Eliminating the "grief lottery".

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Cheridan
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Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Cheridan » #164460

So, the other day in coderbus we were discussing construction/reconstruction efforts, in the context of explosions and such. Why do people prefer to call the shuttle instead of simply repairing damage? While a number of issues and possible fixes to them were brought up, the big one was the statement of "People just want the round to be over so they can get an antag roll next round. It's not a new statement, of course. It's something that Kor's been harping on for years, though under a slightly different context of "the station should be as much fun for non-antags".

So I started thinking, "Ok, so how do we make people not want to restart the round to get an antag roll?"
Well, what if it wasn't RNG?

Say each person gets a ticket, let's call them ANTAG TOKENS. He can spend his token in the lobby to be an antag next round. Your account gains 1 antag token a day, and they'll probably accumulate to a certain point so you don't have to obsess about playing every day like some kind of korean MMO.

Some people are probably freaking out now, but unless you're playing rather obsessively, do you really get more than a few RNG antag selections in one day?
Having more agency over when you play an antag would be nice, because sometimes I want to have a chill relaxing round as a botanist or check out a new feature instead of worrying about stealing the captain's laser gun. Other times, I really feel like blowing off some steam but I'm at the mercy of the RNG as to whether I get to or not.

"But wouldn't some people just use their daily antag and then log off and not play?" Well yeah, but people ALREADY do this, its just instead of not playing, they suicide or greytide when they don't get antag. If someone is ONLY interested in antag play then we might as well let them enjoy the part of the game they like and have them go off to do something else when they're done.


Possible idea to go along with the concept: Maybe allow mid-round spending of tokens to become traitors? If some guy's really pissing you off, use a token, sign up with the syndicate and blow his brains out. Would certainly increase paranoia levels.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164462

The reason people prefer to call the shuttle is because there's no benefit to letting the round tick out.

Gonna go on a tangent here about another server, Archangel in particular, solves this.

Over there, almost nobody calls the shuttle until they're the last person alive on the entire server. The reason? Because the whole game is based around the clash of forces that happens at around the 25-30 minute mark because of this system called RTD that they have. RTD allows people to sign up for various factions and respawn after death to antagonize the station as things like Plague Marines, Tyranids, Eldar, Orks, etc, however, it also allows people to RTD as things like Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, the Inquisition, and whatever else in order to fight the antagonist RTD factions. These factions coming in to play at later points of the round as well as the antagonists that spawn at the beginning of the round gives players a promise that sitting around on the station won't just be a boring shithole, so they stick around, kill some heretics, get eaten by Tyranids, and everybody has a good time.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Scott » #164466

The reason people prefer to call the shuttle is because there's no benefit to letting the round tick out.
What about let new things happen?

Late game content has stopped being created because coders don't want to work on things that will never be used.

Thanks for ruining the game with your forced antag rolls.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164467

Yeah late-game content is never used because there's nothing in the later stage of the game. There's no reason to let the round go past 30 minutes in the large majority of cases. It doesn't matter that you can spam guns and mechs, there's nothing to use those things on that would make them fun or worth it.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Scott » #164468

Maybe you'll feel better at more DM oriented servers.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164469

This discussion isn't about rp, it's about fun and game design. There is no mechanical incentive to stay on the station past 30 minutes.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Scott » #164471

Those things are not separate.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by iamgoofball » #164472

we dont add mechanical incentives to stay on the station past 30 minutes because you guys wouldn't use them in favor of getting that antag role
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164473

By Mechanical Incentives I don't mean "Gun with 20% more Gun than the last Gun" I mean like spamming blobs and spiders and player carps and deadly shit that allows for later conflict. If there's actual shit happening later on then people won't recall the shuttle. Currently the system makes it so that the shit that's even remotely interesting or dangerous either happens at a retardedly low chance or happens so late that it can never possibly happen.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by ShadowDimentio » #164478

