[Korphareon]Buggy123 - stating ss13 is powergaming: the game

[Buggy]

Sorry about the wall of text but I felt i needed to give a lot of evidence to thoroughly make my point. Please read at least some of it.



• Byond account and character name: Buggy1234, Lorenzo Tesla


• Banning admin: Korphareon


• Ban type (What are you banned from?): normal ban


• Ban reason and length: Permanent

"OOC: Buggy1234: yes, this game is literally all about people toeing the line and doing as much metagaming, and powergaming as possible without getting bant"


• Time ban was placed (including time zone): 2016-03-11 04:21:00


• Your side of the story:

This started over a debate about whether it is powergaming to unsync borgs for no reason, but that wasn't why I was actually banned.

I was banned because I claimed that, like everyone, I metagame/powergame where it is not against the rules or only barely allowed. And while I try not to go to absolutely excessive levels yes, I do. And so does everyone.

This is not a RP server, this is a deathmatch server thinly veiled by RP. Are you telling me that if you found a taser sitting on the ground, you wouldn't pick it up, because "why would I need a taser, only security needs those"? That if you found the captain's laser in a locker, you wouldn't take it? That if you heard the AI saying "preparing to flood" you would think "weird, why is the AI going to flood, maybe they need to flood oxygen back into a room or something", and not immediately scream "AI ROGUE" over comms?

Are you telling me snowdin ops, played by dozens of different people, didn't loot up the entire map and instantly kill anyone who came into the gate, and instead just sat in their base watching comms? Are you telling me a wizard didn't wand-of-polymorph a alien, get swallowed, and jaunt into centcom? Are you telling me that people didn't rearrange atmos every round to prevent plasma floods, until a rule was made? Are you telling me people didn't search for the OPs ship and steal the nuke, until a rule was made to stop it?

Face it, if not everyone a incredibly large portion, >50% at least, of the playerbase regularly powergames wherever possible/not absurdly excessive. Assistants build stunprods, RDs wear telearmor with no apparent threat, deconned science immediately results in screams of "BLOB" over the radio, and instantly everyone knows to grab welders and emitters to fight it. Does the sight of someone in all black clothing, or with tightly drawn features not immediately cause cries of "SLINGS IN MAINT"? Do people not rush after 'MUH VALIDS', using whatever they can to take them down?

This is the focus of the game. This is what a low/no-RP server truly is, a complicated, glorified deathmatch where you either kill everyone, die trying, or do some funny gimmick, all the while using as much OOC knowledge and tiny hints to figure out exactly what is going on in the game and know exactly what to do. Tell me it truly isn't.

Sure, maybe YOU don't always do this, you only occasionally do it, or maybe you always try to role play, but almost no one plays along, because this is how half the server works. This is not some small fraction of shitters who powergame wherever possible, those people are just more overt about it. EVERYONE does this to some degree.

Is it shitty? That's a personal opinion, but obviously if half the server is doing it, and they're being shits and should be banned for it, then half the server should be banned. And do we want to ban half the server, or just accept it for what it is?

And again, all I did was tell it as it is.


• Why you think you should be unbanned:

See above. And again, unless this is also about the previously mentioned FNR unsynced borgs(which was never really discussed), then all I was banned for was saying this in OOC.

Edit:fixed formatting

[Yakumo_Chen]

Everyone of those examples you provided barring the deconned research are totally valid because its assumed crew have ingame knowledge of those threats and are allowed to call it out. Building stunprods is okay because they can be used by antags AND nonantags alike, and the tele armor is as stylish as it is useful and a head of staff employing a personal defensive tool is sensible and normal.

However we have rules in place against metagaming against traitor AIs because otherwise they wouldn't be able to get away with anything ever, and it'd ruin rounds and fun for them, and you basically admitted you do it on purpose to be an ass.

Also HornyGrany has stated that snow ops are allowed to loot the away mission, that's why they were made. If you want snowdin loot, come in prepared to take it from them.

[Saegrimr]

This is not a RP server, this is a deathmatch server thinly veiled by RP.

Suddenly finding myself agreeing with Kor. Nothing of value was lost here.

