duck
Anomalist
Posts: 124
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Post by duck on Aug 12, 2014 0:11:27 GMT
Should we remove objectives from antags? They'll instead get a general message to 'make the round interesting,' which was supposed to be the OOC directive of all antags everywhere anyway. As is, we get a lot of greentext hunters and it's not conducive to RP or an RP server or even being interesting at all.
I'd push this even on a light-RP server. Even on a non-RP server.
General idea: if you need objectives to do something, it's almost definitely not going to be that interesting in the first place. Code already exists on Bay somewhere. Can find without too much hassle. Would be easy to implement, has zero downsides, and would generally improve the quality of life of everyone forever.
However, in the interest of fair discussion, I've set up a completely unbiased poll. To hear the community's thoughts.
We are very interested in your thoughts.
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Post by Sentient Bowtie on Aug 12, 2014 0:14:06 GMT
No.
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bluesp34r
Moderator
Tsundere
Such a tsundere
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Post by bluesp34r on Aug 12, 2014 0:23:33 GMT
I see...bad things coming from this.
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Post by moom241 on Aug 12, 2014 0:24:27 GMT
BEST IDEA EVER FOR PRESIDENT 2016!
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mrimatool
Lore Developer
Your guy, Toolio <3
Posts: 703
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Post by mrimatool on Aug 12, 2014 0:25:30 GMT
Love it, gives the antags the freedom for more interesting stuff.. and gives the players more fun. Also the admins will have to be a little more lenient with this however.
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Post by rarity34 on Aug 12, 2014 0:39:59 GMT
I can see only horror in the future with this idea.
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Post by frances on Aug 12, 2014 0:51:50 GMT
I'm against it, simply because this is how we end up with players trying to do ridiculous things like blow up the entire station, and basically trying to pass off any kind of grief as acceptable because they were antags.
Rather, I think we should encourage people to request custom objectives, perhaps by adding a message informing them that they're free to ahelp if they want their own objectives, or something like that.
I think that antag objectives serve as a sort of buffer for uninspired people, while keeping potentially murderboning antags in check. The thing is, most people that want to make up their custom objectives already do. It's no big secret that our server allows (and encourages) creativity and initiative, and I really don't think taking away default objectives will encourage many more people to come up with stuff.
Despite all of that, this is something I would actually like to see implemented for a week, just to see how this impacts the quality of the rounds, as it's a pretty big change and I might be totally wrong.
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incognitojesus
Chief Engineer
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I need to re-learn how to sleep.
Posts: 208
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Post by incognitojesus on Aug 12, 2014 1:07:05 GMT
"Zero downsides"
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Post by frances on Aug 12, 2014 1:08:37 GMT
Oh, also, moved to suggestion forum.
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susan
Detective
Posts: 30
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Post by susan on Aug 12, 2014 1:36:13 GMT
Alright. I'm going to wall of text here so be prepared.
There is literally no reason to be against the removal of objectives for antagonists. No justifiable reason. When Baystation considered this change I shot down every argument I could and by the grace of God I'll do it again simply because the removal of objectives will only overall improve the quality of antagonism in general. Baystation has had no objectives for a long while and though it may not be a good roleplay server anymore the amount of awful antagonists had dropped dramatically as an after-effect of the change.
Everything wrong with antagonists starts from objectives being given. Why do I say that?
Well, you provide the antagonist with a goal (IE murder so and so, steal this and that) and then if he completes said goal it is displayed for the whole server in a shower of green text and sparks so they can all pat him on the back and feed his ego. This fosters the kind of behavior known as 'greentexting', wherein an antagonist's only concern is getting that 'Successful!' text at the end so he forgoes his responsibilities and tries his hardest to complete his objectives. I have seen quite a lot of this on Aurora. Some of it isn't as obvious or doesn't grandstand as much as last minute emag into captain's office, steal laser, but it is still extremely off-putting and behavior that should not be encouraged on a server that touts itself as 'serious roleplay'.
