Why is every round a god damn deathmatch?

[Lumbermancer]

Blob, ops, rev, gang, wizard. Holy fucking shit six rounds in a row my life span was 5 minutes. Where is the traitor, the only objectively good mode? Why isn't it 50% of chance? Where is Changeling? Is it even still in?

This is why Kor has to write design notes.

[Atlanta-Ned]

It has been significantly less fun lately. I think traitor needs to get its chances bumped up a little.

EDIT: I suspect that there is also a very vocal minority of players encouraging more deathmatch-y features and gameplay over the quieter majority of people who get something else out of the game.

[Saegrimr]

Welcome to tgstation.

[TheNightingale]

Some people can't have fun without ruining other peoples' fun, and they enforce that on others whenever they can.

[ShadowDimentio]

I for one am shocked that all these gamemodes are a deathmatch. Coders please implement a tea table that the blob/operatives/shadowlings/gangs/revs can all sit around and calmly discuss what they would like with they would like, so the crew and them may reach a compromise.

[TheNightingale]

Blob has to end in people being shot, since blobs can't communicate (and so can't RP); but the others, there are options other than shooting everything that moves.

Are you an operative team? Try and negotiate for the disk. Take someone hostage if you have to; have the crew evacuate to Mining. They don't know how many of you there are, so you can use your power to your advantage.
Are you a shadowling? Tell everyone about this fantastic new celebrity. Spoiler: it's you. Lights are outdated anyway.
Are you a gang leader? Run the Mafia. Extortion rackets, drug dealing, ransoms for space bucks. Wave around uzis like Al Capone. Nyeh, see?
Are you a head revolutionary? The heads of staff are bad, but why? Put them on trial for their crimes. Have them exiled. Ensure the judges are also revolutionaries.

Gee, it's almost as if, in a roleplaying game, there are opportunities to roleplay. All you have to do is seek them out.

[InsaneHyena]

Are you an operative team? Try and negotiate for the disk. Take someone hostage if you have to; have the crew evacuate to Mining. They don't know how many of you there are, so you can use your power to your advantage.
Are you a shadowling? Tell everyone about this fantastic new celebrity. Spoiler: it's you. Lights are outdated anyway.
Are you a gang leader? Run the Mafia. Extortion rackets, drug dealing, ransoms for space bucks. Wave around uzis like Al Capone. Nyeh, see?
Are you a head revolutionary? The heads of staff are bad, but why? Put them on trial for their crimes. Have them exiled. Ensure the judges are also revolutionaries.

Yeah, NOT going to happen, not on tg. At least, not now.

[Zilenan91]

Can't do RP ops when your teammates are literally mongoloids.
Slings can do some minor rp and if your thralls are murderboning and going against your wishes call the admins on them
Gangs hahahahahaha
Revs also laughter except slightly sad

[TheNightingale]

The problem with gangs is that, even if one gang tries to do some fun RP gimmick, the other gang inevitably won't, and so the other gang gains a massive lead and wins - or Security stomps on them both equally. There'll always be one Operative who wants to shoot the Captain for the disk instead of playing poker (and at least ten Assistants who want to lynch the Operatives); and in a Revolution, all it takes is one person with a stunprod to murder a head of staff instead of having them put on trial.

If we want rounds to stop devolving into deathmatches, we need to enforce a higher quality of roleplay.

[ShadowDimentio]

>I want operatives to RP!

I don't often say this, but go to Bay then chucklefuck

[TheNightingale]

I already did, it was pretty nice there. We could learn a lot from their playstyle.

[ShadowDimentio]

Yeah like how they cater to the RP people and how we don't

And for good reason

[Zilenan91]

"enforcing" roleplay is terrible. It really really is, this is why servers like Bay and Polaris have sub 10% of the population we have. What you want to do are make game mechanics that function in such a way to have it happen naturally.

[ShadowDimentio]

If people want to play clown ops, more power to them. But people whining that the operatives "are just murdering everyone" are completely missing the point of those game types

[TheNightingale]

When I say enforce roleplay, I don't mean "no running in the halls" (or even "you're an MD you can't set up power"). I mean breaking out the bans for people who EMP the 'Central inspector' to see if they're wearing a chameleon suit, then kill and space them when they are; people who ghost when they get arrested for having a stunprod, but not before calling everyone nearby the slur of the day; people who kill everyone on a fifteen-pop server with adrenals and an ebow, then say "git rekt scrub" after each kill. You know the type of person I'm talking about here.