[Shaps-cloud]

There's a vast difference between being opportunistic and taking a taser that you see on the ground for self defense, and going around unsync'ing borgs fnr and then defending it by saying "lol its just powergaming everyone does it". Not only do most players not do that, they're also not dumb enough to boast about how much they powergame and how they would gladly dick over other players in the pursuit of victory in a roleplaying game. This is Kor's ban to decide on, but that's a pretty trash attitude to have towards the game.

[WarbossLincoln]

I think the reason for the ban was less you powergaming and more about how salty you got after that brand new robo couldn't finish your surgery. You got so mad you ranted for like 20 min solid in dead chant, then another 10 in OOC when the round ended. Then when people called you out for ruining a malf AI's round by making an Unsynched Borg(me) 4NoRaisin you said that you intentionally toe the line of getting banned because you think that's the point of the game. It was your attitude that did it, not your actions alone.

[Shadowlight213]

If you see this as simply a deathmatch, I think you might want to find another server more in line with your views.

[Archie700]

Unsyncing borgs WITHOUT knowing that AI is subverted or a traitor is pretty much metagaming.

Also you stated that you would not do it if it was stated to be against the rules for metagaming, which is terrible, because that implies that you think that if there is no instruction preventing you from doing something, you can do it.

[WarbossLincoln]

The AI player was particularly pissed because he got 2 malf ai rounds in a row and in both of them I ruined things for him because I was unsynced. The first one I was killed and rebuilt unsynced after I had worked with him, the second one I was built unsynced to start with 4NoRaisin. After the fact I kinda felt bad for screwing him over but at the time I was just going by asimov laws, couldn't ingore an ai talking in binary about flooding plasma.

[Buggy]

I didn't realize that making unsynced borgs was a Issue, so I won't do it anymore.

I said I wouldn't do it if it was against the rules because the rules define what metagaming IS. Say, maybe we do know that blobs usually decon R&D IC, so we can respond to it and it isn't metagaming, but we don't know that AIs are often subverted? If we did know, we'd always unsync the borgs IC to reduce the chances of subversion.

Metagaming is literally doing what the rules say you can't do IC, and every single server has different rules about it. In bay for example, even knowing to grab the welders if a blob pops up would be grounds for a metagaming ban, because how did you know blobs are weak to fire.

Saying i don't metagame because the rules prevent it is a bit of a misnomer. IF the rules prevent it it is metagaming, if they do not and its not covered under one of the more vague metagaming rules, it is NOT metagaming. Saying that we know what a blob is and how to fight it, but we don't know that AIs are often subverted or rogue, is extremely arbitrary.

However, now that I know this, I will NOT continue to unsync borgs. I was unaware that it was considered metagaming.

[Saegrimr]

Yeah, but if the game is all about toeing the line as hard as possible without getting banned, then you clearly failed your own advice there. Bad luck.

You pushed too hard by bragging about your shit.

[Buggy]

Yeah, but if the game is all about toeing the line as hard as possible without getting banned, then you clearly failed your own advice there. Bad luck.

You pushed too hard by bragging about your shit.

I didn't intend to brag, I was defending my reasoning as to why I unsynced the borg.

[Saegrimr]

You didn't stop to think why you would need to unsync a borg in the first place? "Because I want to see how much I can get away with"?

[Buggy]

You didn't stop to think why you would need to unsync a borg in the first place? "Because I want to see how much I can get away with"?

"Because It's safer if it isn't synced, it's less likely to get subverted and its guaranteed to be asimov"

Is that really that different from

"Research is deconstructed? Oh, only a blob would do this, I should alert everyone"

Or

"Oh look, a taser is sitting on the ground, I should take it to defend myself in case someone attacks me, despite me having no reason to suspect that anyone would for any reason. Yes, I should do this instead of returning it to security and letting them do their job of keeping us safe"



I'm not actively trying to get away with as much shit as possible for the thrill of it or anything, there ARE plenty of opportunities where I could 'powergame' without anyone batting a eye and where technically according to how the game is played I should, but I just don't feel like it or I think it'd be a bit shitty to do. I'm not playing the game in spite of the rules, this is just how the game is played. The rules give limitations to the game to make it more challenging and, therefore, fun, and to prevent things that essentially no one finds fun, but if you set even more limitations for yourself beyond the rules you're only putting yourself at a disadvantage in a competitive game.


I went too far, I admit it fully, and I'm sorry for it, but I didn't go in the wrong direction altogether. I think I also might be misusing the word powergame here a bit.

