The less violent antagonist option

[shazbot194]

I have to inject that a midway option would be perfect. Imagine if you could opt out of objectives pre-game, but the sever would generate a list of objectives and find players to use those objectives. This way you still have all the murderbone objectives, and have the option to be a pacifist without having to loose out on an interesting round or be forced to do something that you don't know, don't want to do, aren't comfortable doing, ext. With the benefit that if you want the murder objectives, which I like more then steal unless if its something from the vault, you are more likely to get it. This way we get rambo scientist, debt owing clowns, and anything else people want without having to sacrifice a thing. Maybe even add in the support role for people who just want to help other syndies, but that is a little more out there for this topic.

[Shadeykins]

21 hours ago, shazbot194 said:

I have to inject that a midway option would be perfect. Imagine if you could opt out of objectives pre-game, but the sever would generate a list of objectives and find players to use those objectives. This way you still have all the murderbone objectives, and have the option to be a pacifist without having to loose out on an interesting round or be forced to do something that you don't know, don't want to do, aren't comfortable doing, ext. With the benefit that if you want the murder objectives, which I like more then steal unless if its something from the vault, you are more likely to get it. This way we get rambo scientist, debt owing clowns, and anything else people want without having to sacrifice a thing. Maybe even add in the support role for people who just want to help other syndies, but that is a little more out there for this topic.

I'll concede on this only if pacifists automatically get lowest preference for traitor, because if it randomly chooses too many pacifists you effectively have Extended+.

This still feels a little hand-holdy though, SS13 is all about being forced into uncomfortable situations you have no experience with.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Shadeykins

[shazbot194]

34 minutes ago, Shadeykins said:

I'll concede on this only if pacifists automatically get lowest preference for traitor, because if it randomly chooses too many pacifists you effectively have Extended+.

I was thinking it would be more like the job system, it would generate a list of objectives. Lets say everyone only gets one objective to simplify this, and it randomly generates 4 steal objectives, 2 murder/assinate objectives, 1 show them a lesson (not sure if its still in), and 3 others. It would pick 10 antags, and give them each the objective based on preference. And if someone doesn't get an objective because they don't have any of the objectives listed, it remembers them, but picks a new antag. If they also don't fit, it saves them and picks another, only after it goes through everyone who has antag set to yes and none of them have this objective set, it goes back to the first one and randomly picks a new objective, starting over going through the list in order. After X number of times, it just picks an objective the first person had selected so the game can start. This way the randomness of the current system is still there, but also lets people "pick" objectives.

[Purpose2]

With the idea of 'more peaceful' objectives in mind, I've just submitted a PR that allows you to escape with a photo of the blueprints and have it count.

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/6966

More ideas welcome/encouraged.

[HarakoniWarhawk]

Personally I detest Traitors who go on murderboner sprees.

I had a round where the HOP was their target, they flub it and the HOP is taken to surgery. 

They then proceeded to break in , shoot and steal the HOP, Crit the surgeon and cause major organ damage to the other doctor. Then just to top of their murderboner they tried to emag me.

I get that sometimes killing your target is hard but that doesn't excuse trying to deliberately murder half of medbay just because they are in your way.

 

Anything that gives more peaceful or even less murderboning is welcome.

[Anticept]

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

We do need some "AntagLite" as shadey aptly named them, but in ADDITION to existing antags already in the round. Hear me out.

So basically, I would like to see a lot more objectives for people everywhere across the station. Minor little things, much like science has. Stepping up above that, we could have AntagLites, which are RP antags. Drug cartels, kleptomaniacs, sociopaths. These are ones given leeway with some of the rules, but are not murderantags. Then you have the existing antags already implemented from syndicate.

AntagLites would be an opt in.

Edited March 30, 2017 by Anticept

[Purpose2]

25 minutes ago, Anticept said:

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

We do need some "AntagLite" as shadey aptly named them, but in ADDITION to existing antags. Hear me out.

So basically, I would like to see a lot more objectives for people everywhere across the station. Minor little things, much like science has. Stepping up above that, we could have AntagLites, which are RP antags. Drug cartels, kleptomaniacs, sociopaths. These are ones given leeway with some of the rules, but are not murderantags. Then you have the existing antags already implemented from syndicate.

AntagLites would be an opt in.

I have a system for this but I've been unable to get it to a point where I think this'll actually work well with the community.

