Remove Most Gamemodes

[Steelpoint]

The biggest issues our game suffers from, at least in my opinion, are the game modes on offer. Many of our non-core game modes suffer from convoluted mechanics, massive imbalances or are simply not fun or enjoyable for many. Game modes are shipped half finished while it takes months for the developer to "finish" it, only for it to be reworked half a year later since the game mode simply is unviable, usually turning the game mode further into a mess that people fail to notice as they are caught up in the flashy new mechanics, at least until the next round of reworking on that game mode half a year later.

While the future has always held the idea of 'datum antags', but it seems that dream is always a year ahead of us, as such we should take action now to make the game more enjoyable.

While I take the recent "weighted" polling with a grain of salt, but I do honestly believe that if we trimmed down most of the game modes on offer, that this would be a net positive gain for the game and the players.

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

Hence I propose that all game modes, sans Traitor, Nuclear Operatives, Wizard, Revolutionaries and Extended, are removed from the rotation pool. This means reducing the weight of TraitorChan, Blob, Gang, Blood Cult and Clock Cult to zero, as I believe those five game modes are simply a detriment to the server and playerbase at this time.

The five remaining game modes are the 'core' game modes of SS13, they are old, tried, true and tested and are consistently popular with the playerbase, with the exception of Revolution. However I believe that so long as Revolution is kept at a low weight chance that it is acceptable as a 'stress relief' game mode.

I would rank Traitor as having the highest odds chance, followed by ops, wizard, rev then extended.

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

I also think future game modes need a higher standard of testing, and need to be fully finished and balanced, to be accepted to the game. Having half finished game modes get shoved into the game and kept on for months at a time is the worst thing to do to the playerbase.

[cedarbridge]

Sounds boring.

[calzilla1]

Leave in blood cult

[captain sawrge]

Sounds boring.

Having a few core game modes (theoretically) allows the codebase to focus more on improving that small handful rather than trying to balance the game around several different modes that each have their own set of unique mechanics removed from the base game itself

[Steelpoint]

I also think if we went down to a few core game modes that it would incentivise developers to properly rework some of the more fluff game modes and bring it to a higher standard of quality. It would also encourage people to try and work on our pre-existing game modes to improve their quality.

Ultimately I think a smaller core group of game modes would be easier to maintain and work with than a massive array of game modes. I think Robustin's Gang Rework has shown us the extreme end of game mode development where its essentially gutting entire departments in order to make the game mode work.

[captain sawrge]

Leave in blood cult

Not even the person that originally designed blood cult thinks it's good.

[cedarbridge]

Except the problem with reducing roundtype diversity is you end up with extremely samey rounds. This is detrimental to gameplay because nobody seriously wants to play the same round over and over and over again. Traitor is exceptionally dull and repetitive. This is more and more apparent after the 5th round in a row of traitor. Removing other game modes will not suddenly make traitor better or make the "core" design more interesting. Its like saying removing the candy shell from an M&M better because we can spend more time developing chocolate.

[captain sawrge]

Of course removing modes won't immediately make others better, that isn't even close to what I'm trying to say.

[captain sawrge]

If development is restricted to improving the more core "SS13" game modes though, the ///HOPE/// is that work goes into making them more enjoyable and interesting rather than just giving everyone on the server antag and then crying when sec kills them all.

Clock, CC, and GW follow fairly fucking rigid round structures. Traitor, nuke and rev have far greater capacity for interesting rounds to happen. The fact that they don't is simply because there isn't enough to the game itself to occupy most players for several years without them getting bored of anything beyond explicit PvP.

[John_Oxford]

Traitor, Oldling, Traitor-Oldling, Nuke, Wizard, Blob

Readd stun gloves while your at it

[Kel]

i personally find traitor to only be surpassed by traitorchan as the most on average boring shit in the universe
a vast majority of the time you wont find yourself interacting with the mode as a whole
i can appreciate the freedom that it gives to jobs like science or botany
but got damn every one else is left to twiddle their thumbs when none of the antags decide to antagonize and just kinda did whatever and interacted with like a grand total of 3 people the entire round
on the opposite side of the spectrum non stop murderbone is boring aswell

in the end variety is the spice of life
but traitor, even with all its freedom, still usually ends up playing out the same number of ways
i recognize its necessity to be a sort of base for the game though

i don't think you've selected a good pool of gamemodes, even "classic" as they are, we are looking at modern day ss13, not back then
revolution, wizard, and nuke ops are guaranteed to be high-chaos instant action swiftly discovered and mostly swiftly ended

i think the better solution would be for there to be no set gamemode, but antagonist weight based on the crew population
for example, a extremely high population crew can roll a wizard in addition to one of the cults
or perhaps both cults at the same time
or just a mix of literally anything at the roll of the dice and the upper cap of what can be rolled being based on server population
i think this is what datum antags are about? but im not really sure

i dont think there is very much we can do at this point to spice up traitor/nuke op rounds other than having a constant rotation of what is in the uplink which would force diverse gameplay styles but probably at the expense of fun for the antag
revolution literally just has no room for change
wizard can keep being given more and more spells or something, although i think a better solution would be a rewrite on how wizard works as a whole
in addition, removing most game modes isn't going to inspire the developers/maintainers of those game modes to start improving the "core" modes

[Super Aggro Crag]

Blob

[ShadowDimentio]

Stripping superfluous modes out so we can focus on improving what we already have would work if SS13 was a game undergoing normal development, but it isn't.

