/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

Inexperienced command players are a plague and consistently lower the quality of rounds. I'm not asking for powergamer veterans, what I mean by inexperienced is stuff as simple as CE not knowing how to fix a plasma flood or sabotaged SM, CMO not knowing basic chemistry or when to defib instead of clone, HOS not having a good idea of at least HOW to take down specific threats (flashes and flashbangs for borgs, shotguns vs nukies, etc.

The repercussions I have in mind aren't severe at all, and are more to save the community from playing with exceptionally inexperienced command players rather than punishing a player for being new. Let's say RD player is beating the shit out of a tider and an asimov borg comes to save the tider because the borg is literally required to. RD proceeds to detonate the borgs because he suspected the borg was "rogue", showing a complete lack of understanding of silicon policy and asimov laws. Currently, the RD would probably get a note, and MAYBE a dayban if you're lucky. In my proposed solution,the RD would be command banned for let's say a week, and be strongly encouraged to read up on silicon related rules and command expectations.

tl;dr temporarily command ban players that display gross incompetence/inexperience as a command role. stick to short term temporary bans outside of extreme repeat offenders.

Every server has issues with command mains that have little to no clue what they're doing, and clearly just want the better gamer gear/the feeling of power over others. I believe that I have a good solution to the genuine issue of very bad command players - the current system of time gate is clearly not working, and probably never will. Time gates aren't effective because some people are really good at learning/common sense and some people are really BAD at it. We have some long term players that main command and are clearly not interested in becoming a better gamer.

Actionb wrote:Be head and:
a) have nothing to do because your crew is competent, but you still cant just bugger off because responsibilities
or
b) get nothing done because your crew is incompetent and your department is on fire, but you still cant suicide because responsibilities

Or be no head and:
a) get shit done because shit needs to get done and then do whatever and have fun with the game

It's not even a competition. Why would you want to be this shift's caretaker for the mentally challenged.
You don't need to be head to do the department's work - if the job's work is your focus, you will do it anyway. A kid loudly yelling over the radio isn't going to get you to start doing your job.
So what's the point if you're not that heavy into RP or a saint ("Departments should have a head") or don't get a semi from demoting somebody?
The only way to improve quality of heads of staff is when experienced players routinely take the role. A role that, they have learned, doesn't really offer any benefits to their enjoyment.
The singulo is gone, so no more 10 min rounds due to shit CEs. The incompetence of other heads cannot have as much impact. We're as good as we're ever gonna get (unless heads were removed).

^this

I add that this (fully justified) mentality is also what keeps relatively new (but not totally incompetent) players away from head roles. There are some things you can only learn by playing head, like all the head-specific gadgets and gizmos, but nobody likes being shouted at, second-guessed and shoved around by their own underlings, all veteran players going "reee that's not the best way to do x, you're incompetent, let me do it, fuck off you don't know shit, someone demote the CE etc."
So the new player either says "fuck it" and throws the towel, never to play head again, or he escalates against his underling, which leads to policy threads such as this one. And both things guarantee that the head role will stay empty or be filled by really new and totally incompetent players.

remove selecting for the head role, have it weighted on time played (the super veteran has a strong chance of being a head but it isn't guaranteed) for people who selected department roles

That way you "roll" for it by default and it's perceived as more of a reward for time played than something that you have to opt into that doesn't do much difference.

We should also add more things that only a head could accomplish so there's a need for one within all departments.

As for rev, we have plenty of TDM modes now so... :^)

Cobby wrote:remove selecting for the head role, have it weighted on time played (the super veteran has a strong chance of being a head but it isn't guaranteed) for people who selected department roles

That way you "roll" for it by default and it's perceived as more of a reward for time played than something that you have to opt into that doesn't do much difference.

We should also add more things that only a head could accomplish so there's a need for one within all departments.