I'd been calling it 'miscreants'... I'll show you the design sometime, but I feel incapable of getting this to a point where it'll work sensibly, without people taking things too far.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Purpose2

[Anticept]

Simple. Server rules have a miscreants section.

[Purpose2]

51 minutes ago, Anticept said:

Simple. Server rules have a miscreants section.

People self-antag too hard and too often so much that defining the line on this is going to be really hard, and ultimately end up producing more work for admins.

[Anticept]

Sounds like a great opportunity to get rid of the edge cases from the server for good. Give em an inch, they take a mile, ban.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Anticept

[Shadeykins]

I think Purpose's idea fits well in the same vein of this without reducing antags to pacifists (which they shouldn't be). It gears certain antag goals more toward the Mission Impossible or secret agent style of things, which is really neat.

[Anticept]

I looked at your reply and was confused. I see why. Purpose and I are on the same page, the "AntagLites" would be extra slots, not something that replaces antags as they currently are.

We had discussed it several times before, I just am taken by surprise that he did something about it heh.

[Shadeykins]

18 hours ago, Anticept said:

I looked at your reply and was confused. I see why. Purpose and I are on the same page, the "AntagLites" would be extra slots, not something that replaces antags as they currently are.

We had discussed it several times before, I just am taken by surprise that he did something about it heh.

If they're extra slots with the absolute lowest priority possible (meaning if anyone else has an antag preference on without pacifist enabled gets it over you) then I agree with the suggestion as stated before.

Otherwise this just strips what could be potentially interesting antagonists to boring pacifists who quietly take their objective and then do nothing the rest of the shift.

[Nayser]

I think the only reason people disagree about the whole non-murderous antag idea is because they think non-murderous antag is about steal objectives exclusively.

There is plenty of non-murderous objectives that can cause trouble and things also may not go as "the peaceful antag" wanted to go and he will have to kill in order to succeed.

I once completed all objectives without killing anyone then proceeded to help other traitor steal AI in result pod pilot found us out and i had to kill him to free other traitor and not get caught my self.

There could also be funny and odd objectives like stealing some one's body part, litteraly just any body part, that'd be funny.

I'd also like to remind that i'm suggesting an option to get higher chance on getting murderless/non-crazy objectives and lower chance on murderous/crazy objectives. Not just completely turn off all murder objectives. Another reminder is that most of players like to go HAM when they get a chance, so stop worrying that there will be no action due to pacifist antags will ya?

[Shadeykins]

7 hours ago, Nayser said:

I think the only reason people disagree about the whole non-murderous antag idea is because they think non-murderous antag is about steal objectives exclusively.

There is plenty of non-murderous objectives that can cause trouble and things also may not go as "the peaceful antag" wanted to go and he will have to kill in order to succeed.

I once completed all objectives without killing anyone then proceeded to help other traitor steal AI in result pod pilot found us out and i had to kill him to free other traitor and not get caught my self.

There could also be funny and odd objectives like stealing some one's body part, litteraly just any body part, that'd be funny.

I'd also like to remind that i'm suggesting an option to get higher chance on getting murderless/non-crazy objectives and lower chance on murderous/crazy objectives. Not just completely turn off all murder objectives. Another reminder is that most of players like to go HAM when they get a chance, so stop worrying that there will be no action due to pacifist antags will ya?

These are people who are asking for certain antag objectives explicitly so they never have to kill anyone. That's why the people ganged on to your suggestion and cited "less violent" and "pacifist". Even if you relegate 3 slots out of 10, that's potentially 3 antags who aren't going to do anything interesting for the duration of the round because they're being controlled by players who don't want to kill/hurt another player's character, likely to avoid OOC discomfort rather than for concrete IC reasons. The only person I know of for sure that doesn't PvP for IC reasons is Dumbdumn who's character is explicitly a pacifist and never physically hurts anyone, ever.

I've seen these sorts of arguments pop up in almost any (even low) roleplay settings that include an aspect for PvP. There is always a crowd of people who never want anything to do with it and feel like it somehow detracts from the environment (when it actually enhances it most of the time).

This honestly just detracts from the essence of the game--SS13 is meant to be something incredibly deadly and roguelike, that has been and is the appeal for most people playing it.

