Station Teamwork vs Antag Gamemodes

[ohnopigeons]

I've been in and out of the community so my knowledge and understanding of events is spotty. But what I'd like to ask is: What happened to teamwork gamemodes?

I consider teamwork gamemodes to be rounds where the entire station crew (no conventional conversion) can meaningfully engage in defeating the antagonist, working together in their own unique ways, other than individually validhunting and clicking on a player sprite until it goes horizontal.

(Former) Teamwork Gamemodes:

• Malfunctioning AI
  Blob
  War Ops

Malfunctioning AI was rolled into traitor, and while all the malf AI abilities are still there, it's fundamentally not the same when the AI can easily complete its objectives and stay stealth the whole round. In addition traitors have easy immediate access to powerful gear which can really fuck over a loud AI by siding with the crew against the AI. Or the traitors make a real mess of the crew, leaving the AI unchallenged (until other traitors become hostile). Not that this sort of thing is not fun or unbalanced but I wouldn't really consider it a 'teamwork' gamemode for these reasons.

I'm not sure what happened to Blob but it seems to have turned into a random event/tc trade. Recently I've had blobs appear right when the emergency shuttle docked, twice, preventing the departure of the shuttle. Both times the round was in an unplayable state, with >50% of the station dead from a virus both times IIRC. Both times admins eventually intervened by handing out the nuke codes, but only after what seemed like 90% of the station was dead. This was not fun.

Of the three only War Ops remain, and just recently there seemed to have been a huge stink about it in Policy Discussion. War Ops also doesn't quite fit my tastes as it feels more like a team deathmatch mode. But maybe that's the nostalgia talking, and Malfunctioning AI can just as easily be boiled down to "blow the borgs and raid the satellite", and likewise "weldering the blob until science gets xrays" for Blob. War Ops is here mostly because of the crew preparation time where crewmembers can work together preparing however they want, knowing that an assault is incoming, in contrast with regular Nuke Ops which is mostly stealth and surprise.

I enjoy the chaotic and paranoia-laden gamemodes of solo antags (and conversion antags sometimes) but teamwork-based rounds are nice too. However it really seems these sorts of gamemodes are slowly getting pushed out. Am I just in the minority opinion of enjoying them?

Thoughts and opinions?

[oranges]

war ops is fine

malf was boring
blob was doubly boring and was just a race between blob and R&D getting xrays

nukeops is the only team work gamemode we need.

[imblyings]

rounds which take a break from lone/team antag and let the currently online players work together for a change are needed imo

[cedarbridge]

What if, and this is a big what if, but what if the base game sans antags was fun. So that when antags are added that threaten things on the station, the crew feel motivated to defend their things rather than roll for the opportunity to break things nobody really cares about losing?

[DemonFiren]

you'd need to cycle out the playerbase for that

[captain sawrge]

What if, and this is a big what if, but what if the base game sans antags was fun. So that when antags are added that threaten things on the station, the crew feel motivated to defend their things rather than roll for the opportunity to break things nobody really cares about losing?

OK write up a design document & code it or find people that will.

[bandit]

rounds which take a break from lone/team antag and let the currently online players work together for a change are needed imo

yeah, I think a lot of the reason people are especially irritated about conversion modes lately is because we have gotten rid of almost everything but those and vanilla traitor/ling

[onleavedontatme]

What if, and this is a big what if, but what if the base game sans antags was fun. So that when antags are added that threaten things on the station, the crew feel motivated to defend their things rather than roll for the opportunity to break things nobody really cares about losing?

Base game is the antags though.

All the jobs were tacked on afterwards and it shows.

I wanted to heavily change the base game (planetstation!) but I still do not have a map for that (and I'm not sure it'd go over well even if I did suddenly finish it)

[Mickyan]

What if, and this is a big what if, but what if the base game sans antags was fun. So that when antags are added that threaten things on the station, the crew feel motivated to defend their things rather than roll for the opportunity to break things nobody really cares about losing?

This might be controversial but I've always thought the best answer to this problem was to add some form of economic permanence with minor gameplay implications similar to traits (i.e. be able to spawn directly with certain items, mostly easy to acquire stuff and cosmetics for bragging rights) that give players an incentive to accomplish station objectives and leave safely, rather than the assumed outcome of each round being either people get bored or the entire station goes to shit. Not an easy solution to design and implement by any stretch but something worth pursuing, in my opinion.

[Durkel]

We'd be better off coming up with a gamemode that has a passive challenge to it or one that doesn't present itself immediately.

An unrelated example would be something like the lavaland bosses not spawning until later, but buffing their hp to high levels, and while they're active the station is hit with a negative. No power,negative mood, something like that. It encourages you to go do shit, build up the station and defenses but it's not an immediate threat so you can still fuck around in the bar or build a rage cage. It gives the powergamers something to do, but doesn't end a round by itself.

[Doctor Pork]

i really think some fresh game modes would be nice

[ohnopigeons]

We'd be better off coming up with a gamemode that has a passive challenge to it or one that doesn't present itself immediately.

An unrelated example would be something like the lavaland bosses not spawning until later, but buffing their hp to high levels, and while they're active the station is hit with a negative. No power,negative mood, something like that. It encourages you to go do shit, build up the station and defenses but it's not an immediate threat so you can still fuck around in the bar or build a rage cage. It gives the powergamers something to do, but doesn't end a round by itself.

