Round chances

[oranges]

we should reduce rev and gang and clockcult and cult chances so it's like both only take up one of the previous, as they're basically the same mode types

[Nilons]

oranges speaks the truth, too high a chance of conversion rounds

[D&B]

We should separate ling and traitor and give ling and extended half and half of the chance removed from those modes.

[oranges]

We should separate ling and traitor and give ling and extended half and half of the chance removed from those modes.

solo ling is absolutely garbage, believe me we tried it

[lzimann]

We had solo ling not so long ago, it really does not go well by itself.

[Pascal125]

This appears to be the current Gamemode Odds (On bagil).

Traitorchan and Traitor together as, (In my opinion, as they are what i believe are considered most "common".) "Traditional" gamemodes. Being a 39.6% Chance.
Cult, Clockwork Cult, Gang, and Revolution being "Conversion" modes, together make up a 30.1% Chance of the round type being a Conversion/Crew Conflict gamemode.
Blob, Wizard, and Nuclear essentially being "Crew Objective" gamemodes, making up a 28.3% Chance.
Finally, Extended having a pitiful 1.9% Chance.

There is a 37.8% gap Between Conversion and Traditional/Crew Objective Gamemodes. Making it atleast a 1/3 probability. Conversion modes are quite common as there are four, and some already complain it can be too common.

"Conversion" Gamemodes seemingly being designed around creating conflict and chaos, allowing players to let off steam and generally break everything and lynch some unfortunate players in the process. Or winding up being a TDM.
"Traditional" Gamemodes are seemingly designed around smaller bouts of conflict, Often being unpredictable.
"Crew Objective" Gamemodes seemingly being designed around the crew working together to defeat a common goal, it can range from relaxing to stressful depending on the crew/antag's competence.
Extended being the Gamemode intended to give people a break and time to relax/do things. Some do genuinely enjoy the break from chaos, however short and uncommon it may be. Even if many might not.

I feel that there should probably be smaller percentage chances in regards to "Conversion" gamemodes, as Oranges says. To account for the fact that it has four "Chances" so to say, against the other five. Making it fairly common. (Extended doesn't count right now, let's face it.). Perhaps there could be better round type probabilities regarding each mode to be discussed in order to balance it out, at some point.

[ShadowDimentio]

Blob: Increase, it's fun and doesn't happen enough.
Traitorchan: Remove. Changeling is still cancer and until you bring back parasting and remove immortality it always will be.
Double agents: It's fine but should be lowered as it's just traitor with more kill objectives.
Traitor: Increase slightly reflecting the traitorchan removal.
Clockcuck: Switch odds with regular cult, as it's worse. Remove it, we've tried it for a year and it still isn't good.
Cult: See above Increase slightly.
Extended: Reintroduce, changed to a event mode with much more frequent events
Nuke: Fine.
Rev: Fine.
Wizard: Increase with blob, it doesn't happen ei nuff
Ayy: Bring it back it was fun.
Gang: Good riddance to bad gamemodes I say I dunno, leave it alone.
Meteor: The event gamemode suggested would basically be meteor but more interesting, keep it removed.
Monkey: Get these garbage memes outta here
Changeling: If this ever comes back without parasting I'll kill myself
Rangin Mages: Should come back, wizard never comes up ei nuff.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I say drop both cults from 7.5% to a 5% if we're keeping clock cult, and give the extra 5% percentage to plain traitor.

and fucking keep raging mages off rotation ew

[Armhulen]

How big will shadowling percentages be?

[ShadowDimentio]

100%.

[leibniz]

Keep in mind that team modes dont really happen in lowpop, so the less active hours are mostly traitor after traitor.

[Qbopper]

Keep in mind that team modes dont really happen in lowpop, so the less active hours are mostly traitor after traitor.

This is something that makes me wonder if we should have slightly different percentages for Sybil since it's lower pop the majority of the time

there's probably a few good reasons not to but I'm just throwing that out there

[bandit]

I still say malf should be its own mode again, it will be a break from the monotony of conversion rounds

[Qbopper]

It might make it easier to deal with the AI shock-bolting every door and flooding the station instead of that plus other traitors, but I don't remember why it got nuked in the first place

[Fiz Bump]

I haven't seen much player disapproval regarding clockcult from players except for the loud outcry from a small cohort of maybe 9 or 10 people who seem to really dislike it.
Overall, the playerbase seems to be ambivalent about it and I don't really see the need to remove it.
As far as MALF becoming a distinct roundtype, I somewhat support the idea but I think that it would require some tweaking before it would be fleshed out enougg to stand on its own.

