Karma Tokens

[Bxil]

This is probably a terrible idea, but still.

How about we add antag tokens as something buyable with karma? They should be very expensive, like 100 points. This will ensure you will become an antag next round, and I think it would encourage RPing even more.

[FlattestGuitar]

An interesting idea that I think has been tossed around a few times now.

Ideally, I'd like to see the whole karma system reworked.

The current prices for things are abritrary and most people don't even care about 80% of what's there.

[Spacemanspark]

I can see this being an issue for a multitude of reasons.

What if it's a nukies round? Blob? Wizard? What happens then?

If it's one person, sure, just ensure they get one of the slots. Any further than that though and you either have to add more antags (in the case of wizards, or if it's (oh geez) six or so people, oh dear lordy the nukies are gonna have a good day) or have it automatically refund upon round start (which could cause some potential metagaming issues).

Edited May 1, 2017 by Spacemanspark

[Bxil]

That's why we should make it very expensive... Or maybe we should prioritize by the age of the tokens.

Also, I wouldn't mind more nukies, not all.

[Spacemanspark]

1 hour ago, Bxil said:

Or maybe we should prioritize by the age of the tokens.

This, maybe. My issue with potential metagaming still stands.

1 hour ago, Bxil said:

Also, I wouldn't mind more nukies, not all.

Game wise, it wouldn't work out without some changes put in purely to accommodate this idea. Nor do I think that's a good idea.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Spacemanspark

[Xantholne]

In theory this sounds like a possibly good idea, however; it also would have av ery bad side effect: That being in the current state of things; most karma is awarded to people, usually power gamers or antags, or a clown that slips good for doing shit to security or other players in a 100% non rp way. Currently, just about all karma it seems being given out by people is going to these power gamey people who easily out robusto a few security guys or someone who is answering a call for help nearby etc with their full power game belt and goodies they spent a few minutes working on.

This creates a problem where it would breed more low RP and breed more people rolling science to purely power game for example just so they can farm karma points and get those antag tokens to blow and make even more karma on an on stop train. Even if you gated it behind XXX karma these people would still be going out of their way to fuck with security, karma farm, power game to the extreme, out robusto people not very good, or even go as far as karma trading with a group of friends to slowly farm karma and all become antag at the same time.

Unless something was genuinely done for instance you can only karma people if you're alive,  maybe it'd help; however that likely would not be the case, nor are there really all that many options that could be done to make the karma system less unstable to involve a karma token.

In Short this is just like communism; good in theory, back in practice.

[Allfd]

Agree with Xantholne, Great if we could somehow link it to RP, but absent that it introduces uncertainty.

[ZN23X]

Do people really award karma to players for making security miserable? Says more about the player base than anything, a few too many teenagers with parent/authority problems that want to use the game as an outlet for thier frustration. Go shout REEEEEE over comms somewhere else please...possibly in response to this post 

I personally award karma for 3 things: good RP, unique experiences created by others (this includes creatively killing me), and people who go out of thier way to help me.

I would love these tokens as I usually only have time for 1 or 2 rounds a day and rarely get antag (like maybe a handful of times a month...if that). I don't have time to play for 10+ hours a day (enjoy it while you can kids, don't be in a rush to grow up) and roll for antag over and over again, but I DO have time to earn the karma to at least give me a guaranteed chance at antag every once in a while.

That being said...100 seems like alot for one token...I've been playing for months and I've barely earned 100 total karma.

Instead of the token guaranteeing antag, just make it prioritize antag for the players who use tokens. Let's say 10 people use tokens on a nukie round. The nukies would be selected from those 10, but not include all 10. The ones who aren't selected keep thier token and use it later.

[FoS]

I don't think you should be able to buy antag status. I've seen plenty of people complain that they don't often get antag status and adding in something that either increases the odds of antag status or guarantees it just means that many people will have a harder time getting to antag.

Having something like that as an optional karma purchase also would likely increase the number of people who try to cheat the karma system because it'd be a repeatable/consumable purchase so basically....you're just giving people the best incentive to cheat their way into more karma.

I do think that we need more things to spend karma on and I'd like some more higher priced things. Many of the prices in the shop now are very low for the amount of players we actually have so it's really not too difficult to accumulate karma to unlock things if you're playing in a way that makes the round enjoyable for others.

[EldritchSigma]

While in theory this idea sounds good it might turn out bad in practice... for instance behind each character is a person. Most persons tend to get fairly iffy when they have to spent some form of currency... lets say antag tokens are a currency... people will get mad if they get "powergamed" by the "damn powergamey AI" for instance right now... now imagine if people spend tokens on that just to get caught 5 minutes in because some AIs got nothing better to do then watching someone 24/7 for instance. It has quite the potential to cause drama. I think that those tokens would only encourage powergaming. It would also increase the likehood of people doing karma trading or other things to cheat the system. Not quite fond of it with the potential cons buyable Karma Tokens have to them...