/tg/Station 13

This is weird. Ritual sacrifice should murder people. Secret agents sent for corporate espionage, sabotage, and terrorism shouldn't have equipment they can afford restricted upon the basis of time. Both of these are new and unnatural systems, and the discourse and discussion around them is weird, because there's a group pushing this angle and they honestly all sound the same, and frequently discuss these changes and opinions publicly.

This shit is softened up to the point that heretics send you to 'heck' for 2 minutes with a flavor text that says "No tattling!" I feel like my behavior is being governed by coders. These are weird, forced, unnatural interactions because 'ided'. Worse than that, a coder's conception of someone else's 'ided'. 'Ided' was never an issue until recently. I've been playing since 2011 and haven't seen the word 'round removal' until like, relatively recently. And it's treated like some kind of anathema. Tots don't do this, but they're restricted in other weird, nonsensical ways.

This doesn't lead to what you guys seem to think it does. This doesn't lead to traitors covertly using their tools to accomplish their objectives, nor does it lead to anything but a shittier heretic experience. Heretic especially, with its explanations, mechanics, rituals, EXTREMELY demanding recipes, leads to me being the only person I see doing sacrifices. This shit is so idiosyncratic. Heretic was already an uphill battle, now it's just flavor text that tells people they can maxcap or release aids. Trying to force RP, keep people in the game, and limit and structure gameplay in these weird ways just leads to this, people check out, release a virus, plasma flood, or do anything but heretic shit. Almost every single heretic on the antag panel is clocking out with 0 sacrifices. No one knows how to do it, or worse, doesn't give a shit. When heretic wasn't a whole song and dance, and still the most complex and fucked up antag, it was a pretty good time.

For traitors, I've been playing a lot of security lately. The objectives and system is fine, it's a good time, even. But restricting access to the shop? What? This just leads to 2 things: robust players just afk in lockers until they can buy a desword or do what they want to do, ignoring the whole system, and the less robust but even normal, experienced players, just seem checked out. They aren't doing antag shit. They aren't killing people, they aren't doing James Bond shit. They're getting caught, sheepishly getting rolled around in brig for their mostly unused uplink (because they can't buy shit lol), that sec then buys a bunch of toys with. Then, the random traitor gets let go because no one is going to kill a random guy for bugging CMO's office. So, now you just have some renegade MD who, for some reason, is still doing his job, like some kind of defanged animal.

Ritual sacrifice, nuclear terrorism, and corporate espionage are not things that need to be softened up. This shit is getting boring and lame and I think this type of content, change, and direction is responsible. This game, despite being silly, pixelated and 2d, goes hard as fuck and that's why we came to it. The raw freedom the game provides is what makes it attractive, and this kind of structuring of gameplay is the very opposite.

Sybil's pop has been declining really hard. It almost can't scratch its way out of 50, and if it does, it collapses right back down. This decline is a very recent thing, and I'm with the crowd. Round after round of security where the biggest threat to the station is the captain, a virus, or fucked up atmos and firelocks. It's been weeks of this game being basically greenshift. These are the new antagonists. I've been putting some weeks into sec, but I've also just been playing atmos tech, assistant, etc. the jobs I normally play, and it's all the same shit. Sec is brutal because you really see the true scope of how little antags are doing.

I agree the reputation system for traitors could use some fixing. Frequently I'll get -90% rep objectives because it claims I'm ahead of where I should be. Holding items for 15 min, 1/3rd of an LRP round, is a long time. There shouldn't be items like elite syndie modsuit that take 2 hours minimum to unlock even when you complete objectives one after the other nonstop.

Highpop rounds on LRP will VERY rarely cross the 1.5hr mark, so that means "final objectives" essentially are never seen on LRP. The lack of a greentext/escape alive objective also makes it a bit anticlimactic.

This game has been beyond boring recently. Round after round of literally nothing interesting happening at all because all of the traitors are too busy doing fetch quests, and half of the threat was spent on thieves. I dont want to be part of the "TGSTATION IS DYING!!" crowd but the pop (on sybil) has definitely suffered and im not having that much fun. This game is great when its a chaotic clusterfuck where a bunch of crazy shit is happening, and that has not been the case recently. Thank god less people are getting round removed though, right??????????

sinfulbliss wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:12 am I agree the reputation system for traitors could use some fixing. Frequently I'll get -90% rep objectives because it claims I'm ahead of where I should be. Holding items for 15 min, 1/3rd of an LRP round, is a long time. There shouldn't be items like elite syndie modsuit that take 2 hours minimum to unlock even when you complete objectives one after the other nonstop.

