Admins are being shitty w/buttons and have 0 accountability

[Oldman Robustin]

Well the forum moderator told me to come here with my general complaints, even though the first rule of this forum is to talk about specific instances and not general complaints.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3439

There's the thread, and from my first post to my last, contains my grievances.

I've been gone for a year so I have a much clearer idea of what's different about /tg/station13 than people who might've experienced a more gradual change over time while playing.

When I last played I remember Hornygranny getting shit for putting aliens in xenobio containment, unable to escape on their own... because it would sometimes fuck up rounds when they got loose. I remember admins being extremely reluctant to let traitors give their TC for other antag roles or items. I remember even a modest "alternative" round would be deployed sparingly and admins knew not to spam buttons round after round.

I've only been back a few days and I can confidently say that admin buttons are my leading cause of death. Not even a "wow that was crazy, I died but the uniqueness of that round was worth it!", I'm already sick of admins intervening in rounds with absolutely 0 forethought, 0 consideration for who is going to have their round ruined, and 0 attempts to make their button pressing more entertaining... apparently the going mentality is "hey if I keep shitting antags onto the station, something fun is BOUND to happen right?".

The fact that some trialmin is confident to the point of cockiness that his button mashing may actually be a bad thing is extremely revealing about the admin culture right now. I don't know that trialmin - only that he joined after I stopped playing. I would venture a guess that his willingness to mash buttons and hope fun comes out is a product of the fact that 50% of the other rounds going on right now have their outcome determined by admin intervention. It feels like its the new normal around here. Every couple hours the current admin(s) get bored and leave, new ones log on and think "TIME FOR MY CONTRIBUTION TO SS13" and mash a few buttons for their crazy wacky magic spam event, after a couple rounds of button mashing they cool off, sit back for a couple more rounds, get bored, log off, someone new comes on and thinks "TIME FOR MY CONTRIBUTION TO SS13" and mashes some buttons for their crazy wacky blob/malf/nukeop event.

It wasn't always like this, and its clear that none of the admins I've talked to about this give even the slightest of fucks about the outcome of their behavior. You guys used to run polls trying to figure out why captain and security were such underplayed roles, and its a complex problem, but I know that I've been trying to play 80% security since I came back and ending up as some admin's fukboi round after round is probably the best security repellant I've ever seen. You can have events with enhanced antags and at least toss security a bone by warning them or giving them extra equipment. But again, I have yet to see an event that had even a slight effort from the admin to make it anything other than "I MADE MORE ANTAG, DIS GUNNA BE GUD".

This also related to the other post that got moved here. Admins feel like they, not the crew, should be the defining factor in a game's outcome now. Fuck letting those filthy PLAYERS decide how a round ends, I'm a goddamn admin and I want to see more wizards gibbing people. I don't think the round should end yet, fuck you captain I'm recalling the shuttle. It goes on and on.

This game is better with events, but holy shit you guys need to calm the fuck down and put some effort into that shit. The last time I saw this kind of reckless button spam was on GOON before everyone abandoned it, and why I abandoned it. No server is going to maintain a good reputation when it becomes known for admin buttons being mindlessly pressed every time an admin gets bored. It's gets tiring fast when you keep investing time and energy into a round only to get assrammed by some ridiculous antag combo.

There are plenty of new gametypes and random antag spawning to keep the crew entertained/killed without admins throwing their super-killer-mech and changeling shadowlings into the mix every other bloody game.

[Saegrimr]

When he said to make an admin complaint, i'm pretty sure he meant against a specific admin. Otherwise he should have just moved the old thread.

[Steelpoint]

Please post all admin complaints in the forum linked above. This includes general complaints as well as issues with individual admins. Thank you.

I think its fine, besides he's describing a general problem that occurs with multiple admins and is not just one person's fault.

[Saegrimr]

Really should have just moved it instead of closing it.

[Atlanta-Ned]

I disagree that buttons are ruining rounds, but I think the practice needs to be severely curtailed. There have been a ridiculous number of changes to the game over the last few months. I mean just look at the closed pull requests. Now is the time to go bughunting in as vanilla an environment as possible. Hell I'd say declare a fatwa against buttons until the feature freeze goes into effect.

