Forbid low pop murderbone

[Fatal]

Alright, here we go again

I know this has been brought up many times in the past but, I will explain why I feel the need to bring it up again

Since the summer ball killed off the event hall population, event hall is often on single digit pop numbers, or thereabouts, players who see this in the hub, rather than joining the large population servers, might join it to learn the game a little, or just want a quieter round but don't want to play on Manuel

A few times in the last few days, traitors have gone full murderbone from the second the round starts and within 5-10 minutes the entire crew is dead, outright killing the server population even more because these players are mostly quitting the game or joining another server

As a result of this, I propose making murderbone forbidden when the pop is roughly 10 or less, killing a handful of unarmed crew isn't particularly engaging gameplay for anyone, and if you want to murderbone, there are more populated servers to do it on where you actually have some opposition

[NoxVS]

manuel admins cant even agree on defining what murderbone is, how will the other servers pull it off?

[trollbreeder]

For our definition here, a murderbone is when an antag kills a large percentage of crewmembers.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

send an ert or something lol, banning people on a dead pop server wont improve the server situation

[Fatal]

I already said what the definition of this was

If there's roughly 10 or less, down to admin discretion, do not murderbone (and by that I mean clearly don't go on a indiscriminate killing spree)

As for sending an ERT, I'm always against sending an ERT because someone murderbones because that feels like a reward, plus, how the hell can an admin get an ERT together with 10 or less pop when it's often a struggle on 40 plus

It might not fix the low population numbers entirely on event hall but it wouldn't hurt

[Jin]

Mad

[Stickymayhem]

Rule 0 Precedents.
1. Rule 0 should only be invoked by admins when it is in the best interests of the server.
2. Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player regardless of antag status has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave.

If the round is ending there isn't an issue. If the round isn't ending it's already covered in the rules and an admin can intervene.

Making something ill-definable worth an OOC ban doesn't make any sense, especially when we try to allow antags to do whatever they want. Is a supermatter delam that kills everyone murderbone? A singulo? 5 bombs? 3 bombs? Killing the only officer and then the station rushes at you and you kill them all?

There's no possible line to draw here. It's an IC issue and it's already covered by existing precedents.

[oranges]

don't play on a low pop hub server then champ

[terranaut]

(and by that I mean clearly don't go on a indiscriminate killing spree)

ok what if i kill the hop to get his ID to get to my target and kill him but the AI sees me and sends the one officer my way so i kill him and while that happens the assistant and clown break into the armory together to validhunt me so i kill them too
on paper i killed 5 out of 10 (-1 because thats me) players which in a vacuum looks like murderbone but is clearly justified


the point of this post is to show you that its very difficult to discriminate between murderbone and an unfortunate series of events that lead to a lot of in the context of the rules (even the bad one you're trying to create) allowed killings and probably not worth the hassle and the false positives you'll be banning

[Fatal]

Its fairly easy to spot if someone is chasing after you with weapons and you kill them versus someone just doing their job and you kill them indiscriminately, and I'm not saying we chase people down and ban them for this sort of thing

All I'm saying is, even if it's just a small edit to the rules, we make it clear (because as sticky says, there are rules and precedents in place about this), that playing low pop antag to murder the entire crew is not acceptable, right now, that is NOT clear, sure admins can use rule 0:

Enforcement of these rules is at the discretion of admins.
Admins are fully accountable for any consequences should they invoke this rule. Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the playerbase.

And

Rule 0 should only be invoked by admins when it is in the best interests of the server.
Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player regardless of antag status has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave.

But you see, to new players, that isn't clear what that means or doesn't mean

I know we have a shit load of rules already but adding one more which merely gives mild protection to the extreme low pop rounds we have is hardly a big undertaking

[CPTANT]

Accept death and move to a different server.

[Cobby]

lowpop murderbone can btfo a server so i see no issue with telling people to knock it off.

[wesoda25]

If you lowpop murderbone go to hippie

[NecromancerAnne]

Hippie is dying so they turned up here.

