Content abuse/metagame/powergame

[J_Madison]

What is the policy on abuse of content that effectively change the metagame.
This things are either new or unknown until someone begins to abuse it to the point that others experience of the content is removed.

Take examples of virology and away missions. Even weeks after away missions were enabled, nobody did away missions and nobody did virology. Until I started doing it, in which it became a metagame to the point gateways are completely disabled and virology was nerfed heavily.

Same with telescience, and chemistry. Previously fun departments watered down or removed due to individuals.

In most cases this isn't a content issue but a player issue. How do we deal with players that endlessly remove others fun by abusing gameplay mechanics to the limit until the content is removed or watered down. A majority of players must not be punished for the actions of a minority. This has even coined an idea in coderbus called "any other playerbase" symbolising content that will not be added to SS13 simply because of player issues on tgstation.

[Zilenan91]

Most people who do this aren't well liked or are already permabanned so we already police this unconsciously in a social way.

[ShadowDimentio]

Jmad

You are

The only one

Who cares about this

[TechnoAlchemist]

I don't think that's true, j_mad does have a point (one that's been brought up many times) in regards to feature that are strong and fun being watered down or removed because people consistently use them to gain a big advantage over other players.

[PKPenguin321]

nearly impossible to enforce adn will just cause drama

[TechnoAlchemist]

nearly impossible to enforce adn will just cause drama

[callanrockslol]

Just remove the fun. That will show 'em.

[J_Madison]

I never really liked the idea of an exclusive group of players that create a secret metaclique restricting content awareness to others.
The right to enjoy SS13 content should not be a privilege.

I'm aware many plays have been banned for extreme abuse of content. It's hard to police because it's ridiculous to balance based around how an individual can powergame.

[ShadowDimentio]

I never really liked the idea of an exclusive group of players that create a secret metaclique restricting content awareness to others.
The right to enjoy SS13 content should not be a privilege.

Are you retarded

There isn't some conspiracy of players huddling in a darkly lit IRC channel conspiring to horde knowledge and use it to powergame against everyone

Jesus christ man

[iamgoofball]

nearly impossible to enforce adn will just cause drama

[WarbossLincoln]

When someone abuses something and people want it nerfed we really need to take a step back and think: Is the feature actually overpowered? Or is Urist McOP being annoying with it? If it's the latter, ask Urist to tone it down. If it's the former then think about nerfing it. It definitely is a little annoying that Viro could spread a healing/stimulant virus like 10 minutes in. Not only for antags but also for Sec when shitters start grey tiding and they can't taser them. I'm not sure what the real issue is with that, if it's the fact you can get it 10 minutes in, or how easy it is to get to virtually every player on the station in another 10 minutes.

[ShadowDimentio]

Yeah. Saying "Virology wasn't OP players were just abusing it!!" is fucking retarded Jmad. Having every player on the server running around at mach speed was awful for both antags and sec. It wasn't missed when it was nerfed.

[Shadowlight213]

I've had issues with this as well tbh.
The problem with banning these players is it literally boils down to it basically banning people for being too good at their jobs.
The real issue kinda boils down to us not really having much, if anything that's actually hard to get. The gated stuff is really just gated behind rng or tedium.
Away missions had the problem of failing at their intended purpose of an endgame due to being able to just use the loot you got in the mission or from the enemies to complete it solo, rather than requiring the station to gear up with rnd gear and assault it with a team. They weren't hard at all once you knew the maps.
I think lavaland is probably the best example of well made, actually difficult gating content for loot. The rng aspect of it also prevents people from simply memorizing loot location and layout like they did with away missions.

[Bluespace]

people get exceedingly good at one job then they do that job because they're good at it.
utternewbie could get hulk in 5 minutes in and would wear a biosuit.
i would hand out all powers 15 minutes in when injectors were 100% chance.
daisy holmes is literally the plant goddess.
mekhi would powergame rd so hard there would be high tier shit littering the floor.
shit, even in virology me and many others have made maximum powergame viruses.

it'll always happen. change the content if it annoys you.

