Admin Complaint: Spacemanspark

[Xantholne]

Admin Key: Spacemanspark

Your Discord name (if applicable):Xantholne

Complaint: So at around 2:25pm -7 GMT time was a Extended RP Gamemode round. The gateway was UO71, a very deadly terror spider gateway with very low loot rewards. During this we cleared up through all of it (And even had someone release the prince and mother early which killed all but three of the seven man team) and continued on to the queen. There we had only two people armed with guns, and the other two one being myself having at least one while he other had some five weapons with them. 

 

During this we cleared out an area for a arena boss battle and started to get ready to break in from the side with 100% legal means within our rights especially since it was all destructible aside from the area leading directly in. We constrcted an arena with welded glass airlocks with the provided combat RCD from engineering to fight in securely. As I started to RCD the regular metal walls down Spark spawned not one, but four Prince of Terror Spiders ontop of the team in the safety area; brtually killing everyone inside before rejuving one of the victims claiming they where (The least cheesey of them all)

 

This is just blatant abuse of Admin powers. We where using 100% in game equipment we obtained through regular means and using in game knowledge of terror spiders not being able to break through welded glass airlocks which we ourselves can fire through. This is absolutely unacceptable to spawn four Prince of Terrors ontop of every one killing them all because they where "Being cheesey" There is absolutely no reason what so ever to abue Admin spawning powers to end not one but four players' rounds because you did not like how one of them was playing it smart to avoid being easily killed.

[Twinmold]

I will gather information from all sides. Please state the other players and ask them to give their view, if they wish, of the situation. I will ask that Spark do so as well as any other involved admins.

[HereticChurch]

I was there when the event here occurred. I was observing your group as you were making your way through the gateway, and was the one who spawned a xeno hunter to heckle you guys a bit (But with explicit instructions to not actually kill anyone) after I saw you steamrolling your way through with some minor exploits. When I noticed you all preparing your incredibly cheap and exploit-y arena to cheese the final encounter, I notified the other admins and was going to come up with what I could do to you all (Similar to the xeno I spawned, annoying but ultimately harmless). Shortly after I called to the other admins Spark went ahead and spawned 4 Prince of Terror spiders to kill all of you, before I could object to it. It was several magnitudes worse than my plans for you, and I apologize that it happened so abruptly. Spark did revive one of you to go and fix up the others at the very least, but I still feel it was far more heavy handed than I would like.

[Xantholne]

Yes, Spark revived DaKittaX playing as their Tajaran Kirl at the time for along the lines of "Being the least cheesy of them all." Not exactly words for but very close.There after when the four princes killed everyone and Spark was talking about it in Deadchat how two would have just been fine. Rancresh, one of hte people we where with immediately logged off from the game entirely upset. Sergey Petreoniv* whom was the one hoarding all but one of the guns from others (And got the rest of the team killed by opening the prince and mother cages earlier) ghosted and afked for the rest of the round to what I understand. I myself was dragged to medbay and finally revived ten minutes later and sepnt the rest of the round in medbay undergoing massive surgery which ended the round for me as well. Meanwhile, Kirl whom wanted to do stuff with Meex was also very upset as now their round was officially over in her mind since the person they wanted to play with was gone for the rest of the round. Shortly after the round even; they logged off entirely because of the admin abuse from a direct quote from our discord chat.

Quote

I don't like that admins can do whatever they want
I thought the rule was "for everyone to have fun"
killing us all wasn't fun at all
i'm going to sleep early
I've had enough for today

And it's a 100% accurate statement as the game is meant to be fun, you're meant to make the game fun for others, especially as antagonists; but spawning several game ending mobs on a small and low armed group of people to end their round is not okay.

[Spacemanspark]

I'm going to leave my part here.

As a start though, yes, it was a tad harsh.

My part starts when Heretic calls us over. I glanced over to see the following (sans webs and with more people):

The issue I saw was that it completely defeated the point of the away mission. That away mission was put there specifically to stop cheesing, and provide an actual, extremely deadly challenge. That's why we removed the "challenge" away mission.

I gave a small countdown (although, in retrospect, simply asking or discussion with others would have done better) before spawning in terror spiders. Following the deaths, and some discussion, I decided to revive one of them and let them clone you guys.