This is basically extended, where admin events or certain random events are the challenge. I wouldn't mind a gamemode % increase but this is what it sounds like.

[Luke Cox]

What if, and this is a big what if, but what if the base game sans antags was fun. So that when antags are added that threaten things on the station, the crew feel motivated to defend their things rather than roll for the opportunity to break things nobody really cares about losing?

Since I've started playing in 2014, there has been an insane amount of improvement in almost all areas. Science has been completely reworked so that R&D isn't braindead and toxins is actually useful, we have a much more engaging engine for the engineers to tinker around with along with new gasses for atmos to make, cargo gets tons of toys and mining is like a whole different game. Medical is really the final frontier as far as base game reworks go. If the base game as a non-antag was really so shit, you won't get people crying about the shuttle being called.

[Dr_bee]

Adding some inter-round incentive for non-antag activities would be nice.

There can be some automated ones but having one the admins can give out for cool shit would be nice as well.

Half of the time I build something neat like a cafe or crew lounge it never gets any notice, encouraging those actions being rewarded would be nice.

plus it would be fun to see someone make a monkey autoslaughter rube goldberg machine for rewards.

[captain sawrge]

What if, and this is a big what if, but what if the base game sans antags was fun. So that when antags are added that threaten things on the station, the crew feel motivated to defend their things rather than roll for the opportunity to break things nobody really cares about losing?

Base game is the antags though.

All the jobs were tacked on afterwards and it shows.

I wanted to heavily change the base game (planetstation!) but I still do not have a map for that (and I'm not sure it'd go over well even if I did suddenly finish it)

I've crunched thye numbers and it will go over well

[Luke Cox]

Inter-round achievements are always contentious, but what if they unlocked purely cosmetic stuff like hairstyles or underclothes?

[Doctor Pork]

What if, and this is a big what if, but what if the base game sans antags was fun. So that when antags are added that threaten things on the station, the crew feel motivated to defend their things rather than roll for the opportunity to break things nobody really cares about losing?

Base game is the antags though.

All the jobs were tacked on afterwards and it shows.

I wanted to heavily change the base game (planetstation!) but I still do not have a map for that (and I'm not sure it'd go over well even if I did suddenly finish it)

I imagine it's very hard to make a game where there are objectives and licences to grief. I can't think of one off the top of my head that even has a colony with griefing AI that's implemented in a non jarring way. A step towards that might be to limit what the griefers are allowed to do, e.g. in less high octane modes, the griefer is not there to prevent objective completion but to perform corporate espionage, sabotage in non critical systems or siphon off material wealth. Or more specifically, shuttle comes on objective completion or failure, greentext can only be achieved on objective completion.

That way antags might be designed to help/hinder the civilian game, not initially but over time, rather than here's a new gun or stabbing implement.


Maybe as a small change in a positive direction, the escape shuttle should have a cargo bay where, at the start of the round & on the Captain's console, are the requirements for products & materials to be shipped out to various corps. Crate it up. Mark each crate for the corps, e.g. Donk Co. Then give antags an objective to slip a little something extra into any crate headed to X, Y or Z, or to ensure twice the load is sent. The Quartermaster and techies could feel valued for making sure everything on the manifest is loaded in, though denying greentext might be easy unless you somehow make the manifest a need-to-know. I don't know.

I like this. You could have objective like "once the BSA is complete fire at X place (doesn't need to be a location just flavor, could be centcomm)" or "steal data from completed gene vault"

[bandit]

I like it, would give the cargo section of the escape shuttle, which already exists, an actual reason to exist besides having lockers for the traitor/clown to hide in

[Luke Cox]

With respect to reworking aspects of the core game, I think it's important to remember that the mayhem, chaos, and general clusterfuck-ery is what makes SS13 what it is. You're supposed to have your shit wrecked by a dsword wielding traitor when you least expect it, or have your armory blown up, or get sacced by a cult. Guides for this game say that "dying is part of the game" until they're blue in the face. Ghost roles further make death less frustrating by giving people something to do. I'm not really getting the whole "license to grief" issue, considering that antags other than traitorchan have pretty clear objectives to work towards and will get bwoinked if they fuck off from it. If anything, I think we just need more variety in main antags. Every current main antag was made pre-2014. Nothing else has survived, which is sad in my opinion.In the end, no automated system is going to be able to provide nearly the level of conflict and excitement as another human with a "license to grief" and plenty of salt to mine.


That said, I do love the idea of departments getting "commissions" that they can turn in to cargo for points. Give each department their own cargo point pool and order console. Give them a department MULE to send crates of goods to cargo, and points when the goods get shipped back to centcom. That way, departments can buy goodies if they're productive. Medical can produce chemicals and viruses with certain symptoms, engineering can send gasses, science can provide slime cores, circuits, and robotics goods, the service department can send food, drinks, and plants, and security can get points by turning in antag items (to discourage syndie gear sec).

[ohnopigeons]

Every current main antag was made pre-2014. Nothing else has survived, which is sad in my opinion.

After a bit of repo diving, of the remaining main gamemodes, after the "removal" of clock cult the most recent addition is blood cult which dates back to 2010.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Every current main antag was made pre-2014. Nothing else has survived, which is sad in my opinion.

After a bit of repo diving, of the remaining main gamemodes, after the "removal" of clock cult the most recent addition is blood cult which dates back to 2010.

to be fair, 2010 cult is very very different to 2018 cult

[Doctor Pork]

we should form a committee to brainstorm new gametypes