/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

Apsis wrote:You guys make it seem like getting antag is a big deal. Maybe to some, and I do think it's cool to have the roles that help the station get more priority. But they can also enjoy a swarm of assistants taking part in a good hunt for 'em. Does anyone have the max population all the jobs (except assistant) can hold?

The problem is that regardless of the max population of each job, those caps are only very rarely reached due to greytides.

I take the same stance Sticky does in which grey tide contributes to the chaos of the game.

Many a time I have been sec or captain and have fought off bored assistants and it was fun, because they gave me something to do besides the usual gimmick or "eh, responsible captain time". And as sec, it gives me something to do besides antag hunting (and that is fucking boring because if you do catch the antags, nothing fucking happens). Part of the fun of sec is catching normal crew members causing mischief, and what better criminal then the assistant.

But that's just me.

tunderchief wrote:As most everyone knows, we are currently drowning in a permanent greytide composed of the most experienced players in the game going perma-Assistant to get a higher chance of Antag roles, or to screw off without being expected to do anything productive should they fail to obtain an Antag role, leaving important technical and Head roles untaken or open for the newfriends that are supposed to be Assistants to begin with.

We would like to get a Community poll on whether the Assistant job should be reduced in eligibility or made entirely ineligible for Antag roles in order to reduce the desirability of being an Assistant, thus enticing the experienced freeloaders to get a goddamned job, and allowing Assistants to be what they were supposed to be from the beginning; jobs for new players to learn the game without expectations.

You will need to do another poll.

Option 1 & 2 are both for change.
Option 3 is not.

If option 1 & 2 beat out 3 then there needs to be another vote.... with only option 1 and option 2.

Kelenius wrote:How about we add 'return to lobby if preferences unavailable' option.

Even unrelated to the current topic, this is a damn good idea.

Rockdtben wrote:You will need to do another poll.

Option 1 & 2 are both for change.
Option 3 is not.

If option 1 & 2 beat out 3 then there needs to be another vote.... with only option 1 and option 2.

That's not how run off elections work?

Saegrimr wrote:

Kelenius wrote:How about we add 'return to lobby if preferences unavailable' option.

Even unrelated to the current topic, this is a damn good idea.

had that one independent of it showing up here, but yeah it is http://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/4308

Rockdtben wrote:

tunderchief wrote:As most everyone knows, we are currently drowning in a permanent greytide composed of the most experienced players in the game going perma-Assistant to get a higher chance of Antag roles, or to screw off without being expected to do anything productive should they fail to obtain an Antag role, leaving important technical and Head roles untaken or open for the newfriends that are supposed to be Assistants to begin with.

We would like to get a Community poll on whether the Assistant job should be reduced in eligibility or made entirely ineligible for Antag roles in order to reduce the desirability of being an Assistant, thus enticing the experienced freeloaders to get a goddamned job, and allowing Assistants to be what they were supposed to be from the beginning; jobs for new players to learn the game without expectations.

You will need to do another poll.

Option 1 & 2 are both for change.
Option 3 is not.

If option 1 & 2 beat out 3 then there needs to be another vote.... with only option 1 and option 2.

Agreed. If more people want change than do not want it, we need to see specifically what kind of change.

The vote should have been set up differently.
"Does assistants' antag chance need a change?"
Yes
No
And then another poll if yes

Cipher3 wrote:The vote should have been set up differently.
"Does assistants' antag chance need a change?"
Yes
No
And then another poll if yes

Except this works fine.

'yes' was split into two questions, but 1 and 2 are still 'yes', regardless of how you butthurt greyfriends want to twist it.

I bet at least one or two people say the poll title "Should the Assistant role be ineligible or less eligible for Antag roles?" and saw that the first option started with "No..." and voted that, thinking that was the no option.

tunderchief wrote:

Cipher3 wrote:The vote should have been set up differently.
"Does assistants' antag chance need a change?"
Yes
No
And then another poll if yes

Except this works fine.

'yes' was split into two questions, but 1 and 2 are still 'yes', regardless of how you butthurt greyfriends want to twist it.