Objectives are your tertiary - not even that - your last concern as an antagonist. At no point whatsoever during the course of a round should you ever be concerned about completing your objective. Your role as an antagonist, your only point for existing, the entire reason you are a thing is to foster roleplay. The second most important rule is not to be a dick. Anything after that pales in importance to performing your role spectacularly and both inciting and encouraging roleplay. This mindset is the one that should be fostered. Objectives do the exact opposite of this.
They hold your hand.
They provide you with something to do and reward you with ego for doing it. They do not foster creativity. They do not foster roleplay. I have seen people consistently do their objectives and then sit on their ass the whole round because they won. This is not something that is nor ever should be accepted, tolerated, or encouraged. If you require an objective to instruct you as to what to do then, to be perfectly blunt, you should not be playing antagonist. If you have the option ticked you should already have a base idea as to why your character would be a Syndicate/disgruntled worker/whoever and an objective they themselves would pick, like stealing from the vault or exposing corruption in the company. The role of an antagonist is one of such critical importance that creativity and improvisation should be extremely important. Shoehorning people into a boring cycle of 'murder x and do nothing, steal x and do nothing' shits all over that.
But with that you raise a concern - one that Frances had posted. What if people go overboard? Then you as administration slap them. In an ideal world the traitors would adminhelp their plans for approval and discuss with admins what to do, maybe even help them out. When I was a traitor on Baystation as Ana, I made it my objective (as a non-syndicate traitor) to expose corruption in NanoTrasen and as such admins spawned a bunch of DNA disks on the satellite for me to steal labeled 'Super Secret Recordings, DO NOT STEAL'. Collaboration between players and admins can result in great things; but at the same time if someone makes it their objective to 'blow up the station' or 'murder everyone', would you honestly expect them not to do that even with objectives? Someone who is focused on murderboning will murderbone with or without objectives. If people do pick such outrageous objectives, smack them down. It's worked for Bay this long.
If you truly want your server to 'encourage creativity and intiative' then you would be for this change. The current antagonist rules and situation you have do not lead me to believe that is the stated focus of your server. Objectives have shown to be nothing more than a window to uncreativity and wanton greentexting, plus you even encourage this greentexting by allowing traitors to murder their SSD targets rather than have them take their own initiative. In my opinion this is entirely unacceptable. I do not believe you can call yourself a serious roleplay server and yet at the same time take every measure available to encourage your antagonists - quite arguably the most singular importan role in a Space Station gamemode - to become gratification-focused uncreative objective machines. I have not seen a single antagonist take intiaitve. I have seen plenty of them go straight for their objectives with an almost disappointingly admirable single-minded intensity with almost no care for anything else.
The first step to engrossing antagonist roleplay is to allow them greater creativity. When someone seems surprised that another tells them they don't want to be a 'Syndicate' traitor and instead want to be a disgruntled employee, it seems a farce to claim that you encourage initiative. There will be antagonists that still do nothing because there is not an objective to hold their hand. But an uncreative antagonist that does nothing is better than a mindless machine that cares only about self-gratification over their role. There will be traitors who murderbone - and would murderbone irregardless - and that comes with the territory. But Baystation's playerbase is severely more far gone than the one that plays here, and even they do not have troubles with these issues. Saying that it 'keeps murderboning antagonists' in check is an exaggeration because if someone wanted to murderbone they could just do their objective and then murderbone anyway.
The only changes that this will bring about are positive. I can tell you this 100% from experience with Baystation.
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Post by frances on Aug 12, 2014 1:55:23 GMT
Okay, these are actually good points. And I suppose people that queue up for antag roles, on a roleplay server, do have some sort of desire to come up with some creative ideas of their own on how to execute antag objectives, else they wouldn't be playing here.
I do think more people will act out in a bad way when given extra freedom, but to which extent is something that remains to be seen. And if it is enforceable (which it should be, this basically means a few more antag bans), then this should be perfectly doable.
One last concern I must raise is admin involvement: Would free objectives be enforced, traitors provided with admin help within reason, etc? Would generic traitors still get an uplink? Given that we don't have 100% admin coverage, to which extent would admins need to be involved with antags during a round?
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susan
Detective
Posts: 30
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Post by susan on Aug 12, 2014 1:59:35 GMT
Admins don't have to get involved if they don't want to, but they can.