Enforce that sort of roleplay, and rounds become less about deathmatches and more about interacting with other players. If an Operative team shoots people in their way and tries to get the disk, that's tactically a good move. If they go around slaughtering everyone they see instead of actually getting the disk, that's poor roleplay.

[TechnoAlchemist]

If you wan to role play these things out, you can. But you have to accept that you won't "win" or green text.

The game as a whole gets a lot more fun when you stop caring about objectives, the issue is when teammates don't share the sentiment

[Atlanta-Ned]

The game as a whole gets a lot more fun when you stop caring about objectives, the issue is when teammates don't share the sentiment

How do we get them to care?

[Oldman Robustin]

Sounds like you had a bad streak of combat-oriented rounds.

I'll still take too much action over the old 40% traitor/20% traitorling/15% ling round weighting (before holoparasites gave bad traitors a crutch again) and you could play for hours upon hours without any serious conflict aboard the station.

[Atlanta-Ned]

Sounds like you had a bad streak of combat-oriented rounds.

This has been going on for at least two days now.

[ShadowDimentio]

Sounds like a personal problem.

[Saegrimr]

Sounds like you had a bad streak of combat-oriented rounds.

I'll still take too much action over the old 40% traitor/20% traitorling/15% ling round weighting (before holoparasites gave bad traitors a crutch again) and you could play for hours upon hours without any serious conflict aboard the station.

Yes i'm sure the person who greytides 5 minutes into a round if ops haven't openly declared war, a blob announcement hasn't hit, or he didn't roll antag would.

[PKPenguin321]

I already did, it was pretty nice there. We could learn a lot from their playstyle.

or you could just play there instead of making us a clone of their server

i think the game is fun here, if your definition of fun better matches bay then i don't get why you won't play there instead

[Cheridan]

Are we seriously having this conversation again?

I mean breaking out the bans for people who EMP the 'Central inspector' to see if they're wearing a chameleon suit, then kill and space them when they are; people who ghost when they get arrested for having a stunprod, but not before calling everyone nearby the slur of the day; people who kill everyone on a fifteen-pop server with adrenals and an ebow, then say "git rekt scrub" after each kill. You know the type of person I'm talking about here.

Enforce that sort of roleplay, and rounds become less about deathmatches and more about interacting with other players. If an Operative team shoots people in their way and tries to get the disk, that's tactically a good move. If they go around slaughtering everyone they see instead of actually getting the disk, that's poor roleplay.

The rules state that everyone knows the full extent of antag items and previous round experience. According to the rules, there's literally nothing wrong with that first scenario.
To get the kind of roleplay that you're talking about, first you have to change the rules. Then, you need to get admins to actually enforce in-character behavior and sportsmanlike conduct. Because as it stands, it's a catch 22. TechnoAlchemist basically summed it up: You can try to 'roleplay' instead of powergame, but when the other guy kicks your shit in then afterwards you're going to start powergaming too.

It's a concrete solution but those two things aren't going to happen though because we have a faction of anti-roleplay players who would throw fits at enforcement of those rules, and we have admins who don't want to deal with the kind of grey area situations like "how much powergaming is too much".


also amnestik blaming maintainers for player behavior is hilariously misguided

[Oldman Robustin]

Sounds like you had a bad streak of combat-oriented rounds.

I'll still take too much action over the old 40% traitor/20% traitorling/15% ling round weighting (before holoparasites gave bad traitors a crutch again) and you could play for hours upon hours without any serious conflict aboard the station.

Yes i'm sure the person who greytides 5 minutes into a round if ops haven't openly declared war, a blob announcement hasn't hit, or he didn't roll antag would.

Super rude.

I barely even greytide anymore.

I appreciate the balance between slow RP rounds and gotta kill fast rev/gang/nukeops rounds.

But round weighting hasn't changed, the server's players haven't changed, round design hasn't changed, everything plays out pretty much the same as I've always remembered it. There hasn't been a sudden surge in bloodlust, but threads like these usually feed a perception bias.