There have been a fuckload of long rounds lately I don't know where you lot have been
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164479

Have any of them been particularly fun? Anything in them that required them to have that length, or anything that made them memorable?
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Saegrimr » #164480

Zilenan91 wrote:By Mechanical Incentives I don't mean "Gun with 20% more Gun than the last Gun" I mean like spamming blobs and spiders and player carps and deadly shit that allows for later conflict. If there's actual shit happening later on then people won't recall the shuttle. Currently the system makes it so that the shit that's even remotely interesting or dangerous either happens at a retardedly low chance or happens so late that it can never possibly happen.
So you mean MULLIGAN?
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by ShadowDimentio » #164481

Zilenan91 wrote:Have any of them been particularly fun? Anything in them that required them to have that length, or anything that made them memorable?
None at all. They were all awful.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164482

Saegrimr wrote:
Zilenan91 wrote:By Mechanical Incentives I don't mean "Gun with 20% more Gun than the last Gun" I mean like spamming blobs and spiders and player carps and deadly shit that allows for later conflict. If there's actual shit happening later on then people won't recall the shuttle. Currently the system makes it so that the shit that's even remotely interesting or dangerous either happens at a retardedly low chance or happens so late that it can never possibly happen.
So you mean MULLIGAN?

Mulligan isn't that because it only applies incredibly early on in the round, and it's totally unsuited to creating future problems because all it does is create more of the same. All the traitors died? SPAM MORE TRAITORS AND LINGS! That's boring and doesn't really make any rounds unique, just cause them all to devolve into infinite murderboning.

Datum antags would be one of the best solvents of this problem. It would create a varied mix of antags in every round (different factions) with their own opposing goals and due to their randomized nature would make it so every round would be relatively unique.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Cheridan » #164488

Zilenan91 wrote:It doesn't matter that you can spam guns and mechs, there's nothing to use those things on that would make them fun or worth it.
Except people call the shuttle the instant that xenos or random-event blobs show up, which would be the thing we have most equivalent to what you're talking about. So I don't really think that's a fix...

More respawn roles is something we've been making a shift towards with things like lavaland and drones, so that sitting out isn't such a punishment. But I don't think every round ending in a forced deathmatch clusterfuck would be enjoyable for long.

Also your idea to prevent people from calling the shuttle by "spamming blobs and spiders and player carps and deadly shit" is, um. dubious.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Super Aggro Crag » #164489

i get bored of 3 hour long rounds where the captain keeps recalling because he managed to score himself a lucky antag kill and got an e-bow and the heads of staff are patrolling in phazons with x-ray lasers and an armory of guns and they GOTTA get dem valids NO GREENTEXT ALLOWED and half the crew is dead from suicide or murder from escalating grief violence and another quarter is braindead cuz they ghosted out of boredom.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164491

The reason they call the shuttle for xenos is because of how they're designed. Xenos are designed around getting a bunch of infections everywhere, getting their Queen regularly crushed, then either dying out or taking over once enough people are dead over a very long time period, at least 30 minutes. I don't know why they would call the shuttle against a Blob though, that just seems odd to me unless the round has already been fucked by murderbone.

Also none of the spam things would necessarily prevent people from calling the shuttle, they would just be there to provide action later on, the shuttle would still be able to be called and would probably have to be called if any of those players would want to live.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Cheridan » #164494

Super Aggro Crag wrote:i get bored of 3 hour long rounds where the captain keeps recalling because he managed to score himself a lucky antag kill and got an e-bow and the heads of staff are patrolling in phazons with x-ray lasers and an armory of guns and they GOTTA get dem valids NO GREENTEXT ALLOWED and half the crew is dead from suicide or murder from escalating grief violence and another quarter is braindead cuz they ghosted out of boredom.
Well obviously going too far in the other direction is bad as well but a happy medium between "someone threw a minibomb at the hop call the shuttle" and "WE CAN FIX ITTTTTTTTTTTTTttttt[is sucked into singularity]" would be nice.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incoming » #164496

Mulligan is set to 30 minutes max, but this is a config option, you could set it to be valid for four hours if you wanted right now. Mulligans can also be set for literally any roundtype (except maybe shadowling, I don't know if the guy who made that did the work to make it compatible), but right now it's only on for about half of the roundtypes.