Traitors still get uplinks but are free as they are now to ignore it and claim they smuggled the gun aboard or whatever if they don't want to be a syndicate.
You would be as involved as you are now. Ideally antagonists would adminhelp what they plan to do and if there are issues to discuss it with staff but some may not. You might have to watch them a little closer but I'd say scrutinizing them might actually end up being a plus considering their important role.
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Post by veneke on Aug 12, 2014 2:09:09 GMT
This an horrible idea. This is basically carte blanche for antags to destroy a round. Right now, if you go off the reservation you can get done for it. This basically removes the reservation entirely, as any and all actions will now fall under 'I was attempting to accomplish the goals I had set for my antag'. This is a knee-jerk reaction to the very real problem that currently the majority of antagonists are very passive. There are better ways to deal with this than to give them a free hand in their objectives. Multiple objectives, for instance, either server-issued or admin-assigned/approved would at least ensure that antagonists do not accomplish their goal in the fist half an hour and then sit on their laurels. Broader objectives, such as disable the Science department, might also work. Objectives need to stay though, if only to reassure people that somebody didn't just single them out for death because they could. It's also important to point out that not all antagonists are passive. I typically play when the server is sparsely populated but even then there are some decent antagonists. susan: That's a mighty wall of text you have there. Although there is some objectionable commentary on the state of the server your points are all valid; until you attempt to draw a conclusion from them anyway. You are, for instance, quite right - an antag's objective should come below his priority to create drama during the round without destroying it. It does not follow, however, that objectives should be removed based on this. Objectives do not hinder creativity, they oblige an antagonist to accomplish one particular thing during the round and establish a firm basis for his being there. If said antagonist does that and nothing else, he has failed in his role but not because he was issued an objective, rather because he's a poor antagonist.
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bluesp34r
Moderator
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Post by bluesp34r on Aug 12, 2014 2:11:47 GMT
Well. That wall is simply amazing. But I'm going to have to but in, Sue.
As you've mentioned somewhere in your wall, people are going to get murderboners. Yes, that is true, and in cases they do that already. Your solution for that is to...well...punish it. See, we ALREADY punish people for excessively griefing or killing with the justification that they are an antagonist, so murderboning is ALREADY against the rules. You cannot, when your objective is to kill the janitor, decide to overthrow the entire chain of command and become the tyrant of the station, murdering off innocent souls one by one. No, that will get you antag-banned.
By removing objectives, you are essentially removing their limitations. I can guarantee you that if this were to happen, we would have antagonists eager to wet their whistles, deciding "Hey, I'm gonna kill these people just because." There should always be a reason for your actions when it comes to killing people. There should be something the Syndicate wants you to achieve. If you remove the green text, and let everyone just have their fill, they will be doing what would be otherwise griefing and getting away with it. Think about how popular we are becoming as of late. Think of all the newbies becoming traitor, who may not even grasp the concept of RP yet and go off on a murderboning rampage. I'm not at all against new players trying things, but we have an unwritten policy that new players should try to avoid playing antagonist roles, because if you leave the tick on and you get picked, you should be responsible enough for your actions. And if they don't quite get how our server works yet...there's gonna be issues.
Here's what I like about Aurora. When we have a traitor that reports their target is SSD, or that they do not like what their objective is, they will suggest a new one often times. As France has said, we encourage people to come up with their own objectives rather than go by the template. 9 out of 10 times, we will accept if it has enough creativity involved in it, not another simple "Murder this guy" mission, but rather something like a grand sabotage. If someone wants to go and do something big that's not listed as their objective, that's fine. But they should make the effort to let us admins know so that we can give them the chance, and so that we can keep murderboners in check.
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susan
Detective
Posts: 30
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Post by susan on Aug 12, 2014 2:32:11 GMT
The entire premise of your argument assumes that murderboning will increase at all.
I have already stated that evidence shows this will not happen to the point you seem to be hammering at.
I have already stated a server with more players than yours that also touts itself as high roleplay with a worse-off playerbase is not wildly plagued by these 'murderboning antagonists' that you seem to think will somehow magically appear because there's not some nondescript text feeding them an objective.