Development is entirely fueled by the whims of coderbus, restricting what's allowed in isn't going to laser-focus coderbus it's just going to lead to people leaving to go code elsewhere where people aren't telling them what to do.

[lumipharon]

good luck completely removing them from rotation. It would be nice if their probability of happening dropped like a sack of bricks though.

[Steelpoint]

Until we get datum antags we have to make do with what we have, but I still think we should at least significantly lower the weighted odds of many game modes, and promote some of the better one's to be more common.

The current weights are:

• traitorchan 22.2%
• traitor 16.7%
• nuclear 14.8%
• revolution 11.1%
• wizard 11.1%
• clockwork_cult 7.4%
• cult 7.4%
• gang 3.7%
• blob 3.7%
• extended 1.9%

I propose, if we can't set my OP suggestions to 0, the following:

• traitor 28.2%
• nuclear 18.7%
• wizard 18.7%
• revolution 7.4%
• traitorchan 4.1%
• clockwork_cult 3.7%
• cult 3.7%
• gang 3.7%
• blob 3.7%
• extended 3.7%

This simply alters things around that we are far more likely to play Traitor, Ops or Wizard, with the remaining times being split between the other game modes.

[onleavedontatme]

The people who have spent years whining that maintainers need to LISTEN TO DEMOCRACY!! suddenly backpedaling and whining about how boring traitor is when polling shows how unpopular conversion modes are is pretty funny

[Steelpoint]

I've come to realise that conversion game modes suck, rev is really stretching the line but it only got a pass due to how it was a very uncommon game mode in the past.

Its the main reason I get turned off playing security if I have to spend half my time waging a war on the entire station over, and over, and over, and over again.

[IcePacks]

nah

some of the game modes are less fun than others (i'm looking at you, cult) but they all have solid potential for emergent madness, which is why i play the game

[Wyzack]

The people who have spent years whining that maintainers need to LISTEN TO DEMOCRACY!! suddenly backpedaling and whining about how boring traitor is when polling shows how unpopular conversion modes are is pretty funny

Pretty much yes. This would be good and I have wanted it for years

[PKPenguin321]

nah

some of the game modes are less fun than others (i'm looking at you, cult) but they all have solid potential for emergent madness, which is why i play the game

^^^
i know a lot of us are jaded and no longer have fun but if you can think back to being just a regular player you might remember that the variety of modes is a lot of fun

The people who have spent years whining that maintainers need to LISTEN TO DEMOCRACY!! suddenly backpedaling and whining about how boring traitor is when polling shows how unpopular conversion modes are is pretty funny

not to disregard the poll, but the way it was set up shows what the BEST modes are, not the worst. the results don't necessarily scream "EVERYBODY HATES THIS MODE"

[onleavedontatme]

Mode weighting is a zero sum game though. More of cult means less of traitor.

So why are we making traitor less common when it's the first choice for ~1500% more people than cult?

I think the jaded people are the ones who are bored with traitor, the core mode.

[captain sawrge]

There is inherently less variety in the round structure of cult or GW than traitor.

[PKPenguin321]

Mode weighting is a zero sum game though. More of cult means less of traitor.

So why are we making traitor less common when it's the first choice for ~1500% more people than cult?

I think the jaded people are the ones who are bored with traitor, the core mode.

do you assume i don't enjoy traitor? that's not the case.

it's not a matter of either you do or you don't enjoy a mode, but a matter of how much.

[Qbopper]

I would personally like to see us "cut the fat" so to speak and try and focus on improving a smaller pool of gamemodes (eg. not conversion modes)

that being said I recognize that it's not likely to happen because

a. improve don't remove will be quoted a lot
b. it throws away all the work people put into those gamemodes
c. it would be EXTREMELY controversial and lead to debates and flame wars for fucking months on end (yeah that happens anyways hurr)
d. I know people say "downstream servers can eat a dick" but c'mon

this can't go anywhere unless we get concrete data, just poll it as a hypothetical and don't bother discussing it until a large number of people chime in - it's a stupid idea to discuss an idea that the majority of the playerbase might hate

also if you do poll it don't word it like retards please, do something like

"Would you be in favor of [game types] being removed? This would be done so that coders can focus on improving the left over modes, [and whatever other reasons you put]"

1. Yes
2. No

none of the fucking meme "two yes options" or whatever just actually poll it if you want to know

[darkpaladin109]

Traitor's just too boring, if we go about removing most modes we'd need to do something to make it more interesting/exciting.

[Qbopper]

Traitor's just too boring, if we go about removing most modes we'd need to do something to make it more interesting/exciting.

yeah but

Having a few core game modes (theoretically) allows the codebase to focus more on improving that small handful rather than trying to balance the game around several different modes that each have their own set of unique mechanics removed from the base game itself

I also think if we went down to a few core game modes that it would incentivise developers to properly rework some of the more fluff game modes and bring it to a higher standard of quality. It would also encourage people to try and work on our pre-existing game modes to improve their quality.