[Zilenan91]

Away Missions didn't fail as a concept they failed because the missions sucked ass. Wizard Academy and to some extent Snowdin were the only ones we should've kept.

[J_Madison]

I changed the content alright.

Virology was never a problem even before the nerf until one player decided to flood round after round of it until players did not like it anymore. That's the difference.

I've asked players to tone it down, and it's become a player and IC issue which is easily handled by treating them differently.

This isn't the point though, the idea that content is at fault when it's the player is clearly flawed.


I for one enjoyed away missions and even though I was able to complete them easily, I never did anything to impact the round. It really was the straw that broke the camels back when people flooded the gateway and NukeOps got killed by c20rs. That's well and truly ridiculous.

[ShadowDimentio]

BEFORE JMAD'S FUCKING WITH VIROLOGY

>Viro took half an hour to be done
>Regen was helpful but not godlike
>Stimulant didn't make you an unstunable sanic beast

AFTER JMAD'S FUCKING WITH VIROLOGY

>Viro took ten minutes
>Regen was godlike
>Stimulant made you an unstunable sanic beast

Clearly balanced content was just abused into the ground by the evil players guais

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Away Missions didn't fail as a concept they failed because the missions sucked ass. Wizard Academy and to some extent Snowdin were the only ones we should've kept.

Wizard was shitty because it kept spawning wizards, over and over, infinitely, even when it depressurised after five seconds of NPC fireballs.

Snowdin was a loot bonanza.

[Yakumo_Chen]

All the away missions were loot pinatas if you knew how to do them, except Wiz Cad mostly.

I did like Snowdin because I could play SnowOp and collect all the loot first and force the station to fite me if they wanted to get some of it

The other big problems with away missions was that the timer was too short and having the portal open up 20 minutes in usually ended up with some players looting the thing and completely unbalancing a round. I traded my antag token in for Blob and was winning up until a couple people got laser cannons from away missions and killed my core before I even realized it was actually under attack.

[sirnat]

So explain to me this, how is being good at a job like virology and making robust viruses every round abuse if I'm taking this in correctly?

Virology is all I usually play, or MD/Chem, and yes there are bad virologists who can make a somewhat good disease and spread it out like the shits they are, but what's your opinion on the players, such as myself, who actually don't do that, hell all I ever do with my diseases is spread it to 2 groups of people:
Captain/Trusted heads
Security
Also including myself so that makes 3.

Can someone verify what would be seen as abuse, power, or metagame about that so I can avoid trouble?

[J_Madison]

That's perfectly fine, since it doesn't massively affect others game.

There was one player that figured out how to do virology, and every round of a whole week he left a sneezing monkey with ridiculous symptoms. That netted him a rule 0 ban when he said in OOC about how he absolutely disregarded other players experience of SS13 to powergame.

Remember away missions and how a small handful of who people would do them, every week or so?

That was in moderation during slow rounds, but it really broke when nuke, blob, and rev rounds were literally decided by someone rushing the away mission. Two weeks of that sealed the coffin on away missions.
Fun things get patched very quickly, especially when everyone copies the small handful of people that innovate and discover content.

BEFORE JMAD'S FUCKING WITH VIROLOGY

>Viro took half an hour to be done
>Regen was helpful but not godlike
>Stimulant didn't make you an unstunable sanic beast

AFTER JMAD'S FUCKING WITH VIROLOGY

>Viro took ten minutes
>Regen was godlike
>Stimulant made you an unstunable sanic beast

Clearly balanced content was just abused into the ground by the evil players guais

You don't know anything about what I did;
Viro times didn't change. The RNG changed but times did not change. I've extensively timed this with the coders. The times did not change beyond an acceptable level. The deviation between the different times did not change either.

I did not change toxic filter or toxic compensation at all prior to my rebalance. The only reason it healed faster was because my formulas changed and people copied them.

Nor did I touch stimulants or ephedrine.

Project harder, you don't know shit about what I changed or did. Anyone can look at pull history to find I didn't change a thing.