In typing a rebuttal you have already proven my point. "Something the Syndicate wants you to achieve"? Who are you to tell me who I am working for? I don't work for the Syndicate at all. I work for whatever motivation I decide for my character. What I'm taking away from this is that you've clung too much to the current stale set-up and though it has severe problems would rather not see a proven remedy to them (again, Baystation) because of a preconceived notion regarding murderboning. There is no evidence to back up your claims. I have plenty in Baystation to back up mine.
Yes, punish it. It is your duty as staff to punish egregious rule breaking. Punish people who decide to 'murder everyone'. Nothing has changed. They cannot use their antagonist status as a justification to murderbone. They would have been punished anyway. People who want to murderbone would murderbone anyway. There are no limiations to begin with. It is text. You are not bound by it. I could spawn on the server right now and revolver decap as many people as I want before being banned just the same without objectives.
If you can't trust your own players, that says a lot about your staff and your server.
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duck
Anomalist
Posts: 124
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Post by duck on Aug 12, 2014 3:22:00 GMT
Removing objectives does not at all mean throwing out all quality standards for antags. Killing everyone should still earn you an antagban. Blowing up the station should still earn you a ban. And it's true that antag objectives dooooo serve as a buffer. But when's the last time someone emagging into the captain's office and stealing his underwear actually added to the round. What's fun or interesting about parapen-C4. Tell me the upsides to detonating someone's PDA and then hiding in a locker until shuttle-call. 'Potentially murderboning antags' should still be thrown out or talked to. It's an RP server, and admins are supposed to enforce standards as well as rules. Uninspired people will always be uninspired, and with winning always so easy, they'll never strive to be anything more. Yes, our server encourages creativity. But the objectives encourage winning much more frequently than we encourage thinking, and people do what they're encouraged to do. Remove the objectives and players will have to get creative. Because what else are they going to do. I mean. They could just take all the antag slots and do nothing permanently. But you should ask those people to turn off the antag options or antagban them, really. As I type this, two changelings are discussing their objectives. By the end of the round, it's pretty likely absolutely nothing memorable will have happened. Did what they were told to do. New round. The previous round, the vampire was so godawful that it made me regret putting in vamps in the first place. Slowly sipping off SSDs and walking around a little. He didn't kill them and only took a little blood for short periods of time, yes, but he didn't do anything else, either. Killed his target at roundstart. Dumped the corpse in the cryogenic freezer. Later, he vampjaunts into the teleporter room, stuns and instantly enthralls the HoP without a word. About two hours in, vampy has his first real conversation, talking about starlight and stuff. His first real conversation. Two hours in. I think he finally started doing stuff shortly after that, after he had enough blood and high-ranking lackey to pretty much stomp all opposition with little personal risk. I don't know. I lost interest in him after he wordlessly gave Ana the deathfever and walked off. It turns out a dying cat can be light years more interesting than anything he does, so I watched her instead. Round ended shortly after that. All the greentexts, all objectives complete. And y'know what. I think he thinks he did a good job. It's been a week since I've come back, and I haven't seen a single memorable antagonist. No-one's planned, taken risks, overcome insurmountable odds and triumphed in spite of fate, luck, and a legion of redshirts turned against them. Security hasn't, with a lucky baton whap, put a stop to any unholy killing machines. They haven't had the chance to because there haven't been any unholy killing machines. Only pale, frightened little imitations who lie down and do as they're told because they're surrounded and the odds are against them and if they start killing an admin might get mad oh no and even if I did it's too late anyway. What antagonists should be. I remember serving under HoS WILLIAM HARSHMAN, THE MAN WITH A VOCAL DISORDER YOU INSENSITIVE FUCK, and swimming with him through oceans of revolutionaries with only my baton and the allies at our backs to keep us adrift. It wasn't even a rev round and he wasn't a traitor. He was just such an asshole that the entire station and half the security force would turn on him in any given round. And we loved him for it. I remember when the first atmos techs got tired of being treated like dirt, and with a cry of, "FOR ATMOSIA," seceded and bathed the station in nuclear fire. They wanted respect and money and guns. They never got the money nor guns, but after a few secessions a few rounds later, they got their respect. And the other departments thought it was so brilliant that soon, everyone was declaring secession, and the first nations rounds were born. I remember Robert Robust, who had a server-recorded