Powergaming, security, and you

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bandit
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Powergaming, security, and you

Post by bandit » #30397

For those of you who don't follow singulo (yes I know keep reading), one player quit, reasoning explained here: http://pastebin.com/Ltu19DV5

The gist was that this player was tired of being BWOINK!ed for security "powergaming," specifically for fortifying the brig and dragging Beepsky around to apprehend antags. In one case, I have a broader than usual grasp of the full situation, as I was the AI in this round. There was an antag with an e-bow, esword and magboots (I think the gravity was out) on a murderbone. They only got dunked because of Beepsky dragging. This was a traitor who had e-bow and e-sword murdered about 10 people. I saw about three of the murders take place personally -- they were zipping around the station murdering whoever they came across, and stuffing their bodies into a locker. By the time Beepsky finally took him down, the locker contained about 12 bodies.

So who's powergaming more?

I think this boils down to two things, really:

Point one: You cannot tell security not to powergame when antags are powergaming. You just can't. If an antag is running around with an e-sword (that blocks tasers), e-bow (that GGs at range), magboots (permanent speed boost), potentially ablative (blocks even more tasers/lasers) and such, security basically has to use things other than their standard gear loadout. You can punish powergaming on both sides, or you can not punish powergaming on either side, but you cannot punish powergaming in a lopsided way. This particular case will result in:

- A decrease in players playing security, as they do not want to get BWOINKed for doing their job. This, as everyone knows, is already happening. People like to say that players don't play security because of the antag roll, but the antag roll is being moved, and I predict we are still going to see a comparative lack of security, due to the reasons above.
- An increase in murderboning; as everyone knows security is powerless OOC to stop it, as the only effective tactics might get them BWOINKED. Currently this is a case of "which admin is on currently, and which rules are they picky about?"
- Idiotic, stupid and/or tiding tactics such as lubing chemists, banana-slipping clowns and/or stunprod-wielding assistants being the most effective and/or most acceptable line of defense against antagonists. The "higher standard" rule shouldn't lead to non-security players playing vigilante security because it is "safer" banwise, but this is exactly what is happening.

Point two: Not all complaints are made equal. "A lot of people complained about you," on its own, is not evidence enough against a player. I realize I have a dog in this race, having submitted an admincomplaint recently over this very thing, but: When graytiders, antags and other people get dunked, they are likely to complain about it -- solely because they got dunked. Their definition of "powergaming" is "i lost, plz nerf," or in this case, "i lost, plz ban." I believe this is the reason why security is the sole policy target of anti-powergaming, rather than antags (there are anti-powergaming efforts for antags, but they are mostly on the code side and met with resistance): security can't complain about any powergaming an antag does under our current rules, and the sort of people who gray tide are also the sort of people who are likely to whine about security.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Scott » #30412

even after being told by the brig designers themselves that this was the intended use of the equipment.
Portable barricades are for emergencies, not for round start fortification. They're pretty shit to stop anyone from entering.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by QuartzCrystal » #30416

While I agree that grabbing some gear that typically isn't sec gear to respond to a unique threat shouldn't be bwoink-able it's worth pointing out that UtterNewbie, the person who made this long ass goodbye pastebin, shouldn't just pissed off about the admins. Dead chat was almost always full of bitching and moaning about his powergaming (I'm not making this up). He would also ignore superior officer's commands (in one game as HoS I saw him go get the gulag securitron, I told him that it was a good idea and to turn it on for patrol, he ignored this order and dragged it around even after I told him several times that I would prefer for it to be patrolling and potentially grabbing criminals when no sec is around). Yes having a securitron dragging behind you is super helpful, but they're more helpful (in my opinion) arresting criminals when no one is around and then notifying all officers to converge on that spot and when a HoS tells an officer what to do with one, you fucking do it.

I often find myself playing security (I have all the roles set to low, so I often find myself as HoS) and with a little bit of team work and communication you can be an effective security force that responds to threats. The role of the security team is ultimately reactionary, they patrol and react to problems and threats. The point of the detective (and one of the original reasons why only they have maintenance access) is that they're supposed to be the one investigating issues and looking for signs of trouble. (it's also worth noting this is why they start with a much more powerful gun)

Anyways, back to my original point, lots of players hated UtterNewbie's approach to playing security. At the end of the day this community gathers around a general agreement of what is the most fun way of playing SS13 (there's lots of ways to play it) and the admin team enforces this. Sometimes SoS/heads make new policies and rules that make some players go away, but also attracts new players. Just because one player who was loathed by many in a particular role is leaving doesn't mean the policies are broken, it just means they weren't right for him.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by cedarbridge » #30421

QuartzCrystal wrote:Just because one player who was loathed by many
This is the sort of weasel-wording that bandit was talking about. Bans or policy applications should not be done to appease a mob in deadchat. Antag gets dunked, whines in deadchat about whatever thing was used against him is totally unfair because x, y, or z. So because he bitches loud enough in deadchat and gets enough of a rallying cry against them they get boinked or worse. That's not good policy and policy application. I think the player is in the right to be pissed directly at the admins because they're ultimately the ones in charge of the decisions made and those decisions need to be owned. It comes with the mantle.

This also glosses over the real issue. Independent of this specific incident and this specific case, security is at an OOC disadvantage against antags. Powergaming is acceptable for antags because antag status is treated as a blank check to anything except outright rules breaking. Security, on the other hand, is not allowed to step outside of the lines to compensate. If an antag is taken down by a confiscated tator item stored at the amory/evidence closet, antag players whine. If an antag with a double esword is taken by by a toed beepsky, the antag whines. And then the sec officer gets OOC hell for it.

I'm honestly worrying that the "The game is about the antags" meme is actually infecting policy.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30431

Are you fucking kidding me?
Even on Baystation, the person doing the murderboning would get wrecked by security in many ways, if the admins didn't get to them first.
As for barricades... you have an armoury defended with only windoors and the like, on Sybil. And you're telling me that I can't set up some flashers and easily emagged barricades to attempt to defend it against a station of people who would love nothing more than to kill me to steal from said undefended armoury, and kill the rest of the crew?
Ya no fuck you. Even a normal human would do that in this situation.
If you're murdering a large amount of players for YOUR enjoyment and not others, expect to get dunked by me.
:^)
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Scott » #30441

Windoors and two (three?) layers of electrified grilles, not counting the r_walls and airlocks.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30452

QuartzCrystal wrote: Anyways, back to my original point, lots of players hated UtterNewbie's approach to playing security. At the end of the day this community gathers around a general agreement of what is the most fun way of playing SS13 (there's lots of ways to play it) and the admin team enforces this. Sometimes SoS/heads make new policies and rules that make some players go away, but also attracts new players. Just because one player who was loathed by many in a particular role is leaving doesn't mean the policies are broken, it just means they weren't right for him.
UtterNewbie was valid to the core, and Valid is an awful, terrible mindset to have. Frequently, he valid'd to the point of disregarding his direct superiors when they told him not to. Nary a round went by that I didn't see his Security in the brig for something or other - Usually insubordination or excessive force.


