Lowpop murderboner is getting bad.

[callanrockslol]

When there's less than 20 people on you can almost guarantee that someone will take out the only head and drag the round on for over an hour as they meticulously kill everything.

Can it just be a rule that before when you are killing absolutely everyone on lowpop you have to call the shuttle? Or have the shuttle forcecall if the only person alive is an antag or something?

[Oldman Robustin]

This is ripe ground for admin intervention (and they usually do). If its No Admins AND Lowpop? Well you're SOL, it's always been that way though. It's not "getting" bad, it's always been bad. I've wiped out the station using scrub tactics on lowpop and that's what I expect others to do when I get on late at night.

Best thing you can hope for is some well-coded feature that automatically initiates an unrecallable shuttle shortly after 75%+ of the crew is dead or braindead.

[invisty]

We should bring back cloak&bow + thermals so you know what low-pop murderbone looks like.

Mind you, back then we had AIs every round.

[callanrockslol]

We should bring back cloak&bow + thermals so you know what low-pop murderbone looks like.

Mind you, back then we had AIs every round.

Yes.

[firecage]

Well, Callan is right. Murderboning is getting a bit outoff hand and extremely detrimental to gameplay. Every lowpop round, someone goes on a murderbone spree to kill everyone. Mediumpop? People will still murderbone. I really don't mind it if mass killing happens during Nuke Ops, Revs, Wizard, and such, buuuuut....

Maybe we should begin changing the Antag policy a bit....Since at the moment it is causing ridiculous bullcrap like this. Someone can have an objective to steal a pair of shoes, and so they can murder everyone on the station and destroy the entire station, and to round it all up with, NOT complete any of their objectives.

[Saegrimr]

But its valid.

You guys like the valids.

Revs captured the captain alive and were going to hold a public trial/execution, but one guy thought it would take too long so he just sawed the captain to death while dragging it away from everybody wanting to RP, but it was valid.

"No antag restrictions! Go back to bay!"

[firecage]

Saegrimr, may be, but recently it has been going to far, far enough to actually harm the gameplay a lot every round.

[Saegrimr]

Well maybe you should go back to bay, this is the server for EXTREMELY SKILLED and HIGHLY ROBUST players who want to partake in our BALANCED and ENGAGING COMBAT SYSTEM. Remember the last time the host of the server attempted to enforce something like this? Ha~ [/Heavily implied sarcasm]

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2252

[Steelpoint]

The problem back there was that SoS issued a blanket ban on something that ultimately came down to individual admin interpretation and feelings at the time.

[firecage]

Saegrimr, I know it is sarcasm from you. But it is sad once you realise a lot of the players here would say that seriously.

[Saegrimr]

Saegrimr, I know it is sarcasm from you. But it is sad once you realise a lot of the players here would say that seriously.

Isn't it though?

The problem back there was that SoS issued a blanket ban on something that ultimately came down to individual admin interpretation and feelings at the time.

SoS did a lot of disagreeable things, but aside from his personal involvement with the matter he wasn't exactly wrong imo, tbh

[firecage]

Saegrimr. Be the admin we don't deserve, but that we need! Take matters into your own hands and blackmail the headmins for change!

[Saegrimr]

Actually it was almost another admin that pushed the snowball at the top of the mountain, but they didn't really want to deal with the inevitable backlash.

[Wyzack]

Sos was a bit misguided, but now I am pretty sure he was right. We COULD actively purge the shit, the only question is if we should. It would require a pretty drastic shift in admin policy and a lot of work from the headmins but I think it could be done. We would also certainly take a hit to the playerbase size

[Jacough]

Add a rule that players have to prioritize their objective over murdering everyone in sight? Gotta assassinate your target or steal that captain's jumpsuit and THEN you're allowed to murderbone to your heart's content.

[imblyings]

The optimal solution would be for the playerbase to simultaneously suck it up when bad things happen and also be more considerate of other players, and be aware that this is a game people play for fun, while retaining the freedom that antagonists and non-antagonists have. It's possible, bagil had this, although caused by things sybil don't really have.

A step towards that optimal solution is increasing admin recruitment and coverage, as well as having admins proactively rather than occasionally intervene during lowpop murderboners. I'm probably going to go with that first.

[Steelpoint]

I agree with encouraging admins to be proactive and intervene when a murderbone gets to far. By intervene I mean more so in a IC way, from a ERT, Bounty Hunter or whatever else the admin can think of that is not just dropping a bomb on the guy and calling it.

Too often I see admins doing nothing when a situation like this occurs, they drag their feet and eventually send a ERT only after the emergency shuttle is 30 seconds from leaving, 30 minutes after the fact.

[Shadowlight213]

The issue with ert is that admins usually refrain from sending it unless the shuttle is ping ponging, as ert generates a lot of salt from antags due to their murderbone being disrupted.