[Saegrimr]

Yeah that was unnecessary, my apologies.

but threads like these usually feed a perception bias.

That's every thread, man. Nearly every thread on the front page of Feedback comes with a backstory of "i ded pls nerf". With the exception of the hunger and demon summoning thread which is "i not ded enough pls buff".

The biggest example of this right now is the AI vs anti-AI threads going on, not to go into specifics of who is or isn't right there. Everybody's got their own spin on things trying to yell louder than the other side.

[imblyings]

"enforcing" roleplay is terrible. It really really is, this is why servers like Bay and Polaris have sub 10% of the population we have. What you want to do are make game mechanics that function in such a way to have it happen naturally.

this

More pve game mechanics and content for example, rather than stuff focused on pvp. Cooperation, ala blob but not blob, slower paced, and more optional. Most people will probably find themselves more competent and more productive at learning how to code, map or sprite pve content, than trying to dictate policy on 'roleplay' as well.

[onleavedontatme]

Game Mode Odds:
blob 10.3%
double_agents 10.3%
traitor 20.7%
cult 5.2%
extended 1.7%
gang 10.3%
nuclear 10.3%
revolution 10.3%
shadowling 10.3%
wizard 10.3%

70% death match.

[Incomptinence]

No don't bring back majority traitor and DA again god so fucking dull. It still rules on lowpop since the group or station vs rounds are mostly disabled due to being nonfunctional without people.

[Pascal123]

You should probably add 'On sybil' to that title. As things are different on Bagil and antagonists are more likely to relax with, or at-least speak to, the crew. Based on how the crew acts, they may not even resort to violence.

Like abductors asking me politely if I'd like to 'Visit their fancy ship' or a Wizard asking me if I'd like to join their 'Legion of the Dead', or a Ninja who simply jokes around about how silly their objectives tend to be, like protecting someone who can already protect themselves. It's especially nice when you got multiple 'Antagonists' around a table playing cards or something that doesn't involve getting the whole crew killed...

One shift i was a 'Syndicate Leader' of sorts. Convinced other agents not to go too loud, and to try to avoid open conflict. Which they did. Those who didn't would usually get in a minor fight with security or something. Security would come and have me attempt to negotiate with them to prevent any more violence, etc. I even went so far as to forewarn my target that they had 'Enemies in high places' who 'Wanted to get rid of them' acting as a sort of whistleblower. They did not seem to understand who i was referring to, asking me if i meant the Heads of Staff or the Cargo Technicians who had armed themselves. I just denied to comment further and eventually sent some agents after them.

[Lumbermancer]

No don't bring back majority traitor and DA again god so fucking dull. It still rules on lowpop since the group or station vs rounds are mostly disabled due to being nonfunctional without people.

Yeah it's so dull, you actually have to veil your attempts at validhunting.

[Malkevin]

Traitor should happen more often.


There should also be some pve game modes.
Like meteor where the shuttle can't be called for a long time but meteors aren't as frequent as they are in the current game mode.
A solar flare sets half the station on fire.
Carp swarm.
Spider infestation.
Things like that.

[Steelpoint]

Half reminds me of my "Arkham Asylum" boardgame suggestion of making a PvE game mode about lovecraftian horrors invading the station by deploying special portals around the station which spawn horrifing monsters, with the crew having to fight back and send people into the portals to shut them down before the station is overrun.

[Lumbermancer]

PvE is a different matter entirely, I'm talking about PvP here.

What I want from PvP mode that's most common is:

a) It doesn't involve those that don't want to get involved, most of the time at least. I'm a Chef, I want to make food together with botany and see people enjoying it. In traitor/da/changeling I can safely assume that if I'm not the target and murderboner won't hit the fan, I can do my job. Or whatever I want. That's not the case in most other rounds which force your involvement (unless it's blob then you ought to suicide).

b) It doesn't affect the whole station immediately. Even if you personally don't want to get involved during gang, rev, blob, wizard, shadowling, ops - the rest of the station will. Because all of them have hardcoded ending (again, unlike traitor/da/changeling). And there's not much point in building autism fort (remember those?) if round will last 10 mintues or you gonna get fucked by someone soon.