>Insulting me as some kind of greytide-supporter because I pointed out that the poll was designed badly.
Are you taking this personally?

The U.S. voting system working similarly to this is why there is no chance ever for a system designed as such to function effectively as more than a two-party system, and it forces a lot of compromise and loss. It's why Independents actually make the party they're closer to lose. Does that really matter here? More or less no, it's late and I'm ranting. But this means that if 'yes' wins, we STILL need to have another vote, so this makes the data look somewhat misleading and doesn't help at all.

I haven't actually voted yet, hmm.

Incoming wrote:I bet at least one or two people say the poll title "Should the Assistant role be ineligible or less eligible for Antag roles?" and saw that the first option started with "No..." and voted that, thinking that was the no option.

I hadn't even thought about that.


But really there's no IC reason and it will cause meta if Assistants are antag-less, that's one of the best arguments against such a policy. For me, assistant antag is fun (and unless you get the Spare ID or something, NOT super easy like some people seem to think). But I can see the reasoning for the idea, even though I believe people are once again becoming ridiculously alarmist about the issue and jumping to conclusions as to its causes.

Cipher3 wrote:But really there's no IC reason and it will cause meta if Assistants are antag-less, that's one of the best arguments against such a policy.

It's the same situation with Security Officer now, and I think people are starting to grip the idea that anyone in the game can be a traitor in disguise. If some players fail to understand that and always assume some (meta)things, they're at fault, not the policy/game.

kosmos wrote:

Cipher3 wrote:But really there's no IC reason and it will cause meta if Assistants are antag-less, that's one of the best arguments against such a policy.

It's the same situation with Security Officer now, and I think people are starting to grip the idea that anyone in the game can be a traitor in disguise. If some players fail to understand that and always assume some (meta)things, they're at fault, not the policy/game.

Furthering the point. Assistant disguise is the easiest to obtain. So using the "OH he is assistant probably not antag" is dumb.

Rockdtben wrote:

kosmos wrote:

Cipher3 wrote:But really there's no IC reason and it will cause meta if Assistants are antag-less, that's one of the best arguments against such a policy.

It's the same situation with Security Officer now, and I think people are starting to grip the idea that anyone in the game can be a traitor in disguise. If some players fail to understand that and always assume some (meta)things, they're at fault, not the policy/game.

Furthering the point. Assistant disguise is the easiest to obtain. So using the "OH he is assistant probably not antag" is dumb.

Unless you go to the trouble of getting your PDA painted on top of your ID changed, you can simply show your PDA to people and they'll all assume you are said job.

Which is one of the ways to identify people with their real jobs, as most people don't ever bother changing their PDA colour, only their job title.

Roundstart sec start with round start sec PDA, same with assistants for their own PDA colour.

Rockdtben wrote:

kosmos wrote:

Cipher3 wrote:But really there's no IC reason and it will cause meta if Assistants are antag-less, that's one of the best arguments against such a policy.

It's the same situation with Security Officer now, and I think people are starting to grip the idea that anyone in the game can be a traitor in disguise. If some players fail to understand that and always assume some (meta)things, they're at fault, not the policy/game.

Furthering the point. Assistant disguise is the easiest to obtain. So using the "OH he is assistant probably not antag" is dumb.

I mainly meant at the HoP line; the HoP now has no reason to deny anything to assistants. The other point of meta, and IMO the more important one, is that once all job assignments are full and only assistants remain -- a regular occurrence on Sibyl, at least -- there are no more latejoin traitors possible, and everyone can instantly trust latejoining crew. In other words, the meta-problem that caused latejoin antag to be added in the first place.

Who says there would be no latejoin antags? That would only be true if it were coded poorly.

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:Who says there would be no latejoin antags? That would only be true if it were coded poorly.

What he's saying is, if the Assistant slot is the only slot left open for latejoiners, then none of them could be antags if assistants couldn't be antags.

Cipher3 wrote:

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:Who says there would be no latejoin antags? That would only be true if it were coded poorly.