Highpop rounds on LRP will VERY rarely cross the 1.5hr mark, so that means "final objectives" essentially are never seen on LRP. The lack of a greentext/escape alive objective also makes it a bit anticlimactic.

Well then open a PR and balance the items cost to what you think is right!

JusticeGoat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:43 am

sinfulbliss wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:12 am I agree the reputation system for traitors could use some fixing. Frequently I'll get -90% rep objectives because it claims I'm ahead of where I should be. Holding items for 15 min, 1/3rd of an LRP round, is a long time. There shouldn't be items like elite syndie modsuit that take 2 hours minimum to unlock even when you complete objectives one after the other nonstop.

Highpop rounds on LRP will VERY rarely cross the 1.5hr mark, so that means "final objectives" essentially are never seen on LRP. The lack of a greentext/escape alive objective also makes it a bit anticlimactic.

Well then open a PR and balance the items cost to what you think is right!

Do you guys get off to saying this or something?

Almost no one knows how to code or how github works. Normal players PRing balance changes to coder content would probably get shut down and be met with heavy resistance, if someone did somehow step up to that plate.

This isn't policy this is coding feedback.

!	Message from: RaveRadbury
	I moved this thread from Policy Discussion to Coding feedback.

Love you too bestie

JusticeGoat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:43 am

sinfulbliss wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:12 am I agree the reputation system for traitors could use some fixing. Frequently I'll get -90% rep objectives because it claims I'm ahead of where I should be. Holding items for 15 min, 1/3rd of an LRP round, is a long time. There shouldn't be items like elite syndie modsuit that take 2 hours minimum to unlock even when you complete objectives one after the other nonstop.

Highpop rounds on LRP will VERY rarely cross the 1.5hr mark, so that means "final objectives" essentially are never seen on LRP. The lack of a greentext/escape alive objective also makes it a bit anticlimactic.

Well then open a PR and balance the items cost to what you think is right!

against design doc + unit tests failed + no GBP + touch bugs + webedit + species change + + bad practice +
WHY + not a fix + copypasta + doesn't compile + your balance change is awful + :master + why is it good of the game? + marked as draft + stale + merge conflict + closed

RaveRadbury wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 9:00 am This isn't policy this is coding feedback.

I would qualify this as coding feedback.

Coders talk quite brazenly about the direction they're intentionally moving the game into. This smells like policy, which I guess admins can't influence coders on, but coders sure seem to have carte blanche. To the point they've made ritual sacrifice into a harmless activity. This is coding feedback because coders keep designing much too complex systems and slow systems that structure and force certain behaviors, as opposed to more classic ss13 design, in which simple and difficult tasks are provided an abundance of tools and a slap on the ass to get them done. I feel like I'm locked into a different game (exclusively in the context of heretic), and not in a very good way.

Multiple systems that were straightforward, easy, and functional have, in the last 3~ months, have had 1 step processes turned into 10, given fancy UIs with lots of text and stuff to do and only 30 minutes to do it, because that's how long SS13 round are. 30-50 minutes, max. You have 3 sec players who say they haven't seen antags in weeks and pop is in the hyperbolic gutter because no one cares for viroogy/atmos flood/thiefrounds 24/7 for weeks. Every traitor is the same story, a PDAless bored guy in a locker. Heretics don't/cant sac. I haven't seen a tot do creative shit in a while, much less anything worth a security response. This specifically could just be fixed by allowing full access to the uplink off rip.

This is a code issue, even if it's an issue with the direction of the code.

Terry pop has taken a hit recently too, as someone who mains sec I'm simply enclined to agree with the points that massa has brought up here. A lot of the threat and action now happens on the 40 minute mark because traitors either do nothing or go around bugginng the CMO'S office, get caught and then are either released without their gear or killed not giving them a chance to ramp up and making the round a snoozefest. Having more tc suprisingly doesn't make the tots too much more powerful, because they have 9 deswords x-ray vision noslips ect ect but a single batong still kills them. I've seen players literally say "I am going to be ssd for 1 hr until the shop unlocks" and security will not hunt them .

The new heretic is a complete snoozefest too, I've not really seen it be a threat. The amount of blades has been nerfed to 3(Correct me if I'm wrong) heavily impacting their escape. The people they kill get revived for whatever reason. People don't enjoy this kind of gameplay.

I know for a fact that some players have straight up left because of this. One of our biggest content creators (Livrah) is on the verge of being pushed away from /tg/ because of these changes which will be a huge blow.