[Countrygal68]

There are a few benefits to elaborating on specific protocol re: lowpop murderboning. We can help players by outlining commonly held expectations of sportsmanship for lowpop. I've read numerous complaints that the rules aren't specific enough for players to clearly understand, which leaves them feeling vulnerable to unexpected disciplinary action. More detailed policy provides a written reference for players and future admins, which also supports admins in enforcing the rules, since players cannot plead ignorance as easily.

All cases are still subject to admin discretion and the appeals process if necessary, so even though we cannot perfectly define murderbone, we can still arrive at a collective understanding of what murderboning is, dependent upon context. At least attempting to define it, through dialectic, would be a productive, albeit daunting, task.

[CrazyClown12]

The problem with 'The admin can intervene' is that it requires an admin to be online. The vast majority of the time that the station is lowpop, there are no admins online. Recognising that something is bad and deserves admin action is pretty useless if it happens almost exclusively when there are no admins present to do anything.

[PKPenguin321]

For our definition here, a murderbone is when an antag kills a large percentage of crewmembers.

>1 traitor in a crew of 3
>kills one guy
>has now killed 33% of the crew and gets banned

[BeeSting12]

Low pop murderboning should be against the rules. It's already one of those rule 0 things where admins kinda have an unlimited amount of IC fuckery they're allowed to get away with to solve it.

[NecromancerAnne]

You say that but one of my 'successful' complaints was throwing a slow moving 5000 hp blood jaunting giant tarantula against a pair of low pop murderboning bbs.

I can definitely tell you I have no sympathy for that shit and if anything, it demonstrates just how shallow our players are if legitimately this is all they do.

Unironically, niknak yelled at me because the player in question was 'known for it'. Fucking yikes.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Just put it in rules that admins can fuck you for low-pop murderboning the same way they can do whatever the fuck they want if you do WGW.

You don't get stupid complaints like that if you can just point to the rule saying "it's right here".

[cacogen]

This should be taken into consideration by the game design (e.g. uplink restrictions, automatic ERT spawning, whatever) and not made into an administrative problem that results in fun policing. The game should be trying to put people back into the round instead of letting ghosts pile up.

[Armhulen]

This should be taken into consideration by the game design (e.g. uplink restrictions, automatic ERT spawning, whatever) and not made into an administrative problem that results in fun policing. The game should be trying to put people back into the round instead of letting ghosts pile up.

If we're talking about game design, the game is not supposed to be played with less than 8 people. You can't have antagonists on that population unless rounds are set to be extremely short

[CPTANT]

I think uplink scaling is something that could be seriously looked into. Uplinks are meant to balance the fact that a few traitors go up against the entire station. With that little people you really are a noob if you can't murder the station without using your uplink. In fact I think low pop uplink less traitors would be more interesting since it actually requires preparation before murdering everyone.

[Stickymayhem]

You say that but one of my 'successful' complaints was throwing a slow moving 5000 hp blood jaunting giant tarantula against a pair of low pop murderboning bbs.

I can definitely tell you I have no sympathy for that shit and if anything, it demonstrates just how shallow our players are if legitimately this is all they do.

Unironically, niknak yelled at me because the player in question was 'known for it'. Fucking yikes.

I think that was purely a case of it being slightly too strong (a very easy mistake to make it's not like we have an admin guide for hp/force diffuclty values). From the headmin ruling:

I would however like to note that we do not necessarily hold antagonist rounds sacred, and administrators can and often will intervene in various ways if they believe it to be in the best interests of the ongoing round. In this instance it was a bit heavy handed and thus we will uphold the complaint and consider it successful.

Another key thing here is that if the shuttle is coming, the issue is self solving. Yes it's lame but at least the round is over in 10 minutes.

If it happened so fast that the shuttle can't be called or the murderboners just aren't doing it, heavy handed IC consequences with near-impossible odds is acceptable imo, and I think this is still backed up by policy.