[Dinarzad]

You keep using the term "Uninteresting" to describe non-lethal objectives.
That is an EXCEPTIONALLY Subjective opinion, especially considering the wealth of a variety of media focusing on thieves, cat burglars and generally savvy bastards that go about activities without marking a single kill. There's clearly potential for it to be interesting, it's all in execution.

Is the chaplain killing his target in the first 2 minutes of the round to cremate the body and wash away the ashes, really that interesting? Doesn't sound interesting to me, but you would also argue, very much correctly, that's a really shitty execution of the 'Assassination' objective, in terms of making the round fun for more people.
Just because someone got rubbed out doesn't make it better.

Conversely, someone just perfect stealthing their way to stealing the CE's blueprints is not innately interesting either (It's super fuckin dull actually.) But with proper execution and the willingness to take a risk, to leave enough of a trail for people to follow, it CAN be interesting. Especially if you don't stop with a single theft. Keep going. Probably best not to steal other antag objectives, but you can still very much nab things people will notice and make sure they don't forget you've got a Grade A Spy/thief on the loose.

The problem here is attitude. "Greentext over memetext" mindset that people gotta get that DANK VICTORY SKOER instead of actually making things fun even if it means you might be caught or put you at greater chance of losing in the end.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Dinarzad

[Shadeykins]

1) People don't deliberately leave a trail if they can help it.

2) The Chaplain still has to kill a guy who may scream out for help, and this implicitly involves two people.

3) Lockers don't scream, and the issue is people are advocating for *just* theft objectives.

4) Theft objectives are boring 90% of the time. They always have been, they always will be.

5) Yes, stealing other antag objectives is genuinely shitty to do if you don't need them yourself.

The crux of this issue is most theft objectives are "steal a jetpack" or "steal this innocuous item nobody really cares about". I wouldn't mind this suggestion so much if theft objectives were genuinely interesting, but they aren't. This is why for the longest time I've been advocating for bringing back some of the gimmick objectives, if only to introduce more variety.

[Dinarzad]

1) That's on people, not the objectives. That's not any different then people completing an assassination with zero trail and leading to boring stagnancy. That's just am indsset, not a problem with either style of objectives.

2) Traitors an Lings have a LOT of options to leave someone unable to scream for help, and to do so quietly. The Parapen's exact purpose is for that kind of thing, not to mention how easily you can get Neurotoxin or memechems involved.
3) People are advocating for Theft, primarily because that's just what we have to work with right now. I don't think it SHOULD be limited to theft, and new styles of objectives would open this up further, but for the immediate future, there's not THAT much to pick from.

4) Theft objectives are boring because people MAKE them boring, which refers back to point 1. People go for some shitty green text, not for something fun an interesting for everyone involved. This is again not a probem for or against ANY objective type it's a really shitty and really rampant attitude in the playerbase right now.

5) I never meant to insinuate they SHOULD be stolen, but there's lots of little acts of sabotage or theft that can be done to add to the round, even if just helping other more murderous antags, by providing distraction or lookout. Just because you opt out of pacifist objectives, doesn't mean you can't help non-pacifists in your own way.

I would also agree that more vareity or jazzed up objectives would help, but I don't think this has to be an "Either-or" kind of solution, I think it's perfectly acceptable and viable to do both.

[Shadeykins]

On 2017-03-31 at 6:48 PM, Dinarzad said:

1) That's on people, not the objectives. That's not any different then people completing an assassination with zero trail and leading to boring stagnancy. That's just am indsset, not a problem with either style of objectives.

2) Traitors an Lings have a LOT of options to leave someone unable to scream for help, and to do so quietly. The Parapen's exact purpose is for that kind of thing, not to mention how easily you can get Neurotoxin or memechems involved.
3) People are advocating for Theft, primarily because that's just what we have to work with right now. I don't think it SHOULD be limited to theft, and new styles of objectives would open this up further, but for the immediate future, there's not THAT much to pick from.

4) Theft objectives are boring because people MAKE them boring, which refers back to point 1. People go for some shitty green text, not for something fun an interesting for everyone involved. This is again not a probem for or against ANY objective type it's a really shitty and really rampant attitude in the playerbase right now.

5) I never meant to insinuate they SHOULD be stolen, but there's lots of little acts of sabotage or theft that can be done to add to the round, even if just helping other more murderous antags, by providing distraction or lookout. Just because you opt out of pacifist objectives, doesn't mean you can't help non-pacifists in your own way.

