There’s been a recurring trend of players who are unhappy with a given change trying to start an echo that coders don’t even play the game or just hate the players. Normally I shrug this off, but it’s apparently something that people actually believe and isn’t just a joke to some.
I’m probably the least active player among the active voices on the coder side. I have a full time job and am also married so I hope you can forgive me for not playing 15 hours a day like some folks do. The only reason any of us code is because we also play the game and want to improve it, and I thought this was a widely understood. Nearly every change is unpaid and fueled purely by a desire to improve the game. The fact these claims seem to actually be believed by some folks here makes me genuinely sad.
Make negative constructive feedback. Make the fact you simply don’t like something known. Do not make it personal and attack the people who are passionate about making the game better.
Thanks for hearing out my rant. Commence shit posting and nerd emojis
The average SS13 players schedule:
Wake up (12 pm)
Play SS13
Cope in OOC after the round
Argue in discord for 2 hours after the round ended
Form metagrudges against everyone who made you pissed off
Sleep
Players just don’t seem to have a say here. Coders do what they want. Players can cry about it. Coders can refuse to care and nothing will change. We are entirely at your mercy.
“When you code it” or “Anyone can become a coder” are delusional. Unless you make purely QoL or fluff changes it’s a matter of doing things bee’s coders agree with, otherwise you get ignored or denied. No amount of player support matters because one maintainer saying no overrides it.
Anyone would be angry about this situation. Consider what games actually are in the grand scheme of things. People play ss13 to take a break from their life. It’s not reasonable to expect people to lurk all the time on github either. Then one day some coder decides to change things for the worse (at least in their eyes).
Sentiments about coders not playing the game are not as true as some people say, but it should be obvious where this is coming from.
I won’t share names, but I discussed recent changes with one of our very old players a few days back, and despite playing on bee all the time, their proposed solution was…going to another server. If a veteran feels this helpless then what more is there to say.
I think some coders and maintainers don’t play the game enough to a point where they are connected or up to date to what’s going on or how the game should play. And I know that developpment experience is highly valuable but dude you gotta log in from time to time and see how something could affect the server or what the common people do. I’ve seen some takes on maintenance this couple of days super disconnected from reality from what maintenance use is actually like everyday on the server.
As an example, Ike has less than 35 hours of living playtime and was head developper of the server. And this is not throwing shade at him at all btw. I personally do not think that coders hate players and that’s certainly a big stretch and I don’t expect coders to clock in 100 hours a week to the game but I certainly raise an eye when someone tries to push a big change in a game they don’t play when the community is actively screaming agaisnt it, but that is just my opinion. Specially when you see most coders play high hierarchy roles and not cook or janitor or cargo or whatever but I could be hugely wrong on this last part and that’s something I’m willing to accept.
It does not help either that a lot of big PRs are either buffing/nerfing security/antags and not actual content. For a community that gets barely anything new that isn’t a port, removing actual features from the game (the ability to communicate and track people) feels bad for the players.
No I actually agree with that phrase. You can learn a lot of code by simply staring at it until you understand it. Mapping is super easy to pick up. Spriting can also be learned. There are a lot of things you can learn on your own with little to no previous experience.
Will your sprite/feature/map PR get as much attention as the other PRs?. Probably not. Will you be able to avoid the “bloat content” allegations? Depends on whateve maintainer happens to review your PR. But you will change the game to do stuff you like. This is an open source game, if you want something changed you can do it, and if it’s something like adding new drinks, new clothing, new customization and stuff like that you can learn in one afternoon how to contribute.
I don’t know how to help with this feeling to be honest. The vast majority of PRs are changed or greatly affected by non-coder feedback when that feedback is received. The only times it isn’t is when the feedback isn’t constructive.
No matter the outcome of a controversial PR, whether merged or closed, a significant number of people will be unhappy. Anytime the support is truly overwhelming it tends to decide the outcome.
The nuclear reactor was merged with two keys by one of the people who gave it a key because of strong player support. You can do a search for merged PRs with close keys on them and find a list of other PRs that “one maintainer” couldn’t close.
How much activity is enough to be considered worthy of having an opinion on which direction the game should take?
I don’t disagree with the Ike example, but he also rarely did anything with his position at the same time so I have trouble agreeing with it too (He mostly handled back-end and warned people who pinged him without ever really pushing for or enforcing anything other than pure code quality standards)
Bacon is pretty active on the other hand. Archanial is the only even occasionally active maint that doesn’t play anymore to my knowledge.
I’d say a couple games a month is fine, and that number could even be 3-5 games a month, there isn’t a specific amount of hours you should clock in. If you play from time to time in a diverse enough amount of jobs that allows you to have a general view of the server is fine by me. If you clock in twice every couple of months to play one or two departments it’s meeeh
Also I think there is a possiblity that admin-maintainers (3 right now IIRC) could have a bias towards changes that would save some headaches to the mins down the line, despite what could mean to the rest of the playerbase. I’m not saying that’s the case, i’m not saying it happens every time but I throw out the possiblity and you guys tell me if I’m wrong.
This is much more relaxed than the answer I was expecting if I’m being honest. I try to play at least twice a week when I’m being active, but I usually don’t go for recognizable characters because I really don’t like special meta-treatment. I don’t think there is anyone actively involved that doesn’t meet this (probably several with the rank but they aren’t doing anything with codebase either)
It’s just RKZ and myself right now I believe, but I’ve definitely fallen for this before. Bacon is very good at pointing out the shortcomings with these when they do pop up thankfully, and I think RK has before as well.