Some of the administration have biases against mulliganing and will always force end the round if it warns that it's going to happen. This is counterproductive to having players enjoy longer rounds by training them that normal rounds can (should) last 22 minutes or even less when a wizard or a blob gets cucked (as is want to do). That's their choice to do so, but I wish they wouldn't.

Datum antags will exist at some point (don't ever come to me for project time estimate) but it will probably be a while yet. Until then if you want longer rounds theirs a few things you can do now with the tools we already have:

1. Have admins spawn in more admins if most of the old antags are dead
2. Let mulligans happen when they proc, or stop them and make your own additional antags
3. Make mulligans easier to proc
4. Admin recall shuttles that are called the second the shuttle is done refueling for really flimsy reasons OR raise the refueling time significantly
5. Pay me some obscene amount of money to guilt me into finishing datum antags faster

That said, I think rounds are doing slightly better than they used to be, so things might already be working in the right direction in terms of the long term.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incomptinence » #164497

How about instead of the carrot you use a stick.

Calling the shuttle gives you an anti-antag token that cancels out your next won antag roll. Preferably rubbing it in the players face like a bad dog. Well they could tell the AI to call it which presents another hurdle hmmm maybe make AIs no longer able to call shuttles that would help.

Also opposing factions for late game content zilenan brought up from archangel sounds like it would work. I mean why face eternal threats with the same scrub crew? Why not spawn a good guy? It would let us spawn more bad guys for late game content that actually matters.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incoming » #164498

if you want to use the antag token allegory, just award tokens not on a one a day metric, but either a rounds played or a time played metric. If you want to be mean and really add value to not dying you could make it time played WHILE ALIVE.

I am VERY leary about any game mechanic that could lead to mindless grinding for antag. Do not doubt the depths people would go for tokens.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164499

It's nothing about training for shorter rounds. If the wizard dies 5 seconds in the round shouldn't be extended to allow for traitors because traitors are just not all that interesting. Their entire design is just killing people, nothing interesting or nothing new, simply an extension of the gameplay from that of a normal crewmember.

Ultimately it comes down to that you can't force players to play the game, you have to give them a reason to WANT to play the game, and datum antags will give them that reason by allowing for more interesting rounds to happen.

On the spawning later in the round thing, I'm not sure it would really work here on /tg/ without completely changing the entire game. Archangel and /tg/ have such different focuses that they're almost incomparable, the only reason I brought up how they fixed the shuttle calling was because that's one of the few comparisons you could possibly make.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Super Aggro Crag » #164500

yeah i think token farming is stupid and also dumb :shades: :shades: :shades:
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incoming » #164503

Zilenan91 wrote:It's nothing about training for shorter rounds. If the wizard dies 5 seconds in the round shouldn't be extended to allow for traitors because traitors are just not all that interesting. Their entire design is just killing people, nothing interesting or nothing new, simply an extension of the gameplay from that of a normal crewmember.
If you think that traitor rounds are boring you have a big problem with pretty much the core of the game.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164506

Depends on the traitor honestly. The best traitors aren't the ones who go on massive, munchkinned killing sprees, but the ones who try and involve other players, the ones who do gimmicks or do crazy, off the wall shit. The best rounds I've ever played have been from Traitors who gave everyone all access, narrowly avoiding the strong arm of the law, or the traitors who made disposal loops everywhere filled with floor tiles and stunned and stuffed people into them so they died, or traitors who set up an elaborate disposal loop straight into an emagged crusher. Interesting, unforgettable shit like that is the best part of this game.