There also needs to be a shift in the way rounds are currently played. Before, it was one antag (or set of antags) per round. Now with mulligan, a blob round can turn into a traitor round or MALF becomes rev (If that's even possible, I'm just pulling crap out of a hat here). So this whole concept of tossing the armory out to whoever wants to fight the blob (for example) needs to change. Buttons conflict with that. Security is already at risk of getting waffle stomped, having a bunch of Xenos or mechs or pirates just confuses that and gets in the way of the playerbase adjusting to how things work now.

In layman's terms, admins need to follow the prime directive.

[Sometinyprick]

Since this is a general complaint about the use of buttons it can''t be one person disagreeing with it imo, we should encourage people to post here about how they feel in regards to admin button pushing and when it is appropiate and when it's not, and what sort of "events" people like and dislike.

Tbh I would agree with robustin if button pushing is messing with a round on such a regular occurrence that's bad, I mean a well thought out event every once in a while is nice but just stuffing new antags into a game mode where they shouldn't be present is dumb.

[Ikarrus]

This is actually a Rule outlined in Admin Conduct: https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Admin_Conduct

Don't spam sounds and events. If you're queuing sounds one after the other, or if you're running an event every day, you're doing it too often.

And yes, people have been deadminned for this before.

[Hibbles]

I'm posting here to show I'm not ignoring your topic, Oldman, even though I don't particularly agree with some of what you say, I think it's hyperbole, and I think you're exaggerating. I'm not on a ton anymore so maybe I don't have the perspective you do, so it's just IMO.

One part I do obviously agree with is 'please give us warning/help when you send 400 deadly threats our way rather than just expecting us to deal with it and get rolled'. I don't think anybody could argue with that. I'll try and keep that in mind.

Even though I was always being marked out as Somebody Who Messes With Rounds (god forbit) and I've been way cutting back. Due to not being on as much, admittedly. And then having people say to me 'why don't you do all that shit like you used to' in OOC, deadchat, etc. Yeah, a bunch of bored/dead SS13 players aren't exactly an objective source of Is This Good Or Bad, but opinions are obviously more split than this thread presents about Le Buttons. So that's the other reason I wanted to post, to say that.

Also, sorry you got fucked over a lot lately.

EDIT:

Starting threads calling all the admins cancer or shitty with 0 accountability (which we do have) is a great way for me to not take your specific complaint seriously,

I couldn't think of a way to say this without sounding insulting so I'll empty-quote Quartz here.

[QuartzCrystal]

Sorry, but if you add 3 new game modes nearly all at once, admins are gonna push those buttons to see what happens (and I can think of a good dozen+ instances of players asking me for them through prayers, adminhelps, OOC and deadchat). Also, considering we're in a headmin/host transition period (and have been in one for like, 6 months it seems like) admins are going to feel more emboldened to press buttons as the power structure isn't cemented in yet. This happens, things change and things get added, admins go a little button crazy and then it dies down either through boredom, player feedback or both.

Starting threads calling all the admins cancer or shitty with 0 accountability (which we do have) is a great way for me to not take your specific complaint seriously, also considering you haven't actually been gone a year either. You posted threads in general chat twice instead of following the actual system we have in place on admin complaints makes me think you're more concerned with getting attention over how mad you are than actually seeing admin behavior be fixed.

TechnoAlchemist has one goof on him now which I'm sure myself and literally the rest of adminbus will remind him not to do again (as your quasi-complaint against him did, buried within it, actually have a valid complaint).

[Lovecraft]

What if I like buttons

[Vekter]

Really should have just moved it instead of closing it.

My bad. Figured it works better in here than just hanging out in the main forum as a bitch thread.

As for the complaint, lots of admins do tend to slap buttons too often. I've been trying to only do it every so often/when it's really funny.

I do like to play gaywards.ogg and hit the Ion Storm button for goofs though.

[Ikarrus]

I just feel that the game should be allowed to just play out more often. Events now and then (I prefer a few times a day) shakes it up, but this really easily gets out of control when every admin wants to run their own event. Even if every admin runs an event just once a day means we'll end up having more event rounds than we do vanilla rounds (Which is the worst case imo).

So I ask that admins to run events no more than every few days at least so we can space them out a bit.

Of course this also comes down to quality. Shitty button-mashing events are shitty no matter how often they are run, but well-thought out non-disruptive events are welcome almost any time.