As for rev, we have plenty of TDM modes now so... :^)

That sounds like a solution most people would agree with. One of the staff members usually ends up getting promoted to head by the HoP, so this would just skip that step altogether. The only complaint I could see is from nonhuman statics who get randomed a human, but that's just part of the game.

John Q robust greytide gets random rolled head.
He does not want the ooc scrutiny that comes with head roles, so he throws his head gear at the first person he sees and fucks off.
We have now come full circle.

The solution to involuntary head play is pretty simple. You just opt out rather than opt in.

People have made this way more complicated than what the thread was originally asking for.
Literally all we need is for heads to have an expectation for heads to be not grossly negligent at their job.
Someone playing CE should at least be able to turn on the round start SM setup without delamming it.
An RD should at least make an effort to get the important techs

I will never not scoff at the idea of gating in game roles behind an application. It just means that t role will get played even less and I don’t know about you but having to write out an application to play a certain role in a shitty online space videogame sounds pretty fucking dumb to me.

Cobby wrote:remove selecting for the head role, have it weighted on time played (the super veteran has a strong chance of being a head but it isn't guaranteed) for people who selected department roles

That way you "roll" for it by default and it's perceived as more of a reward for time played than something that you have to opt into that doesn't do much difference.

I'd be down for that. Remove the nonhuman restriction from everything but HoP/Cap as well.

I play certain head roles nowadays for the "aesthetic" of it. I'm whimsical about it, and act whimsically in those roles, often doing things that wouldn't necessarily make sense to someone not in my head. Because of this I only play when I specifically want to, and its why I despise when I'm forced to play as a head when I didn't want to, or as a head on rounds where being a head doesn't allow me my freedom (War Ops). Cobby's solution would be forcing people who don't want to play as head as head, and those who do want to as a non head. Nah.

deedubya wrote:I'd be down for that. Remove the nonhuman restriction from everything but HoP/Cap as well.

lmao

Ekaterina isn't only shit as a head, but a shitty person will in general

Sorry for bumping this thread, but there's also the fact that some people blindly follow heads of staff instead of saying "OY WHOT THE FOCK ARE YA DOIN YA FOCKIN WANKA" or something, or actively assisting in shittery, with the head of staff being antag or otherwise, as a nonantag of that head of staff's department.

Seriously, engineering WILL blindly obey the CE's orders sometimes, and it's fucking annoying.

Also, I've had captains be as unprofessional as to kill TWO NONANTAG HEADS OF STAFF AND THE DETECTIVE who were trying to prevent a shuttle recall on a cult round. That was... whoo boy.

Reyn wrote: Seriously, engineering WILL blindly obey the CE's orders sometimes, and it's fucking annoying.

This would be a desired result of an ideal system. Currently, i rarely see anyone following the CE beyond 'go setup solars'. I don't follow CEs either. They're usually incompetent spoons, because every engineer will go through a phase of playing CE on their path to becoming robust.

Reyn wrote:LOOK HOW THIS WORST CASE PROVES THE POINT THAT EVERYTHING IS BAD

Your post achieved nothing.

What exactly is this thread about now?
Harsher rules imposed on heads?
Too few heads overall?
Too many bad heads and too few good heads?
These options aren't exactly compatible with each other and only the first can be addressed via policy so the thread should focus on that.
The latter two must be implemented through code (whitelist, improving the appeal of the role, whatever) and including them would also only broaden the discussion in here to the point where nothing will get done.

---

Why the idea of a policy/rule for this is stupid:
imsexy started the thread by asking for harsher penalties on heads playing poorly.

imsxz wrote: Currently, the RD would probably get a note, and MAYBE a dayban if you're lucky. In my proposed solution,the RD would be command banned for let's say a week, and be strongly encouraged to read up on silicon related rules and command expectations.