[Saegrimr]

And people wonder why the rules page ends up being three miles long with extremely specific examples of shit to not do.

[Buggy]

And people wonder why the rules page ends up being three miles long with extremely specific examples of shit to not do.

SS13 is incredibly diverse and complicated, If you turn it into a competitive game where people have a good reason and motivation to do something that shouldn't be done, then you are going to have a very long list of rules.

Something like a FPS might have a handful of rules, maybe only one like "don't spawn camp", and then the rest are handled by actual in game limitations. But in SS13 you can't cover all your bases at all so while a lot of stuff has been coded out, you still have a massive pile of rules to cover everything else.

[Yakumo_Chen]

>can often be subverted

But It's ingame knowledge that the AI can't be subverted by default (traitor laws are secret and above asimv for a reason) because it always starts asimov.

Even then we have server rules that state you can't take precautions against possibly-rogue AIs without hard proof.

[Yakumo_Chen]

You didn't stop to think why you would need to unsync a borg in the first place? "Because I want to see how much I can get away with"?

"Because It's safer if it isn't synced, it's less likely to get subverted and its guaranteed to be asimov"

Is that really that different from

"Research is deconstructed? Oh, only a blob would do this, I should alert everyone"
.

One of those isn't reactive to an antag doing antaggy actions in the game! Can you guess which one?

[Buggy]

You didn't stop to think why you would need to unsync a borg in the first place? "Because I want to see how much I can get away with"?

"Because It's safer if it isn't synced, it's less likely to get subverted and its guaranteed to be asimov"

Is that really that different from

"Research is deconstructed? Oh, only a blob would do this, I should alert everyone"
.

One of those isn't reactive to an antag doing antaggy actions in the game! Can you guess which one?

Okay, fair point. Let me give some examples not related to antaggy things

"Hmm, I should probably break my nice display case and take my retro laser, I might need it or someone might try to steal it."

"I should turn on my suit sensors, In case I'm attacked, even though I have no real reason to suspect that would happen."

"Hmm, lets use the Tesla instead of the Singularity, it's way harder to sabotage, even though no one would want to sabotage it. Lets also modify the containment so that only 1 emitter has to function for it to stay contained."

"I should take my reactive teleport armor, although I have no reason to suspect that I'll need it."

>can often be subverted

But It's ingame knowledge that the AI can't be subverted by default (traitor laws are secret and above asimv for a reason) because it always starts asimov.

Even then we have server rules that state you can't take precautions against possibly-rogue AIs without hard proof.

I wasn't aware of those rules, nor that it wasn't actually IC knowledge.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Okay, fair point. Let me give some examples not related to antaggy things

"Hmm, I should probably break my nice display case and take my retro laser, I might need it or someone might try to steal it."

"I should turn on my suit sensors, In case I'm attacked, even though I have no real reason to suspect that would happen."

"Hmm, lets use the Tesla instead of the Singularity, it's way harder to sabotage, even though no one would want to sabotage it. Lets also modify the containment so that only 1 emitter has to function for it to stay contained."

"I should take my reactive teleport armor, although I have no reason to suspect that I'll need it."

There's nothing wrong with captain taking his laser, and it's a very useful thing to shoot people with. Same as the HoS taking HIS laser.
There's more then one way to die you know, suit sensors could save you from an accident!
Matter of opinion. A stray meteor would make it really easy to get it released however. Also the tesla is just as easy to sabotage as singulo, so whatever.
The RD's armor is functional AND stylish. What's wrong with the RD wearing what's totally his, in his locker at roundstart, and serves to save him from the filthy spear-weilding neanderthal greytide hordes?

I wasn't aware of those rules, nor that it wasn't actually IC knowledge.

The AI can't possibly start rogue because it has Asimov lawset starting out! Someone would have to subvert it to make it bad! The AI upload is guarded in a very secure area of the station with turrets and an Asimov AI is programmed to keep neer-do-wells out of the upload and from uploading potentially harmful laws. The AI has every hard-coded AND IC reason to not be, act, or allow itself to become rogue.

[Buggy]

A meteor is unlikely to ever cause containment to fail, the engine is heavily reinforced such that no reasonably sized meteor could destroy it. Plus that doesn't apply on maps with the singularity in the center of the station instead of at the edges.

The captains laser is explictly in a display case, that you have to break to open, and it sets off a burglar alarm.