That out of the way
UN Pastebin wrote:Several minutes after his capture I get boinked by the guy in charge of server rules that as security I shouldn't be dragging beepsky around with me or using engineering gear such as gravity boots or insulated gloves. After I point out how ridiculous his boink is considering the zero gravity enviroment and hacked doors everywhere- I get told to stop powergaming or else I will be removed from the server.
Did this actually happen? Because longstanding precedent on /tg/station is that everyone can use everything. Just not always should, and usually shouldn't go out of their way to gear up. Grabbing insulated gloves off the bat as HoS might be iffy, but if the AI is full-Delta Malf then it's expected, almost demanded.

If an admin, any admin, much less senior administration was effectively saying "Certain jobs should not be using certain equipment", or maybe "Each job should be using their standard job equipment, or something like it", or maybe "The Head of Security does not know how to use magboots"...Well, that really worries me. Because that's straight out of the antithesis of /tg/'s collective playstyle.
Last edited by Psyentific on Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30453

Scott wrote:Windoors and two (three?) layers of electrified grilles, not counting the r_walls and airlocks.
If you go in from the maintenance door from the right side of the Security office, that's only three fucking things to emag, maybe more if barriers are up, and provided my memory of the map is right.
This was fixed on Baycode servers by giving emags a limited amount of uses. Might do us good here, too.
Spoiler:
Though most of you will bitch at me for suggesting such a horrid thing, that you can't emag any door you like.
:^)
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30456

Spacemanspark wrote:
Scott wrote:Windoors and two (three?) layers of electrified grilles, not counting the r_walls and airlocks.
If you go in from the maintenance door from the right side of the Security office, that's only three fucking things to emag, maybe more if barriers are up, and provided my memory of the map is right.
This was fixed on Baycode servers by giving emags a limited amount of uses. Might do us good here, too.
Spoiler:
Though most of you will bitch at me for suggesting such a horrid thing, that you can't emag any door you like.
Actually, I'm fairly certain that Baycode made it a % chance to break, not a fixed number of uses.
I haven't logged into SS13 in at least a year.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30457

Psyentific wrote:
Spacemanspark wrote:
Scott wrote:Windoors and two (three?) layers of electrified grilles, not counting the r_walls and airlocks.
If you go in from the maintenance door from the right side of the Security office, that's only three fucking things to emag, maybe more if barriers are up, and provided my memory of the map is right.
This was fixed on Baycode servers by giving emags a limited amount of uses. Might do us good here, too.
Spoiler:
Though most of you will bitch at me for suggesting such a horrid thing, that you can't emag any door you like.
Actually, I'm fairly certain that Baycode made it a % chance to break, not a fixed number of uses.
That would potentially work too.
The more times in a minute that you use it, the higher chance you should have of it breaking.

EDIT: Just spoke with a person using Baycode about it, it's a fixed random number of uses. So you won't know what number it is when you order it.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30461

Back on topic, though. Security, powergaming. Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.

Let's make a basic assumption - As a playerbase, 80% of us know 80% of the game. That is, if we take five players, four of those five will know four of the five departments enough to run each department themselves. The majority of our playerbase can run a one-man station. Maybe not fast or well, but they can do it.

So what, exactly, constitutes powergaming? It's not knowledge, we've assumed that. Is it utilization of that knowledge?
Where's the line between 'Robust' and 'Munchkin'? At what point does 'Very good at his job' become 'Powergaming shitler'?
What do you, personally, consider powergaming? Think across multiple roles and try to draw a common thread between them.
If you could choose one specific instance of 'powergaming' that you never want to see again, what would that be? More importantly, why?
Last edited by Psyentific on Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30465

Psyentific wrote:Back on topic, though. Security, powergaming. Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.

What, exactly, constitutes powergaming? Where's the line between 'Robust' and 'Munchkin'?
What do you, personally, consider powergaming? Think across multiple roles and try to draw a common thread between them.
If you could choose one specific instance of 'powergaming' that you never want to see again, what would that be? More importantly, why?
1. Powergaming is when you get a rev and instantly start beating in everyone's head who doesn't have an implant and uploading a law to the AI stating to kill all revs two seconds later.
2. I personally hate it when people purposefully target you something just to fuck with you, just because you're an antag or they are. If you haven't actually caused harm (Bought a syndicate balloon, for example.), or the traitor doesn't have you as an actual objective (GASP! HE'S SUGGESTING WE DON'T KILL EVERYONE AS ANTAGONIST? HERETIC!). If you've killed someone, then yes, I say weapons free, get wrecked.
3. I honestly don't want to see what I stated above, or blatant murderboning 'because you can'. It ruins the gameplay for others. We don't need to become Baystation or Paradise or the like, but I think this would help drastically.
Spoiler:
If space law was actually something that we used, and not a suggestion, and perma got used more often, that might help, too. And before you start spouting off that Space Law on /tg/ is shit, take a look at Paradise's Space Law, which actually is required for security to use: http://80.244.78.90/wiki/index.php/Space_law . The Space Law HERE is nothing compared to that. If you can't stand a minute in the fucking brig for drug distribution (Looking at you, Fortune/ Bandit.), then I really don't know what to tell you.
Last edited by Spacemanspark on Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30467

Spacemanspark wrote:
Psyentific wrote:Back on topic, though. Security, powergaming. Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.

What, exactly, constitutes powergaming? Where's the line between 'Robust' and 'Munchkin'?
What do you, personally, consider powergaming? Think across multiple roles and try to draw a common thread between them.
If you could choose one specific instance of 'powergaming' that you never want to see again, what would that be? More importantly, why?
1. Powergaming is when you get a rev and instantly start beating in everyone's head who doesn't have an implant and uploading a law to the AI stating to kill all revs two seconds later.
2. I personally hate it when people purposefully target you something just to fuck with you, just because you're an antag or they are. If you haven't actually caused harm (Bought a syndicate balloon, for example.), or the traitor doesn't have you as an actual objective (GASP! HE'S SUGGESTING WE DON'T KILL EVERYONE AS ANTAGONIST? HERETIC!). If you've killed someone, then yes, I say weapons free, get wrecked.
3. I honestly don't want to see what I stated above, or blatant murderboning 'because you can'. It ruins the gameplay for others. We don't need to become Baystation or Paradise or the like, but I think this would help drastically.
Spoiler:
If space law was actually something that we used, and not a suggestion, and perma got used more often, that might help, too.
The common thread between those is 'Valid', then. Doing it because you can, not for any other reason. An OOC justification to get away with murder or violence.

What if we remove 'Valid', and instead shift community attitudes towards in-character justifications for kills?
I haven't logged into SS13 in at least a year.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30469

Psyentific wrote:
Spacemanspark wrote:
Psyentific wrote:Back on topic, though. Security, powergaming. Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.