However, these traitors are rare. 99% of traitors are people who just mindlessly build a stunprod, get a holoparasite, and try to kill as many people as possible before they go down, turning the game into what is essentially a deathmatch, doing away with all the creativity, originality, and fun you could put into the mode instead.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.

HAVE FUN ESCAPING NOW WITH NO ARMS
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incomptinence » #164508

Traitor rounds aren't quite core any more. I hope they will have less emphasis in the future because balancing the station to face incredibly powerful group antags and extremely impotent solo ones has always been iffy.

Also to make it more possible to repair the station and continue a round the engine needs to be much less dangerous. You could trick the game out with all the incentives in the world and either of the engines would still bleach the station of life and fun.
Last edited by Incomptinence on Sat Mar 26, 2016 2:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by lumipharon » #164509

Honestly the whole 'gotta roll for antag again' is less the truth and more a meme really.

It doesn't matter if I want to get antag or not, unless I am doing some autism project (making the white ship, amassing an army of slime mutagen bees, building 20 supermatter engines etc), there is almost no reason to try and pick up the pieces rather than just ending the round.

The most obvious situation is when the station gets bombed. A few max cap bombs means it will take COMPETENT engineers/scientists/atmos techs 30 minutes + to fix, and god help you if you don't have competent people.
Just getting the station livable again takes a long time, and means a good chunk of the crew can't do whatever the fuck it was they were doing/want to do.

Basically, when a problem happens, it can be FUN for a small part of the crew to unfuck/fix/kill, but for most of the crew, it's not.
With bombs, most of the crew just can't use most of the station for ages, including their department.
With Xenos, unless they just get purged and slaughtered, it's just xenofacerape and fuck all else until the shuttle comes (and if you don't call early you might never get the chance at all).


So yes, there will always be fucks that just want to roll antag, but most of those people just suicide or go afk, not hang around looking for an excuse to shuttle call. People call the shuttle because there is so little benefit to not calling it.
Our rounds don't tend to get more interesting the longer they last, just certain jobs get 3534509 toys and everyone else just keeps doing whatever shit they're doing, since almost no one RP's.
Last edited by lumipharon on Sat Mar 26, 2016 2:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by oranges » #164510

What lumi said, construction isn't fun/fast enough to recover the station in time to prevent the majority of the crew getting bored.

Same argument I made during the irc debate
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by oranges » #164511

also is one antag token per player per day enough to even support the required number of antags in a day's play?

I feel like we don't have enough unique players to support just one per person per day.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Scott » #164515

Incoming wrote:
Zilenan91 wrote:It's nothing about training for shorter rounds. If the wizard dies 5 seconds in the round shouldn't be extended to allow for traitors because traitors are just not all that interesting. Their entire design is just killing people, nothing interesting or nothing new, simply an extension of the gameplay from that of a normal crewmember.
If you think that traitor rounds are boring you have a big problem with pretty much the core of the game.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Scott » #164517

lumipharon wrote: Our rounds don't tend to get more interesting the longer they last, just certain jobs get 3534509 toys and everyone else just keeps doing whatever shit they're doing, since almost no one RP's.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by MisterPerson » #164518

oranges wrote:also is one antag token per player per day enough to even support the required number of antags in a day's play?

I feel like we don't have enough unique players to support just one per person per day.
Getting the numbers right is way more work than anyone here is going to do. Hell, it's more work than any of us SHOULD do.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incomptinence » #164522

There should be plenty of traitors for sybil at least basil is a big question mark with all its lowpop forcing more traitor. Question is when they pop up. Like US prime time will be normal then what? Then everyone is pooped for the day and it becomes an extended marathon?
This idea doesn't really work with converting antags either. Hell most people would prefer to not have the responsibility of a group antag starter.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incoming » #164525

oranges wrote:also is one antag token per player per day enough to even support the required number of antags in a day's play?