Is it really any more absurd for the captain to think that he'll need his prized laser so badly that it's worth breaking open a display case and getting locked in his office, than for a roboticist to think that while the upload is pretty secure, it can't hurt to add a extra layer of security, and besides the borg will still be asimov. Wouldn't it be better to have 3 independent units which all work together as if they were slaved, but nonetheless keep tabs on each other to ensure that any broken or bugged units are quickly reported and fixed, while remaining exactly as error-resistant as before? It's having 3 layers of redundancy instead of 1, with no downsides.

The point is, you can make arguments for and against almost any action. The difference between the captain taking his laser and unsyncing the borgs is that the rules forbid one. If the rules forbade taking the antique laser, we could be here having this exact same discussion about that. They aren't that different in effects, a unsynced borg adds a layer of difficulty to AI players, and a captain taking his laser fucks over anyone who has to steal it, because now they have to take on the armed and armored captain instead of just breaking into his quarters.

Both have comparable IC reasons to do it and not to do it, both have similar consequences for other players in the round if you do it, the difference between them is server policy.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Except the captain's laser is functional to the captain and the only downside to getting it is that it sets an alarm the captain can turn off in three seconds, then unlock the doors with his remote.

There's no ingame justifiable reason to unsync the borgs other then the MMI requesting it or "The AI might be rogue" or "The AI IS rogue"

[Buggy]

Except the captain's laser is functional to the captain and the only downside to getting it is that it sets an alarm the captain can turn off in three seconds, then unlock the doors with his remote.

There's no ingame justifiable reason to unsync the borgs other then the MMI requesting it or "The AI might be rogue" or "The AI IS rogue"

Unsyncing the borgs is as justifiable as reinforcing the engine: It helps ensure that if it does have any problems, albeit unlikely, it resists them as much as possible.

How is changing the layout of the containment fields and choosing the Tesla to make it more difficult to release, any different than unsyncing the borgs so that if the AI is hit by, say, a ion storm and get's a bugged law, the borgs don't get it as well and can help fix the AI or minimize any damage it does in a broken state?

Just like meteors hit the containment area, Ion laws can fuck with the AI. They are very similar and they have similar, perfectly good IC reasons to do it. Both add checks to a potentially extremely destructive force to ensure that they are less likely to become destructive in the case of unlikely natural occurances.

The captain taking his laser is different in that there's much less IC justification for it.

[Buggy]

...

Arguably there was the fact that I unsynced a borg for no real reason(which i now know not to do), and was super salty in deadchat due to something else(which is par for the course for deadchat). Kind of doubt that any of that is perma-worthy though.

[Yakumo_Chen]

No fuck off ion laws aren't a justifiable reason to desync the borgs, 99.9% of them are harmless anyway.

[Buggy]

No fuck off ion laws aren't a justifiable reason to desync the borgs, 99.9% of them are harmless anyway.

Is it any better than using meteors to justify reinforcing the containment fields so it's harder to sabotage?

It already takes AT LEAST 2 meteors to break normal containment, let alone special 1x1 tesla containment fields. And the chances of ONE meteor striking the containment area is very low, let alone two.

How are these two different? Both normal failure cases are extremely unlikely, in reality you're really just reinforcing both incredibly destructive elements from sabotage and justifying it IC. But one is okay and the other is metagaming, despite a released tesla or singularity being quite similar in destructiveness to a rogue AI.

[Yakumo_Chen]

I am going to stop debating this now because I'm not even an admin and you already put your foot in your mouth when you boasted about toe-lining and got banned for it.

[Alex Crimson]

He is kinda right though. This server is on the low end of the spectrum when it comes to roleplay. If it wasnt for the OOC in IC rule, this server would be nothing but powergaming bullshit.

Even if he is wrong, banning someone for stating their opinion is silly.

[onleavedontatme]

Something like a FPS might have a handful of rules, maybe only one like "don't spawn camp", and then the rest are handled by actual in game limitations. But in SS13 you can't cover all your bases at all so while a lot of stuff has been coded out, you still have a massive pile of rules to cover everything else.

The other way for it to function is for people playing to have basic level of sportmanship and good faith to all try and have a decent time together.

Even if he is wrong, banning someone for stating their opinion is silly.

