Revert "Revert Manuel's game mode chances"

[Ivuchnu]

This thread viewtopic.php?f=33&t=26176 buffed chance of modes that tend to devolve into Team Deathmatch most of time (wizard, nuclear emergency, cult and revolution).

I believe majority of Manuel players do not, in fact, enjoy those modes. Please run poll in lobby (the kind we had recently for maps and headmin election) if you don't believe me.

[Jack7D1]

I am in great favor of reducing TDM gamemodes.

[Shadowflame909]

Yeah those modes arent MRP compatible and were reduced for a very good reason

Darn you Dezupher!1!!

[wesoda25]

Yeah those modes arent MRP compatible

Why?

[Shadowflame909]

Those modes have a set end-goal, that is, depending on how fast the antagonists work, the round ends.

Their means of getting to that goal is in direct conflict with the security team, and their targets, as all of them involve player destruction.

Thus, since those modes are a race. You cannot slowdown and have dialogue. Making them incompatible with MRP.

[Flatulent]

since when is mrp only about dialogue? I thought people asking for mrp server wanted roleplay. Is your perception of an antagonist in a role playing game one of “doesn’t do anything but sip tea in library”? Friendly antags that try to talk you to death isn’t the way forward.

holy hell, the “sitting in the bar talking for 30 minutes about your 400 pages long character backstory” stereotype wasn’t lying at all

[trollbreeder]

DEAD: Chare Arpey says, "Nooo!!! You can't just convert people for no reason! You need to RP into recruiting them! This isn't bagil nooo"
Unknown says, "Haha flash go piweyyyy"

[Shadowflame909]

since when is mrp only about dialogue? I thought people asking for mrp server wanted roleplay. Is your perception of an antagonist in a role playing game one of “doesn’t do anything but sip tea in library”? Friendly antags that try to talk you to death isn’t the way forward.

holy hell, the “sitting in the bar talking for 30 minutes about your 400 pages long character backstory” stereotype wasn’t lying at all

You can slow down on every other mode. As a traitor you can hold your target hostage, you can try to trade them for the captain. You can do a multitude of other things that create an engaging round.

As a cultist, revolutionary, or a nukie your goal is much more obvious, and much more burdened. Quite literally so that it sturs everyone into a panic to shut you down as fast as possible.

In a simpler explanation. These are designed and built around being TDM game-modes as a break from the stealthy paranoia that is traitor and changeling.

Everything is amped up to 11, and you are NOT getting any meaningful role-play from a team that's in a frenzy to turn you horizontal before you turn them horizontal.

[cybersaber101]

I believe the tdm modes can all be toned back a bit % wise and wizard back to what it was before it was reverted as in almost never.

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

I've sort of made my peace with the game mode chance changes but I'd still prefer them to go back to what they were.
I do think a poll would be nice, and am skeptical the majority of Manuel even wanted this change to begin with.

[Shikarego]

Yes.

Also - remove wiz.

[RaveRadbury]

If cult and revs can work on HRP it can work here.

This is more an issue with the playerbase having to adjust to MRP pacing and expectations than it is with the game modes.

[cybersaber101]

Manuel has had wiz since the beginning and its pretty terribad 99% of the time. I sure love 5 minute rounds.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Manuel has had wiz since the beginning and its pretty terribad 99% of the time. I sure love 5 minute rounds.

You mean the round where everyone worships the wizard like some form of deity and make him honorary captain and he sits around in the bar RPing and its 3 hours extended?

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

If cult and revs can work on HRP it can work here.

This is more an issue with the playerbase having to adjust to MRP pacing and expectations than it is with the game modes.

LRP and HRP are perhaps more similar to each other from an enforcement practicality standpoint than MRP is to either, and what I mean by that is...
HRP pretty tightly controls what anyone is allowed to do and know IC at any given moment and deviations from that are both rare-ish and easy to deal with (I assume).
LRP has extremely minimal to no roleplay rules, so obviously that's even easier to deal with.
Meanwhile MRP has to carve out a vague and subjective middle ground and having some restrictions is a lot harder to pull off than tons or nearly none.

Ahead of the problem of figuring out how to make these game modes "work" on MRP, this bears repeating; why not a poll on if they should even be there?
Does the administration care if the majority of Manuel players want or do not want these game modes in?

[RaveRadbury]

It doesn't make sense to me how Revs and Cult could work on LRP and HRP yet not be feasible for MRP. It's a sliding scale, clearly it can happen. I get that you're using horseshoe theory but I don't think it can validate removing a whole style of gameplay (team conversion)

Also, HRP has wizard in code, on Bay they have to vote for it at the start of a round, it's removed from their secret.