I feel like we don't have enough unique players to support just one per person per day.
In my opinion the way it should work would be that you could burn a token for a priority que to antagery, but the grand majority of antag assignment would still be done the classic way, RNG.

Also some low appearance solo antags like wizards and blob would probably have to avoid the system completely, else every single of them would be tokened, which isn't fair.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Incomptinence » #164531

I don't really see what this offers that our current system doesn't then. Unless you go full crazy and allow people to all cash in at once it will basically have the same problem with the runners up to people who token in at high pop waiting for their chance to token aka wanting a restart. Unless you have limited slots and give token priority and burn tokens that don't get in anyway, thats sounds sorta like it would frustrate people alternative to this is a system that refunds tokens people who don't get into a role with tokens.

Hell having strict antag preferences weighting like jobs so the guy who wants to be a boring traitor isn't likely gonna be a blob etc would add more.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by bandit » #164534

The solution here is to either:

- Make the shuttle harder to call
- Disincentivize a shuttle call somehow, through crew objectives or something else

Probably both will be needed
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by lumipharon » #164538

bandit wrote:The solution here is to either:

- Make the shuttle harder to call
- Disincentivize a shuttle call somehow, through crew objectives or something else

Probably both will be needed
>people want to end the round because extending it isn't fun
>Well this has a logical solution JUST MAKE IT HARDER TO LEAVE, FUN IS FOR PUSSIES
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Zilenan91 » #164539

All making the shuttle harder to call does is mask the issue, not solve it. We also already tried it, Incoming made a pr and everyone hated it.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Scott » #164596

lumipharon wrote:
bandit wrote:The solution here is to either:

- Make the shuttle harder to call
- Disincentivize a shuttle call somehow, through crew objectives or something else

Probably both will be needed
>people want to end the round because extending it isn't fun
>Well this has a logical solution JUST MAKE IT HARDER TO LEAVE, FUN IS FOR PUSSIES
But what is fun to you? Deathmatch? You're limiting the fun you can have by just wanting deathmatch.

SS13 is not a very good game for deathmatch.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Steelpoint » #164603

A interesting idea in concept, a wary idea in execution.


----------------

It really depends on how the implementation goes. The game is still going to need to select people at random to be a antagonist as there's no guarantee enough people will spend their 'antag token' to fill up for the rounds antagonists.

What if too many people spend their antag token? Spending your antag token but then getting denied a antag slot (and getting a refund) can go a long way in telling you what kind of round your in for.

The system could work but I don't see how this will de-incentivise people from calling the shuttle.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by TheNightingale » #164607

One word - roleplay. You don't need to be antag to have fun.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Cheridan » #164613

@oranges @steelpoint The way I imagined the system working was that, ok, say the round is asking for 8 antags. 10 people use a token and get put into the pool, RNG selects among those 10 to get 8 people. If only 5 people use a token, those 5 people get it guaranteed and then 3 others get picked randomly to meet the goal of 8. So we wouldn't have to worry about people running out of tokens and rounds just turning into Extended because of it.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by imblyings » #164614

shit maybe people are just tired after 30-40 minutes of the game? is it so wrong that they want the shuttle called at that point when non-antags have usually exhausted the ingame content that doesn't involve autism projects or hyper competency to reach?

It's got nothing to do with antag rolls or 'roleplay', muh antag rolls is a non-issue and this fucking meme usage of a meme catchword is a non-solution since you can have terrific 'roleplay' in a fifteen minute round as long as people play together. Maybe just maybe, after years of playing the same game, players have just about encountered the common gamut of things they can experience and instead of stagnating, they'd like to just get a fresh start. If there ever is a solution it's vast swathes of new PvE content like lavaworld and some of the recent cargo changes which give players something to explore and work out, while somehow linking that and making it relevant to current content. Content for example that by design can't be finished after an hour, the sort of mystical end-game content that really needs cooperation from a lot of sectors. If content like that is offered on a regular but not common basis, you will see players willingly playing a longer round and 'roleplaying' together to try and beat it.