[bandit]

It stood on its own for years.

[Oldman Robustin]

It never stood on its own. It was extended and then 8m of getting fucked because you didn't metagame the AI being malf.

>AI goes Delta
>Bolts your door and disables power
>Comms down
>Spend the rest of the round questioning why this mode is in rotation

Also is this really a policy discussion? MSO put up a poll so we can hopefully have some actual evidence of what people prefer instead of this absolute meme of a discussion.

While we're meme'ing though the only mode that needs to be reduced is Wizard, put that shit at 3.5% and give it to blood cult because fuck you thats why.

Traitor/Tling is the mainstay mode and is weighted fine. We already get 2-4 consecutive traitor rounds on a regular basis and the traitor and ling meta have grown stale as fuck. You can easily go through dozens of traitor rounds without having anything memorable happen. 2 traitors didn't know they were traitors, 3 quietly did an objective that nobody cares and then played like they weren't even traitors, 5 will be hostile with the same traitor weapons that have seen used since I started playing in 2010. Only rarely will you encounter a traitor who does things in a way that is novel or interesting. Traitorling is the plainest of rounds, it will rarely give you an "OH YEA THAT WAS GREAT!" experience - especially as a nonantag, but it will rarely end up being an utter shit round either. Team rounds are higher risk, higher reward - forcing teams means you have a greater chance for ineptitude to scale up and produce an utterly shit experience but teams also means you have conflicts and experiences that would never be possible in a solo antag mode. As someone who still actually plays this damn game I heavily favor the latter - thats what gives the game longetivity.

[captain sawrge]

Except that team antags take over rounds rather than drive them. The core gameplay should be expanded on and improved rather than having half the rounds just be variations on deathmatches

[Nilons]

It stood on its own for years.

It stood on its own until the game became such that it couldn't, and it remains unable to. It doesn't have to be malf that changed for it to not stand on its own

[Oldman Robustin]

Except that team antags take over rounds rather than drive them. The core gameplay should be expanded on and improved rather than having half the rounds just be variations on deathmatches

Except every job comes back to the ultimate question of "how does it help me stop the antags?" or "how do I leverage this position as an antag?"

We are not Bay, we cannot sustain rounds purely on the creative magical juices of our players to create their own novel rounds. It's not impossible but even with extended at ~2%, when it rolls up there's nothing fun or collaborative rolled out. Nobody wants to make a station's wide rollercoaster with disposals or send out a massive Lavaland expedition, I can only imagine what would happen if we had extended set higher and what little gimmicks people do have saved up for a long round get tapped out.

So for SS13 its always been about striking the right balance. Giving the round enough conflicts so that science and mining have people to their toys on, for medical to have a reason to exist, for security to have actual enemies of the station to contend with. Thats why I prefer cult over any other "not-traitor" mode because the cult cannot routinely resort to mass destruction, it has to try and grow slowly and secretly, but theres still enough of a slow boil conflict going to everyone to have a part to play. If the cult is winning then in the closing act their presence will dominate the round and eclipse normal gameplay but thats the whole point/theme.

The popularity of WAROPS is basically living proof that people don't mind a team antag mode that completely upends the round as long as its in moderation and reasonably well balanced.

[oranges]

Keep in mind that team modes dont really happen in lowpop, so the less active hours are mostly traitor after traitor.

This explains why lowpop is so enjoyable to me really

[oranges]

Also is this really a policy discussion?

Yes? Cult clockcult and gang and rev are so fucking similar that they may as well all be the same mode, so they need adjusting so there's less of them one after another

[TehSteveo]

I'm not sure if it's truly policy discussion. Yet, weightings can be adjusted by server key holders; generally reserved for headmins to set course on so we shall leave it be for now so they can see said discussion.

[oranges]

what the fuck? how is this not policy discussion? the round type weightings are explicitly server fucking policy

[ShadowDimentio]

Also is this really a policy discussion?

Yes? Cult clockcult and gang and rev are so fucking similar that they may as well all be the same mode, so they need adjusting so there's less of them one after another

These four modes are vastly more different than traitor and traitorchan which have decently higher odds of getting rolled.