I do apologize; killing all of you went a bit far, and probably should have veered towards a non lethal approach.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Spacemanspark

[Kyet]

Briefly:

• Recently, we have had issues where Terror Spiders (and probably all AI simple mobs) were moving way faster than intended. This was probably due to one of the many bugs introduced as part of the TG move speed refactor. A hive full of Terror Spiders with bugged-fast movespeed is probably very difficult to deal with, even with an incredibly cheesy tactic like this. All it would take is for a small group of them to close the distance with you, and a total party kill would probably result. A single mistake when trying a tactic like this could wipe your whole team. The tactic may have been cheesy, but I don't think it was necessarily risk-free for those attempting it.
• In general, Terror Spiders are designed to be immune to most, but not all, forms of cheese. Welded airlocks are one of the methods specifically coded in to allow you to limit their movement. Yes, using them this way is cheesy as heck, but I am skeptical if it reaches the level of exploit, seeing as I deliberately made this possible in their design. Sure, I might not have expected someone setting up a whole room of these things in that specific place, but the general technique (of using welded airlocks) was intentionally made a valid strategy for limiting their movement.
• The TS away mission already has many levers an admin may tweak to adjust the difficulty of the mission. For example, you can reduce the queen's spider_spawnfrequency, or increase her spider_max_per_nest, to make her hatch new spiders faster, or produce a bigger brood in total. If you want to do a one-off, admins can also take control of a spider (including away mission spiders, which are not normally player controllable). The important thing here is that these levers let you increase the difficulty of the mission, give players a scare, etc, without looking like an obvious deus ex machina, or bolt out of the blue that the players couldn't counter. If the goal is a harder mission, you can use levers like these to create an experience that is tough, but fair.
• IMHO: If you want to absolutely ensure a player dies, e.g: to ensure that they learn whatever they were doing is a bad idea, then you can use other levers that at least give them a glorious send-off. Fighting an empress that talks to you, supervillian style, as you fight, falls into this category (no player short of an ascendant shadowling is going to survive combat with an empress of terror). Simply killing them using something they can't fight effectively, with no RP, is not going to help them learn. It just makes them frustrated. If punishing them is the goal, then perhaps whatever they are doing is better addressed OOCly, using an adminpm. Terror Spiders are meant to be a fun and engaging high-level enemy to fight. Please don't use them as a quick way to slaughter people without them being able to fight back. That sort of thing gives them an undeserved bad reputation.

Edited June 6, 2017 by tzo

[Twinmold]

From those that have voiced, including Spacemanspark himself, it seems we as a staff are on the same side that the terror spiders being spawned (four princes on top of you) was too far. Other, more interesting options could have been utilized in this steed such as a non-lethal methods for an IC approach or even just asking OOC with adminhelp not to do so as he thought it was exploitative, though as Kyet/tzo has stated them not being able to go through welded doors was intentionally done, though the manner of which was proceeded was not something thought about (glass airlock arena).

Spacemanspark seems not to have known this is no an exploit and, as agreed by multiple admins including himself, his action was a very poor choice of approach for this to be addressed. You are right, admins shouldn't be just killing people as we must take the fun of the players into consideration as well, with some minor odd situations to that call. A role-play approach or even just messaging approach would have been much better a choice.

I will be speaking with both necaladun and spacemanspark about this, but as you can see from those whom have responded, we know what you speak of.

[Twinmold]

I have talked to spacemanspark, as well as my understanding that necaladun has. He understands that what he has done is not in the best interest of the game, how we present ourselves, and how it affected you all. After talking to him, he understands firstly to communicate with fellow admins if he's unsure if something is considered an exploit or not and that more open communication should be practiced when other admins are on. Secondly, non-lethal actions should almost always be the first-line use to suggest not to do something, not go to lethal actions, and if something he does does kill people to revive them and not leave them all to death if the true purpose and/or other admins note lethal action is too excessive or got out of hand (for a non-entire round-based event). Lastly, if nothing else, rather than taking IC approach if he finds issue with something that appears to be against the spirit of the encounter, to talk to the players, get an understanding of the why to their actions.

I have warned him that further actions that are excessive could potentially lead to harsh consequences, and to sit back and consider the actions and their effects against the players before enacting them as it is important to understand how it affects all of us trying to enjoy the game.

This is the decision I have come to. If you are satisfied with the action taken and/or his apology for the actions, please state so.

[Xantholne]

I am not sure how the others involved may feel, but I am satisfied, yes.

[KasparoVv]

Sergey Petrenko, the grey Vulpkanin with Black markings instead of Sergey Petreoniv* was the hoarder?

Edited June 11, 2017 by KasparoVv

[Xantholne]

I don't know how to spell their last name, but yes.

[Anticept]

@SideCat sounds like you're being talked about

[Twinmold]

Unless they have something to add to the complaint against Spark, anything against Sergey would be a separate player complaint.

[SideCat]

 

On 06.06.2017 at 5:16 AM, Xantholne said:

 Sergey Petreoniv* whom was the one hoarding all but one of the guns from others (And got the rest of the team killed by opening the prince and mother cages earlier) ghosted and afked for the rest of the round to what I understand.

First of all, I would like to say that I was having only two laser guns and I was having two, because Mime, which was with me for the first time we came, gave me his laser. Second of all, nobody has asked me for the weapons. I would ofcourse receive my extra gun to that person that would ask in the team. And I wasn't afk after I've been killed, I was just silently waiting till one of our team's crew revived me, after that. I helped her to revive others and we left the gateway.

Edited June 13, 2017 by SideCat

[Twinmold]

Looks like the conversation is no longer on original post's purpose. Resolved.