Considering it just followed a round in which he was desyncing borgs for no reason, and considering his usual behaviour of yelling game mechanics/meta IC, powergaming, etc, I read it more as a statement of intent that he was going to continue "toeing the line."

And yeah he is kind of right, which is why it irritated me and why I may have overreacted.

But basically this boils down to:

A player says they are going to toe the line/abuse/exploit as much as possible, so I can either

A) Ban that person, and now I'm the bad guy for banning over opinions

B) Collectively punish everyone by endlessly chasing his actions and nerfing one thing after another, and be the bad guy no fun coder

C) Make an absurdly wrong ruleset nobody will read, outlawing a bunch of possibilities/restricting yet more possibilities in something that is allegedly a roleplay/sandbox type environment, and accomplish nothing because "toeing the line" means he will just shift to the next best/worst set of behaviours he can get away with and abuse those. Plus I'm still the bad guy high rules admin.

D) Do nothing. We end up where we are now for the sake of fairness, where he is, unfortunately, correct, and people run around screaming game mechanics and seeing how much they can get away with

[Lumbermancer]

I complain about deathmatch a lot lately, especially after yet another 5 minute round. Will I get banned for it as well? I don't want to get banned yo.

[WarbossLincoln]

I think a permaban might have been too much, maybe a warning was a better option, but he was also being a real dick to that brand new roboticist. The roboticist said he had never played the role before, and sounded like a pretty new player too. Was asking for help to walk through surgery. Yeh, he screwed up and couldn't finish it but everyone screws up jobs when they first learn them. Buggy was a real dick about it though and trash talked at them for like 30 minutes in dead chat and ooc. Deadchat is definitely a place to vent, but I feel like a line of text calling someone stupid every 20-30 seconds for 20 minutes was over the top.

[Zilenan91]

I say keep him banned. You're not the bad guy, he was knowingly toeing the line.

[Archie700]

B) Collectively punish everyone by endlessly chasing his actions and nerfing one thing after another, and be the bad guy no fun coder

Isn't that literally what happens when people keep abusing the system to powergame, thus forcing a nerf and them moving on to the next thing?

It's a vicious cycle, powergaming.

[John Smith]

Isn't that literally what happens when people keep abusing the system to powergame, thus forcing a nerf and them moving on to the next thing?

It's a vicious cycle, powergaming.

I would call that keeping up with the meta. I don't know if anyone notices, but nearly every round I play as Gray Tyde is an attempt to get as many fun toys as quickly as possible, starting with the very most basics. Full toolbelt, Insulated Gloves, Welding Goggles, eventually leading up to the cool stuff like stolen All Access and my own personal bridge hidden somewhere in maint. If I boasted or bragged about any of the way I go about doing that, chances are someone would complain and my methods would be nerfed, meaning I would have to find new ways of going about them. It's actually happened a few times with a few of my strategies. Other times it's gotten FASTER because of changes made.

I just keep my shit tight and enjoy the game the way I like to enjoy it.

[Shaps-cloud]

B) Collectively punish everyone by endlessly chasing his actions and nerfing one thing after another, and be the bad guy no fun coder

Isn't that literally what happens when people keep abusing the system to powergame, thus forcing a nerf and them moving on to the next thing?

It's a vicious cycle, powergaming.

The solution to this vicious cycle is stunningly simple, cut the head off the problem, in this case the people who abuse shit the most and brag about it

[Atlanta-Ned]

For what it's worth, I can't find anything specifically stating what level of RP tg encourages. That being said, your statements and attitude are exactly the kind that make playing here miserable for those of us that enjoy the non-murdery* parts of the game.

*says the AI in question who plasmaflooded two different rounds yesterday

[Constant greytiding confession]

You should stop this. Immediately.

[Buggy]

B) Collectively punish everyone by endlessly chasing his actions and nerfing one thing after another, and be the bad guy no fun coder

Isn't that literally what happens when people keep abusing the system to powergame, thus forcing a nerf and them moving on to the next thing?

It's a vicious cycle, powergaming.

The solution to this vicious cycle is stunningly simple, cut the head off the problem, in this case the people who abuse shit the most and brag about it

But I didn't try to brag about it, I tried to JUSTIFY my actions when everyone was upset that I unsynced the borgs. I didn't go "Haha my unsynced borgs rekt you get good scrub AI", I went "I unsynced the borgs because that's just how this server works, and if I didn't I'd be actively handicapping myself". And I definitely don't abuse shit the most, is unsyncing the borgs really worse than assistants who make it their personal mission every round to get all access and make their own personal bridge?