there's also just the psychological aspect of a longer round and what it does to the station. Lights get blown and don't get replaced, blood coats the hallways and don't get cleaned. Tool spawns are picked bare and the station just feels worn out. The initial burst of radio chatter across common usually dies down after a while and all these factors combined most likely induce a feeling of wanting to start anew. This is a natural thing.

edit

to illustrate my point

you've got jobs that react to what players do
and jobs which have their own content to work through
and jobs which provide optional diversions to the first two

In the latter you have jobs like science, botany and mining. The content that they have, which has to be appreciated, gives players the choice of accomplishing a set of tasks they give themselves. For a scientist, it might be unlocking and mass producing gold slimes. For a botanist, it might be harvesting enough max potency bluespace tomatoes to grief escape as a non-antag and get away with it too. Mining takes about ten to twenty minutes getting the initial load and upgrades, and they usually go for a second haul, at which point rounds usually start to end. Depending on competency and luck, these things are usually done in 40 minutes to an hour.

Supporting these guys are the doctors, security, engineering. They pretty much have nothing to do unless something goes wrong with the other jobs or themselves. There's little to no content outside of autism projects where a player in these jobs can set themselves a task within game content and then try to attempt it.

Then you have jobs like bartender, clown, or assistant. They have to make their own fun by interacting with things but aren't guaranteed this interaction unlike the support jobs.

So of all the jobs on the station, you've only got a handful with guaranteed play time. The other jobs and how long they play for and what they play with depend on those handful. This doesn't include antag interactions or autism projects. If you want to for whatever reason, cut down on shuttle calls or extend round length, you will have address how those three sets of jobs play. Jobs with their own content need more content, and more content that requires the help of others. Jobs that support other jobs benefit from that and can also benefit from their own content to work through. Jobs that are optional diversions can honestly stay the way they are, since there's a freedom in that which players seem to enjoy sometimes.

tldr need more content
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Steelpoint » #164615

Either way I don't think this is a bad suggestion, give players some agency over if they want to play as a Antagonist is not something I disagree with.

I just don't think this will address the issue of people forcing a evacuation early on. If anything it may be a even worse thing for antagonists if they spent a hard earned antag token only for the shuttle to get called ASAP.

While I think this is a good suggestion, I think if we're looking to encourage the crew to stay on the station then we need to look at other systems, I don't think this ALONE will address the issue nor do I think it's a issue that'll even be properly addressed.

To address the issue would require a lot of content and other code changes. From a more Goon style away mission system to just more things that occur on station in the later stages of the game, as noted above PvE content is a good way forward.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Scott » #164616

imblyings wrote:shit maybe people are just tired after 30-40 minutes of the game? is it so wrong that they want the shuttle called at that point when non-antags have usually exhausted the ingame content that doesn't involve autism projects or hyper competency to reach?

It's got nothing to do with antag rolls or 'roleplay', muh antag rolls is a non-issue and this fucking meme usage of a meme catchword is a non-solution since you can have terrific 'roleplay' in a fifteen minute round as long as people play together. Maybe just maybe, after years of playing the same game, players have just about encountered the common gamut of things they can experience and instead of stagnating, they'd like to just get a fresh start. If there ever is a solution it's vast swathes of new PvE content like lavaworld and some of the recent cargo changes which give players something to explore and work out, while somehow linking that and making it relevant to current content. Content for example that by design can't be finished after an hour, the sort of mystical end-game content that really needs cooperation from a lot of sectors. If content like that is offered on a regular but not common basis, you will see players willingly playing a longer round and 'roleplaying' together to try and beat it.

there's also just the psychological aspect of a longer round and what it does to the station. Lights get blown and don't get replaced, blood coats the hallways and don't get cleaned. Tool spawns are picked bare and the station just feels worn out. The initial burst of radio chatter across common usually dies down after a while and all these factors combined most likely induce a feeling of wanting to start anew. This is a natural thing.
If they are tired after 30-40 minutes, what is going to be so new in the next round if they don't get antag? It's still the same game.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Cheridan » #164617