What he's saying is, if the Assistant slot is the only slot left open for latejoiners, then none of them could be antags if assistants couldn't be antags.

Exactly. And there will be no incentive for the HoP to open non-Assistant slots, as that would mean opening the station up to potential antags. (I don't know how latejoin antag code works, but if there is some sort of hard cap, i.e. one antag per every 10 players or whatever, it might mean that opening a non-assistant slot = that person is automatically antag.)

Cipher3 wrote:

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:Who says there would be no latejoin antags? That would only be true if it were coded poorly.

What he's saying is, if the Assistant slot is the only slot left open for latejoiners, then none of them could be antags if assistants couldn't be antags.

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:That would only be true if it were coded poorly.

Check if other slots are available and allow them to be antags if not. Magical, isn't it?

Magical, in that it somewhat defeats the purpose of the entire thing.

bandit wrote: Exactly. And there will be no incentive for the HoP to open non-Assistant slots, as that would mean opening the station up to potential antags. (I don't know how latejoin antag code works, but if there is some sort of hard cap, i.e. one antag per every 10 players or whatever, it might mean that opening a non-assistant slot = that person is automatically antag.)

How often do you see rounds last long enough where 1/3rd of the station isn't a smoking hole, half the crew husked and spaced, or monkeyalienstatuechairs everywhere because wizard?
Rounds barely last longer than 30 minutes because how murderhappy everybody is on top of greytide shit.
And if by some magical luck all the antags get fucked in a round before enough catastrophic losses pile up, the adminbus usually shows up.

Ling rounds are probably the longest because they're nigh unkillable on top of having tons of objectives to get, so they'll morph into a head roll and constantly recall the shuttle untill everybody is well fed and found all the shit they need.

We could always do a system where slots open automatically as the crew population increases.

MisterPerson wrote:We could always do a system where slots open automatically as the crew population increases.

A problem that we face is then that stations are only made so big.

bandit wrote:Magical, in that it somewhat defeats the purpose of the entire thing.

Not at all. Rather, it deals with a great deal of the meta. If it is possible to code it so that late join assistants get the same chance of antag as every other possible antag job, then those who have no choice but Assistant in full games don't get screwed over. Not sure if it's possible, but it'd work, and it'd cut down on any meta.

tunderchief wrote:

bandit wrote:Magical, in that it somewhat defeats the purpose of the entire thing.

Not at all. Rather, it deals with a great deal of the meta. If it is possible to code it so that late join assistants get the same chance of antag as every other possible antag job, then those who have no choice but Assistant in full games don't get screwed over. Not sure if it's possible, but it'd work, and it'd cut down on any meta.

And remove the whole point of it, because all assistants will latejoin instead.

Kelenius wrote:

tunderchief wrote:

bandit wrote:Magical, in that it somewhat defeats the purpose of the entire thing.

Not at all. Rather, it deals with a great deal of the meta. If it is possible to code it so that late join assistants get the same chance of antag as every other possible antag job, then those who have no choice but Assistant in full games don't get screwed over. Not sure if it's possible, but it'd work, and it'd cut down on any meta.

And remove the whole point of it, because all assistants will latejoin instead.

No, they won't. Sure there are a couple shitters, but most won't go that far.

bandit wrote:Magical, in that it somewhat defeats the purpose of the entire thing.

Er, how is not having assistant antags up until 70-80 (whatever it takes, I dunno) people that also didn't go assistant defeats the purpose?

The purpose is to make people do actual jobs, if you fill up all of them, the purpose is served.

That is not to mention HoP being able to open new slots.

Honestly, you people are just being outright silly.

Kelenius wrote:And remove the whole point of it, because all assistants will latejoin instead.

>All assistants will wait for 80 people on server to join

Most of what I'm getting from this thread is in the complete opposite direction as I hoped, a shame really.