However, most feedback/issues are met with deal with it so I'd be surpised if these aren't.

There's a very odd obsession with preventing murderbones on LRP by restricting gear and making TC more cumbersome and time consuming to obtain. Ask LRP players the last time they saw a murderbone. Or ask Mothblocks since they're a coder and play a lot. It hardly happened before the traitor rework to begin with. It's my understanding the rework had the partial goal of preventing roundstart murderboning. On Manuel this is disallowed. On LRP this doesn't happen because crew validhunts them down in a few minutes anyway.

The design incentive to prevent murderboning is a bad one because it corrects for a nonexistent problem, which means now it slows rounds. The system overall is more refined and could prove more fun than old traitor if rep + objective timegates were tweaked. There's no real issue with antags having more TC and more gear since, as Lukas said, they will be batonned by sec or a validhunter 9 times out of 10 on LRP. And on MRP I can't imagine it being an issue since they have different rulesets to mitigate this.

Frankly, as sec, I'm happier when a tot hits the comms console to summon in something nastier so we can have some actual action going on. AFKtot is really not a quality improvement over the proactive and interesting contractor it replaced, though rarely did I see contractors anyway. Maybe because they were seen as too hardcore.

On the flipside I switched off tot because I'm constantly feeling directionless and like nothing I do matters. I ultimately don't need to try to succeed and security can't in theory stop me or honestly incentivized to do much at all unless I'm killing folk (which I can opt to ignore which to me was part of the thrill of random objectives and making elaborate clandestine plans). I'm doing little chores for ultimately no payoff, and once a round hits a certain point anything I could do is largely uninteresting by comparison to the midrounds that might have rolled that take the show. This feels like the lowest points of old tot (no real obstacles between you and your goal and not having much direction because objectives effectively completed themselves somehow), but almost all the time.

I would rather my actions immediately be able to start flavoring the round, and I don't mean like murderboning, I mean longterm planning items like hypnoflashes and hacked uploads or even just powersinks and bombs. I can't even pizza bomb people until most of the shift is over. I think it even conditions people a little to be more on the alert because you can vaguely meta when traitors will come online.

I'm waiting on heretic because I actually do want to mess with the rituals to produce some fun stuff and the new system is a bit more condusive to that. Also heretics are actually fighting people and need to be aggressive to succeed their fairly tough objectives, so I'm happier to know they're around than snoozefest tots.

Abductors are neutered antags too. But they give the crew semi-permanent side-effects that lead to some permanent negative round consequences.

If you get sacrificed by a heretic. Maybe there needs to be a more permanent scar on the round pre-ascension too. Like Ash-Heretic sacrifices are constantly gaining fire-stacks, as the patron from beyond is trying to disintegrate them into ash. Flesh heretic sacrifices are devolving into simple mobs, ala gluttonys blessing/slime mutation toxin transformation, Frost heretic sacrifices are temporarily turning into statues every 2 minutes (think wizard flesh to stone.) All these effects end when whichever heretic sacrificed them dies. Thus giving sec a reason to slam the heretic, while giving the crewmembers who got sacrificed costly issues after staying in the round, but at least they're not dead.

Shadowflame909 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 4:17 pm If you get sacrificed by a heretic. Maybe there needs to be a more permanent scar on the round pre-ascension too.

or we could just go back to the system where it drops your organs if you're sacrificed and just leaves your corpse on the rune. Gave heretics a need to dispose of corpses and also gave them useful crafting materials.
Edit:
But yeah, this is a huge issue. I personally find biddle traitors fun, and way more satisfying than old traitor, but if server pop is tanking as a consequence then it needs to change or go.
Personally, I'd like to see them given more dangerous equipment in their uplink from the start(esword, mak), but they no longer get passive reputation gain and are required to go do objectives if they want any of the cool stuff like the DESword or Bomb.
I don't know if this is possible as a ruleset for Dynamic, but having thieves be a one-time 0-cost thing at the start of the round instead of taking any threat may also help. They should be a supporting cast for real antagonists; while they may distract security for a time, they don't actually have any threat to them and should be treated accordingly.

server pop "tanking" being a consequence of code changes is possible, but it isnt the only explanation- there was a very large game release recently, one plenty of people are talking about playing on the discord. peoples interests move on, naturally, regardless of changes. people take breaks, people move to dif code bases, pop ebbs and flows. this is more doomerisms and nothing more

I do agree getting sac'd and then just dropped back down into the station is jarring, weird, and not very thematic though, and thieves are in my opinion a bit disappointing, though the idea of smaller minor antags that dont have the full freedom of rule 4 but in turn arent just insta valid for round removal is appealing to me

This thread hits painfully close to home. I originally stopped playing ss13 from pure burnout, but a lot of the recent changes have made me wanna stay gone. It feels like the administration and maintainers have a shared vision of medium RP for all /tg/ servers or something, rather than respecting both the NRP and LRP playerbases.