People talk about Paranoia, and how its lacking. I think it's only possible when both of those points are met. I'm not the vettest of vets, but the old tator/ling was the most fun I had in this game, even as non antag. Being a doctor and suddenly discovering all bodies in morgue got husked, or being a chef and hearing someone welding though the cold room wall to steal ids of gibbed bodies. Shit like this don't happen anymore.

[Amnestik]

blaming maintainers for player behavior is hilariously misguided

Game designers heavily influence, if not guarantee player behaviour through operant conditioning. i.e. Punishment for doing A, reward for doing B.

[iamgoofball]

blaming maintainers for player behavior is hilariously misguided

Game designers heavily influence, if not guarantee player behaviour through operant conditioning. i.e. Punishment for doing A, reward for doing B.

You cannot detect whether roleplaying is occurring from the code.

[Amnestik]

If you give roleplay a gameplay incentive, guess what

JUSAT5 RPOELPLAEYM GUYUS GODASDSADSMDN

Roleplay is always better quality when it manifests organically based on what's happening in the game. When the player is feeling what their character is, like "Holy fuck the entire station is on fire, how am I going to survive this?" Instead of a bunch of assholes sitting around in the bar or library jacking off each other's Mary-Sues, or people play-acting.

[Oldman Robustin]

Yeah that was unnecessary, my apologies.

but threads like these usually feed a perception bias.

That's every thread, man. Nearly every thread on the front page of Feedback comes with a backstory of "i ded pls nerf". With the exception of the hunger and demon summoning thread which is "i not ded enough pls buff".

The biggest example of this right now is the AI vs anti-AI threads going on, not to go into specifics of who is or isn't right there. Everybody's got their own spin on things trying to yell louder than the other side.

Threads here and in policy that go "DOES ANYONE NOTICE PLAYERS ARE DOING X/Y/Z MORE OFTEN" are the worst offenders though. At least once a month here I'll see someone complaining that greytide is worse than ever or security is better/worse than ever.

That's why I prefer to talk about concrete mechanics and if I talk about a change over time it relates to coded changes and not just "players are more __________ now".

Not only if it flat out fallacy most of the time, but there's no solutions. /tg/station has a well-established place in SS13 along the spectrum of combat v. RP, and if anything over time we've drifted more toward RP and away from the days where the station was assistant thunderdome where security were less robust than a stunglove assistant.

[Zilenan91]

I know that Paradise was making this "Terror Spider" mode which is like player spiders but less good and as an actual mode and it seems interesting. Seems like good PvE content too because of what the dude made it into where the spiders can be both players and NPCs. Might be a good break if we can get around to porting it.

[PKPenguin321]

>stealth kills are bad and don't add to paranoia, they're shit, don't buff stealthy traitors
>why is every round a death match??? jesus christ stop making every round have a bunch of people going loud and killing everything!
sounds like somebody just doesn't like dying :V

[Babin]

> Stealth rounds are boring, nothing happens.
> Every round is a deathmatch now!

Perhaps it's time to step back and examine what makes a game fun.

[Lumbermancer]

I was always endorsing more stealth.

[kazeespada]

I'll fix monkey mode. And then you can cower in your metal fortress while the sounds of welders hit the walls. Suddenly, BAM, CHIMP IN YOUR FACE. You and your buddy made it out. He reluctantly informs you.... he's bit. You raise your toolbox high to execute him before he turns, but it's too late. The chimp that was once your buddy bites your knee and crawls into vents to freedom.

[Cheimon]

Monkey mode would be a lot more entertaining if the game's monkeys were actually chimps. Chimpanzees are noticeably stronger than humans, and would tear the shit out of spacemen.

[Scott]

If you give roleplay a gameplay incentive, guess what

JUSAT5 RPOELPLAEYM GUYUS GODASDSADSMDN

Roleplay is always better quality when it manifests organically based on what's happening in the game. When the player is feeling what their character is, like "Holy fuck the entire station is on fire, how am I going to survive this?" Instead of a bunch of assholes sitting around in the bar or library jacking off each other's Mary-Sues, or people play-acting.

Roleplay levels are entirely dependent on the playerbase, not the code. Meaning the playerbase wants to play deathmatch instead of roleplay.

Stop worrying about winning, for once.