In cases of malicious intent or dangerous negligence the admins are already dishing out temp job bans anyway (right?), so we can mostly ignore those.
But how do you measure incompetence or inexperience? When does "Oops I didnt know that" become "lol time to griff"? Where is the goal post?
Does there even exist a goal post? I don't think there is - shit like this isn't a binary choice and must be decided on a case-by-base basis. You can't introduce rules for everything that went wrong at some point.

imsxz wrote: What prompted me to do this wasn't even what I experienced in game, but as an admin. I had to tell a guy that getting lethalled to death on the spot by HOS over a joke was valid because the HOS was just a newfriend that didn't realize it was going on. There was nothing I could do really besides tell the HOS to get gud, but beyond that I couldn't act as command players aren't required to be experienced or really have any idea what they're doing.

Should imsxz have banned that HoS when a stern talking to and a note would have had the same effect?
New players won't learn the role if they are banned from it. Why would you play a role that might catch you a temp ban?

How can you deem somebody as being shitty enough to warrant a ban other than by means of your own subjective judgement?
If you want to introduce a rule that addresses a vague, subjective matter the rule itself must be left vague enough to allow leeway for subjective judgement (like "don't be a dick").
If you make that rule too tight even though the matter at hand is nebulous, you end up having to include exceptions to the rule etc, which would just turn it into silicon policy 2.0. No bueno.
So you end up with a rule saying something along the lines of "Heads of staff are held to a higher standard"? Isn't that just stating the obvious? What's the point?
If no definitive rule can be found, isn't it all just up to the admin at hand - just as it has always been?

Actionb wrote: How can you deem somebody as being shitty enough to warrant a ban other than by means of your own subjective judgement?
If you want to introduce a rule that addresses a vague, subjective matter the rule itself must be left vague enough to allow leeway for subjective judgement (like "don't be a dick").
If you make that rule too tight even though the matter at hand is nebulous, you end up having to include exceptions to the rule etc, which would just turn it into silicon policy 2.0. No bueno.
So you end up with a rule saying something along the lines of "Heads of staff are held to a higher standard"? Isn't that just stating the obvious? What's the point?
If no definitive rule can be found, isn't it all just up to the admin at hand - just as it has always been?

The point is that if you are barely able to demonstrate basic knowledge of a department's functions you shouldn't be playing the head of that department just yet. Which is why a command ban is appropriate.

itt, a bunch of greytiders continue to wonder why nobody wants to play headroles when they're around

oranges wrote:itt, a bunch of greytiders continue to wonder why nobody wants to play headroles when they're around

take me off post approval for the development board or i'll have you put on post approval in FNR for shitposting

I think changing rev to have security and the captain as targets instead of the heads of staff would be a good way to encourage players to play heads of staff over regular crewmembers. Why would I want to play a head when I have to deal with assholes AND have a target on my back in 10% of rounds.

Security already have targets on their backs during Rev rounds and the captain is more than equipped to take it and have very little other responsibilities, so they would make better targets.

Dr_bee wrote:I think changing rev to have security and the captain as targets instead of the heads of staff would be a good way to encourage players to play heads of staff over regular crewmembers. Why would I want to play a head when I have to deal with assholes AND have a target on my back in 10% of rounds.

Security already have targets on their backs during Rev rounds and the captain is more than equipped to take it and have very little other responsibilities, so they would make better targets.

Pour one out for the CMO in every single rev round.

Dr_bee wrote:I think changing rev to have security and the captain as targets instead of the heads of staff would be a good way to encourage players to play heads of staff over regular crewmembers. Why would I want to play a head when I have to deal with assholes AND have a target on my back in 10% of rounds.

Security already have targets on their backs during Rev rounds and the captain is more than equipped to take it and have very little other responsibilities, so they would make better targets.

This seems an incredibly niche opinion that probably not many players share, aside from that is not a good idea.

terranaut wrote:

oranges wrote:itt, a bunch of greytiders continue to wonder why nobody wants to play headroles when they're around

take me off post approval for the development board or i'll have you put on post approval in FNR for shitposting

Bold of you to assume, etc.