Also I’m not sure what the issue with contractor was. It was added as a challenge mode for experienced players that wanted something more fun and rewarding than normal objectives with unique gear while also being significantly harder, and it filled its niche perfectly IMO. It definitely didn’t need to be removed in place of the new objectives system, they’re not very similar at all. I don’t think I can overstate how much I enjoyed contractor.

issue appears to be one of skill, now leave.

Plainly speaking, changes regressed /tg/ clones like voidcrew (ex-whitesands) server are expanding rapidly at this thread-topic's expense, mirroring imsxz that there are better things people can do than play straight-cut manuel if the experience is not entertaining enough.

I think rounds have been a lot slower than they were in, say, October of 2021. I still found it worth playing but I definitely noticed a tangible difference in the pacing of rounds. I reckon it's a combination of prog tot being poorly implemented on LRP with rounds lasting 45min on average and most objectives lasting 15min, along with something funky going on with Dynamic that Mothblocks spoke about (although I'm not sure when that started).

Then again if your scale is a decade then maybe this is pretty standard. That's just what I've noticed playing very actively for 2 years or so.

The funky that I spoke about is more issues that have always existed but have been exacerbated over time, not any recent bugs FWIW, just reasonable people pushed things over Dynamic's limits, and it's Dynamic that needs to be adjusted

FantasticFwoosh wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 6:23 pm Plainly speaking, changes regressed /tg/ clones like voidcrew (ex-whitesands) server are expanding rapidly at this thread-topic's expense, mirroring imsxz that there are better things people can do than play straight-cut manuel if the experience is not entertaining enough.

when are you going to play on one and stop shitting up my forum then fwoosh?

you're like the eternal I'm leaving guy who never quite makes it out of the door, is this an a Italian goodbye or what?

maybe if more of you dumbasses complaining that you're going to leave actually left we might have to make some more change around here.

I don't feel that I've seen that antags are all that neutered, but I don't really like the progression system very much probbably because I don't understand it and you can't work out what an antag was doing in the round from roundend because the roundend screen is broken for progression traitor.

Is it just non functional? issue report up?

TheFinalPotato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 8:56 pm Is it just non functional? issue report up?

I mean I asked if it was normal that antags could (and often did have) both rep objectives complete even if they had no or only 1 rep objective done and was told that actually they had way more but it wasnt reported right

Muh issue reports

TheFinalPotato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:26 pm Muh issue reports

is this some github thing because github is 100% incoherent and incomprehensible to anyone who isn't a c*der and it's deliberately that way to obfuscate things from the reach and effects of normies.

no one knows how to use git, what it is, and no one ever will, and this is how the coders maintain their 1984

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/ ... _report.md
There's a button in the top right of the game window.

It has nothing to do with git, and even if it did github desktop is the most baby mode git client you can use

massa wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 2:33 am

TheFinalPotato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:26 pm Muh issue reports

is this some github thing because github is 100% incoherent and incomprehensible to anyone who isn't a c*der and it's deliberately that way to obfuscate things from the reach and effects of normies.

no one knows how to use git, what it is, and no one ever will, and this is how the coders maintain their 1984

yes

massa wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 2:33 am

TheFinalPotato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:26 pm Muh issue reports

is this some github thing because github is 100% incoherent and incomprehensible to anyone who isn't a c*der and it's deliberately that way to obfuscate things from the reach and effects of normies.

no one knows how to use git, what it is, and no one ever will, and this is how the coders maintain their 1984

it often feels like pr bodies and changelogs leave out or are deliberately vague about changes to conceal them from the players

when i can be bothered i try to autistically detail every change a pr makes in as little words as possible but that just opens you up to the peanut gallery so i understand why people don't do it

Mothblocks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 7:32 pm The funky that I spoke about is more issues that have always existed but have been exacerbated over time, not any recent bugs FWIW, just reasonable people pushed things over Dynamic's limits, and it's Dynamic that needs to be adjusted

also can you look into threat spending

a 70 round threat often has a shitload of unspent threat, 30+ by like the end of the round? seems relevant i didn't know where to post it tbh

Yeah, that problem is acknowledged and solved in the Dynamic 2022 doc by changing how midround timing works.