Making rounds more interesting

[ZN23X]

Working security primarily, I have regularly gotten booped by admins asking me why I did something, whether it's arresting, imprisoning, executing, etc. I've gotten warned once or twice because I did accidentally mess something up, but in most instances after I've explained myself the admin either says "Okay you are good" or just stops booping me to which I assume I'm good and they've moved onto something more important. I know this is all to prevent security from being abusive due to the power they wield. There are very specific rules and SOP in place that are to be adhered to.

 

My question. Are antagonists being held to the same standards? I'm not actually talking about murderboning antags, I know people who push it too far on that end are dealt with, I'm talking about the opposite spectrum.

From the rules:

"Rule 6: Play Antagonists Responsibly

Remember the goal of an Antagonist is to make the round exciting, fun, and dangerous, within limits. You should make an effort to add to the round, as opposed to simply completing your objectives and carrying on normally."

I'm frequently in rounds, especially with particular antags (vampires, cult, sometimes traitors) where the round is boring as hell because the antags are just stealthily completing their objectives but doing nothing or little to make the round interesting. Are these antags getting booped by admins telling them to pick up the pace because they aren't fulfilling what the rules describe they are meant to do? Are they threatened with an antag ban when they don't perform up to expectations? These are all things that security is threatened with and we all have in the back of our minds every round.

This concern spawns from me playing too many rounds where either nothing or almost nothing goes on for over an hour...sometimes even till the shuttle...and many people run to cryo because they are bored. Aside from rounds like this where I'm in the presence of others who enjoy RP, these rounds are the absolute worst. At the end when I see the antags objectives come up I just blink and think to myself "Oh...that wasn't extended?"

To paraphrase a wise man wearing makeup and a purple suit: This station deserves a better class of criminals.

Help us out here people.

Admins...start enforcing ALL the aspect of rule 6...not just the side where people are being excessive.

Antags, try to be more creative. You don't get a damned thing for getting green text other than possibly some self satisfaction for uh..."winning". Nobody is keeping track of how many times you've won (unless you are keeping track of yourself?), there's no stats here, only memories. Nobody can name the countless traitors who wait till the shuttle arrives to quickly break into the captain's office and steal his gun.

BE. MORE. INTERESTING!
 

Edited April 1, 2017 by ZN23X

[FlattestGuitar]

Well, it'd be very hard to force people to act in a certain manner. It's common knowledge that many people who have antag options on aren't too keen on killing other players, but do the "steal" and similar objectives happily. People's opinions on whether that's the right way to play antagonists will be split, but it's definitely something that happens quite a bit.

The job of antagonists is to make the round more interesting, but there are multiple other factors involved - events, people making mistakes and just the chaos that normally tends to happen during a given shift.

The amount of antagonizing to be done varies wildly and there have been multiple rounds where almost every single antagonist greentexted and security had nothing to do. There's no system in place to make sure rounds are interesting, the game only hopes they will be.

The job of admins running events is to counteract that and make the rounds more interesting. This, obviously, isn't too easy and very often doesn't result in what the players and admin would like to eventually happen - do too little and half the station never hears about the event; do too much and the whole crew gets eaten by a singularity.

I've been thinking about implementing a system that would allow the game to get some sort of a way to measure the "chaos" of a round and be able to respond accordingly by turning events up and making everything more wild, but I have no idea how to go about designing such a thing and there would be a horrible amount of coding involved.

[Purpose2]

 

6 minutes ago, FlattestGuitar said:

I've been thinking about implementing a system that would allow the game to get some sort of a way to measure the "chaos" of a round and be able to respond accordingly by turning events up and making everything more wild, but I have no idea how to go about designing such a thing and there would be a horrible amount of coding involved.

Like Left4Deads Director code.... I love the idea but the implementation... fuck knows how that'll work... guess you'd track blood... dead people, dead sec... maybe even damage sustained... tiles breached into space.... the system tracking this would be super intensive.

[ZN23X]

I am just looking for some sort of enforcement. Again if I don't do my job properly as security I can get job banned or banned outright.

Here's an example: late night round a week or two ago, a bit of a custom event. A random antag would be made extremely powerful. It was late so I ghosted and observed. The 2 antags were shadowlings, one eventually also became a traitor (more powerful). They spent the ENTIRE round hiding in lockers in maint hoping victims would wander their way. Server having a population off less than 50, they had very few opportunities. They did nothing all round. Did those two players get banned from playing shadowling or are they just allowed to repeat that snooze fest the next time they roll shadowling?

There is a punishment for playing security wrong that forces security to raise the standard of how they play in fear of being job banned. I regularly get boops that interupt whatever I'm doing mid round for what usually ends up just being an antags I justifiably arrested who complained to an admin about it cuz they are mad I caught them. 

If there is a punishment for antagonists being boring then people will try to be less boring in fear that they may be banned from playing antag. If an admin sees a vampire hiding in a locker in maint for 15+ minutes, boop them and tell them to get off their ass. If I can be interrupted while trying to run security to verify if I'm playing correctly, they can handle being interrupted while twiddling their thumbs in a locker.

Edited April 1, 2017 by ZN23X