Yesterday I was the AI. I am doing my routine, setting intercoms to AI private etc., then the HoS (tawia wobinson) shouts the wires' functions over comms (bolt, power and AI CONTROL).
And we are talking about inexperienced players acting dumb as heads.

Deal with it tin can.

Maybe the current time-gating mechanism could be expanded upon with a seniority rank. Set it to like 10x the usual required hours, and to heads of staff too. A new CE with unhealthy rank-RP fixation would maybe listen more readily to someone with a snazzy rank name. You could even throw in some tan armbands or silver IDs. If you want to go full google with the toddler caps, you could have novice players and novice heads have unremovable green bands around their arm too.

Does this "problem" really even apply to any department besides engineering? The rest of them barely need to know anything.

• Captain: Yell at people to do things, step in to departmental affairs if there's an emergency and for some reason absolutely nobody else to do the job, avoid having your shit stolen.
• CMO: Make sure your geneticists aren't handing out hulk and the viro isn't perfecting super space AIDS, know basic med/chem, avoid having your shit stolen.
• RD: Know how to lock borgs and ask robo really nicely not to make deathmechs for no reason, keep an eye on public or contagious nanites, try to make sure toxins isn't handing out maxcaps...? Admittedly the department besides engineering I know the least about I guess... Also, avoid having your shit stolen.
• HoS: Recognize tells of specific antags and how to deal with them, avoid having your shit stolen.
• HoP: Literally just avoid having your shit stolen.

Head of staff roles are often boring, thankless, vague responsibility that physically tie you to spending probably the whole shift in your department, with the added bonus of frequent interruptions in the form of having to act as your department's bouncer, keeping your usually non-antag subordinates from causing cataclysms and dodging their idiotic mutinies, and avoiding assistants gang raping your few pieces of nice gear. I think I'm not being hyperbolic in saying you can expect to spend as much or more time doing the aforementioned than your actual on paper job in many shifts. What should be the real payoff for taking on the responsibility, in-character authority and prestige, is a big fat lol yeah right keep dreaming 404 not found. Everyone and their brother will call you incompetent and blame you for anything that goes wrong under your purview, your underlings will be more inclined to tell you to fuck off and start a fight than to obey orders or help you with probably anything, and on the whole you effectively have the opposite of authority and prestige. I'll make it clear that I still enjoy playing head of staff roles sometimes, but when a round is starting and I'm staring at the occupation preferences window wondering "...do I really feel up to dealing with that?" it's almost always over the target I'd be carrying around on my back and not my department's nominal responsibilities.

In summary, I think Morto's post really said it all.
If you want more and better people playing heads find a way to make it a less miserable experience instead of figuring some ingenious way to gate even more people out of doing it.

Tarchonvaagh wrote:Yesterday I was the AI. I am doing my routine, setting intercoms to AI private etc., then the HoS (tawia wobinson) shouts the wires' functions over comms (bolt, power and AI CONTROL).

...So?

Heads of staff ought to have more protections, perhaps not to the standard of security but still, I can't even do anything about my chemists doing nothing but making meth without expecting to get a syringe full of god knows what if I dare to try and exercise my authority upon them.

I want Escalation policy to be updated to include heads of staff in that you can't kill or maim a head of staff for firing or removing you from a department for legitimate reasons.

Since this is the general "Shitty head of staff member" policy discussion. If a head of staff member used the crew's paycheck (their budget) on some item for themselves. IE cargo, Corgi's, Guns. And their department doesn't get a paycheck

Are they supposed to ahelp?

Escalate?

They seem pretty screwed in this situation

Shadowflame909 wrote:Since this is the general "Shitty head of staff member" policy discussion. If a head of staff member used the crew's paycheck (their budget) on some item for themselves. IE cargo, Corgi's, Guns. And their department doesn't get a paycheck

Are they supposed to ahelp?

Escalate?