With that in mind, I think it's crucial that we keep wizard in rotation for MRP.

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

They currently already "work" on MRP because by necessity several RP rules are thrown out the window and they play out 90% identically to how they do on LRP. I am of the belief that that's how they always will function here, and that it'll reinforce LRP playstyles and make them bleed into other game modes.
How does security follow rule 6 when the bad guys want to literally destroy the station and everyone on it summoning a Lovecraftian horror, or when they know that said bad guys need to kill every head of staff and generally as many security officers as they can in the process?
And the inverse, how do cultists and revs somehow avoid effectively murderboning (or wordlessly mass converting) sec and witnesses and anyone mindshielded?

I'm pretty confident our cult code is extremely different from HRP servers', but that aside if you think HRP has some secret sauce for dealing with this besides metashielding (which I really would love to never ever see on TG) do share.

As to wizard, it's a guy who is literally allowed to murderbone everyone and telling the crew they're not allowed to fight against that tooth and nail would be ridiculous. So the end result of wizard is either friendly/silly wiz, which I like but everyone seems to hate, or a guy wiping people out until sec shotguns him or an assistant spears him to death. Not sure what amazing roleplay is going to occur there really.

[NoxVS]

How does security follow rule 6 when the bad guys want to literally destroy the station and everyone on it summoning a Lovecraftian horror, or when they know that said bad guys need to kill every head of staff and generally as many security officers as they can in the process?
And the inverse, how do cultists and revs somehow avoid effectively murderboning sec and witnesses and anyone mindshielded?

There are ways for both sides to bring people back over to their side. Implants for revs, holy water for cultists. Cultists and revs can use surgery to remove the implant - ghetto surgery even would work. Even if they don't succeed, that's that. Not every conflict ends with "and then we all went and had drinks together and everything was nice and happy!" Roleplay isn't sitting at the bar with your donut steel super special quirky character and solving everything by talking things out so you can resume your bar RP with a dumb character that would have been fired if they worked for an actual corporation, its playing out your role in a story. In some stories you win, some stories you lose. You can have an interesting story even with murder.

As to wizard, it's a guy who is literally allowed to murderbone everyone and telling the crew they're not allowed to fight against that tooth and nail would be ridiculous. So the end result of wizard is either friendly/silly wiz, which I like but everyone seems to hate, or a guy wiping people out until sec shotguns him or an assistant spears him to death. Not sure what amazing roleplay is going to occur there really.

Agreed, should be removed entirely. Just doesn't work, barely even works on LRP though.

For the most part, these rounds help break up the extremely long extended rounds or the rounds where the traitors are barely even a problem. Lots of Manuel rounds already end up being an hour of you doing nothing and then the round crashes or you finally get the slightest excuse to fuck off. The team gamemode rounds are the only thing that can break them up and cause an interesting shift instead of an hour of walking in circles

[cybersaber101]

Wizard is a cancer of impossible standards for both wizard and crew. take it out and wait for a rework.

[carshalash]

Cult is still broken murderboning garbage.

[cybersaber101]

Cult is still broken murderboning garbage.

As long as they'd RP a cult even a little i'd be okay with it but if you ever see Cult speak it's basically csgo callouts.

Edit: I'd like to hope the headmins speed run this thread like the previous, in 2 or 3 days haha. What a breadth of time to discuss something that effects a lot of players, just like the other thread haha, hopefully there's a vote or something this time around.

[carshalash]

Cult is still broken murderboning garbage.

As long as they'd RP a cult even a little i'd be okay with it but if you ever see Cult speak it's basically csgo callouts.

People dont RP as cult. It is a mess of a game mode, it's a stealth conversion loud spell caster. Nobody bothered to pause and say "Hey robustin, maybe your rework is going a little too far". So now we are stuck with the deviantart OC of game modes

[Mickyan]

These modes typically play out depending on which side has more people willing to ignore all MRP specific rules and just play the mode to win, there's enough wiggle room to do it without getting banned but the two mix together like oil and water

[Stickymayhem]

I've forced people to roleplay out nuke ops before and it's been a fantastic time.

The issue is we need to change how we view these gamemodes. Revolution is a clusterfuck because you flash someone and now they're antag and run off to murder people. I've had rounds on even non-MRP servers where I would flash people and create a closer-knit group of revolutionaries with clearer goals. As a psychologist I once booked appointments with people, then flashed them mid-therapy and began converting all of medbay.

My point here is that there is huge potential for really fun cooperative roleplay even in conversion modes. The key to good antagonistic roleplay is not being obsessed with winning at all costs. Currently we have the following problem on the lower RP servers: Antags optimize to win, meaning security has to optimize to win, and we reach an arms race until everyone is basically ignoring any dialogue and focusing on mechanical advantages.