Ultimately I think a smaller core group of game modes would be easier to maintain and work with than a massive array of game modes. I think Robustin's Gang Rework has shown us the extreme end of game mode development where its essentially gutting entire departments in order to make the game mode work.

I would personally like to see us "cut the fat" so to speak and try and focus on improving a smaller pool of gamemodes (eg. not conversion modes)

that's the idea

[CPTANT]

The only problem we have with gamemodes is that there are too many conversion modes.

I suggest simply not adding more conversion modes and reworking one or more of either cult, clockcult and gang.

I think having gang conceptually as a multi faction conversion mode is fine as a concept and tweaking will yield a good gamemode (can we get rid of those machine guns and sniper rifles?)

Cult has the unfortunate position of already having been reworked (badly) a lot in the past. But I think conceptually a cult that does not convert, but instead gains magical powers from sacrificing people is interesting (something that has never been tried in any of the reworks).

Clockcult should play its strength of base building more instead of being yet another conversion mode. There needs to be some form of incentive to force conflict with the crew instead of stealthily hiding in maint/offstation though.






PS: Wizard at 18.7%? Fuck no, give me a thousand of the worst cult, clockcult and gang rounds before playing one wizard round.

I don't even like being the wizard that much......

[CPTANT]

Traitor's just too boring, if we go about removing most modes we'd need to do something to make it more interesting/exciting.

yeah but

Having a few core game modes (theoretically) allows the codebase to focus more on improving that small handful rather than trying to balance the game around several different modes that each have their own set of unique mechanics removed from the base game itself

I also think if we went down to a few core game modes that it would incentivise developers to properly rework some of the more fluff game modes and bring it to a higher standard of quality. It would also encourage people to try and work on our pre-existing game modes to improve their quality.

Ultimately I think a smaller core group of game modes would be easier to maintain and work with than a massive array of game modes. I think Robustin's Gang Rework has shown us the extreme end of game mode development where its essentially gutting entire departments in order to make the game mode work.

I would personally like to see us "cut the fat" so to speak and try and focus on improving a smaller pool of gamemodes (eg. not conversion modes)

that's the idea

The only "improvements" to traitor anybody ever makes is just bloating the uplink with more junk/OP items.

[Slignerd]

Traitor is like plasma. It's the original that used to be the central aspect of the game and has been around since forever, but as new stuff got added and the codebase grew, it began to look outdated in comparison and become more and more irrelevant.

[Krusvik]

Don't remove something. Create something better that eventually phases it out.

[captain sawrge]

Traitor is like plasma. It's the original that used to be the central aspect of the game and has been around since forever, but as new stuff got added and the codebase grew, it began to look outdated in comparison and become more and more irrelevant.

Yes, because it's been neglected or pushed in a really bring direction (9000 uplink weapons all promoting just random murder)

[Qbopper]

The only "improvements" to traitor anybody ever makes is just bloating the uplink with more junk/OP items.

because they're either

-inexperienced/bored and want something simple to make that usually gets merged
-working on other gamemodes

[bandit]

Everyone keeps talking about streamlining the uplink and no one ever does it.

But at this point I agree with the OP, which sucks.

[CPTANT]

To be honest there are things that could improve traitor....


Better objective system for one.

[bandit]

to be fair I can't do it right now like I was one second away from doing becaues of the freeze

[Grazyn]

How about you start a feature freeze where the only accepted PRs are those that add and refine datum antags

[bandit]

ask LeoZ both parts of that are his job

[Remie Richards]

To be honest there are things that could improve traitor....


Better objective system for one.

Define better.

[captain sawrge]

To be honest there are things that could improve traitor....


Better objective system for one.

Define better.

More interesting/engaging/difficult objectives and a greater variety of gameplay for traitor roles

[Remie Richards]

That's better objectives, not a better objective system, surely?

[captain sawrge]

That's better objectives, not a better objective system, surely?

Most the people on this forum have no fucking clue what they're talking about

[Remie Richards]

Usually true.

[CPTANT]

To be honest there are things that could improve traitor....


Better objective system for one.

Define better.

Having at least the ability to opt in for more and more challenging objectives for one.

I don't know, but stealing a tank of plasma isn't really that exiting any more.

The ability to set your own objective difficulty would keep the objectives system interesting for everyone.

[Screemonster]

Different objectives providing different amounts of TC to achieve them with
Possibly different costs depending on the objective too, with steal objectives giving cheaper stealth gear and pricier weapons than, say, assassinate or hijack.
TC scaled to job role, eg. traitor HoP given less goodies since they're already in a powerful position.

No matter how it's done, don't stray too far from the basic core gameplay, the biggest issue with clockcult over all other conversion modes is that there's a boatload of new mechanics unique to that gamemode that you have to learn, as opposed to say, rev, which is literally just "get flashed, do the thing, get implanted, stop doing the thing".

tl;dr K.I.S.S.