What, exactly, constitutes powergaming? Where's the line between 'Robust' and 'Munchkin'?
What do you, personally, consider powergaming? Think across multiple roles and try to draw a common thread between them.
If you could choose one specific instance of 'powergaming' that you never want to see again, what would that be? More importantly, why?
1. Powergaming is when you get a rev and instantly start beating in everyone's head who doesn't have an implant and uploading a law to the AI stating to kill all revs two seconds later.
2. I personally hate it when people purposefully target you something just to fuck with you, just because you're an antag or they are. If you haven't actually caused harm (Bought a syndicate balloon, for example.), or the traitor doesn't have you as an actual objective (GASP! HE'S SUGGESTING WE DON'T KILL EVERYONE AS ANTAGONIST? HERETIC!). If you've killed someone, then yes, I say weapons free, get wrecked.
3. I honestly don't want to see what I stated above, or blatant murderboning 'because you can'. It ruins the gameplay for others. We don't need to become Baystation or Paradise or the like, but I think this would help drastically.
Spoiler:
If space law was actually something that we used, and not a suggestion, and perma got used more often, that might help, too.
The common thread between those is 'Valid', then. Doing it because you can, not for any other reason. An OOC justification to get away with murder or violence.

What if we remove 'Valid', and instead shift community attitudes towards in-character justifications for kills?
Perfect. Paradise's rule five might be the wording we need here:
5. Play antagonists responsibly:

If you’re selected for an antagonist role, then treat it as an interesting challenge and not an excuse to destroy other peoples’ game experience. Your actions should make the game more fun, more exciting and more enjoyable for everyone. Keep to your objectives, they’re there for a reason. Being an antag is NOT a license to murder whomever you please - unless your objective is to kill whomever you please.
Last edited by Spacemanspark on Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by bandit » #30470

That isn't going to solve anything; "valid" is just going to become yet another buzzword for whatever the fuck a player wants it to mean. Arguably it already is that.

The only benchmark I care about is "reasonable." Cutting every AI wire on the station just in case the AI goes malf? Unreasonable. Dragging a Beepsky around to stop the guy with an e-bow and sword and magboots who has killed over 10 people (seriously, I counted)? It would be unreasonable NOT to.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30472

What about the rest of my prompts, then?

As an Engineer, what is powergaming?
What about as Security?
What does a powergaming Bartender look like?
What about a powergaming Quartermaster?
Finally, what does a powergaming assistant do?

What are these people equipped with? What are their typical actions at round start, mid-round, and shuttlecall?

Reasonable
That's actually fairly in line with my own opinions on the subject. The line between robust and powergame is when it becomes obnoxious, obtrusive, or generally when your level of preparation doesn't match the overall state of the station. When you're acting to counter threats that have not yet appeared, or when you're overreacting to trivial threats.
Last edited by Psyentific on Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30473

bandit wrote:That isn't going to solve anything; "valid" is just going to become yet another buzzword for whatever the fuck a player wants it to mean. Arguably it already is that.

The only benchmark I care about is "reasonable." Cutting every AI wire on the station just in case the AI goes malf? Unreasonable. Dragging a Beepsky around to stop the guy with an e-bow and sword and magboots who has killed over 10 people (seriously, I counted)? It would be unreasonable NOT to.
With this rule, nobody can murderbone, unless they have the escape alone objective, and even then only at the end, when the shuttle is past the five minute timer and everyone is heading to escape. And it wouldn't stop security from dragging Beepsky around (Fuck, that happens on Paradise all the time.).
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Cipher3 » #30482

Thee given scenario is an interesting point. Who will say that murderboning is good? Nobody. Every single dead person in dead chat despises that person. Similarly, the case in question being of UtterNewbie (And don't try to get mad at me for mentioning character, CHARACTER WITNESS IS VERY MUCH A VALID PART OF ANY TRIAL), UtterNewbie the security officer was despised for his/her mindset. In this specific scenario, dealing with a very well-geared antagonist, was it necessarily evil to draw out Beepsky? Perhaps - it wasn't what he was intended for (and don't rage and me for the bloody 'should be is a dumb argument' idea, INTENT is also a good trial argument), however it's iffy. The point with UtterNewbie being that Beepsky was ALWAYS dragged around. Always. The security officer who never went in without a robust artificial backup to the most basic patrol. It was, you will find everyone agreed, awful and powergaming. Let's look back at the antag here, the one that has definably been murderboning and therefore immediately disliked. Equipment: Ebow, esword, and magboots. Now and Ebow and Esword are very powerful weapons, and naturally the go-to murderboning pair. Magboots was a solid adaptation to a situation. This situation may well have been engineered by the antag to give themselves an advantage, and in fact there's a thread for nerfing the magboots up right now. But it was still a legitimate strategy to achieve this antag's personal goal at the time, and if he shut off the gravity, that required some amount of effort. Ebow and Esword, however, both came from the handy Syndicate uplink - the basic guide to tools to traitoring. They were also options designed specifically for killing people that have long been accepted and used to achieve traitor objectives. Threads to nerf them have achieved minor changes at most. They're generally accepted, and used to simply kill lots of people, they're generally disliked. But, at the core, is murderboning powergaming? It's not really playing to win so much as it is playing to gain pleasure at the cost of other players' enjoyment. The only time it's moving specifically for objectives is when your objective is to escape alone, and that's generally the only accepted excuse for such behavior. So is it, really? I speak, of course, as one who wouldn't be robust enough to kill everyone if I ever even wanted to. I dislike it much as anyone else.

But who was powergaming in that scenario? Well, the officer as much as anybody. He didn't drag Beepsky out specifically so his sacrifice could allow beepsky to win the day (beepsky being a fast insta-stun baton with a small sprite that has to be directly clicked in order for weapons to hit), he dragged Beepsky out because that is his attitude towards the game - dragging in patrol bots to ensure he 'wins' any time he has to make an arrest.

That rant was basically useless, so:

tl;dr UtterNewbie quitting was a terribly Mockingjay for your campaign to change the admin stance on powergaming.

That said, let's have this discussion.
Psyentific wrote:Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.
Spacemanspark wrote:
Psyentific wrote:Back on topic, though. Security, powergaming. Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.