[oranges]

you've managed to say nothing and still form a sentence, well done

[TehSteveo]

what the fuck? how is this not policy discussion? the round type weightings are explicitly server fucking policy

It's more that the boards are about rules and administration. Yet, weightings fall under head administration, but it's little odd as it's more server discussion because we're talking obviously game modes which usually got put in general or the like. It's more semantics than anything from me. As I said I'm not gonna do anything to the thread as this would be the best place to get headmin attention...maybe.

[ShadowDimentio]

Your argument was those 4 rounds are too similar and should be lowered. My rebuttal was traitor and traitorchan are the exact same modes except one also has lings and have higher odds than the sum of the 4 you were complaining about being too similar and happening too often.

It wasn't that complicated of an argument.

[oranges]

Your argument was those 4 rounds are too similar and should be lowered. My rebuttal was traitor and traitorchan are the exact same modes except one also has lings and have higher odds than the sum of the 4 you were complaining about being too similar and happening too often.

It wasn't that complicated of an argument.

My argument is partly that traitor and traitorchan are also more enjoyable and hence should enjoy a larger pro-proportion of round rolls

[ShadowDimentio]

That's your opinion, I'd take a round of cult over traitor any day.

[WarbossLincoln]

I think we could do without 15% chance of a cult round. 5% each would probably be cool.

[Armhulen]

More traitor, more shadowling, no clock cult, less blood cult, no gang, slightly more blob, more ragin bullshit mages, more wizard, more traitorling

[captain sawrge]

More traitor, more shadowling, no clock cult, less blood cult, no gang, slightly more blob, more ragin bullshit mages, more wizard, more traitorling

You were doing so well and then I read the fourth word of your post

[Armhulen]

More traitor, more shadowling, no clock cult, less blood cult, no gang, slightly more blob, more ragin bullshit mages, more wizard, more traitorling

You were doing so well and then I read the fourth word of your post

a vote against sling is a vote against god

[PKPenguin321]

This thread is fine to have here since I server config basically falls under administrative policy technically

Hard to act on the opinions listed in this thread since there's not much of a general consensus to work with

[Steelpoint]

Remove ling when?

[Steelpoint]

More seriously. Can we lower traitorchan to NOT be the highest chance game mode in the game?

At least swap its % role with traitor. 22% to roll traitorchan gets old fast.

[ShadowDimentio]

I want at the bare minimum the traitorchan chances slashed and given to wizard and blob, they're objectively more fun.

[Incomptinence]

Changeling should have gone a direction other than regenerating near unfindable traitor ages ago congrats Cheridan you killed everything interesting about it.
Traitor is just a better mode than changeling chan by virtue of traitors not being a clumsy copy eked out under the thumb of "no progression antags but I have no ideas either!"

I would like more blobs and wizards but people would revolt, if they want a mix of mostly group modes and traitor let them have it.

[onleavedontatme]

We are not Bay, we cannot sustain rounds purely on the creative magical juices of our players to create their own novel rounds.

I don't like that Oldman is right, but he is. We have spent years catering to the people who enjoy killing and the purely mechanical side of things, most of the "creative roleplay" types have been driven out by now.

It's a bit late to realize we want to go back when the playerbase that would have enjoyed it is gone.

[Steelpoint]

Unless you're going to start enforcing some higher level of roleplay, then there's no going back.

[onleavedontatme]

Also the admins/coders/forum posters are pretty disconnected from the general playerbase at this point. For example, 50% of the people responding on github want to remove clock cult and the forums always has plenty of bitching about it, but the server poll says:

http://ss13.eu/tgdb/tg/ingamepolls.php#p169

And I think any conversion mode right now would probably poll as high or higher in approval.

So the big question is whether we graciously step aside and adapt and let the new generation of players have their indie game jam rotation of various death matches or try and drastically reverse course, ignoring votes and making lots of people mad in the process. Feels wrong to be replaced in your own game/community but it also feels wrong to tell a large group of people to stop having fun wrong.

[Steelpoint]

Or make a second server with a different rule set and different mechanics.

Or just stay the course.

[J_Madison]

That's irony considering the devs and admins are exactly the people that aren't those creative roleplay, or those that promote longer more wholesome rounds.

The admins and devs are the opposite of that. They're powergamers, greytidèrs, and generally unfun and unforgiving egotistical players.

Shit rolls downhill. If a player doesn't have one memorable wholesome round they participated in, what makes you think they'll be different as admins?