I would also agree that more vareity or jazzed up objectives would help, but I don't think this has to be an "Either-or" kind of solution, I think it's perfectly acceptable and viable to do both.

1) Bodies leave a trail, and killing people is a sloppy, messy affair even if you're well-equipped. It also takes a lot more time to kill someone and stow a body than it does to steal an item. But yes, you do have a point here - it is more about a style of play.

2) Lings and traitors still get found out, because there's a trail of bodies in their wake. I should also mention that antags are the main driver for the operations of an entire department (that department being medbay). More theft objectives means medbay is going to become a snoozefest.

3) I agree, antag objectives are very limited.

4) If you want to change behaviour, provide incentives or methods to mitigate said behaviour. Removing easy-pickings theft objectives is a good start.

5) The people who take pacifist objectives are the people who typically don't want to engage in any combat whatsoever. I think you're confusing two groups of players - players who don't want PvP whatsoever and want to see pacifistic objectives, and players who don't mind PvP but end up with theft objectives, finish them in 5 minutes, and then offer assistance to other traitors.

I think the idea slated toward less violent objectives is better suited for a "miscreant" system. I think Purpose has brought it up a few times.

[Anticept]

On 3/31/2017 at 0:27 AM, Shadeykins said:

If they're extra slots with the absolute lowest priority possible (meaning if anyone else has an antag preference on without pacifist enabled gets it over you) then I agree with the suggestion as stated before.

Otherwise this just strips what could be potentially interesting antagonists to boring pacifists who quietly take their objective and then do nothing the rest of the shift.

They wouldn't replace the existing antags. They would be roleplay centric antags that are less about syndicate, and more about interesting story potential. It's something that needs a lot of thought and planning, but it's not meant to be the same greentext stuff.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Anticept

[ZN23X]

41 minutes ago, Anticept said:

They wouldn't replace the existing antags. They would be roleplay centric antags that are less about syndicate, and more about interesting story potential. It's something that needs a lot of thought and planning, but it's not meant to be the same greentext stuff.

Sort of like the various RP heavy jobs. IAA and Magistrate don't eliminate security, they just add another layer.

[Shadeykins]

5 hours ago, Anticept said:

They wouldn't replace the existing antags. They would be roleplay centric antags that are less about syndicate, and more about interesting story potential. It's something that needs a lot of thought and planning, but it's not meant to be the same greentext stuff.

This is better suited to the miscreants suggestion, then. Sidetags or what-not, whatever you'd like to call them.

[shazbot194]

29 minutes ago, Shadeykins said:

This is better suited to the miscreants suggestion, then. Sidetags or what-not, whatever you'd like to call them.

Isn't that what they have been talking about? The miscreants being antaglight with a focus on RP while at the same time proper antags run about killing, stealing, ext.

 

13 hours ago, Shadeykins said:

5) The people who take pacifist objectives are the people who typically don't want to engage in any combat whatsoever. I think you're confusing two groups of players - players who don't want PvP whatsoever and want to see pacifistic objectives, and players who don't mind PvP but end up with theft objectives, finish them in 5 minutes, and then offer assistance to other traitors.

 

Don't people who get objectives they don't like just ignore them? I have been on several rounds where I thought it was extended but there was at least 10 antags or a full cult and I have been in rounds that felt like traitor but turned out to be extended. There clearly needs to be a better "vetting" system for antags to keep people from getting objectives they just ignore. I feel like an addition of miscreants or some kind of antaglight to help proper antags, and generating objectives in a list before giving it to people and replacing anyone who doesn't want the objectives would make rounds so much more interesting.

Edited April 2, 2017 by shazbot194
misread what I wanted to quote, but doesn't change much

[Shadeykins]

Just now, shazbot194 said:

Isn't that what they have been talking about? The miscreants being antaglight with a focus on RP while at the same time proper antags run about killing, stealing, ext.

No, they've been discussing replacing a certain number of antag slots with antags who only have theft objectives.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Shadeykins

[shazbot194]

On 3/30/2017 at 1:51 AM, Anticept said:

I looked at your reply and was confused. I see why. Purpose and I are on the same page, the "AntagLites" would be extra slots, not something that replaces antags as they currently are.

We had discussed it several times before, I just am taken by surprise that he did something about it heh.

 

On 3/30/2017 at 1:51 AM, Anticept said:

the "AntagLites" would be extra slots, not something that replaces antags as they currently are.

I think they mean new slots.