolling doesn't work very well. They should be lightly sprinkled in, but they easily constitute the bulk of traitor earlygame objectives.

Late-game objectives like: infect with HMS (great addition), pet assassinations, destroy item (fireaxe, mech removal tool, blackbox, etc), and even the latest-tier objectives like hacking comms console and weak-points are significantly easier than earlygame kidnap and heirloom objectives, which doesn't make much sense. You'd think they would get progressively harder and more risky.

This isn't exactly a critique against late-game objectives since those are often the most destructive and damaging, despite being easier, but I think there should be a lot more easy early-game objectives that players with below 500 hours can complete and have fun with, without making themselves immediately valid, so they can progress and enjoy the system properly. There is a pretty big void of these now without office and item-bugging objectives (aside from incredibly high risk items, which are med-lategame objectives).
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by MooCow12 » #688800

sinfulbliss wrote: Wed Jun 07, 2023 12:28 am I think passive rep is too slow. It takes 30 minutes of passive rep to get to 300rep, LRP round times average 45 minutes so you're sorta forced to do objectives to have an impact as a traitor.
more like 35 minutes, the round time starts counting before the round actually starts (give or take 3 minutes) and a good portion of a round is spent with either the shuttle docked or in transit to centcomm.
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Re: Progression Traitor Feedback

Post by Capsandi » #689657

I'd wonder what the worst-case backfire scenario would be for a reputation bonus for surviving until shuttle call.
I'd suppose that would be encouraging engaging closet gameplay by traitors until the shuttle is called, but it might introduce a deterrent for those who call the shuttle without good reason or when the shuttle is likely to be recalled.
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