[Haevacht]

Or make a second server with a different rule set and different mechanics.

Or just stay the course.

yeah just fucking
split population in half
that's a great plan

a terrific plan
best plan you;ve ever had
that parts not sarcasm because it doesnt touch sec

[BeeSting12]

Or make a second server with a different rule set and different mechanics.

Or just stay the course.

yeah just fucking
split population in half
that's a great plan

a terrific plan
best plan you;ve ever had
that parts not sarcasm because it doesnt touch sec

The server has tons of people on at one time, splitting it in half wouldn't actually be so bad except you won't be able to beat your murderbone high score because there's less people. I honestly don't even think that many hubbies would want to go to the "roleplay" server which is ironic since thats what bagil originally was. So you'll probably see the server have very low pop most of the time, around 20 people or so.

[Oldman Robustin]

And the "Remove Gang" vote, in two different polls, has been hovering around 12%.

Yet in IRC you'd swear there's only a couple players who want to keep it around.

The only thing surprising about the Clock Cult vote was that more people wanted it gone relative to Gang War, but maybe if the Gang War vote had fewer options some of the "reduce its chance" votes would've shifted to remove (also the GW vote was finished before anyone even played a round with the new influence system and weapons).

I also don't think its so much about "the playerbase is changing!" than it is realizing things have always been this way. Since 2012 I cannot recall a time where extended produced anything other than what it does today: Boredom, braindeads, and restlessness among most of the crew. During those earlier years extended was basically "Rage Cage mode" since if players couldn't fight antags then the only option left is to fight one another. Now the only difference is that since it gets broadcasted the crew realizes if they turn the whole station into a rage cage (aka rioting and greytiding) they can get the round to end faster.

I don't hold it against our players either. Conflict has always been one of the best vehicles for telling stories, that doesn't mean the conflict has to be THE story, there are stories of survival, turnabouts, catastrophes, alliances, deceptions, etc. that are all more than just "Player X made Player Y permanently horizontal". It's not just our server either, when I played on Goon in 2010 there was no abundance of natural roleplaying that occurred in the absence of antags, just silence, boredom, AFK's, and people yelling in OOC for an admin to make something happen.

Our server continues to grow and we continue to outperform other comparable servers. The only server that's surpassed us is the not-technically-SS13, Colonial Marines, which despite its stricter RP rules is still just an asymmetric team deathmatch/conversion mode that is more focused on the conflict of the round than the vast majority of our modes. How many people do you think would play on CM if it was just players sitting on the Sulaco or whatever its called now and shooting the shit for a couple hours? It doesn't mean we have to vanquish the players who prefer that sort of thing, its great to accommodate as many people as we can without making significant sacrifices to everyone else's gameplay, but there's far too much of this elitist attitude among coders/maintainers that the more RP-focused players are simply better people and we should discount the views of the filthy masses since wanting conflict and excitement in your video games just makes you less of a person.


Edit: lol @ splitting the servers. Bagil was our "RP" server for years and it did what RP servers tend to do, become a creepy nest of metafriends and then die. 2016-2017 are the first years we've had where both servers are routinely at med-high pop and its because we stopped trying to make Bagil a special snowflake. You try to pull it off with a 3rd server but I guarantee that you'd see more success with a 3rd server just by putting it on the hub, letting our players intermingle while introducing some blood, then running it just like our first 2.

Edit2: I think its silly to try and break this down into "generations".

[confused rock]

People enjoy conversion modes because they are the only rounds they get to do anything difficult or interesting. It's gonna stay that way till its consistently interesting or a challenge even as a nonantag in extended.

[oranges]

I also don't think its so much about "the playerbase is changing!" than it is realizing things have always been this way. Since 2012 I cannot recall a time where extended produced anything other than what it does today: Boredom, braindeads, and restlessness among most of the crew. During those earlier years extended was basically "Rage Cage mode" since if players couldn't fight antags then the only option left is to fight one another. Now the only difference is that since it gets broadcasted the crew realizes if they turn the whole station into a rage cage (aka rioting and committing minor IC crimes) they can get the round to end faster.

he's right

[Cheridan]

We should just set up round type voting exactly like we do map voting so that instead of being arbitrarily set by a human and needing to get tweaked very few months when people get sick of X or Y mode, we can get the roundtypes that the people currently online actually want to play