What, exactly, constitutes powergaming? Where's the line between 'Robust' and 'Munchkin'?
What do you, personally, consider powergaming? Think across multiple roles and try to draw a common thread between them.
If you could choose one specific instance of 'powergaming' that you never want to see again, what would that be? More importantly, why?
1. Powergaming is when you get a rev and instantly start beating in everyone's head who doesn't have an implant and uploading a law to the AI stating to kill all revs two seconds later.
2. I personally hate it when people purposefully target you something just to fuck with you, just because you're an antag or they are. If you haven't actually caused harm (Bought a syndicate balloon, for example.), or the traitor doesn't have you as an actual objective (GASP! HE'S SUGGESTING WE DON'T KILL EVERYONE AS ANTAGONIST? HERETIC!). If you've killed someone, then yes, I say weapons free, get wrecked.
3. I honestly don't want to see what I stated above, or blatant murderboning 'because you can'. It ruins the gameplay for others. We don't need to become Baystation or Paradise or the like, but I think this would help drastically.
Spoiler:
If space law was actually something that we used, and not a suggestion, and perma got used more often, that might help, too.
1. Rev's a discussion for one of a thousand other times, though, because both sides are being awful and it's just accepted.
2. Eh, if someone gets annoyed at you and they're a traitor it's their antagonist license. Anyways, why did you buy a Syndicate balloon? There's no reason other than to show it off, and you're going to complain about people wanting it? Your third part of this seems to imply that objectives matter, or that traitors should be objective-oriented, which seems to be the opposite of our intent here.

Space law just helps you set jail times and determine if what they did is a crime or not, I'm not sure how it would help stop powergaming.
Psyentific wrote:
Spacemanspark wrote:-snip-
The common thread between those is 'Valid', then. Doing it because you can, not for any other reason. An OOC justification to get away with murder or violence.

What if we remove 'Valid', and instead shift community attitudes towards in-character justifications for kills?
There's a thread somewhere on removing valid as well, and it's something I'd more or less like. Sometimes I get ample character-based justification to do something but limited roleplay environment means that antagonist status is king beyond a certain extent. We could discourage murderboning in more than just other players disliking you for it (although inb4 'that's bay rp autism').
Spoiler:
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30491

Cipher3 wrote:Thee given scenario is an interesting point. Who will say that murderboning is good? Nobody. Every single dead person in dead chat despises that person. Similarly, the case in question being of UtterNewbie (And don't try to get mad at me for mentioning character, CHARACTER WITNESS IS VERY MUCH A VALID PART OF ANY TRIAL), UtterNewbie the security officer was despised for his/her mindset. In this specific scenario, dealing with a very well-geared antagonist, was it necessarily evil to draw out Beepsky? Perhaps - it wasn't what he was intended for (and don't rage and me for the bloody 'should be is a dumb argument' idea, INTENT is also a good trial argument), however it's iffy. The point with UtterNewbie being that Beepsky was ALWAYS dragged around. Always. The security officer who never went in without a robust artificial backup to the most basic patrol. It was, you will find everyone agreed, awful and powergaming. Let's look back at the antag here, the one that has definably been murderboning and therefore immediately disliked. Equipment: Ebow, esword, and magboots. Now and Ebow and Esword are very powerful weapons, and naturally the go-to murderboning pair. Magboots was a solid adaptation to a situation. This situation may well have been engineered by the antag to give themselves an advantage, and in fact there's a thread for nerfing the magboots up right now. But it was still a legitimate strategy to achieve this antag's personal goal at the time, and if he shut off the gravity, that required some amount of effort. Ebow and Esword, however, both came from the handy Syndicate uplink - the basic guide to tools to traitoring. They were also options designed specifically for killing people that have long been accepted and used to achieve traitor objectives. Threads to nerf them have achieved minor changes at most. They're generally accepted, and used to simply kill lots of people, they're generally disliked. But, at the core, is murderboning powergaming? It's not really playing to win so much as it is playing to gain pleasure at the cost of other players' enjoyment. The only time it's moving specifically for objectives is when your objective is to escape alone, and that's generally the only accepted excuse for such behavior. So is it, really? I speak, of course, as one who wouldn't be robust enough to kill everyone if I ever even wanted to. I dislike it much as anyone else.

But who was powergaming in that scenario? Well, the officer as much as anybody. He didn't drag Beepsky out specifically so his sacrifice could allow beepsky to win the day (beepsky being a fast insta-stun baton with a small sprite that has to be directly clicked in order for weapons to hit), he dragged Beepsky out because that is his attitude towards the game - dragging in patrol bots to ensure he 'wins' any time he has to make an arrest.

That rant was basically useless, so:

tl;dr UtterNewbie quitting was a terribly Mockingjay for your campaign to change the admin stance on powergaming.

That said, let's have this discussion.
Psyentific wrote:Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.
Spacemanspark wrote:
Psyentific wrote:Back on topic, though. Security, powergaming. Actually, powergaming in general is a discussion that's long overdue.

What, exactly, constitutes powergaming? Where's the line between 'Robust' and 'Munchkin'?
What do you, personally, consider powergaming? Think across multiple roles and try to draw a common thread between them.
If you could choose one specific instance of 'powergaming' that you never want to see again, what would that be? More importantly, why?
1. Powergaming is when you get a rev and instantly start beating in everyone's head who doesn't have an implant and uploading a law to the AI stating to kill all revs two seconds later.
2. I personally hate it when people purposefully target you something just to fuck with you, just because you're an antag or they are. If you haven't actually caused harm (Bought a syndicate balloon, for example.), or the traitor doesn't have you as an actual objective (GASP! HE'S SUGGESTING WE DON'T KILL EVERYONE AS ANTAGONIST? HERETIC!). If you've killed someone, then yes, I say weapons free, get wrecked.
3. I honestly don't want to see what I stated above, or blatant murderboning 'because you can'. It ruins the gameplay for others. We don't need to become Baystation or Paradise or the like, but I think this would help drastically.
Spoiler:
If space law was actually something that we used, and not a suggestion, and perma got used more often, that might help, too.
1. Rev's a discussion for one of a thousand other times, though, because both sides are being awful and it's just accepted.
2. Eh, if someone gets annoyed at you and they're a traitor it's their antagonist license. Anyways, why did you buy a Syndicate balloon? There's no reason other than to show it off, and you're going to complain about people wanting it? Your third part of this seems to imply that objectives matter, or that traitors should be objective-oriented, which seems to be the opposite of our intent here.

Space law just helps you set jail times and determine if what they did is a crime or not, I'm not sure how it would help stop powergaming.
Psyentific wrote:
Spacemanspark wrote:-snip-
The common thread between those is 'Valid', then. Doing it because you can, not for any other reason. An OOC justification to get away with murder or violence.