[Sarvak]

I think this really sounds more like a code solution than a policy solution. Maybe not having certain kinds of traitors/objectives on <10 roundstart pop, or special objectives that include explicitly non-murderbone objective.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

who gives a fuck about objectives, if 60% of crew dies vote restart and you are done with it

[Tarchonvaagh]

The fuck?
Last time I checked lowpop bone was against the rules?
Since when is it not?

[Sarvak]

The fuck?
Last time I checked lowpop bone was against the rules?
Since when is it not?

This was the thread with precedent that I could find on the matter:
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=24312

[Cobby]

you can murderbone without using uplink items.

"He used armory weapons instead of uplink weapons" wouldnt really shift the discussion anywhere.

[oranges]

I already posited a partial code solution to this issue (reworking traitor uplinks), but it won't stop certain players who think the height of robustness is going on a server with 20 people and killing them all.

That's an administrative problem I can't do anything about.

[remanseptim]

>enforce rules for antagonists
no

[oranges]

I think anyone who has read any of your opinions know they're worth about as much as dogshit stuck to the bottom of a shoe reman

[Fatal]

I already posited a partial code solution to this issue (reworking traitor uplinks), but it won't stop certain players who think the height of robustness is going on a server with 20 people and killing them all.

That's an administrative problem I can't do anything about.

As oranges said, this is not a code issue, mostly because, especially with absolute minimal pop, there are enough lethal weapons on the station, not even armory ones, that you really don't need your uplink to murder the entire station in 5 minutes flat

As for the "enforcing rules for antagonists" part

Antagonists already have rules, this adds another which in the overwhelming majority of rounds simply won't even apply

[remanseptim]

I think anyone who has read any of your opinions know they're worth about as much as dogshit stuck to the bottom of a shoe reman

okay orange man

elaborating, LRP antags should not be beholden to any rules, but lowpop murderbone to the point of the round falling to atrophy has always been accepted to be met with admin intervention so long as you're not a heavyhanded caveman about it. just encourage admins to roll with the round more rather than tossing out bans. if you can manage to twist a shitty situation into an amusing one, good.

as for MRP antagonists you can't really win, it currently just depends on the admin who's on.

[FloranOtten]

LRP antags should not be beholden to any rules

You know, besides the ones we do hold them to

[cacogen]

I already posited a partial code solution to this issue (reworking traitor uplinks), but it won't stop certain players who think the height of robustness is going on a server with 20 people and killing them all.

That's an administrative problem I can't do anything about.

1. automatically spawn an ert
2. spawn more antags

[FloranOtten]

1. automatically spawn an ert
2. spawn more antags

More antags is just going to exacerbate the issue, and if everyone got murderboned who are you expecting to fill the ERT? The people who got killed? They aren't going to magically become more robust by handing them an egun. The ERT would just become a free gear pinata for the murderboner and would be seen as a reward for doing such a good job. Non-admin ERTs are a problem as well, because then there's nobody to stop the murderboner going to centcomm and obtaining a pulse rifle, a deathsquad suit, an admin spawn revolver, and the NT-ARG boarder rifle.

[NecromancerAnne]

Literally, you don't sometimes send erts for the express purpose to not reward that kind of thing.

elaborating, LRP antags should not be beholden to any rules.

Just going to stress this but antags have some rules. They are very, very few but they exist.

Don't spam. Don't kill anyone on the arrivals shuttle. Don't do a rule 8. Follow your flavour text if you are a ghost role. Follow mind control and stuff. Do not jeopardize your team as a team antag which has specific precedent like destroying power and plasmaflooding.

They are held to some standard. Absolutely no rules is ridiculous and it's entirely rules based around decorum. This is no different.

[FloranOtten]

Another especially relevant rule is no causing lag. Even as antag, intentionally causing lag is bad. This is because it grinds the game to a halt and kills the fun of anyone on the server. Cough cough.