The solution is decidedly not to make assistants unappealing like most of you seem to think, but to make other roles more appealing and fun. Who, as a veteran player, wants to set up singuloth for the umpteenth time? How about doing research that you've done so many times you can do it from memory and effeciently, to the point where it's mind-numbingly boring to execute? How about setting up that cryomix and pumping out the normal bic, derm, and tric pills like some sort of mindless automoton? What about spending 20 minutes to (mostly) repair 60 seconds worth of damage, only to have the shuttle come less than a half hour later? Variety is the spice of life, yet many of /tg/s jobs have a dearth of available creativity, and rely on people doing the exact same robotic unfun things, over and over again, round-to-round, only so that other people can kill them is farcical at best. With no payoff, that is, antag status, and a high likelihood that your work will go down the drain early on, or you'll be murdered in the process, many people don't find it worth the trouble most of the time to play an active role in the round. That is the crux of the issue that everyone has averted their eyes from. Where is the goon-esque mechanic, providing room for much creativity and fun throughout the station? What about general exploration? How about real R&D where you research artifacts that have compositionally-generated effects? Aside from the pure roleplaying, helping folk, validhunting, and crafting construction projects that go perpetually unfinished, where is the fun in actually 'doing your job'?

As a direct result, many people choose a role with no such responsibilites, so that they can do what they want, if they want, whenever they want, roleplaying within the constraints of the rules. This is one of the biggest problems with a couple of the game modes as well, namely blob, monkey, and sometimes even wizard, whereupon the crew goes about doing the same actions without any variation or even strategy, or the round becomes extended 5 minutes in, in the case of the latter two. Simply put, in a word, - they're repetitive and tend to be boring. Of course, we're talking about Sybil here, so the rounds tend to be a lot faster paced, and not very roleplaying focused.

This isn't a problem that needs to be resolved by making assistant less desirable, all that would be doing is briefly quelling a symptom of a greater, structural problem. Squash this here for the sake of it, and cracks will appear elsewhere. Fix it at the root, or the next problem will be 'yellow tide', then 'white tide', ad infinitum until the changes are reverted. It's a tough problem to tackle, but this is a problem that will take a while to fix. It's not like the greytides are new, anyway, and there isn't and shouldn't be a major rush.

You've certainly got a point. However, there's a fundamental flaw in your logic.

Making all other jobs more fun and desirable will require immense amount of work. So much work, it's not realistically achievable.

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:You've certainly got a point. However, there's a fundamental flaw in your logic.

Making all other jobs more fun and desirable will require immense amount of work. So much work, it's not realistically achievable.

So your solution is to deliberately make something else less fun?

That is literally the worst possible solution for any game. "Oh god it turns out the players are having fun but not in the way we want! The only possible solution is to remove what they find enjoyable so they pay attention to the rest of the game!"

This has never worked, and at best will make the game worse. At worst it will drive players away.

Stickymayhem wrote:

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:You've certainly got a point. However, there's a fundamental flaw in your logic.

Making all other jobs more fun and desirable will require immense amount of work. So much work, it's not realistically achievable.

So your solution is to deliberately make something else less fun?

Hey we removed the parapen, that definitely seems to be the philosophy here.

Stickymayhem wrote:So your solution is to deliberately make something else less fun?

That is literally the worst possible solution for any game. "Oh god it turns out the players are having fun but not in the way we want! The only possible solution is to remove what they find enjoyable so they pay attention to the rest of the game!"

This has never worked, and at best will make the game worse. At worst it will drive players away.

Nothing prevents you from suggesting alternatives. It's just, I'm terribly sorry, but "make everything else more fun" is not good enough.

Furthermore, by your logic we should remove brig since it ultimately exists for making it less fun for people.

You see, it's not as simple as "less fun". I personally think that it would be much more fun for everybody if people actually tried to manage the station for longer than 30 minutes for once.

I can also make an argument that antag kill objectives make it "less fun" for the victim. We probably should remove that as well. That was the logic behind removing parapen, anyway.

My alternative is simply to enforce harsher greytiding punishments and use the new antag reduction punishment for those that just roll for antag then leave.