They seem pretty screwed in this situation

Sounds like a pretty good reason to start a worker's uprising ICly

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Shadowflame909 wrote:Since this is the general "Shitty head of staff member" policy discussion. If a head of staff member used the crew's paycheck (their budget) on some item for themselves. IE cargo, Corgi's, Guns. And their department doesn't get a paycheck

Are they supposed to ahelp?

Escalate?

They seem pretty screwed in this situation

Sounds like a pretty good reason to start a worker's uprising ICly

VIVA

Anonmare wrote: I want Escalation policy to be updated to include heads of staff in that you can't kill or maim a head of staff for firing or removing you from a department for legitimate reasons.

I'll start enforcing it so just let me know when you wanna play head

Cobby wrote:

Anonmare wrote: I want Escalation policy to be updated to include heads of staff in that you can't kill or maim a head of staff for firing or removing you from a department for legitimate reasons.

I'll start enforcing it so just let me know when you wanna play head

I play CMO so you can fuck off with the disingenuous assertions

Anonmare wrote:

Cobby wrote:

Anonmare wrote: I want Escalation policy to be updated to include heads of staff in that you can't kill or maim a head of staff for firing or removing you from a department for legitimate reasons.

I'll start enforcing it so just let me know when you wanna play head

I play CMO so you can fuck off with the disingenuous assertions

Cobby probably hates you more for playing med :^)

Anonmare wrote:

Cobby wrote:

Anonmare wrote: I want Escalation policy to be updated to include heads of staff in that you can't kill or maim a head of staff for firing or removing you from a department for legitimate reasons.

I'll start enforcing it so just let me know when you wanna play head

I play CMO so you can fuck off with the disingenuous assertions

I didn't imply you didn't, I was just making a metafriend joke

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Tarchonvaagh wrote:Yesterday I was the AI. I am doing my routine, setting intercoms to AI private etc., then the HoS (tawia wobinson) shouts the wires' functions over comms (bolt, power and AI CONTROL).

...So?

he basically encouraged greytiding, implying that he's okay with door hackers
grade A security

Tarchonvaagh wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Tarchonvaagh wrote:Yesterday I was the AI. I am doing my routine, setting intercoms to AI private etc., then the HoS (tawia wobinson) shouts the wires' functions over comms (bolt, power and AI CONTROL).

...So?

he basically enforced greytiding

How has he done that?

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Tarchonvaagh wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Tarchonvaagh wrote:Yesterday I was the AI. I am doing my routine, setting intercoms to AI private etc., then the HoS (tawia wobinson) shouts the wires' functions over comms (bolt, power and AI CONTROL).

...So?

he basically enforced greytiding

How has he done that?

Edited

Tarchonvaagh wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Tarchonvaagh wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Tarchonvaagh wrote:Yesterday I was the AI. I am doing my routine, setting intercoms to AI private etc., then the HoS (tawia wobinson) shouts the wires' functions over comms (bolt, power and AI CONTROL).

...So?

he basically enforced greytiding

How has he done that?

Edited

oh no he revealed what any person with a pair of wirecutters can find out in 20 seconds with no risk of being shocked by simply walking to arrivals.

To be fair it's EXTREMELY irresponsible and out of character for the sec head to tell people the bolt wires.

he's just inviting the challenge
it's like a CE doing a plasma/CO2 setup for the first time
both him and the greytide must've had a blast that round

Speaking of CEs, sorry about bringing some personal salt into this, but I've recently experienced a certain CE fucking off into space on adventure, ending up at the fucking syndicate comms outpost, and... Getting gunned down by the comms officer. While the engine wasn't set up. Is that incompitence to a criminal degree, or is it just stupidity.

It's Dereliction of Duty

Reyn wrote:Speaking of CEs, sorry about bringing some personal salt into this, but I've recently experienced a certain CE fucking off into space on adventure, ending up at the fucking syndicate comms outpost, and... Getting gunned down by the comms officer. While the engine wasn't set up. Is that incompitence to a criminal degree, or is it just stupidity.