I think a permaban might have been too much, maybe a warning was a better option, but he was also being a real dick to that brand new roboticist. The roboticist said he had never played the role before, and sounded like a pretty new player too. Was asking for help to walk through surgery. Yeh, he screwed up and couldn't finish it but everyone screws up jobs when they first learn them. Buggy was a real dick about it though and trash talked at them for like 30 minutes in dead chat and ooc. Deadchat is definitely a place to vent, but I feel like a line of text calling someone stupid every 20-30 seconds for 20 minutes was over the top.

It wasn't the roboticist I was angry at, I deal with new players all the time and while they can be annoying some times I don't really have a problem with them. I was angry at the geneticist, who had come in to get borged and seemed to know what was going on and how things worked.

Yeah, I did go fairly overboard I think, but god damn is it frustrating when a teammate messes up and loses the entire match for you. All he had to do was finish the surgery and throw my brain in the borg shell, and only the last step was left on the surgery, but he hit me with the correct tool exactly once while not on help intent, and then left and died in a fire. If he had actually had borged me I could have let us out and saved us both, and then b-lined to the AI sat and taken care of the AI and saved the station, but instead everyone died and the station burned to a crisp.

B) Collectively punish everyone by endlessly chasing his actions and nerfing one thing after another, and be the bad guy no fun coder

Isn't that literally what happens when people keep abusing the system to powergame, thus forcing a nerf and them moving on to the next thing?

It's a vicious cycle, powergaming.

It is a vicious cycle, but eventually it actually ends. In simple, more straight forward competitive games like Battlefield or something, they remove any clearly overpowered things and make minor changes as necessary and then the game is balanced for good. But SS13 is so complicated and interconnected that that cycle takes MUCH longer.

We're in a fairly good point all things said, most of the abusable stuff left is obscure, rarely used things like Virology, or brand new stuff that still needs balancing, like the stock market.

For what it's worth, I can't find anything specifically stating what level of RP tg encourages. That being said, your statements and attitude are exactly the kind that make playing here miserable for those of us that enjoy the non-murdery* parts of the game.

*says the AI in question who plasmaflooded two different rounds yesterday

[Constant greytiding confession]

You should stop this. Immediately.

The game isn't completely murdery, but at least on this server a huge portion of the time it is. Even if you try to do non murdery stuff and roleplay or something, a traitor or rogue AI or sling can absolutely come along and kill you, destroy whatever you were trying to do, or force you to join the fray. The non-murdery part of the game is Extended or any round where the antags die immediately or do nothing, those compose about 10% of rounds. At all other points, you either have to play along or get slaughtered by people who do play along.

And the game isn't necessarily about murdering everyone, every game mode has different goals. In Sling you try to enslave everyone and ascend, in Rev you try to recruit everyone and only need to kill like 5 people, and Gangs are similar. Things like Wizard, Blob, and occasionally Traitors are far more murdery, but it is not solely about removing players from the round and ending their fun.

And again, if the game IS really solely about murderboning and killing everyone as Antag, then what are non-antags supposed to do? Die helplessly and be taken out of the round? You yourself plasmaflooded the station, twice. Were we supposed to just let that happen?

It might be a vicious cycle but it's how the game works, and if ANYONE stops following along and tries to do anything else they suffer for it. I just followed along. Many people find the game fun in it's current state, so why would anyone try to do something else if it means they stop having fun?

[kevinz000]

I think an admin said something like this
"You can get away with a lot of shit if you don't brag about it"
Follow the advice. Bragging will only get you unwanted attention.

[Buggy]

I think an admin said something like this
"You can get away with a lot of shit if you don't brag about it"
Follow the advice. Bragging will only get you unwanted attention.

I didn't brag, I defended myself. I would have never even talked about it if a number of people hadn't accused me in OOC, and when they DID i only talked about it to justify my actions.

[Durkel]

Stop pussy footing around call the ban for what is really is : Removing a toxic player.