[cacogen]

1. automatically spawn an ert
2. spawn more antags

More antags is just going to exacerbate the issue, and if everyone got murderboned who are you expecting to fill the ERT? The people who got killed? They aren't going to magically become more robust by handing them an egun. The ERT would just become a free gear pinata for the murderboner and would be seen as a reward for doing such a good job. Non-admin ERTs are a problem as well, because then there's nobody to stop the murderboner going to centcomm and obtaining a pulse rifle, a deathsquad suit, an admin spawn revolver, and the NT-ARG boarder rifle.

1. You are wrong
2. ERT loot and Centcom access can be easily solved in code if they are actual problems but instead of that have a higher level threat such as a deathsquad spawn and let them bask in glory if they overcome that too. Challenge antags with escalating levels of threat provided by dead players.

The problem with murderbonering is not mass death or anarchy the problem is large amounts of dead for large amounts of time leading to stagnant rounds and lost job progress. It isn't conducive to a fun round if one side is permanently dead.

[Cobby]

Then don’t murderbone

[Agux909]

Then don’t murderbone

[remanseptim]

i just realized something
most of the time lowpop is admin-free, and it's rare that admins will actually ban people for incidents during previous rounds unless it's shockingly heavy duty bad shit.
this seems like something that, even if it was implemented, would be incredibly difficult to enforce.

[NecromancerAnne]

That means nothing, it being against the rules is reason enough to convince people not to do it.

Plenty of people try and grief lowpop because of this same justification of 'I'll get away with it lol'

It works until it doesn't or until someone tells an admin later. Stature of limitations doesn't exist if you break the rules flagrantly enough.

[remanseptim]

That means nothing, it being against the rules is reason enough to convince people not to do it.

Plenty of people try and grief lowpop because of this same justification of 'I'll get away with it lol'

It works until it doesn't or until someone tells an admin later. Stature of limitations doesn't exist if you break the rules flagrantly enough.

you're right in that, but being able to tell if something is murderbone in retrospect is probably a lot harder than determining the killing took place itself. the only tool, aside from player testimonies, would be logs, and as far as I know they wouldn't be explicitly helpful in determining the events that led to somebody being killed. a justified killing doesn't always involve players speaking to each other, after all.
if this rule does get implemented, i genuinely hope, like in the previous posts itt, the headmins rule on what counts as lowpop for each server. i personally think the cutoff for additional access being given to IDs would work well.

[NecromancerAnne]

That's fair, but thankfully the logs shouldn't be particularly large if it is a genuine murderbone. There are only so many people dying that round after all.

A sound cutoff to me is sub 15. 10 minimum for certainty. Any more than that is probably enough to justify a murderbone if you want. But it shouldn't be hard cutoff. Just vaguely around there.

Murderbone has already been defined fpr Manuel, so no reason to have two definitions.

[FloranOtten]

instead of that have a higher level threat such as a deathsquad spawn and let them bask in glory if they overcome that too. Challenge antags with escalating levels of threat provided by dead players.

"I know how we can reduce low pop murderbone, let's reward those that do it!"

[wesoda25]

Another great way to challenge lowpop murderboners would be to qdel them once they kill more than x% of station pop

[oranges]

tg players would just suicide on lowpop to make sure traitors redtext

[cacogen]

instead of that have a higher level threat such as a deathsquad spawn and let them bask in glory if they overcome that too. Challenge antags with escalating levels of threat provided by dead players.

"I know how we can reduce low pop murderbone, let's reward those that do it!"

Is it a reward when more cops come in GTA? No. It isn't. The game is funner with a trainer so you can turn cops off or turn on invulnerability so they can't ruin your fun blowing up cars and killing everyone. Is it bad for victims of murderboners to get back into the round with a chance for revenge as an OP role instead of merely sitting and observing their killer for 20 minutes? It's like I'm speaking another language.

Then don’t murderbone

I have terrible latency and don't know the meta anymore anyway. But people have enjoyed it for time eternal and rather than punishing people for having fun good game design compensates for it. It seems to me your design decisions as a coder and maintainer seem driven mostly by spite and a need to force players to do what you want them to, without thought for incentivising it, what players want or what's fun to do.