What if we remove 'Valid', and instead shift community attitudes towards in-character justifications for kills?
There's a thread somewhere on removing valid as well, and it's something I'd more or less like. Sometimes I get ample character-based justification to do something but limited roleplay environment means that antagonist status is king beyond a certain extent. We could discourage murderboning in more than just other players disliking you for it (although inb4 'that's bay rp autism').
-Rev is too chaotic.
Alright, let's try Security finding one changeling and running around beating everyone else up to see if they regenerate health or sting them or something of the like.
-Space law
I was saying it would prevent some of the awful security times that security puts down, which would fuse slightly less greytide, which might help assist with the powergaming. Just a touch.
-Murderboning reason
Murderboning contributes absolutely no fun to anyone except the killer, that's the main reason it should be removed.
-Syndicate Balloon.
You don't have to kill anybody to obtain the balloon, just disarm and take it... And buying it to show it off isn't a big deal, perhaps you completed your objectives without crystals and wanted to mess around a bit, or perhaps waste your crystals so in the event someone gets your PDA code and PDA (Highly unlikely, but still.), it's worthless to them, besides proof that you are a syndicate... which the balloon already provided.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30505

Trim your quotes please, if only for the sake of my autism.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by QuartzCrystal » #30530

I haven't read all of these posts (I promise I will though, as I started off the long-post-bonanza) but I want to clarify that the moaning about UtterNewbie's playstyle was consistent, round to round, and included more people than have posted in this thread so far. I'm not trying to be biased (my only real interaction with him IC or OOC is the example I gave in my post) but rather trying to point out that the people who defend his play style are, at least from my deadchat viewing perspective, a minority on the server.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30543

QuartzCrystal wrote:I haven't read all of these posts (I promise I will though, as I started off the long-post-bonanza) but I want to clarify that the moaning about UtterNewbie's playstyle was consistent, round to round, and included more people than have posted in this thread so far. I'm not trying to be biased (my only real interaction with him IC or OOC is the example I gave in my post) but rather trying to point out that the people who defend his play style are, at least from my deadchat viewing perspective, a minority on the server.
I'm trying to steer the discussion towards defining what, exactly, is powergaming and where, exactly, the line is drawn.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by CreationPro » #30544

Two of the deeper powergaming clauses I can think of is checking every pen, every pair of mesons, every jumpsuit and every pair of shoes found on an arrestee, and stuffing the entirety of armory into a single locker "just in case". That's where I believe excessive powergaming begins.

Also random arrests, but they are, for some reason, allowed and justified by code blue.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Steelpoint » #30545

Ok then, here is a run down of how I typically, as the HoS, start out my shift. Lets see if this is powergaming or what.
  • First I gear up and get Sec to report in
  • After that, and if the Warden has not/is absent I take the barricades and set them up. I place one by the Maintenance entrance and the Escape Pod exit.
  • I go to the Gulag and get the Securitron there. If I am by myself in Security I will take it with me, otherwise it goes in the Armoury to help guard it.
  • If there is no Captain/HoP I swing by the Captains Office to secure the Nuke Disk and Spare ID.
  • I always check the Security Cameras and see who is manning Toxins, and take a note of their name for future use. Since bombs.
If I am truly by myself, I will sometimes put in a order in Robotics for three Securitrons, and provide the Helmets, and use them as a alternative to my Security Officers.

That is my usual go to round start set up.

-----------

Now, if the situation has escalated, such as we have a bunch of Traitors/Antags or there is a present threat to contend with, here are additional measures I may take.
  • Implant Security Officers with tracking implants, if we have them to spare.
  • If things are going south, I will distribute Eguns to my Officers.
  • I may deputize the Detective and give him more standard Sec equipment if I am undermanned.
And more if I can recall.

-----------

I can go on about stuff I do, but in my humble opinion everything I do in game is a necessary part of my job.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Reimoo » #30551

So someone quit cause they were too unrobust to play without relying on beepsky. Big whoop.

This doesn't mean we have a powergaming crisis on our hands. It's just the inherent mindset when playing security that you have to play to win instead of play to have fun. If security wasn't so damn frustrating to play as this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30553

Reimoo wrote:So someone quit cause they were too unrobust to play without relying on beepsky. Big whoop.

This doesn't mean we have a powergaming crisis on our hands. It's just the inherent mindset when playing security that you have to play to win instead of play to have fun. If security wasn't so damn frustrating to play as this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
And why is security so frustrating?
Because Powergaming/ Valid/ Greytiding shitlords keep fucking our shit up.
Literally an hour ago, I was in a round on Paradise where someone made three freaking accounts just to attempt to get at me, with me robusting each one every time. When they got busted for it, they started posting gay porn in OOC, and then IC (Creating a FOURTH account.) until he got robusted by someone else, and then an admin came online and banned them.
This is an extreme, granted, and never really happens on Paradise (Though I can recall a few times on Artyom where it happened.) but people fucking hate security. They will do ANYTHING to fuck with you, whether it be because they want weaponry, whether they want to kidnap you, whatever.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Steelpoint » #30554

Consider it to be equivalent response.

If the bad guys are using pistols, the good guys have to use pistols.

If the bad guys are using assault rifles, the good guys have to use assault rifles.

If the bad guys are using Ebows, eswords, magboots and other lethal guns, the good guys have to use Securitrons, barricades, flashers and other more effective Security tools.

---

The relationship between Sec and Antags is symbiotic, the antags are present to cause chaos and death, Security is here to mitigate and prevent that from occurring. You simply cannot ask one group to tone it down or nerf their equipment without demanding the same from the other group.

That would be the equivalent of making the good guys use batons when the bad guys are using assault rifles. Its crap and the good guys will either all die or bail.

*EDIT*

Not to mention but in my experience, people love to shit on Security no matter what. I've seen it in dead chat and OOC. If you do well in Security, you get lambasted as being a top tier Shitcurity Officer and powergaming, yet when Security gets wiped out they are called out as being shit.

As a favourite quote of mine goes, "Welcome to Security. Where you are either a powergaming shitler or a unrobust faggot."
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by bandit » #30555

Reimoo wrote:So someone quit cause they were too unrobust to play without relying on beepsky. Big whoop.

This doesn't mean we have a powergaming crisis on our hands. It's just the inherent mindset when playing security that you have to play to win instead of play to have fun. If security wasn't so damn frustrating to play as this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
The problem is, you cannot expect this mindset "play for fun" from security and not expect it from antags. Do you think the 12-some people murderboned were having fun? I popped by the cloner to see how many of them were cloning and how many went mental interface failure. A lot of the people who died just quit.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Saegrimr » #30558

I'd like to point out this whole incident stemmed from Stickymayhem trying to prove to the coders that the magboots need to be changed because they are OP as fuck in zero gravity.
So to combat it, UtterNewbie also grabs a pair of magboots and his usual securitron, and without the securitron Sticky would have never been caught.

He had 15 bodies in that locker, he was dragging a locker full of dead bodies as he was killing people to stuff more in there.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Scott » #30572

I got admin griffed for killing confirmed cultists once. Then I stopped playing HoS entirely. Sec powergaming is bad, but they should be allowed to do so if the situation calls for it. But I guess in this case, the guy was constantly powergaming.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Kangaraptor » #30574

people don't really seem to get it

It's one thing to gear yourself and your sec team as the situation escalates, but it's quite another to run into the armory at roundstart, barricade every possible entry to the brig barring the double doors, put down tables everywhere, run around with beepsky in tow whilst wielding a riot shield simply because 'there might be tators this round'. The former is reasonable, the latter are all examples blatant powergaming.

it's just fucking dumb and it goes far beyond the constant 'but if you get dunked you're shit, if you don't you're a powergamer' shit that victim-sec players keep spewing. Fact of the matter is you can be robust without being a play2win shitter.

big ol' edit:
Spacemanspark wrote:
Reimoo wrote:So someone quit cause they were too unrobust to play without relying on beepsky. Big whoop.

