Manuel and the state of antags

[jtroopa]

How did we reach this point? When manuel started out, its antag policy was a reaction to the absurd murderboning happening next door at Bagil and Terry. It seemed every few months some new guy would transfer over, start beating the shit out of everyone, and then bleat at the rules over murderboning and the restricted play of antags on manuel.
Maybe I've been out of the game for a minute, but it seems that no longer holds true anymore. Antags appear to come up from nowhere and wordlessly kill other players, dump their bodies where they'll never be recovered and move on to the next guy. Is this fun for everyone else? Did I miss some massive policy change that took the brakes off of antag roles?
TG has nearly always had an anemic number of players willing to play security because of the restrictions placed upon them, and manuel especially in the form of discouraging validhunting. I'm aware that there has to be a balance between the two, but I raise the hypothesis that few people play as sec because their ability to deal with antags is diminshed, whereas antags themselves are not.
Being killed while it's totally out of control is something that happens in the game, sure. It should not be standard operating procedure, and especially not while playing benign roles.
Call me salty, I don't want to play this game treating everyone like people treat everyone in bagil, as a potential assassin,or conversely by others as a free loot pinata.
Fine, here's a call to action. Take your manuel antags and dial them way the fuck back.

[sinfulbliss]

Taken from OP’s last round for context:
https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/215 ... e=game.txt

Code: Select all

06:32:03	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "screwdriver"	(106, 126, 2)	Engineering
06:42:20	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "crap!!"	(101, 120, 2)	Engineering
06:42:26	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "hel-OOF!"	(101, 113, 2)	Engineering
06:42:28	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "p!"	(101, 113, 2)	Engineering
06:42:42	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) (DEAD) "God dammit"	(101, 113, 2)	Engineering
06:43:02	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) (DEAD) "what the fuck is going on with these murderboners?"	(99, 124, 2)	Engineering
06:44:27	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) (DEAD) "he is NOT about to fuck with the SM"	(85, 115, 2)	Supermatter Engine
06:48:11	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "urgh..."	(161, 92, 2)	Medbay Treatment Center
06:48:18	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "that fucking nightmare."	(160, 92, 2)	Medbay Treatment Center
06:50:19	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "COME ON"	(134, 126, 2)	Fore Central Primary Hallway
06:50:34	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "stupid bitchass fagort piece of shit."	(131, 129, 2)	Port Primary Hallway
06:50:46	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "cord!"	(105, 137, 2)	Engineering Lobby
06:50:57	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "that thing fucked with the air alarm to the SM!"	(105, 137, 2)	Engineering Lobby
06:51:28	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "That's it, fuck this server."	(111, 137, 2)	Port Primary Hallway
06:52:15	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "What?"	(110, 137, 2)	Port Primary Hallway
06:52:36	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "call it, who gives a shit."	(114, 129, 2)	Port Primary Hallway
06:53:56	SAY	Jtroopa/(Jay Del Gato) "uck off"	(151, 109, 2)	Aft Central Primary Hallway

In the round in question there were 2 lings and a traitor, and apparently a nightmare, which is pretty standard dynamic I reckon. I think this has to do more with recent MRP policy unrestricting lings and nightmares more than it does dynamic balance.

I disagree that dying “shouldn’t be standard operating procedure.” Dying is extremely common in SS13 and it’s just part of the game. If most rounds ended by safely making your way back to Centcom untouched the whole round, the game would be a horribly boring job sim.

It can definitely suck, but instead of blaming the game — dynamic, the players, policy, etc. — try to ask what you could do different next time to avoid it. There’s a lot of fun in that process. You can never totally avoid dying but you can work to have a little bit more power over if your character survives.

[NoxVS]

How are they supposed to be dialed back? Can you come up with an example for an actual rule change?

[sinfulbliss]

How are they supposed to be dialed back? Can you come up with an example for an actual rule change?

Headmins can dial back threat via config, in fact they’ve already dialed back threat in the last few days (despite the recent poll results that show people on average overwhelmingly prefer high threat).

[Vekter]

10. Losing is part of the game.

Your character will frequently die, sometimes without even a possibility of avoiding it. Events will often be out of your control. No matter how good or prepared you are, sometimes you just lose.

I'll elaborate, as I feel it's bad form to just empty quote the rules at you, even though I think that already makes my point for me.

The issues Manuel was created to solve are twofold:

1) A response to players who wanted gameplay more focused on the actual game and not killing everyone, as they'd grown tired of simply dying to someone with an ebow and a sword because they were existing in their department at the time they'd swung by.
2) Players generally tired of having their departments broken into by people who weren't even antags and just generally were sick of dealing with people who didn't know how to ask for something instead of just taking it.

The first is relevant here, and what you're failing to understand is that there are reasons admins have lowered the bar for what you can and can't do as an antag on MRP. The only common antag that can kill you for literally no reason is changelings, and that's because getting caught as one almost guarantees your death, so they're allowed to go a little buckwild in exchange. Nightmares are also unrestricted, but in general easy to deal with in that you just need to stay in a lit area.

Keep in mind that players who are restricted can't, by definition, "wordlessly kill other players, dump their bodies where they'll never be recovered and move on to the next guy" without a valid reason. That reason can be relatively flimsy - you insulted them, so they're going to fuck you up now - but they still need a reason. The point of Manuel was never to create a hugbox scenario where you never died of no fault of your own. It was to prevent people from rolling Traitor, grabbing an ebow and a sword, and going from department to department depopulating the station en masse.

You're going to die sometimes. That's how the game works. It wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't any threat of death.

[TheBibleMelts]

this is being addressed, but your concerns and reasons for posting it here seem pretty heavily salt-based. i don't think this thread has a whole lot of purpose to stay up.

[jtroopa]

Well, I won't argue with you.

[TheBibleMelts]

combo of this already being actioned on + the above, shuffling this to resolved