Another dynamic thread, with polls

Currently dynamic has three problems that I see:

  1. Too many antagonists spawn on an average round
  2. Every round feels almost the same, with a very similar collage of antagonists being chosen.
  3. The costs of antagonists do not align with the power those antagonists represent

There’s a lot of nuance to tackling these, and I expect this thread will get very messy, so I’ve tried to organize a survey of polls to keep opinions orderly. Chances are they aren’t going to be perfect, but I hope it helps paint a better picture of what everyone thinks of the best ways to handle these.

I make no promises to adhere to the exact outcome of these polls or discussions. Naturally I have no final say over what maintainers will enforce upon whatever I draft up either.

1) Too many antagonists are spawning

Do you think the average round has too many delta-level, potentially round-ending threats?
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

Do you think the average round has too many of the more ordinary antagonists?
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

Should antagonists stop spawning when a certain ratio of living antagonists to living non-antagonists is reached?
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

Should living security officers be factored into how many antagonists can be active at once?
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

Should the TOTAL threat level be a factor in how many antagonists can be active at once?
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

2) Antagonist diversity

Do you think there is a problem with antagonist diversity? (See primarily the same combination of antagonists spawning)
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

Do you think lessening population requirements will help diversity?
  • Yes, and I understand this means more powerful threats will be able to spawn on lower pop
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

Certain antagonists are flagged as “High Impact” and prevent others with this flag from spawning. Do you think removing these restrictions will increase round diversity in a way that is worth the potential drawbacks? (see below poll for more details)
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

List of "high impact" antagonists and some detailed implications of removing this restriction

Including currently disabled game modes:

  • Wizard
  • Blood Cultists
  • Clockwork Cult
  • Nuclear Operatives
  • Revolutionary
  • Incursion
  • Hivemind

Removing the restriction would allow for some crazy rounds such as both cults or nukies + cult. Due to the threat cost requirements (especially after potential adjustments), in theory these rounds would only be occasional, however rounds when there is enough threat for this to occur would spell almost certain and chaotic doom for the station, but also present very memorable opportunities for antag vs antag gameplay with the station caught in the middle.

There is no question of whether this change would improve diversity, the real question is as stated above: Is increasing diversity in this way worth the potential drawbacks to you?

All midround possibilities are flagged as either “light” or “heavy” and are restricted from spawning based on how much time has passed in the current round. Light threats may not spawn late into rounds, and heavy threats may not spawn early on. Do you think lessening or removing these restrictions will increase round diversity in a way that is worth the potential drawbacks?
  • Yes
  • Uncertain
  • No

0 voters

3) Antagonist threat costs

The following polls are not asking for you to state a set cost, but going to be used to weigh how people feel antagonists should cost relative to other antagonists. Rank each poll on a scale of how powerful you think that antagonist is, relative to the polls listed.

Syndicate Traitor / Infiltrator / Sleeper
  • 1 (weakest)
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5 (strongest)

0 voters

Changeling
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Heretic
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Malfunctioning AI
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Revenant
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Obsessed
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Space Dragon
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Blob
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Lone Operative (May not be handled by dynamic for various reasons)
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Nightmare
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Ninja
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Wizard
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Team of two blood brothers
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Pair of Abductors
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Incursion Team, including their target
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Spider infestation
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Xenomorph infestation
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Team of three pirates
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Blood cultists (roundstart team)
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Clock Cultists (roundstart team)
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Nuclear operative team
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Hivemind
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

Swarmer(s)
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

0 voters

7 Likes

Apologies to anyone who voted early - I editted the polls to remove the public=true that shows who voted for what.

Copy/pasted most of the polls and didn’t mean for that to be in most (or any) of them.

1 Like

Thanks for making this, sometimes the wording on polls can bias a vote but these seem perfect.

1 Like

Ruko this is too many polls. Ruko please.

1 Like

I haven’t made any polls lately, I had to get my fill on them while I was in the mood.

Revenants : this funny ghost floats around, spooking, zapping and making people sick, middling it kills afew people durring blue alert and they come back later. At worst it combos with other antags to cause EMP mayhem.

Swarmers : at best SEC now has a something to worry about in maint, middling those fuckers sneak around at eat all the fun stuff like armory. At worst the station in it’s entirety has been made the blandest, non-functional orbital tin can in orbit lavaland and all the crew have been trapped cause the swarmers ATE ALL THE SHUTTLES.

Spess dragons: we don’t see enough of them, but they remain STRONK.

Malf A.I.s: also stronk, but interesting.’

Hivemind: I don’t have any strong opinions about these yet.

Lone Ops: Nothing like a small nuclear scare to spice shit up.

NUKE OPS: Nothing like a big nuclear scare and boarding party to derail a round.

SPODER INFESTATION: I have legitamately only seen these due to the admin bus, have them appear more than aliens cause while they may be similarly murderous, they aren’t face hugger slinging tackle machines. that’d be refreshing.

Obsessed : we don’t have enough of these wierdos.

Blobs and Xenos : what can be said that hasn’t already been said elsewhere?

Any and every antag close to the normal player character : there are those who do not need extra powers to kick ass. rolling antag is just gravy.

2 Likes

Do you think the average round has too many delta-level, potentially round-ending threats?

Only when Dynamic decides to go psycho mode and spawn blob+xenos+lone op (i’ve seen it happen twice with the three,a couple more with xenos+blob)

Do you think the average round has too many of the more ordinary antagonists?