This doesn't mean we have a powergaming crisis on our hands. It's just the inherent mindset when playing security that you have to play to win instead of play to have fun. If security wasn't so damn frustrating to play as this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
And why is security so frustrating?
Because Powergaming/ Valid/ Greytiding shitlords keep fucking our shit up.
Literally an hour ago, I was in a round on Paradise where someone made three freaking accounts just to attempt to get at me, with me robusting each one every time. When they got busted for it, they started posting gay porn in OOC, and then IC (Creating a FOURTH account.) until he got robusted by someone else, and then an admin came online and banned them.
This is an extreme, granted, and never really happens on Paradise (Though I can recall a few times on Artyom where it happened.) but people fucking hate security. They will do ANYTHING to fuck with you, whether it be because they want weaponry, whether they want to kidnap you, whatever.
i was talking to a paradise player recently and I'd like to point out that beepsky on Paradise doesn't actually patrol (the code is apparently broken or some shit), so carrying him around is the only way he's actually useful unless you plonk him in a hallway and hope a baddie walks past him.

just thought i'd give some context to the 'b-b-but paradise' thing.
Last edited by Kangaraptor on Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by cedarbridge » #30577

Kangaraptor wrote:victim-sec
That's a new one.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Psyentific » #30589

Steelpoint wrote:Consider it to be equivalent response.

If the bad guys are using pistols, the good guys have to use pistols.
If the bad guys are using assault rifles, the good guys have to use assault rifles.
If the bad guys are using Ebows, eswords, magboots and other lethal guns, the good guys have to use Securitrons, barricades, flashers and other more effective Security tools.
---
The relationship between Sec and Antags is symbiotic, the antags are present to cause chaos and death, Security is here to mitigate and prevent that from occurring. You simply cannot ask one group to tone it down or nerf their equipment without demanding the same from the other group.
That would be the equivalent of making the good guys use batons when the bad guys are using assault rifles. Its crap and the good guys will either all die or bail.

"Welcome to Security. Where you are either a powergaming shitler or a unrobust faggot."

I've found that equivalent response is a fairly good way to play. Not just as Sec, but as anything. Durands, stationbuster bombs, ablativeshield, combat shotguns, all that 'end game' stuff is best kept to, well, end game. Wait until all hell breaks loose before you grab your response to all hell breaking loose, then put it back when you're done. The same gear that makes you robust at round end will make you a powergaming fuck at round start.

Sec-specific? Use your pepperspray on random greys, why not. Pepperspray is hilarious and satisfying, I wish more people would use it for more than abusing prisoners. If you just want a guy to fuck off, flash, grab, throw. Nobody, and I mean nobody complains when the murderbone is brought low by ablative/shield/beepsky/SWAT. Everybody, and I mean everybody complains when the HoS is patrolling with ablative/shield/beepsky/SWAT at ten minutes code green.

Also, Beret or Softcap is the secret sign for 'goodcurity'
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Spacemanspark » #30594

Kangaraptor wrote:people don't really seem to get it

It's one thing to gear yourself and your sec team as the situation escalates, but it's quite another to run into the armory at roundstart, barricade every possible entry to the brig barring the double doors, put down tables everywhere, run around with beepsky in tow whilst wielding a riot shield simply because 'there might be tators this round'. The former is reasonable, the latter are all examples blatant powergaming.

it's just fucking dumb and it goes far beyond the constant 'but if you get dunked you're shit, if you don't you're a powergamer' shit that victim-sec players keep spewing. Fact of the matter is you can be robust without being a play2win shitter.

big ol' edit:
Spacemanspark wrote:
Reimoo wrote:So someone quit cause they were too unrobust to play without relying on beepsky. Big whoop.

This doesn't mean we have a powergaming crisis on our hands. It's just the inherent mindset when playing security that you have to play to win instead of play to have fun. If security wasn't so damn frustrating to play as this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
And why is security so frustrating?
Because Powergaming/ Valid/ Greytiding shitlords keep fucking our shit up.
Literally an hour ago, I was in a round on Paradise where someone made three freaking accounts just to attempt to get at me, with me robusting each one every time. When they got busted for it, they started posting gay porn in OOC, and then IC (Creating a FOURTH account.) until he got robusted by someone else, and then an admin came online and banned them.
This is an extreme, granted, and never really happens on Paradise (Though I can recall a few times on Artyom where it happened.) but people fucking hate security. They will do ANYTHING to fuck with you, whether it be because they want weaponry, whether they want to kidnap you, whatever.
i was talking to a paradise player recently and I'd like to point out that beepsky on Paradise doesn't actually patrol (the code is apparently broken or some shit), so carrying him around is the only way he's actually useful unless you plonk him in a hallway and hope a baddie walks past him.

just thought i'd give some context to the 'b-b-but paradise' thing.
Well, it does patrol until it reaches the security hallway leading to the bridge, then Beepsky stops. I didn't consider that, hehe.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Kangaraptor » #30599

Spacemanspark wrote:
Kangaraptor wrote:people don't really seem to get it

It's one thing to gear yourself and your sec team as the situation escalates, but it's quite another to run into the armory at roundstart, barricade every possible entry to the brig barring the double doors, put down tables everywhere, run around with beepsky in tow whilst wielding a riot shield simply because 'there might be tators this round'. The former is reasonable, the latter are all examples blatant powergaming.

it's just fucking dumb and it goes far beyond the constant 'but if you get dunked you're shit, if you don't you're a powergamer' shit that victim-sec players keep spewing. Fact of the matter is you can be robust without being a play2win shitter.

big ol' edit:
Spacemanspark wrote:
Reimoo wrote:So someone quit cause they were too unrobust to play without relying on beepsky. Big whoop.

