Greentext for Karma and more non-antag objectif

[Lalchi]

Hello,

I'm not really placed to complain about the karma system. I had quite a lot of karma and could unlock everything i wanted so far.

However i have seen a lot of people complaining (would be in the discord, on mentors ticket, on survey or deadchat/OOC) that karma are hard to obtain, at the point some player feels like they will never be able to unlock that one thing they really want.

But i've been thinking. Why not make Non-antag objectif more relevant ? And making them worth to make it ?

So far, only a few non-antag role has objectif. Like the Roboticist (making Cyborg/Ripley) or scientist (Send the disk)

We could make a objectif for each role so that role has a goal to reach
> "Have 75% of station clean" for Janitor
> "60% of current antag executed or in arrest" for security
> "Collect a total of X points on your card" For miners

And each player getting their non-antag objectif completed will get 1 karma point for the round.

What good would it be ?

First : It will make karma point more worth for people and less hopeless to progress on it. Giving them more chance to unlock what they want on the karma shop.

Second : This will make players more willing to play their role as it should be. As the job they choosed. As it can be seen as an another problem sometimes. (People not respecting their job roles. Chemist focusing on drugs rather than medication. Chef not having prepare food after 1 hours and 30 minutes in the round. Etc...)
I don't expect it to solve that problem like magic, but i do imagine this would make more player respecting their roles. 

 

[Spacemanspark]

The issue with this is that it introduces karma farming. Even if we try to come up with some ridiculously difficult requirements, people will inevitably find ways to simplify/ exploit it. That's less of a call out against the playerbase and more a mention of natural human behavior, mind. 

I'm addition, this might increase motivation to do one's job ingame, but it doesn't increase motivation to roleplay whatsoever. If anything, I worry it would lower standards even further as players merely focus on getting them karma points via any means possible. 

The karma system is undeniably flawed, but there isn't any easy way to rectify it. 'Remove it' isn't a viable option unless we don't mind brand new players joining as Bobby Jones the vox constantly. There have been many, many, MANY suggestions on how to fix the problem over the last six or so years I've been here, including variations of this very idea. However, all of them have failed to come up with a system that will take a step forward without being shoved four steps back.

[MattTheFicus]

Im always confused why the "End Game Karma Reminder" option doesnt give a POPUP. Instead, it gives a tiny ITALIC text line that gets lost in the mess that is the text box. I try to give out Karma nearly EVERY round (as long as SOMETHING interesting happened that I deem worthy of it) and sometimes I still forget just due to being in conversation with dchat or something. Having the ability to have a better "Hey, did someone deserve this today" might lead to people wanting to try to earn some Karma, rather than just let it sit.

 

Edit: AffectedArc reminded me that popups stop actions, so it might be a pain if youre in the middle of fighting someone.

Edited August 22, 2020 by MattTheFicus

[Spacemanspark]

It used to give a popup actually, but with a preference that almost everyone set to 'off', as it prevented you from moving for a few seconds--and on an area like the escape shuttle that's a bad idea.

[Pennwick]

I agree that you can't give it out for station objectives.

As for the popup though is there a particular reason we couldn't have an opt in karma popup AFTER the shuttle docks at central? That way you could have a whole interface that listed Name/Job/Antag/Greentext statuses and just give Karma with one click. This would favor antags somewhat but a lot of the time I suspect that ghosts give Karma to antags more often anyway. Plus you could just as easily scroll quickly for that name you wanted to Karma but couldn't pick out on the shuttle. You do shorten your post round violence time but you can easily karma early or not opt in.

[Krossarn]

A popup would be nice. That small reminder text while you’re in a chaotic shuttle wont cut it.

Or could it be possible to make so that you can spend the Karma point while waiting for the new round to start?

I for one usually forget to spend the point before the round ends and remembers it when the countdown to the new round begins. And ut quite annoying when you think back about an encounter that deserves the one point.

 

[Pennwick]

While spending it in the lobby phase would be neat I don't think its feasible since I'm pretty sure the server has already forgotten who was who by that point. Your only option would be to karma based on user keys. Which is probably a bad road to go down.

[maxfromsweden]

I've been thinking about this a lot. I agree that karma for doing your job is wrong. I think the best solution is borrowing from tabletop rpgs and base a reward system based on roleplaying criteria rather than anything else. Some basic suggestions for inspiration would be Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World and Dungeon World. In those games you get experience based on certain character based promts, rather than kills/loot/being good at the game.

I'm imagining a simple set of questions at the end of a shift. One, or more of the following questions could be posed to players.

Who did you have the most interesting interactions with? (They get to pick a character present in the game)

Who played their character in a very enjoyable way? (They get to pick a character present in the game, maybe forced to pick another name than the one above)

Who revealed an interesting part of their past? (They get to pick a character present in the game, maybe forced to pick another name than the one above)

 

Counter arguments

You can ignore the prompts and just put down any name - This is exactly how Karma works today. A prompt is more likely to produce a prompted answer than no prompt at all.

You only name your friends! - Personally I feel that this is already the case and there is no stopping it. At least with this option you're prompted to think a certain way before giving Karma away.

Karma Inflation - More karma to go around means you can get special jobs more easily. The solution is simple, raise the cost of the Karma Unlocks.

 

[Mitchs98]

On 9/2/2020 at 4:29 AM, Maxfromsweden said:

Karma Inflation - More karma to go around means you can get special jobs more easily. The solution is simple, raise the cost of the Karma Unlocks.

A pop up like you said could work quite nicely to remind people. However, Karma isn't a currency. Inflation isn't an issue, and Karma Unlock costs really shouldn't be raised to counter it in my opinion as it's not a currency and you can't really do much else with it than unlock things.