I've seen the incident first hand and was arguing with buggy about this shit in ooc right before he got banned. His view on how to play the game and treatment of others for not adhering to his play style is absolutely abhorrent. The game is about having fun and quirky little adventures. This isn't Counterstrike, we're not all here to win, and more often than not losing will have a better story than winning. If you're going to rant and rave for a half hour because someone didn't meat your level of power game then you have a problem. When multiple people tell you chill the fuck out and that ss13 isn't all about wining, maybe you can try and take that message to heart instead of defending shitty behavior.

[Bob Dobbington]

I think what's needed at this point is clarification from the banning admin on exactly what type of ban this is. Is this a Rule 2 ban (Do not use information gained outside of in character means.) or a Rule 0/1 ban (Don't be a dick.)? If this is a Rule 2 ban, it seems out of proportion to similar bans over similar concerns. If this is a Rule 0/1 ban then it seems like it's time for a headmin to weigh in, as is often done in cases of controversial bans under those rules.

[onleavedontatme]

Yeah, I did go fairly overboard I think, but god damn is it frustrating when a teammate messes up and loses the entire match for you.

Maybe I am just being picky about word choice but referring to other players in a traitor round as team mates and "losing the match" when you don't actually have a win condition bothers me.

If this is a Rule 0/1 ban then it seems like it's time for a headmin to weigh in, as is often done in cases of controversial bans under those rules.

Would probably be for the best. I'd unban him if I thought he might tone down the win at all costs attitude or get his temper (it was literally almost 20 minutes straight of him yelling about the borg thing, and he's broken a monitor over this game before) under control but little that he's said indicates that.

I feel bad about this tough because other than saying "this game is about toeing the line"/screaming he hasn't really said anything that indicates maliciousness on his part, just a completely different view of how the game should work (like Battlefield, apparently).

[Bob Dobbington]

I feel bad about this tough because other than saying "this game is about toeing the line"/screaming he hasn't really said anything that indicates maliciousness on his part, just a completely different view of how the game should work (like Battlefield, apparently).

I think both you and Buggy are angry for the same reasons, about the same aspects of the game. I think Buggy was trying to make a positive statement, not a normative one.

EDIT: Shitposters pls go

[Buggy]

The game is about having fun and quirky little adventures.

It can be, but it isn't. I'd absolutely still find it fun if it was about quirky adventures, but it isn't, its Counterstrike. You win, or lose. You play it like Counterstrike, or you get killed by someone who does play it like Counterstrike. And if the people who would be your "team mates" if it was Counterstrike don't play it like Counterstrike, you both die.

I suppose higher-RP servers are more quirky-adventury but IMO they get too bogged down in strict roleplay to be fun.

Yeah, I did go fairly overboard I think, but god damn is it frustrating when a teammate messes up and loses the entire match for you.

Maybe I am just being picky about word choice but referring to other players in a traitor round as team mates and "losing the match" when you don't actually have a win condition bothers me.

There is absolutely a win condition, which is generally is stopping antags for non-antags, and killing everyone/accomplishing your objectives as antag(not necessarily your game-given objectives). Now this isn't necessarily the case if say the antags do nothing or are harmless, but when they aren't harmless, well, take the round this happened in for example: The AI was trying to kill everyone. At this point the crew could A: do nothing, and die and stop having fun, or B: try to stop the AI. If the AI kills everyone, it's won, it's accomplished it's objective, what it set out to do. Now, if the AI had wanted to say, give everyone a funny hat, then it wouldn't be a black/white win/lose scenario, It'd be a "quirky adventure". But that almost never happens.



Most antags have permission to, the ability to, and often try to end the round or kill everyone, and in the process stop everyone from having fun or any sort of "quirky adventure". The crew simply has no choice but to stop them, and they can still have fun stopping them. But if they die the crew stops having fun, So they really try to stop them, because if they don't then they stop having fun, but if they win they could get back to what they were doing before. The crew come to anticipate this from antags, and they start to strike first, resulting in scenarios like the crew killing a friendly wizard. Gimmicks/fun stuff on the part of the antags work less and less, and so antags resort more to the "kill everyone" solution. The cycle continues.

The rules set limitations on this cycle that prevent it from getting too bad, and on some servers the rules are strong enough that it barely even becomes a "cycle". For instance, on servers where antags really don't have permission to murder everyone, like most heavy-rp servers, this doesn't happen at all. But that is not the case for this server.