>after years of playing, players have explored so much of the game's content that they want to reset the round and do more 5-10 minutes of tedious job prep

?
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by imblyings » #164621

>If they are tired after 30-40 minutes, what is going to be so new in the next round if they don't get antag? It's still the same game.
>after years of playing, players have explored so much of the game's content that they want to reset the round and do more 5-10 minutes of tedious job prep

I explained in the edit

basically, jobs with content to work through, give players a framework in which they can set themselves a task. Station degradation and loss of interest, which I'll go into a bit more, only give about one attempt for a task to be accomplished before players lose optimal conditions to do so. This is why players, having finished one attempt, decide to go with the optimal solution by restarting the round.

Loss of interest is a real thing. A round might go for 30min to one hour. A player might play for 3, 4, maybe 5 rounds before logging off. At minimum that's already an hour and half to 5 hours. Compare this to other games, where rounds take <10 minutes sometimes. SS13 can already be fairly slow paced. It is entirely worth considering whether players would prefer fitting in more shorter rounds during the time they spend on this game, as opposed to playing one or two very long rounds, as well as what effect a new round has on the fatigue of a player.

edit

if someone wants to try antag tokens sure it won't hurt anything. But the real problem is a lack of content that requires longer efforts and now that I've thought about it more, maintaining optimal conditions for longer so players feel alright in investing more of their time on attempting more things.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by Cobby » #164636

I think a better option would be that at the beginning of the round you get a popup that says "DO YOU WANT TO PLAY AS AN ANTAG?" [NOTE IT DOES NOT TELL YOU THE ANTAG TYPE].

This lets you know that you've been chosen for antag but can opt out if you want, instead of the current suggestion of opting in at any time [which has a degree of meta to it, albeit very small] [GEORGE MELONS HASN'T CHOSEN ANTAG YET BETTER BE CAREFUL].

Also I don't understand why "Roleplayers" want long rounds when you can just continue your "roleplaying" to the next round. If you are so nonresponsive to the typical chaos of the station that you want to draw it out for hours despite it being royally fucked, then you aren't exactly roleplaying. If you can't do something without spending hours at a time to prep your "roleplaying", then you should probably try something else instead of forcing people to sit back and watch your [probably already done better] gimmick/autism fort/etc.

Not sure how making the shuttle harder to call or even deterring people from calling the shuttle when there are things meant in the game [IE Aliens, Singuloth Sabotage, MaxCap Bombs] to force players to respond with a shuttle call is fun for anyone. For those that play engineering jobs like I do [well atmos tech], things that fuck up the atmos/disposals are such a pain in the ass I just end up not doing my job if it's a huge hole & I have a "CAN WE FIX IT" Bob The Builder Captain.

Again, If you are truly roleplaying, then there is NOTHING stopping you from continuing this scenario to the next shift. I do not want to wait 2-3 hours just to play another round where I might get ebow-esworded, Thrall-Stunned and killed, etc. and have to wait yet another 2-3 hours because we have forced long rounds for quite frankly no actual reason except to tackle generalizations that don't actually exist.
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by duncathan » #164653

If you can't repair a big hole in a matter of minutes with an RPD you're not a great atmos tech
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Re: Eliminating the "grief lottery".

Post by PKPenguin321 » #164670

Scott wrote:SS13 is not a very good game for deathmatch.
i disagree, it's one of the best games for deathmatch
>inb4 "but all you do is click on the guy 1000 times haha how hard can it really be? :^)"
you know there's more to it than that. our combat system is ridiculously large and there are tons more ways to fight than just clicking on a dude 1000 times/more optimal ways to click on dudes/forts you can make to keep dude-clickers out. gangs defending their dominator is a good example of what i mean.
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