body count in the 250s. The second highest was only in his 40s at the time. I remember all these people, but I won't remember this vamp or those changelings or any single antag in the previous week. They just don't have what it takes. They grew up in a time where the value of your round is measured by that one green line at the end and not the story you leave behind. Really. My old crew. The nontraitorous, perfectly sane ones were better antagonists than these frightened, sad-faced little things running around now. We risked bans for our antics, because they were often brilliant and the results were worth time in the deadbox. Worth time being banned. I doubt any of you have seen space like I have. And it's likely you never will, because sad as it is, legends do die and most of the best players I've ever met are long gone. But. This shit. This shit right here. This is what the game was never meant to be. And while greentext is not the only problem, it is the heart of the tumor and I would like it gone. So. There you are. If you wanted a serious discussion, the gloves are off. Chips are down. It's your move. Tell me what your greentext brings to the game. Tell me what's so great about low standards and handholding. All the poll options are 'Yes' because I honestly don't care if 'no' is all you have to say. Let me see the spine you're afraid to show in-game. Otherwise, please note that you can vote yes on every single yes, and that you should, in fact, do so. Or at least try to keep it even. Thanks. i.imgur.com/g3h2cl5.png
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Post by veneke on Aug 12, 2014 3:46:57 GMT
It's been a week since I've come back, and I haven't seen a single memorable antagonist. etc, etc, etc. I cut the rest of your post, as it basically boils down to this single sentence in support of removing objectives. The problem is that this is an entirely different discussion regarding the passivity of current antags, and how the majority of antags are played. This is going to be a problem with the people who play antag whether they have an objective or not. You're attempting to completely alter how the majority of people see a current role and are acting on the presumption that people feel like an objective is the be all and end all of an antag. It's not. I can't imagine terribly many people would suggest that it is. There's absolutely nothing stopping people, right now, from doing what you suggest - taking a creative approach to being an antagonist and causing disruption around the station. All an objective does is point out that they must do, at least, this one thing and grants an exemption from the normal rules regarding that objective. So, if you're an antag and tasked to kill X you can't be banned for killing X.
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bluesp34r
Moderator
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Post by bluesp34r on Aug 12, 2014 3:55:50 GMT
If you let players create their own objectives whenever they wanted, the ability to do so will not guarantee that they will be any creative, or that they will be any memorable, or that they will not attack SSD's, or that they will not do anything which isn't already done by bad antags (Keyword: BAD). There have been moments where we're short on traitors and such and we ask for volunteers. The volunteers are asked to suggest their own objectives with each ahelp. Most of them tend to suck, honestly. "Kill the captain and take over the station." Not very original, not very creative, not very memorable. You're going to kill the most distinguished person on the station, distinguished by rank? What makes that any different from a random objective?
If a player is creative enough to suggest something great, something memorable, then by all means they are ENCOURAGED to do it. But they gotta let us know. If someone's not creative, if they can't think of something that would add to the RP very much, then they should be better off with a random objective rather than "Destroy and entire department because it'll be cool."
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duck
Anomalist
Posts: 124
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Post by duck on Aug 12, 2014 3:59:54 GMT
Encouragement to do a single thing absolutely stops them. It's the easiest route to an endgoal, and like Sue said, you get the big sparkly green text congratulating you in front of the whole server. I am 'acting on a presumption' because, well, how's it working out in practice for you. i.imgur.com/RPk8Wjh.pngOh. That's right. It's easy to naysay, but last I checked, all your points are refuted. And simplifying and cutting mine out doesn't really give you any grounds to stand on. More objectives has been tested. Broader objectives have been attempted (Usually in the form of admin-sponsored player events.). More objectives just leads to more antags doing the same thing and failing. And, well, events are hit or miss. I mean, I'm refuting you again even though Sue beat me to it. Taking away the bad encouragement really does work. Bay was evidence of it. The early days of SS13 when people were more concerned with doing cool things than objectives was evidence of it. Let me ask again. What do objectives bring to the game.
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Post by Vittorio Giurifiglio on Aug 12, 2014 4:19:25 GMT
I kinda like this suggestion,
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