Removing a core part of the experience that a great number of people enjoy is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is a colossal change with far reaching implications that removes a huge amount of fun for the ill-defined reason of "greytiding" and the extremely exaggerated problem of rolling for antag.

Not everyone wants to do 30 minutes of work in whatever job they have to do at the start of the round before being allowed to do what they want, whether antag or not. It's repetitive and tedious not everyone enjoys it.

I don't think Sibyl needs this change at all, and I think very quickly it would damage the playerbase by ruining what a lot of people enjoy about the server.

Incidentally, there is a large difference between game balance changes in a multiplayer game, and removing fun. In the long run you have to manage the fun, but removing assistant antag is an extreme reaction to a problem that many see as something interesting and entertaining.

You people need to read posts, look at the poll and most importantly read the name of the thread.

Most people agree that outright removing antag status from assistants is not a good idea.

Which is why most people agree that reducing chances of getting antag is a better option that eliminates "meta", "remove fun" and "they will all latejoin" arguments.

Is it that hard?

Further, it's totally okay not to contribute anything meaningful to the round. However, you shouldn't expect the same privileges then. It's only fair that people who are willing to contribute get more rewards than people who don't.

Scott wrote:

Stickymayhem wrote:

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:You've certainly got a point. However, there's a fundamental flaw in your logic.

Making all other jobs more fun and desirable will require immense amount of work. So much work, it's not realistically achievable.

So your solution is to deliberately make something else less fun?

Hey we removed the parapen, that definitely seems to be the philosophy here.

The difference being, the parapen was fun for nobody.

cedarbridge wrote: The difference being, the parapen was fun for nobody.

Some people just have this strange philosophy "removing anything or reducing any stat is bad no matter what".

The entire premise of removing or lowering assistant antag is flawed because you will punish players who are made assistant because their job is taken.



People who do not want to do anything during a round but want antag rolls will simply move onto random jobs and do jack shit useful / ask for demotions at HoP.

Personally if you lower or remove antag assistant I will just take up X random job and straight up run to HoP every round for demotion whenever I feel like rolling for antag without a "legit" job. Or maybe I'll just RP being really shit at my job and make it hell for you, doing absolutely nothing useful.

I often play assistant for a long period of time because I burn out at other jobs, you can sequence DNA only so many times, mix the same chems, setup singularity etc. It becomes dull, so I play assistant for a week or more doing nothing, valid hunting antags with a water spray bottle and cuffs or just building things in maint, and then I go back to other jobs.

So long as you set all jobs to LOW you will never feasibly run out of valid positions, thus a antag slot.

When all is said and done, my opinion is that since the assistant has a minimal contribution to the station's function, they should have a reduced antag chance. They should still have one, to prevent meta and the like, but they still don't have as good a chance.

Also if you want to validhunt, go play Security.

Steelpoint wrote:go play Security.

I would play security if I had same chances for antag as everyone else. I would even play head roles if I had the same chance to be a rev. :^)

Being antag is fun, I will not lower my fun because you dislike X job. Also I will join in repeating everything I said dozens of times, it seems to be the way arguments work in this place: If you lower or disable antag for X job, I will play Y job and get a demotion to X job, just as I do with security. I only play sec by asking HoP to become an officer.

UtterNewbie wrote: Personally if you lower or remove antag assistant I will just take up X random job and straight up run to HoP every round for demotion whenever I feel like rolling for antag without a "legit" job. Or maybe I'll just RP being really shit at my job and make it hell for you, doing absolutely nothing useful.

Why does this sound like "your attempts to squelch shitty behavior will only fail because of all these other shitty things I can do to get around it?"

cedarbridge wrote:your attempts to squelch shitty behavior will only fail because of all these other shitty things I can do to get around it

Your shitty attempts to force people to play things they do not want to play will be met with equally shitty responses.

Come up with a better idea, like giving assistants some responsibility. A new head job that is responsible for all assistants? Perhaps even a department of their own. Assistants only have hammers so everything looks like a nail to them.