If the antags, lets say revs, are willing to roleplay more, gather together, discuss plans and actually work with each other then security has more less violent opportunities to notice or catch them. They dont have to immediately dump 10 people into the brig and start deconverting just to survive. Same with any antags really. Nuke ops holding the Captain ransom is a lot more fun and interesting and combattable than a stealth smash and grab, especially on lower pop.

I've been saying this about wizards for years. The fun of wizard should be that you are absolutely powerful and extremely difficult to contend with and the round is all about you. It's your opportunity to effectively run an event with these tools. What is the round going to look like? Skeletal hordes? Animated Objects? Construct Swarm? Mindswap Paranoia? This is the happy middle ground I'd like to find in medium RP between boring friendly wizard and murderbone gibzard.

[Jack7D1]

I trust Raves judgment and I like Mickyans take. Maybe it is just an issue with the players and not the config.

Also I don't get why there's people in here complaining about he current state of Manuel despite only playing 12 rounds ever.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

I like Sticky's take to be honest - there is rp opportunity in tdm modes, but when nobody bothers to do that it creates a culture of power gaming at all costs and talking isn't a free action ingame so that gets thrown to the wayside.

The solution is to enforce stricter standards from these antagonists in the same way you would enforce higher standards from tators. Stricter standards means the crew can relax when they hear revs/cult since they dont need to immediately go into unga stance or lose because they know the Antags aren't preemptively going for unga or lose.

[Shadowflame909]

That just means we need a ruling.

But until that happens: Revert this Nephew because Arms Race the gamemodes are not up to MRP standard.

[Jack7D1]

yep nevermind I am going 360 I want this fuckin reverted I'm sick of wizard>cult>wizard>nukeops>wizard>cult>revs>secret extended
oh yeah and families too, god damn

[Owegno]

Since multiple people here have mentioned rule enforcement to force people to RP in gamemodes like rev and cult I'd like to ask them to please write out specific policy for these gamemodes that would allow for RP to be feasibly enforced. The current rules are very loose and work well in low intensity gamemodes, but are useless for deathmatch gamemodes when half the server is going apeshit and I am stuck flabbergasted on how to make people slow down and stop powergaming.

I tried to write some policy for rev and cult that would force people to slow down, but they all ended up being HighRP by creating specific scripts the antags and sec must follow. Please be my guest if you want to try and write MRP policy for these gamemodes, but until then the odds of these gamemodes should be reduced. The back to back high intensity gamemodes issue that Jack mentioned is certainly my biggest grievance when it comes to playing on Manuel.

[Stickymayhem]

A code solution is needed. E. G. Flashes and cult conversions could pacify people for a short period so their converter has time to speak with them and is forced to do it more carefully.

[XDTM]

No amount of hard rulings is going to work anyway as long as 'winning' is the priority of the players, it's kind of an endemic culture mismatch by now.

As long as there is an objective, a certain portion of the playerbase will aim for it at all costs, and in team antag situations, will try to drag those who don't along with them, stifling any attempts at non-objective-oriented play.
Even without a clear-cut objective, they still try to 'win' through the default objective of surviving at any cost, or killing everyone else if they're an antag.

The holy grail of med-rp would be a way to make players consider winning not necessary to have fun.

[Mickyan]

I don't even agree this is the players' or rules fault, these modes have underlying issues that are just made a lot worse in an environment where you're expected to not use every waking moment preparing for impending doom and all it takes is standing next to someone for more than a second to lose.
And especially in the case of conversion gamemodes, every occurrence of this increases the snowballing process. For every short casual conversation you make, somewhere else on the station a headrev is rushing into a room and converting a small crowd.

[XDTM]

It's the prisoner's dilemma of rp gameplay

If sec takes it easy (ex: giving benefit of doubt, taking prisoners/deconversions over just killing) and the revolutionaries don't, the revolution snowballs into an unstoppable tide.
If revolutionaries take it easy (ex: rp-ing out the revolution, going public early on, converting slowly) and sec doesn't, they get stomped out mercilessly.
If both sides play solely to win it becomes pretty much a deathmatch, which some enjoy anyway, but lacks the roleplay interactions that other players prefer to have, especially in a med-rp server.

You could say that it's an issue of the gamemodes, but i think that real-time pvp roleplay is fundamentally not possible without either
1) a proper medium to play it with, which doesn't really exist right now (textbox chat interrupts gameplay, voicechat has a whole other set of issues)
2) or willingness from the players to tone down the competitiveness to allow roleplaying in spite of its inherent competitive disadvantage

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

A code solution is needed. E. G. Flashes and cult conversions could pacify people for a short period so their converter has time to speak with them and is forced to do it more carefully.