This doesn't mean we have a powergaming crisis on our hands. It's just the inherent mindset when playing security that you have to play to win instead of play to have fun. If security wasn't so damn frustrating to play as this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
And why is security so frustrating?
Because Powergaming/ Valid/ Greytiding shitlords keep fucking our shit up.
Literally an hour ago, I was in a round on Paradise where someone made three freaking accounts just to attempt to get at me, with me robusting each one every time. When they got busted for it, they started posting gay porn in OOC, and then IC (Creating a FOURTH account.) until he got robusted by someone else, and then an admin came online and banned them.
This is an extreme, granted, and never really happens on Paradise (Though I can recall a few times on Artyom where it happened.) but people fucking hate security. They will do ANYTHING to fuck with you, whether it be because they want weaponry, whether they want to kidnap you, whatever.
i was talking to a paradise player recently and I'd like to point out that beepsky on Paradise doesn't actually patrol (the code is apparently broken or some shit), so carrying him around is the only way he's actually useful unless you plonk him in a hallway and hope a baddie walks past him.

just thought i'd give some context to the 'b-b-but paradise' thing.
Well, it does patrol until it reaches the security hallway leading to the bridge, then Beepsky stops. I didn't consider that, hehe.
yeah not trying to be a dick, just thought I'd add some context to the situation for those who might think it's directly comparable.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Steelpoint » #30604

Psyentific wrote:I've found that equivalent response is a fairly good way to play. Not just as Sec, but as anything. Durands, stationbuster bombs, ablativeshield, combat shotguns, all that 'end game' stuff is best kept to, well, end game. Wait until all hell breaks loose before you grab your response to all hell breaking loose, then put it back when you're done. The same gear that makes you robust at round end will make you a powergaming fuck at round start.

Sec-specific? Use your pepperspray on random greys, why not. Pepperspray is hilarious and satisfying, I wish more people would use it for more than abusing prisoners. If you just want a guy to fuck off, flash, grab, throw. Nobody, and I mean nobody complains when the murderbone is brought low by ablative/shield/beepsky/SWAT. Everybody, and I mean everybody complains when the HoS is patrolling with ablative/shield/beepsky/SWAT at ten minutes code green.

Also, Beret or Softcap is the secret sign for 'goodcurity'
I wonder if we can buff Beret's to have a similar level of protection to the helmet? On topic anyway.

The balance that needs to be struck is, as I noted, equivalent response as Sec responds to antag threats. I think few people will decry Security who go full force forward to deal with Antag AlexMcEbowEsword and his buddy Mr AblativeShield.

I think the question is to what extent can Security go before antags start being a problem? The answer to that currently is that barring Security stuffing the Armoury in one locker and turning the brig into Fort Knox at round start, anything else Officers can do is fine.

Some people say Sec using a wider selection of their equipment is powergaming, but that can just as easily be described as using their on the job equipment. Barring Energy Guns, most of the equipment Sec Officers use is pretty par the course, double so if compared with real life Police Officers. Hell, I like to sometimes consider a Securitron to be to a Sec Officer as is what a dog is to a Police Officer at times.
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Incomptinence
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Incomptinence » #30607

I might drag a securitron if I am the only officer on station. Well I have done it in the past, if I have no back up why should I not have robotic buddy cop? Isn't that the entire point of sec robots? To fill in manpower shortages?

That many corpses surely they could have ran away then set the officer to arrest remotely as counter play? Oh shot the bot with lasers, or used a stolen pda to mess with it, or deleted sec records. Securitrons are hardly angels of divine law.
Last edited by Incomptinence on Wed Sep 24, 2014 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fatal
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Fatal » #30614

The way Ive always seen powergaming, and continue to do so, is this:

Powergaming is gearing up beyond what you are expected to have to deal with

If someone is running around murdering half the station and getting magboots and jetpack is good at stopping it, thats not powergaming, thats adapting to the situation

Powergaming is those people who run around with only a hardsuit helmet on because they expect to get flashed for no reason at all, or those that wear insulateds as non engineering because they "expect" a door might suddenly be shocked (this is more aimed at security and heads wearing insulateds FNR), you know the types of people I mean

As for the barriers? If you can't deploy them to defend your brig, fucking delete them from the map, that's their intended purpose, they literally are designed for that

Given that the antags is general WILL, and DO powergame, why should security not? When presented with antags causing mayhem, it's security job to fucking deal with it, by any means they deem fit, not security job to die horribly because they want to roleplay
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cedarbridge
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by cedarbridge » #30618

Steelpoint wrote: I wonder if we can buff Beret's to have a similar level of protection to the helmet? On topic anyway.
You'd have to fork sec berets into a new item and then only let the mime have the first one.
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bandit
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by bandit » #30628

Steelpoint wrote:The balance that needs to be struck is, as I noted, equivalent response as Sec responds to antag threats. I think few people will decry Security who go full force forward to deal with Antag AlexMcEbowEsword and his buddy Mr AblativeShield.
This entire thread exists because someone got banned based on bullshit "complaints" about someone doing just this.
"I don't see any difference between ERP and rape." -- erro

admin feedback pls
Raven776
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Raven776 » #30641

Is it powergaming or funny to have 3 ED 209's in your backpack with nothing more than a powercell needed to complete them just so you can sic all three on the first assistant to break a window?

Is it powergaming or funny to drag a renamed beepsky around called 'Beepchu' and pretend you're the most weeabu security pokemon trainer siccing your pokemon on rival trainers?

Is it powergaming or funny to use your security science access to make a dozen stunprods and fill the station up with dozens of securitrons with hilarious names?

Dragging beepsky isn't a problem. If you don't want this to be a thing, have beepsky be undraggable and instead you have to use your 'summon' PDA function to get it to follow you.

I generally don't see powergaming as an issue anyways. It's part of the FUN of the station.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by QuartzCrystal » #30651

Let's not forget what powergaming also is, which is a disregard of roleplaying. People complain about security being powergame-y when they just go around arresting people, throwing them in a cell/perma and not talking to them at all. When a sec officer comes in dragging a securitron in tow it's pretty obvious he's not interested in breaking up fights, he's interested in getting arrests.
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cedarbridge
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by cedarbridge » #30659

QuartzCrystal wrote:When a sec officer comes in dragging a securitron in tow it's pretty obvious he's not interested in breaking up fights, he's interested in getting arrests.
These are unrelated events how?

I'm one of the first to complain about MuteSec, but we're talking apples and oranges here. Beepsky is a tool, same as any hand-held stun prod. Literally every complaint stemming from dragging beepsky around just amounts to "beepsky op pls delet." If you think the tool is too robust, then deal with the tool. Don't blame security for using their tools.
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NikNakFlak
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by NikNakFlak » #30661

I'm on my phone right now, expect grammar and spelling mistakes.

That being said, a lot of things stated in this thread as what the Head of Security can do, is shit.
The biggest one being, steelpoints "I write down the name of the guy working in toxins just in case bombs." Or "Barricades on the maintenence doors and taking the securitron from the gulag"
I say this.
WHY?
You write down the name of the scientist in toxins, for what? Just in case he just "happens" to be a traitor and bombs everything? Every round, you take down the name of the toxins guy on the remote chance that he may just be a traitor? I have no respose to that. That is power/metagamey as shit and you should feel bad for doing it. Likewise for barricades on the maintenece doors. You are assuming that someone is going to automatically break into security or emag the door. Assuming. Assumptions. Preperation for antags that you do not even know exists yet.