Is it sad that I know exactly who you mean

Timonk wrote:

Reyn wrote:Speaking of CEs, sorry about bringing some personal salt into this, but I've recently experienced a certain CE fucking off into space on adventure, ending up at the fucking syndicate comms outpost, and... Getting gunned down by the comms officer. While the engine wasn't set up. Is that incompitence to a criminal degree, or is it just stupidity.

Is it sad that I know exactly who you mean

Maybe.

Sandshark808 wrote:To be fair it's EXTREMELY irresponsible and out of character for the sec head to tell people the bolt wires.

it is
just like giving away all access as a hop near roundstart fnr, because you either didn't get antag or doesn't like the map

Here is our current proposal, for the review of those in the thread, this is NOT a final decision.

Rule 5 changes:

Players in a head of staff, security, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to mean making a reasonable effort to perform your job.
Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.



Modifcation to the first precedent of the rule:

Heads of staff, silicon roles, and team antagonists should not be logging out/going AFK at or near round start and should be making an effort to perform their jobs due to the importance of those roles within the round for progression. Constant logging out, going AFK, or neglecting bare minimum job responsibilities may be result in warnings by admins, and may progress to jobbans.

We wanted to recognize that security members can be very crucial to how a round plays out and have a lot more power than a typical job on station (at the least at round start). So with that end we've added security to the list of jobs already existing within the rule. The precedent is mostly unchanged and in fact already covered a similar amount of information the rule itself currently does, so it still works fine. However there has been a small tweak in the wording, and it's important to note that security is not included in the list. We didn't want to punish a general security player for going AFK like a head would be held accountable for, so they've been omitted from the precedent.

Truly based. Hopefully this stops sec shitters from abandoning their posts to play gimmicks with their gamer gear.

Hulkamania wrote:Here is our current proposal, for the review of those in the thread, this is NOT a final decision.

Rule 5 changes:

Players in a head of staff, security, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to mean making a reasonable effort to perform your job.
Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.



Modifcation to the first precedent of the rule:

Heads of staff, silicon roles, and team antagonists should not be logging out/going AFK at or near round start and should be making an effort to perform their jobs due to the importance of those roles within the round for progression. Constant logging out, going AFK, or neglecting bare minimum job responsibilities may be result in warnings by admins, and may progress to jobbans.

We wanted to recognize that security members can be very crucial to how a round plays out and have a lot more power than a typical job on station (at the least at round start). So with that end we've added security to the list of jobs already existing within the rule. The precedent is mostly unchanged and in fact already covered a similar amount of information the rule itself currently does, so it still works fine. However there has been a small tweak in the wording, and it's important to note that security is not included in the list. We didn't want to punish a general security player for going AFK like a head would be held accountable for, so they've been omitted from the precedent.

Thank you!

For the heads of staff at least activity is important since a disconnected head can literally just end the round. AI makes sense as there is only one of them and you tend to have to opt in for it.

Should there be a clarification that security is important but not QUITE as important as heads?
I would expect a head of staff to ahelp before leaving. I wouldn't expect one of seven security officers to need to ahelp before taking off.

my only soft requirement for sec is that they go somewhere safe before logging off.

You will have a message when you next login if I see you DC in the middle of the hall fully decked out.

to those under the impression that i was asserting that more "whimsical" takes on head of staff play shouldnt be allowed; I was not implying that at all. There's an issue with command roles that gets adminhelped frequently, where one will end up throwing their power around in a way that gets 1 or more people permanently removed from the round(usually captain ordering the execution of someone for a petty reason like tabling them), where for whatever reason the command players newfriend brain might have skewed an otherwise harmless scenario to appear as their own life being threatened. You can't blame a new player for thinking their life is in danger, and then acting on it as you would under that assumption while playing head of staff. This is one of a plethora of issues regarding inexperience in roles of high authority.

That was probably a bad example to use. If you get killed for tabling the fucking captain and then ahelp it, you deserve to be banned.