What are your thoughts on assassination objectives?

[MeteorCrush]

Do people actually enjoy being the target of assassinations?


I am a medical doctor main on RP servers, and whenever I am a traitor's assassination target, I simply become unable to work, and so I hate that objective.

I become unable to work because I end up spending the rest of the round trying to survive and stay hidden, or else I'll end up dead if I don't get lucky enough during the next encounter. Some traitors are robust enough to kill me swiftly (often round-removing me permanently), while some others nearly die to my Circular Saw and end up having to retreat.

At the same time, I love it when traitors kill other people, since it then gives me a lot of work to do.

So whenever I am the target, it feels like it's my turn to be the sacrifice, to give back to the community, to provide entertainment to others.



Personally, I'd rather traitors be bombing my department (indiscriminantly of whoever gets killed), sabotaging, or releasing an outbreak of zombies. Once they've committed that deed, they'd be done for that objective rather than chasing me to death. That way, it gives me a chance to at least do something about it, and it makes the round a lot more interesting for everyone since it'll affect a lot more people. And it also wouldn't force me out of my job responsibility.


Every single time, I would never have enough evidence to prove to security that someone is trying to kill me. But the least they'll do is set the potential traitor to "arrest".


And if I try to gear up or prepare myself for the next encounter, then I risk being accused of powergaming on some servers. Then I end up being a sitting duck, just waiting to die.


I love it when the station is bombed, sabotaged, or falling into ruins. It really pushes my creativity in fixing people in non-optimal situations, and being as resourceful as I can with what little environment I have left. It becomes especially satisfying when the whole medical team (including other random crew members who happen to be nearby) works together to persevere through all the struggles and manages to save the lives of critical crew members needed to bring the station back to operational levels, and to ultimately enable us to go back home.

If I die to a bombing or a sabotage, then at least my dead body will still be recoverable and not purposely hidden away.

[Shadowflame909]

i think its fun to be the assassinated or assassin. Gives me the chance to use all those op tools my department gives me to defend myself, or attack someone else.

And when I fall, it gives sec a prompt mission to complete, and medical something to do.

It's a win for everybody when they happen.

[Capsandi]

I love being nearly assassinated then escaping to scream for help like a madman to sec only for sec to have some more important matter on their hands like a mass murderer or possible cult. Once you realize how easy it is to change your appearance you can really screw with some heads. Put on a uniform from a different department, redo your hair and wear a different mask. Once you try killing someone with 2 completely different getups on they begin pointing fingers at everybody they don't recognize.
It still surprises me that whatever the hell they're doing on Manuel has no room for frequent assassinations and it makes me think that the servers should be stratified by threat/antag intensity instead of roleplay enforcement because the only thing assassinations are incompatible with are getting through job content.

[Pandarsenic]

It would be really cool if assassination objectives...

- gave more TC, so that you can make a net profit if you kill them in a method that uses ammo
- weighted departments with more players over departments with fewer players
- allowed you to place the calling card on the body or head of someone gibbed, if that's not a thing already

[Itseasytosee2me]

In my many years playing I have very rarely been the target of an assassination objective, and even more rarely been the target of a competent assassination. Not sure why, guess the syndicate has my back or something.
Regardless, I love killing people. Its fun to engineer a fun an creative way to murder someone. Formulating plans is great and with assassination objectives, you will always have another player to interact with while preforming your traitors deeds.

Biddle traitors removes a lot of the fun out of assassin objectives, because the ways you can kill people are so limited. Because you need their body, the only real options you have are to kidnap them and kill them in a dark corner, or kill them out in the open. A solution off of the top of my head is to have an assassination object where you don't have to do anything with the body, but the objective has a button that will check if the person is dead when pressed (using high class syndicate surveillance systems) the trick is if you press the button and your target isn't dead, then the syndies get pissed off for making you waste resources, and fail the objective/deduct TC. Maybe you get one freebee scan.

The original intent of the current objects where made with the philosophy that traitors shouldn't be able to complete the objective on accident because a person died randomly, but I don't think that pro outweighs the cons, especially considering that it exposes a new problem when your target dies randomly, and you fail the objective. I'd say randomly being rewarded is a better model than random punishment.