Think about it, is this not how it works? 3 antags, rev and gang and sling, have the ability to remove you from any sort of fun adventure and force you to try and end the round. Nuke ops', blob's, gang's, rev's, and sling's primary goal is ending the round as quickly as possible. Traitors are fairly neutral, but half the time shit hits the fan when a AI traitor comes along.

FIVE gamemodes have 1 or more person in them who has the ability to, and is actively required to do everything they can to end the round as quickly as possible. Nuke ops have to blow up the station. Blobs have to eat the station. Gangs have to dominate the station. Revs have to kill the heads and take over the station. Slings have to ascend. And in three of those a antag can do things that force you to fight, you can be flashed in Rev, and you have to fight back at least somewhat in Rev as a head, gangs can pen you and force you to help them take over the station, and slings can thrall you and force them to help you ascend. ALL of these antags accomplishing their objectives, which the rules more or less require that they try to achieve, will result in numerous people dying, the round ending, and being forced to join them and help kill people or end the round.

They could, conceivable, do this in a gimmicky way that minimizes death, and everyone could have fun without anyone dying. But they aren't equipped with this in mind, they're equipped in anticipation of the crew fighting back tooth-and-nail. And as elaborated previously, the rules don't particularly encourage this either.

Could the game be about fun adventures? Yes. Would it be fun? Yes. Is it designed that way? No.

[Lati]

I wasn't on on the round Buggy was banned but as this thread seems like a rule 0/1 or even a policy thread I think I might as well write some of my opinions about Buggy. I haven't seen those Buggy's bad anger seizures some people talk about so I can't say anything about them though.

I've been playing a lot of science with Buggy these past few months. Even though he's writing a lot about the game as winning/losing, his actions really aren't any different from others'. I've always had great and fun rounds with Buggy being scientist or RD. I've often seen him help out new players in science and contribute to the rounds well without any visible "powergaming". I always try to just have fun and don't care about any winning or losing but the things we do are pretty much the same in the end, as are the things all other experienced scientists do.

For example, take a wizard round. I always go for a syringe gun with toxins to hunt the wizard. Oldman might make bombs and suicide bomb the wizard. These are okay as long as we think of them as fun and not as winning or losing the round. According to this thread Buggy would do similar things as us other scientists but just calls that winning or losing instead of just purely having fun. And got banned because of it.

Unsynching borgs without reason is a bad thing which shouldn't happen but he already said he won't do it again.

[Beegix]

I've been playing a lot of science with Buggy these past few months. Even though he's writing a lot about the game as winning/losing, his actions really aren't any different from others'. I've always had great and fun rounds with Buggy being scientist or RD. I've often seen him help out new players in science and contribute to the rounds well without any visible "powergaming".

As someone who primarily plays Roboticist and is trying to learn the rest of Sci, I'll second this sentiment. For all the people in Sci with a shitty attitude I've come across, I'd not count Lorenzo Tesla as one of them.

[Yakumo_Chen]

I honestly don't care if he's unbanned as long as this is a good example of trying to powergame against AIs that might not even be rogue (and ruining the rounds of the ones that are with seriously little or no provocation)

Seriously don't try to 'hunt' a rogue AI unless it gives a strong hint it might be rogue (blue APC, atmos tampering, etc), silicon players will hate you.

There's a reason us silicons are massively defensive over people trying to 'hunt the rogue'. Players have way too itchy of a trigger finger on the 'blow borgs' button as is, any way to force people to tone it the fuck down is a good thing. It's not fun playing knowing my borgs could be desync'd or blow or locked at any given minute for absolutely no reason.

[onleavedontatme]

Go free I guess. If you continue to be unpleasant towards "team mates" in dead chat or metagaming as hard as possible you'll probably catch another ban though.

At least try the bare minimum of roleplay this time instead of doing stuff like shouting telecrystal costs and game mode names on the radio please.

[WarbossLincoln]

Most antags have permission to, the ability to, and often try to end the round or kill everyone, and in the process stop everyone from having fun or any sort of "quirky adventure".

Dude, trying not to die in a metal death box with autistic clowns and lizards IS the "quirky adventure". The journey is more important than the destination.

This ban was more about you acting like an asshole than the way you played. If you hadn't full on raged and talked shit about a new player for 25-30 minutes solid it probably never would have happened. While deadchat is full of people venting, there's a big difference between showing a little salt for 5 minutes and talking shit about someone for half an hour.

[lzimann]

Resolving this in 24 hours.