Seriously any time we add a popular event as a button it completely ruins it through overuse.

[peoplearestrange]

It does depend on what you class as an event. Something that completely re-structures the game is actually, ironically, less disruptive. Because peoples expectations change when things seem vanilla and then shit tons of meatyores hit etc.

I think we do have to be careful about restricting events though as not only does it styfle creativity (which often great game-modes such as shadowling can come out from), it also is one of the few "perks" of being an admin.

Though as anon pointed out to me there still needs to be plenty of vanilla rounds with little to no interference otherwise the original game can seem boring or people start expecting events 24/7 etc.

[Oldman Robustin]

I just feel that the game should be allowed to just play out more often. Events now and then (I prefer a few times a day) shakes it up, but this really easily gets out of control when every admin wants to run their own event. Even if every admin runs an event just once a day means we'll end up having more event rounds than we do vanilla rounds (Which is the worst case imo).

So I ask that admins to run events no more than every few days at least so we can space them out a bit.

Of course this also comes down to quality. Shitty button-mashing events are shitty no matter how often they are run, but well-thought out non-disruptive events are welcome almost any time.

Seriously any time we add a popular event as a button it completely ruins it through overuse.

This is the simple notion that should dictate admin behavior here. The reason these threads didn't focus on a single admin was because it's not one admin with a serial button addiction... it's the dozens of (how many do we have now?) admins who feel like it's their god-given right/duty to interfere with a round once they log on. Given the constant rotation of admins, it leads to unnecessary event spamming.

It should be simple. Press buttons sparingly, and when you do:

1) Try to think about how these buttons are going to affect the round, if it's just going to be a slaughterhouse then maybe reconsider your choices

2) Try to make the damn thing interesting. Don't just throw uber-antags into our lap. Give us some warning, send us a shuttle with support equipment. Try to give it some flavor beyond "OH SHIT BAD SHIT INCOMING".

3) Try to construct the event so that it isn't "Everyone gets to have a crazy fun round at the expense of the three security players, who are going to experience hell for the next 45 minutes". If I'm going into a round as security where my death is virtually guaranteed, then the event has not been well constructed. It's also beyond frustrating to play security when rounds are frequently beyond your control and you feel like some kind of admin plaything, while they are trying to see which of their buttons can shatter the brig the fastest. For now my new policy is if the admins are kind enough to tip us off in OOC before roundstart, I'm disabling security. I have yet to see a single admin event that didn't significantly reduce the quality of the round for anyone playing security. It may be entertaining for others to watch security players futilely try to stop your deathmechs and superlings, but for a role that often feels like a job, it's really shitty.

[Oldman Robustin]

It does depend on what you class as an event. Something that completely re-structures the game is actually, ironically, less disruptive. Because peoples expectations change when things seem vanilla and then shit tons of meatyores hit etc.

I think we do have to be careful about restricting events though as not only does it styfle creativity (which often great game-modes such as shadowling can come out from), it also is one of the few "perks" of being an admin.

Though as anon pointed out to me there still needs to be plenty of vanilla rounds with little to no interference otherwise the original game can seem boring or people start expecting events 24/7 etc.

I truly appreciate the need for events. A year ago I would've argued for more events since only HBL was bold enough to press any significant buttons and it was far too common to play 6 hours of incompetent traitors where nothing significant or memorable happens over the course of several rounds.

I think one of the important things is that admins have no clue what happened prior to them logging on. I would venture a confident guess that admins rarely communicate about the buttons they've previously pressed to other admins logging on. So when JohnnyAdmin logs on after two rounds of xenos and blob/wizard/revolution, he has no idea what the station's been through and he feels like the station is due for his special supermalf round where he drops a factory with a Centcom sanctioned message while the AI is malf (I think that was my 2nd round since I came back).

That's part of why I made this a general complaint, the only reason a few admins get named is because those were the freshest in my memory - the problem feels far more widespread than just a couple bad apples. Same reason I complained about Miauw and Fayrik in the other post. If this was just a "oops we made a bad decision based on incomplete information" deal I wouldn't care, that round I couldn't have cared less when the shuttle came or didn't come. What did bother me is that multiple admins felt completely justified in usurping the captain's decision that the station was in chaos and needed a shuttle. Calling the shuttle is one of the few areas where captains have actual authority, admins shitting all over that for really weak raisins (there was plenty of emergency for shuttle, just because everyone isn't dead yet doesn't mean we haven't slipped past the threshold for unbridled chaos) and feeling completely justified in doing so didn't sit right with me.