[Wyzack]

I thought the whole point of this thread is who fucking cares what they think

[onleavedontatme]

Problem with ERT is you either send it early, and antag behaviour is killed by the presence of 7 all access security guards, or you send them after everyone is dead and having extra targets to shoot at during your murderspree isnt really a punishment.

[TheNightingale]

Admins won't always be online. A blanket "don't murderbone" would be good (but complicated for wizards - maybe they'd have to pursue their objectives or a gimmick, but not be instavalid?).

[Thunder11]

Could,just gib them instead of an ert. They don't get any reward out of being turned into an instant meat shower, after all. Alternately varedit all their weapons to be harmless, and give their jumpsuit -1000000 of every protection. Instand punching bag...

[ThanatosRa]

BSA/GIB them with a Centcomm Announcement to discourage such things in the future then use the subsequent salt as a lick for your horses?

[oranges]

There might actually be more support for lower tolerance to murderbone now.

To be honest I can't even find myself opposed to it.

[onleavedontatme]

Antag objectives are so dull though and generally accomplishable by emagging into an empty room, stuffing an item in your bag, and leaving. Even worse for wizards who can just warp in and out.

And there are lots of things (bombs, mechs, atmos flooding) that pretty much only exist to kill a ton of people. Can you not stomp around in your Durand after building it?

Every department is full of exotic ways to murder other players so of course people go nuts when they finally get a chance.

Any rule we made would have massive grey areas if we tried to preserve antag freedom, and it'd be a shame if we didn't.

[Jacough]

Antag objectives are so dull though and generally accomplishable by emagging into an empty room, stuffing an item in your bag, and leaving. Even worse for wizards who can just warp in and out.

Maybe add some more interesting objectives or some potential twists to existing objectives then? Especially stuff that encourages a bit more interaction and cunning. An example would be "steal the x item and make sure y player escapes with it."

[Incomptinence]

Way the diminishing returns equation for antags works is you start off with 2 traitors minimum. That is potentially 2 out of 5 or something that is ridiculous.

[Oldman Robustin]

Well maybe you should go back to bay, this is the server for EXTREMELY SKILLED and HIGHLY ROBUST players who want to partake in our BALANCED and ENGAGING COMBAT SYSTEM. Remember the last time the host of the server attempted to enforce something like this? Ha~ [/Heavily implied sarcasm]

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2252

Oh my god this actually happened?

I wasn't playing at the time but holy shit, disaster averted.

Isn't "policing solo antag behavior" like the cornerstone of Baystation and everything we make fun of them for?

*BWOINK*: Why did you kill that assistant as a traitor?

....

I'm also laughing at the people talking about rewriting our entire antag policy because someone is upset about being murdered at 4am with 10 active players on.

People need to suck it up more and people need to understand that some degree of powergaming is the norm here. If a traitor is rampaging around with his holoparasite, the average player reaction needs to be "smash a nearby window, make a spear, and try to impale the motherfucker that killed all your friends and is coming for you".... not "sit in the bar and assuming he won't kill you because you're engaged in high-minded RP at the bar and then whine in deadchat and adminhelp because someone ran in and killed you for no reason".

I really find it hilarious since in these crisis situations the powergamers are the best roleplayers and the "roleplayers" are actually terrible at roleplaying.

Sitting calmly in your kitchen making pie while security is slaughtered in the brig is not good roleplaying unless you're roleplaying a chef on the autism spectrum.

[Saegrimr]

That thread was mainly caused a couple people in particular running the old hulk/hyperzine/lube/bio helmet/esword/shuttle recall combo round after round, and then a few wizard rounds in a row where every survivor would just immediately go on a murderfest rampage. Yes, I understand that was the intent by the creator of the thing but the objective wording was absolutely dumb for the reaction given. Short of it being the "Minimize Casualties" objective ninjas get/got.

[Zilenan91]

I'd be all for a reduction in murderboning by antags like traitors/lings so I don't feel as obligated to hunt down all the mass murderers. The rest of the antags shouldn't have their murderbone policies changed though tbh, there's no real problem with them.

[callanrockslol]

Way the diminishing returns equation for antags works is you start off with 2 traitors minimum. That is potentially 2 out of 5 or something that is ridiculous.

Was a lowpop round a while back, three antags for nine crew, both traitors got holo's and went for the brig. The survivor killed everyone else.

Once again though, not advocating removing murderboner, just asking for forced shuttle calls when it happens lowpop so the round doesn't become "traitor kills everyone for an hour and stops any calls until there are no survivors".

[killerx09]

Honestly, Murderboning will always be a thing due to the fact that it's officially ruled that Antags don't have to follow their objectives, and can go around murderboning with fun stuff like holoparasites and eswords.