[MattTheFicus]

Is it possible to change the current "reminder" to be a popup that appears AFTER the shuttle docks with CC? I know theres an issue with it appearing on shuttle LAUNCH due to it removing control from your character, but once its at CC, if you REALLY wanted the reminder, not being able to partake in the "bloodbath" at CC isnt that large of a price to pay, at least in my opinion.

[Mitchs98]

I think it would be possible, I don't see why it wouldn't be. Only question would be is if heads/maints would be already with such an idea.

[maxfromsweden]

9 hours ago, Mitchs98 said:

A pop up like you said could work quite nicely to remind people. However, Karma isn't a currency. Inflation isn't an issue, and Karma Unlock costs really shouldn't be raised to counter it in my opinion as it's not a currency and you can't really do much else with it than unlock things.

I always assumed that certain jobs were locked so you would keep some players away from them, namely people who don't get a lot of karma. Making karma three times more accessible would also make those jobs three times easier to get. If you want to keep them as hard to access as they are now, you should raise their cost by three times it's current value. But hey, if I'm wrong, then you shouldn't change the costs.

 

I also think one of the strongest benefits of making one or several karma "prompts" would be that players know EXACTLY how to gain karma and can change their behaviour accordingly. It would be a reward system based on roleplaying and interaction rather than the arbitrary thoughts of a player judging if you're worth "karma" or not.

Renaming the term might also help to like.. character points or something might also reframe their meaning. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

[ZN23X]

I think the system works good as it is. I wouldn't necessarily consider it arbitrary. It promotes people to try to do things that are interesting and new. It promotes interaction. If you have an interesting interactions with people and do interesting things you will get karma regularly. If you keep to yourself and play this game like it's a solo game you and just go through the motions doing your job without any noticeable interaction you will not. Just try to be interesting and helpful and you'll get karma.

[Mitchs98]

3 hours ago, Maxfromsweden said:

I always assumed that certain jobs were locked so you would keep some players away from them, namely people who don't get a lot of karma. Making karma three times more accessible would also make those jobs three times easier to get. If you want to keep them as hard to access as they are now, you should raise their cost by three times it's current value. But hey, if I'm wrong, then you shouldn't change the costs.

 

I also think one of the strongest benefits of making one or several karma "prompts" would be that players know EXACTLY how to gain karma and can change their behaviour accordingly. It would be a reward system based on roleplaying and interaction rather than the arbitrary thoughts of a player judging if you're worth "karma" or not.

Renaming the term might also help to like.. character points or something might also reframe their meaning. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

Eh not really. Karma is gained on a whim and at random, people will karma you for pretty much anything. And there's no 'right way' to earn karma. Karma is awarded by players to other players for doing something they liked, anything they liked. Not a certain specific 'right thing' that they did. Players shouldn't be encouraged to act a certain way in order to earn karma, the point of the game isn't to earn karma. It's to RP and have fun.

Again karma isn't a currency, it's not something one should strive towards earning. If you focus on that you'll stop enjoying the game and your characters and interactions will definitely become more generic.

[maxfromsweden]

1 hour ago, ZN23X said:

I think the system works good as it is. I wouldn't necessarily consider it arbitrary. It promotes people to try to do things that are interesting and new. It promotes interaction. If you have an interesting interactions with people and do interesting things you will get karma regularly. If you keep to yourself and play this game like it's a solo game you and just go through the motions doing your job without any noticeable interaction you will not. Just try to be interesting and helpful and you'll get karma.

I agree that it promotes interaction. You can't earn Karma by yourself. I don't agree with that it promotes people to try things that are interesting and new. Based on my own Karma gains I gain more just by playing an interesting character with established relationships to other characters on the station than trying something new. Also you gain way more Karma playing command roles, I'm guessing that this is due to heavy interaction with experienced players who remembers to give karma, but there's probably other factors aswell.

Framing Karma exactly in the way you say it would actually help people gaining Karma since people would know who they should give it to and how they can earn it, which is what my suggestion above was about. Right now it is arbitrary because people do not have to agree with your critera for how to give Karma. One person may give it randomly, one may give it due to good RP another to someone with a funny outfit.

I'm not trying to formulate a strategy on how to gain Karma in this thread, we're discussing how Karma can be changed to actually promote behaviours, like the ones you suggest.

14 minutes ago, Mitchs98 said:

Eh not really. Karma is gained on a whim and at random, people will karma you for pretty much anything. And there's no 'right way' to earn karma. Karma is awarded by players to other players for doing something they liked, anything they liked. Not a certain specific 'right thing' that they did. Players shouldn't be encouraged to act a certain way in order to earn karma, the point of the game isn't to earn karma. It's to RP and have fun.

Again karma isn't a currency, it's not something one should strive towards earning. If you focus on that you'll stop enjoying the game and your characters and interactions will definitely become more generic.

Not really to which part of my statement?

It's interesting how you're opinion of gaining Karma is so different from ZN23X, further solidifiying the arbitrary nature of Karma. 

If the point of the game is to RP and have fun, giving Karma for exactly that will be an encouragement to RP and have fun. A game system should reward behaviours it wants to encourage. That's why reward systems (such as Karma/XP/Scores in PVP games) exist.

Striving towards earning Karma is not a goal in itself, but unlocking the jobs/races that require Karma is. If you've unlocked everything, then obviously Karma holds zero value. But for a new player who actually wants to play NTrep, Blueshield or Vox, Karma holds a high value and if they know how to act to get it, they will act in that way. Just look at the OP for instance. I don't see that as a bad thing, depending on the behaviour encouraged as it is a thing most games do. As I mentioned in my suggestion for karma example, tabletop roleplaying games reward certain behaviour with XP, even though those behaviours are Rping and having fun.