Hence the bitching. I've bitched about quite a few things in OOC since I came back, fucking carps outracing my jetpacks, stupid goddamn bartender rags being the most powerful melee weapon in the game... but the admin culture that I've seen was the only thing concerning enough to get me off my ass to remember my forum password and post this shit. It's a real problem, but I'm happy that some of the elder admins here agree and haven't gone full-goon with their embracing of the button.

[Arete]

I play mostly late at night, when there aren't many admins on and the few that are around don't seem to feel inclined to make events. Maybe the admins that want to screw around could hold off a little while and show that time slot some love.

In general, the events I enjoy most are those that break up the monotony of a round of quiet traitors or changelings that don't end up doing much to sabotage the station. A round that ends peacefully with everyone going home after an hour and a half of never seeing any evidence of antags on the station feels like a wasted round, even as security.

That said, telling security "You've done too good a job of suppressing the antags, as punishment we're going to fuck your station up" is kind of shitty too. It would be nice if security would more commonly get some powerful toys or a ninja ally or some sort of pseudo-antag objective to make things more fun for them when buttons are pressed just to shake up a peaceful round. Let events late into the round be more of a punishment for traitors who didn't cause enough trouble to force a shuttle call.

[QuartzCrystal]

That said, telling security "You've done too good a job of suppressing the antags, as punishment we're going to fuck your station up" is kind of shitty too. It would be nice if security would more commonly get some powerful toys or a ninja ally or some sort of pseudo-antag objective to make things more fun for them when buttons are pressed just to shake up a peaceful round. Let events late into the round be more of a punishment for traitors who didn't cause enough trouble to force a shuttle call.

Buffing security through admin intervention is met with hostility by a lot of players. ERT's are rarely called in to assist security and they never get gygax's as it is. It's crummy but you get less flak and more praise if you buff an antag than if you buff security as an admin.

[Tsaricide]

There are certain people who want events every round, I used to get admin helps 10 minutes into a round from a guy saying the round was boring and he wanted me to spice it up every single round. Those are the types of people who encourage admins to run events all the time, there's nothing really wrong with events but when someone presses the highlander button and then the next round it's just an admin spamming meteors and then the next round an admin wants to run an event because the other two ran events it gets pretty tiring.

I don't think trial admins should run events, they should concentrate on the other parts of being an admin before they start pushing FUN buttons. We used to have Creed breathing down our neck but since he left it seemed like sos was the only person to tell the admins to lay off the buttons.

[Alex Crimson]

Welp its the headmins job now.

[Ikarrus]

I don't think trial admins should run events, they should concentrate on the other parts of being an admin before they start pushing FUN buttons. We used to have Creed breathing down our neck but since he left it seemed like sos was the only person to tell the admins to lay off the buttons.

Trust me when I say anon, hg and I all had talks with admins about button pressing. It's a topic we all agreed on and I still feel strongly about, but I've handled all of these conversations privately.

If you want more visible examples, we dismissed blessedheretic for this very reason. I was also this || close to dismissing stickymayhem before he turned himself around.

[Oldman Robustin]

That said, telling security "You've done too good a job of suppressing the antags, as punishment we're going to fuck your station up" is kind of shitty too. It would be nice if security would more commonly get some powerful toys or a ninja ally or some sort of pseudo-antag objective to make things more fun for them when buttons are pressed just to shake up a peaceful round. Let events late into the round be more of a punishment for traitors who didn't cause enough trouble to force a shuttle call.

Buffing security through admin intervention is met with hostility by a lot of players. ERT's are rarely called in to assist security and they never get gygax's as it is. It's crummy but you get less flak and more praise if you buff an antag than if you buff security as an admin.

I don't think anyone would complain if sec had extra toys when someone presses the rev, malf, ling, and traitor button so that the entire crew, sans captain+sec, is antag.

[Man_Shroom]

If Admins are so desperate to push buttons, they should come to Basil, where we are SO STARVED for button pushing, that we will accept almost anything.

[Stickymayhem]

As an admin complaint this is resolved.

For discussion move over here: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=3446

The issue has been raised, we are now working on it.