Something I heavily agree with Quartscrystal is that security is a responsive force. Word of cult around? Sure barricade security. Murderboner, sure barricade security. Doing this at roundstart in the anticipation or a conflict that you have no idea if it even exists or not? Shit, power/metagamey, stupid. It's all about the when and why rather than the how. Powergaming is the over-prepardness for a situation that you are assuming/metaing is going to happen rather than in reponse to what is happening

As for dragging a securitron around, it depends on the situation. Murderboner, zero gravity, I might think its fine. Getting the gulag securitron in preperation for a conflict that may not even exist? Shit, and you should get bwoinked.
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NikNakFlak
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by NikNakFlak » #30662

Long story short: This is a roleplaying game. Play in response, not preperation. Play to be the security that responds to the situation and roleplays the conflict. Dont be that asshole who plays just to "beat/win against" the antag.
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cedarbridge
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by cedarbridge » #30670

NikNakFlak wrote:You write down the name of the scientist in toxins, for what? Just in case he just "happens" to be a traitor and bombs everything? Every round, you take down the name of the toxins guy on the remote chance that he may just be a traitor? I have no respose to that. That is power/metagamey as shit and you should feel bad for doing it.
Except its really not. Toxins is a secure area. The Head of Security is charged with being vigilant against all threats to the station internally and externally. That includes knowing who is working in secure areas and who is handling dangerous materials. There's nothing meta about that. I'm starting to get the feel from this post that "meta" is getting out of hand as a moderation buzzword. Its lost its meaning when the only way to avoid it is to RP as an ignoramus. If we assume (correctly I think) that Heads of Staff are meant to command the ship via the chain of command, it would make sense for the Heads to also be familiar with those under them and in dangerous or potentially dangerous parts of the station as a reflex. The RD has a ton of things to do that don't involve babysitting the toxins guy and the xenobio guy. I mean, we hear a lot of complaints about "non-officers" intervening in arrests, and now we hear talk about officers being too involved in information gathering of all things. Is "Who is working toxins" privileged information now?

This is the entire reason the rant that spawned this thread came about in the first place. The definitions of "metaknowledge" and "powergaming" are disproportionately applied and VERY poorly established. And even then, they seem to apply to essentially anything a given mod considers a peeve.

This was discussed earlier, but is actually being RP'd here? That the HoS doesn't know who is on the station he was assigned to protect and is generally socially incompetent? There's NO ESTABLISHED CANON so saying "you're not RPing correctly" is again, overbroad. I was also under the assumption that we were allowed to have such hidden knowledge in security about things like "the syndicate uses emags." The round starts with a blue alert every time and announces that there is a clear and credible threat to the station in some form. The form is not defined but it definitely exists somewhere. The "correct" answer we're meant to give here is "lay back and let it happen sec" which is wholly irrational behavior. Intelligent security is proactive security. Blue alert doesn't give bounds to be oppressive like a Delta or Red alert might, but it does give the crew and command indication that something is going to happen and indicates that they should prepare against it. If we're talking about RP here at all, some rational application of basic command and survival concepts is certainly not beyond the pale if we're going to call even basic fortifications with provided materials and tools "powergaming." Good sense is not something to be ashamed of either.
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Scott » #30671

Toxins is not a secure area.
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cedarbridge
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by cedarbridge » #30674

Scott wrote:Toxins is not a secure area.
Space Law Code 309 Major Offenses: Major Tresspass wrote:Being in a restricted area without prior authorisation. This includes any Security Area, Command area (including EVA), the Engine Room, Atmos, or Toxins Research.
It kinda is.
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UtterNewbie
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2014 2:25 pm

Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by UtterNewbie » #30675

For the record, I was not banned as far as I know. I left for the reasons I outlined.

But hey since someone made this topic, lets take a moment here to examine what rest of the station gets away with.
  • Virology making demigod viruses making you practically immortal, spaceworthy and always on hyperzine while having all genetic powers for either their personal use, or for anyone they feel like.
  • Robotics building war machines and roaming the station with huge guns and armor. Unslaving freshly built borgs from AIs because one day they might turn rogue.
  • Telescience teleporting every valuable object in every other z level using 3rd party programs and OOC coordinate knowledge.
  • Science becoming independent and making every machine and computer available for their own use, constructing personal auto cloners. Players using check lists to max out science as fast as possible. Dismantling the teleporter at round start.
  • Toxins using all valves to make max cap bombs just in case, promptly bombing the AI the moment delta is declared.
  • Atmospherics traveling with his fire axe and full atmos hardsuit anywhere he goes.
  • Engineers and assistants armed with stunprods and cablecuffs.
  • Clowns getting all access from captain or HoP because it's just so funny to make a giant security breach.
  • Chemistry making death sprays, grenades, lube and dat chloral syringe gun just in case.
  • HoP giving himself all access regardless of captain being present, not being at his desk and doing whatever he currently feels like, unlocking dem cargo crates so he and cargo gets gear.
  • Cargo ordering pretty much a station worth of supplies and gear for their own use, while still having left over points to fill the occasional ripley or virus crate order. Hacking their autolathe in first minutes of the round to get that gear and printing out saws.
  • Bartender rushing to cargo for said saws to shorten his shotgun and stock up on ammo.
  • Botanists making deathnettles or giving away/spamming max power bananas that slip you for a year.
I'm sure I could go on for a while more.

This aren't some rare occurrences either, this is what happens pretty much every single populated shift. And what should security do?

Open dat starting locker and fuck off to patrols, you best take off your only head protection too and replace it with a hat because that's how good officers should be. Forget the shitcurity gasmask! Maint access? What on earth would an officer need maint for, just stroll the hallways and hope the crime doesn't use one of the dozens of nearby maint tunnels to escape or hide. You see that armada of greyshirts with yellow gloves and toolbelts? Yea you can't have those, they are approved only for the lowest ranking crewmen and engineering. That would be powergaming otherwise!

No you can't use your memory to recall who was making bombs just LITERALLY 20 FUCKING MINUTES AGO when something blows up. See that scientist leaving toxins and straight into hallways? You can't search him! Random searches even during blue alert are shitty and powergamey. Caught a syndicate agent or another enemy of nanotransen? Better give them 5 minutes and a mean look because they only had non lethal items and didn't kill anyone.

And that unused tiny robot on gulag that's never even turned on? Yea don't touch that, and if you do don't fucking drag it because- uh, it's so great at patrolling alone and being outrun by a monkey.

As security you can't be prepared. You're expected to be an unprepared walking loot box, tipping your bandana as you talk down your foes. God forbid you ruin a round for some traitor by stopping his murderboning with steal slime extract objective as scientist.
Last edited by UtterNewbie on Wed Sep 24, 2014 7:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Scott
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Re: Powergaming, security, and you

Post by Scott » #30677

Security should get toys from the Science department, but that mostly never happens besides EDs being built. People play robotics to make mechs for themselves and when was the last time Security ordered better weapons from R&D?
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