[sinfulbliss]

-snip-

Good, well articulated critique. I agree completely.

And if I try to gear up or prepare myself for the next encounter, then I risk being accused of powergaming on some servers. Then I end up being a sitting duck, just waiting to die.

If you were already the failed target of an assassination, that is definitely ample reason to arm up with self-defense weapons. I think that's definitely RP-friendly. It's only powergaming if you do so without any reason for it. Like if you did this roundstart because you might be the target of an assassination, that'd be considered powergaming.

[terranaut]

And if I try to gear up or prepare myself for the next encounter, then I risk being accused of powergaming on some servers. Then I end up being a sitting duck, just waiting to die.

This is the problem, not assassination objectives.

[XII3912]

Not rewarding enough I've seen steal objectives pay more which are only somewhat fun for only the traitor. Heretics need to kill people to ascend, and lings do it for dna points, so basically tots need a better payout for kill objectives seeing as they are quite risky.

[Indie-ana Jones]

They're the best objective because they're one of the only few objectives which actually have a tangible effect on the round. Most of the other objectives outside of the finales suck for this reason.

[XII3912]

They're the best objective because they're one of the only few objectives which actually have a tangible effect on the round.

Then just murderbone you honestly don't need a objective to tell you need to kill somebody, just kill somebody if you wanna spice up the round like that.

[Shadowflame909]

I get what your trying to say but theres a difference.

You don't expect the scientist to pull out a sketchin pistol and shoot down the RD.

You do expect the guy wearing the Hos's cape and the captains mask to dual e-sword everyone out in the halls.

Stealth assassinations, or surprise assassinations are just very fun and an indiscriminate murdering murderbone spree isnt like that at all

[MeteorCrush]

I've had times where a traitor comes into Medbay while I am operating on a patient, and then they lop off my head after several hits with an energy sword. In this situation, I'm okay with it as long as they leave my body there. As long as there is hope, or as long as my suit sensors are still on, I'll continue to stick around as a ghost waiting for another doctor to fix me.

Then I've had times where I am maybe shot with a sleepy dart, dragged into maints, and then beheaded there. And then the traitor takes my head to an airlock and tosses it out into space. In this situation, I just lose all hope, exit the game, and then hop onto another server.

I can understand that some traitors fear that I might snitch on them if I get revived. I know that there are players out there who deal with this by expressing to others of promising not to snitch as long as their body is left in medbay.

I've gotten to the point of just letting them kill me without too much resistance, and get my fate decided sooner than later.

Do you leave your victims behind someplace in the open? Or do you prefer to leave no evidence?

[sinfulbliss]

Do you leave your victims behind someplace in the open? Or do you prefer to leave no evidence?

I've done both, it's a pretty tough question honestly. RR'ing people is generally unfun, especially for them, and ruins their round, but if the result of letting them get revived is getting outted and quickly owned then your round will be ruined too. Recently I disposal'd people I murdered and they quickly got revived and RR'd me while I was dead in medbay, which was kind of funny to be honest. It ended my round a bit shorter than I would have liked but objectively was more fun for everyone involved.

Spacing the brain is overkill except for extremely dangerous threats, like a super robust HoS that's been gunning for you all round - maybe that's someone you're within your right to round-remove. Most people you can get away with killing/decap and leaving them where they are, to leave the possibility they'll get found. It also depends on your opposition - are there 10 sec officers on 80pop with 20 validhunting assistants and 5 robust paramedics? You might have to make your kills count, then. Is it 50pop with 4 newish sec officers and you're chilling with 50 TC? Kind of brutal to round-remove them.

[iwishforducks]

being the target rocks. i think you have what we like to call "protagonist syndrome"

the new traitor objectives don't require you to RR people at all. i think you might be getting killed by the power gaming antagonists of manuel (whom are disproportionately represented because 1. biddle traitors 2. most people don't have antag enabled)

[TheFinalPotato]

I agree with the post above me, Just die 4head