[Higgin]

Deal with it.

[Incomptinence]

Even with the old sane flat ratio of 5:1 lowpop murderbone would still be easy but it would have less people able to decide to turn the round into a literal graveyard shift from the get go.

[Ikarrus]

Way the diminishing returns equation for antags works is you start off with 2 traitors minimum. That is potentially 2 out of 5 or something that is ridiculous.

I don't think that's true? I'm not certain what the current traitor coefficient is, but the lowpop scale is just a straight up population/coeff

Unless someone really did set the coeff to something stupid like 2, the madman

[Incomptinence]

You didn't notice how the graph starts with a value of 2 at 0?

[Ikarrus]

It's a shitty graph because nobody can understand it and I'm even worse at explaining it, but it actually starts at 0. You're meant to take the lower number of traitors.

[Incomptinence]

My mistake I am curious about the reported 3 antagonists in a crew of 9 round though.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Reading this thread gave me an idea. Bear in mind, I haven't played in quite a while, for one, for two, it's nothing fleshed out and just a sudden thought that might or might not work.

Basically, automatically call ERT when a certain number of people died (percentage of the total crew, for example). It solves this:

The issue with ert is that admins usually refrain from sending it unless the shuttle is ping ponging, as ert generates a lot of salt from antags due to their murderbone being disrupted.

since the antags will have only themselves to blame in that case. It could give traitors a reason to actually fight the murderboning ones, since ERT might disrupt their own objectives. It could give rev and cult more of an incentive to convert rather than kill. For something like malf it could be disabled. Also gives ghosts something to do without admins having to make the decision.

The most glaring problem would be hijack shuttle objectives (as well as certain antagonists but like I mentioned it could be disabled for those). And probably something else that I overlooked, so do tell.

[callanrockslol]

My mistake I am curious about the reported 3 antagonists in a crew of 9 round though.

Two traitors and a ling.

Basically, automatically call ERT when a certain number of people died

Or just force a red alert shuttle call, which accomplishes everything an ERT would do but faster and doesn't fuck up the antags round either.

[TheNightingale]

We could always just ban murderboners (especially lowpop).
"Deliberately going out of your way to directly kill many people, especially on a low-population station, is disallowed."
You can still kill anyone in your way (i.e. stopping you from accomplishing your objectives/gimmick, etc).
You can still kill a few people. If one's your target, that's fine.
You can still kill someone, get spotted, kill the witnesses, then kill people who try and attack you after you get outed on comms.
You can't buy a revolver and autolathe a dozen blocks of ammo, then go postal on uninvolved civilians in the bar/medical, etc.

[Steelpoint]

All I can say is suck it up. Shit happens on low pop.

The best thing I can think of is a automatic ERT call if the population dips below a certain threshold, aside from that this is a issue that can only be solved via restrictions to antagonist actions, which is something we've historically tried to avoid when possible.

[Zilenan91]

But on lowpop an ERT call might do nothing due to there not being enough ghosts.

[Kelenius]

But on lowpop an ERT call might do nothing due to there not being enough ghosts.

I'm pretty sure there'd be plenty of salty ghosts if an antag is murderboning.

[CPTANT]

auto calling the shuttle at ~75% casualties or so seems to be the best solution.

[Saegrimr]

auto calling the shuttle at ~75% casualties or so seems to be the best solution.

That'll be really akwards for the 4 player basil rounds.

Kill one guy and the only witness and suddenly BEEP BOOP MASS MURDERER GO HUDDLE UP IN ESCAPE.

[TheNightingale]

If it's a 4-player round and you just killed two of them, you should really rethink your strategy. But calling the shuttle in that instance would be a good idea regardless.

[callanrockslol]

Shuttle should autocall at 25% remaining crew but be able to be recalled if it goes back up yes/yes?

[peoplearestrange]

The issue with hard coded things to prevent murderbone or any other sort of game play is that sometimes there is a good cause, sometimes there are exceptional circumstances that coders/people cannot see at the time. Whats great about this game is its flexible and changeable. Adding code/mechanisms to prevent certain gameplay will only end up with people finding loop holes anyway. I.e. If people want to murderbone they won't be discouraged by a gameplay mechanic.
The pressure has to come from the community and other players saying "this isn't acceptable" or "this isn't fun for anyone but the one person" and then a change can take place.

[Murazor]

Simple solution, add an automatic script for when 80% of the station is dead or converted that spawns either an ERT/deathsquad event satisfies the murderbones, and gives the unrobust a chance for some payback. And if all of them die. Then call the shuttle at 0:01 seconds.


All it takes to stop a murderboner is a good taser shot/slip/bomb. If people can't do that then they should get better at the game, rather then demanding the game downgrade itself to suit their needs.