Indeed, there’s a serious lack of the other midround antags, i personally don’t mind fighting a round against only syndicate traitors but it would definetly be a breath of fresh air to see others

Should antagonists stop spawning when a certain ratio of living antagonists to living non-antagonists is reached?

Should living security officers be factored into how many antagonists can be active at once?

This is an interesting point, i think if it were based on living antags, then my vote would be yes, however this goes also in hand that it needs to be weighted with current security members and obviously pop of the server

I’ve mentioned a couple of times but one of the worst ‘‘rolls’’ i’ve seen was on a 40 minute shift, with me arriving late as the only sec and by that point the threat already rolled four traitors, one set of pirates and the moment i arrived it toggled a 2-man nukie team.

Should the TOTAL threat level be a factor in how many antagonists can be active at once?

I think this is something that would definetly need to be tested and to define what would an ideal number of antagonist active at once is


Do you think there is a problem with antagonist diversity? (See primarily the same combination of antagonists spawning)

Absolutely, as i said above i don’t mind a couple of rounds fighting some syndicate agents + heretic + etc

But it gets very, very, very tiresome to end up fighting pirates+blob+xenos at the same time during the final ‘‘rolls’’ of threat, the initial ones seems balanced but it tend to go wacky with the final numbers

In my ideal and prefered scenario i’d like for some other midrounds to join the pool of dynameme, those being:

-Spider infestation(with proper testing and continued tweaking to balance it)
Swarmers
-Space Ninja(with reworked objectives, i think /TG/ have a decent version and with a way for the crew to escape dojo after a certain time/upon ninja’s death)
-Space Dragon(With Kat ported and tweaked rework)
-Vines (would be fun if we took the SR vines which spawns with two man eaters that can be player controller to defend the early spread, but this one would require more work since they’re broken in the sense that their attack has no cooldown and it’s mega spammable)
-Fugitives
Alongside the addition of the classic Morph, slaughter demon, etc but retaining a low %

I think the main issue for a lot of us is that we got tired of the same combos being rolled constantly which overwhelm and prevent the ones mentioned above to even have a chance to roll, of course i understand that dynamic rolls =/= midround rolls but still a lot of people have voices that they haven’t seen those in forever,hell even in current dynamic we usually get a SINGLE ling (not that i’m complaining tbh) compared to when we had tot+ling which could spawn four lings on a round

Do you think lessening population requirements will help diversity?

Lowpop suffers a lot from the steamrolling of certain antags, i don’t think it would be wise to allow antagonists that are capable of going mega bananas to appear when you barely have a functional crew to make the station work

Certain antagonists are flagged as “High Impact” and prevent others with this flag from spawning. Do you think removing these restrictions will increase round diversity in a way that is worth the potential drawbacks? (see below poll for more details)

As someone who’s been mainly been playing sec… I can only say that while it might be ‘‘diverse’’ it can easily get stressful, if i have to take three rounds in a row of blob+cult+lings+pirates+xenos i would be exhausted, i’ve spoken with a few sec mains lately and they all share that feeling, after two rounds of traitors+random add+blob+xenos+pirates your brain is fried and this would only lead to even less security players signing up, same can be said for Command and hell even the regular crewmember that just wants to do a shift to learn X job or do a specific Gimmick can only OOC “expect” 45 minutes 1 hour-ishcof “peace” before Xenos, Blob, etc start spawning

It would be nice to experience the chaos that Cult+Tots/other combos can bring just for variety sake but if they were to become the norm people would get burned out and just start entering on gamer mode rather than try to do any interesting RP

All midround possibilities are flagged as either “light” or “heavy” and are restricted from spawning based on how much time has passed in the current round. Light threats may not spawn late into rounds, and heavy threats may not spawn early on. Do you think lessening or removing these restrictions will increase round diversity in a way that is worth the potential drawbacks?

Could be interesting to try, ofc having Xenos, Blob 30 minutes into the round would be too much

As somebody who got burnt out and rather angered at this exact list of antags in one round

Cult/Hivemind
Tots
Blob
Xenos

I’d want some more diversity. Not just a conversion gamemode mixed with two of the most annoying antags AND syndie bastards. It’s why I yell at sec comms at the start of every round I get it.

Salt aside, less chaotic rounds would put less of a strain on the seccies at least.

Ah right talking about Hiveminds i feel like we would need a proper protocol on how to act against them, a lot of people Command/Security don’t know what to do when the funny pink glowing people start appearing everywhere or when they first get a confirmed ‘‘Host’’

What category do they fall in, what type of response is warranted, etc.

Because i’ve seen hiveminds rolling everybody once they grow too powerful and go as far as to control the Captain and other Heads because they don’t know how to deal with it and at the same time i’ve seen ‘‘LETHAL ALL PINK GLOWING PEOPLE’’ even when they were just vibing.

2 Likes

I personally want the treat level randomize, so there would be a low chance of a massive amount of antagonist spawning

I don’t think many people have it active to become Obsessed. I have been Obsessed captain a few times. Only atag role cap can get.

1 Like

Not how it works. An obsessed spawns, and then the game chooses anyone from a pool of those who have it enabled to take it. Meaning that if even just one person has it enabled it will spawn.
You dont notice obsessed so much because they rely on stealth and don‘t have any TC or other powerful gear to help them.

<Stealth
Just go loud, make valentine cards, leave them presents, talk over pda

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