Stickymayhem wrote:

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:You've certainly got a point. However, there's a fundamental flaw in your logic.

Making all other jobs more fun and desirable will require immense amount of work. So much work, it's not realistically achievable.

So your solution is to deliberately make something else less fun?

That is literally the worst possible solution for any game. "Oh god it turns out the players are having fun but not in the way we want! The only possible solution is to remove what they find enjoyable so they pay attention to the rest of the game!"

This has never worked, and at best will make the game worse. At worst it will drive players away.

Reducing antag chance for assistants doesn't remove any fun, though. Even if you define fun as antagship, it merely moves the fun to the other jobs. By reducing assistant antag chance, antag chance for non-assistants is increased.

In addition, I like the implication's given that the only form of fun that can be attained from playing as an assistant is to play as an assistant antag, and that everything else offered by playing as an assistant is worthless without a normal antag chance.

Just because Assistants Antag chance is reduced does not mean the role is suddenly unreliable nor unfun.

If you can only have fun playing as an antagonist at all, then nothing I nor anyone else can say will sway your opinion.

Frankly considering you only get a small chance to play antag, it's pretty shitty if you solely play the game to be antag, suicide, or do nothing while eating tools others might need.

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:

cedarbridge wrote: The difference being, the parapen was fun for nobody.

Some people just have this strange philosophy "removing anything or reducing any stat is bad no matter what".

Opinions.

Steelpoint wrote:So long as you set all jobs to LOW you will never feasibly run out of valid positions, thus a antag slot.

When all is said and done, my opinion is that since the assistant has a minimal contribution to the station's function, they should have a reduced antag chance. They should still have one, to prevent meta and the like, but they still don't have as good a chance.

Also if you want to validhunt, go play Security.

Except I don't want to play every job. Why should I have a lower chance of being antag because I am made assistant?

Scott wrote:Except I don't want to play every job. Why should I have a lower chance of being antag because I am made assistant?

Now we come full circle.

I'll quote Anon real quick since I think his sum up was nice.

The intent behind restricting their access to antag roles is to drive those players into other jobs and the accompanying responsibility. Our perception of a medical doctor or random botanist running around smashing into everything and starting fights is different from an assistant, and this will make those repeat offenders (if they choose to continue to be shit and not actually play along) that much more obvious. There's no "lol but I'm an assistant tho" excuse (that in my opinion shouldn't exist in the first place but does anyway).

You don't give a shit because you only play security, which is not a popular job.

Scott wrote:You don't give a shit because you only play security, which is not a popular job.

Your logical fallacy today is: ad hominem

Scott wrote:Except I don't want to play every job. Why should I have a lower chance of being antag because I am made assistant?

You're being asked to play any job, not every job. This is exactly why I made the job selection system - so you can veto jobs you absolutely don't want. Nobody's forcing you to be an assistant, or any other individual job - just allow *something* which has slots free and you'll avoid the *reduced* antag chance.

Someone who sets their preferences to assistant only is refusing to help with *any* of the job slots which need volunteers. So yes, it's fair for people like that to suffer a mild "penalty" to antag chance.

No.

UtterNewbie wrote:Personally if you lower or remove antag assistant I will just take up X random job and straight up run to HoP every round for demotion whenever I feel like rolling for antag without a "legit" job. Or maybe I'll just RP being really shit at my job and make it hell for you, doing absolutely nothing useful.

Well then you're just a fucking asshole and will hopefully be banned at some point for being shit.

It's funny how you guys say that lowering antag chances is "forcing you to play how we would like you to play". No, that's not true at all, but if you really want to be fucking useless greytider cunts, you will have to put up with some restrictions which are not even that big a deal. It's not forcing you to do anything, it's just making a job that is too useless to be appealing less appealing.

Before you go all "assistants are not always greytiders", you can be useful as any job, provided you are willing to be, some of those jobs are even more suited for that kind of stuff. I don't believe one second that you insist on going assistant, want to have antag and at the same time you're oh so useful for the station all the time.

Stop being autistic. People will play what they want to play.