You just made it perfectly clear in your first post that you considered it a policy problem...
In any event, fat chance of Manuel having substantial coding changes done specifically to suit it, that's absolutely not going to happen. I'll be surprised if we even end up with much more simple stuff put behind config/policy.

I would like to hear Owegno's request answered; anyone throwing around flowery platitudes in this thread about how revs cult wiz ops would be an amazing RP experience if people slowed down/didn't try to win/held hands & sang Kumbaya or whatever, please, provide concrete specifics. What rules or applications of the existing ones would fix this, and how?

[Stickymayhem]

A code solution is needed. E. G. Flashes and cult conversions could pacify people for a short period so their converter has time to speak with them and is forced to do it more carefully.

You just made it perfectly clear in your first post that you considered it a policy problem...
In any event, fat chance of Manuel having substantial coding changes done specifically to suit it, that's absolutely not going to happen. I'll be surprised if we even end up with much more simple stuff put behind config/policy.

I would like to hear Owegno's request answered; anyone throwing around flowery platitudes in this thread about how revs cult wiz ops would be an amazing RP experience if people slowed down/didn't try to win/held hands & sang Kumbaya or whatever, please, provide concrete specifics. What rules or applications of the existing ones would fix this, and how?

I said we have to change the view on these modes. Code is the fastest way to do it. Layers of rules are going to be a complex mess.

Otherwise we just have to play and try and force it and hope for the best. Or admins need to nudge rounds until it becomes the norm but that's pretty invasive

[Owegno]

Please code these code changes you'd like to see then. Once these code changes are completed then rev and cult can have their odds increased. Until then reduce the odds high conflict gamemodes.

Since apparently I wasn't clear enough about this in my first post I will make it crystal clear here: There is no reason to force players to suffer through these gamemodes because people believe they can get better. Once policy or code changes are made to these gamemodes that make them more suitable for MRP then their odds can be increased. Until then reduce their odds back to what they were before Dezuphers thread.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Random idea pitch, if revs didn't get an inbuilt IFF system upon conversion that tells you "oh i cant valid this guy he also has an R over his head" it would force them to actually engage in roleplay to organise and make sure they don't kill each other by mistake.

Code solution that requires little to no oversight by admins.

[Jack7D1]

Increasing the chances of greenshifts also will drive away a lot of the LRP popchasers.

[Shadowflame909]

Increasing the chances of greenshifts also will drive away a lot of the LRP popchasers.

I'm a manuel main and I unironically like doing big brain saw like traitor moves.

I can be a fan of "MRP SS13" and not office worker SS13.

[PKPenguin321]

Increasing the chances of greenshifts also will drive away a lot of the LRP popchasers.

I'm a manuel main and I unironically like doing big brain saw like traitor moves.

I can be a fan of "MRP SS13" and not office worker SS13.

^^^
conflict creates drama which improves RP
it does not remove it
extended has worse RP because its significantly less interesting

[NoxVS]

Increasing the chances of greenshifts also will drive away a lot of the LRP popchasers.

I'm a manuel main and I unironically like doing big brain saw like traitor moves.

I can be a fan of "MRP SS13" and not office worker SS13.

^^^
conflict creates drama which improves RP
it does not remove it
extended has worse RP because its significantly less interesting

So many extended rounds theres nothing to do and I just run around and quit.

I think we actually need MORE antags showing up, but thats a matter for another policy thread

[cybersaber101]

No one is perfect and wants to put 100% and try to create an interesting experience for their own side or the opposing. less frequency could help with burnout, especially if the rounds go Rev>Cult>nukeops>Rev>Wizard.

[Ivuchnu]

Strange to see this change not getting speedrun approval any% and thread getting quiet.

[Jack7D1]

Give it time, headmins work in batches.

[carshalash]

I guess this is never going to happen, lovely.

[NikoTheGuyDude]

so uh, is anything going to be done here? Or is this just gonna be left to rot?

[Jack7D1]

This will not be touched until the Manuel policy thread comes to a conclusion.

[cybersaber101]

the manuel general forum thread, policy thread. That thread is the greatest waste of letters known to man, just what's already been discussed on other threads with the same forum posters over and over but in a single thread. There's like one idea on it that hasn't been discussed since January.

This post was deleted by Tarchonvaagh on Wed Jun 10, 2020 6:53 pm.
Reason: actually this is a bad take

[carshalash]

Are we still ignoring this?