There are also several successfully merged things that you might consider as falling in this category - were you playing when shoving someone against a wall hard stunned and disarmed them in one click?
I don’t know how to help with this feeling to be honest. The vast majority of PRs are changed or greatly affected by non-coder feedback when that feedback is received. The only times it isn’t is when the feedback isn’t constructive.
So, I’ll elaborate a little. It may seem from my initial post that my main issue is with coders ignoring feedback. Sure, this has happened before (I’ll cite them if you want, but you should know which PRs i speak of), but it’s not actually the main problem!
The core of the issue is just awareness.
Of our players on the server: How many are in discord>How many have coder roles or view PR stuff> How many view github
As with literally any game community, you’ll find that the more you distance from the literal game being played the less awareness there is. The coders do not care. When people respond to changes negatively, it’s common to hear sentiments I mentioned earlier about snooping and interacting more, it’s used to invalidate and dismiss opinions. After all, unless you stare at github every day, your thoughts shouldn’t count!
Look at the recent maints change that caused you to make this thread. When it was made there was an abundance of upvotes on it, you can call that the coder gang effect. As soon as it hit the game, people who never even touch github were forced to act. Now the PR has thirteen downvotes versus nine.
Not to mention that once a PR gets merged, it’s already an uphill battle to do anything about it compared to discussing it preemptively.
That’s the real issue. There should be frequent in-game announcements and polls about any upcoming changes, anything less and this will happen over and over again.
Anyways, something i always felt is that the voting on #pr-player-input helped a bit, of course back then when it was the go-to for ‘‘general feedback of what the community feels’’ but we did had a few bad apples (banned players, known troublemakers, players that prefered golden over sage and did anything to prevent RP tools) that affected some voting but i didn’t care much about the thumbs up-down vote i think, in my opinion, itwas neat that any ‘‘major’’ or ‘‘relevant’’ PR would be exposed for people to read and engage on discussions
There’s a big difference between a big white ‘‘unread’’ message on the top of the list right next to #announcements that shows ‘‘Oh something interesting is being proposed’’ than scrolling almost all the way to the bottom to check not only #pr-discussions but there’s also #development-proposals, #dev-announcements, #thinktank threads and the whole Github itself, as others mentioned not everyone can/understands how these things works and that’s why our own GH gets less traffic than other servers on ‘‘big’’ prs (from what i’ve noticed) and if someone is a casual player but they do care about the server since they play frequently it might be quite unpleasant to find out a changelog that swaps a major mechanic (or something about your favorite job, etc) but by the time they ask ‘’ hey what’s up’’ it’s already merged and the discussion settled so they’re left with adjusting to whatever the PR wanted when perhaps they would’ve like to share their thoughts (This happened with a few of the big medbay pr’s which is why i made threads on the forums or told people in Discord being aware that there were gonna be a few bad apples stiring up the pot but at the same time giving a chance to the true medbay maint and others to give their thoughts)
So while the ‘‘voting’’ system of thumbs up-down on #pr-player-input is currently used to get ‘‘vibes’’ of a PR compared to years ago where ‘‘the most voted thumb decides the fate of the pr’’ it would be nice to some of them were to be announced there so at the very least people is aware of on-going projects and engage on discussions to clear their doubts or whatever they want to share, specially for the most casual and regulars.
You’re currently acting in the exact way that prompted this thread by directly attacking coders with false assertions like they’re fact.
I am a coder and I care or I wouldn’t be pressing you (or others) to elaborate. I wouldn’t be asking for less ad hominem and more constructive criticism.
Let’s briefly discuss this recent change in order of what has happened and why leading up to this thread.
I see PR
I see positive reception to PR
Code looks good so I approve PR
PR does not impact balance so I could merge the PR outright, especially since I don’t see any issues with PR
Decide to testmerge instead to gain additional feedback
Receive and listen to additional feedback, some of which is great critical feedback
Also get told on three different platforms that coders don’t value, listen to or seek feedback.
Get told coders are out of touch and don’t even play the game in discord
Make thread asking for less aggressive feedback and still get told that we don’t care.
Your framing is presumptive and destructive and spits in the face of efforts put forth specifically to receive and react to feedback. We’re at this point right here in this thread because of attempts toward exactly what you say doesn’t happen and the PR isn’t merged.
My framing doesn’t matter. I’m saying that the ‘efforts put forth specifically to recieve and react to feedback’ are lacking. This isn’t an insult, it’s what has been happening and what is happening. Unless people see announcements in the game, it misses a lot of people. This should not be surprising!
This is not your fault.
I said that coders don’t care because I’ve seen feedback get ignored over and over, I stand by it. This is not offensive, it’s what has been happening. Perhaps it has stopped happening now, but I must see it to believe it. You cannot compare the new generator to a balancing PR.
This is also not your fault.
I never said that coders are out of touch. I never accused them of not playing the game. You are placing the words of other people into my mouth, I’m not their representative. Don’t do this.
I want more awareness about upcoming changes, my goals aren’t to create conflict or fight coders. Please read what I’m saying instead of the tone I’m saying it with.
If you wish to paint my points as faulty because I’m genuinely upset over this, then so be it. Things will happen without my feedback or griping. I only hope it’s not the same cycle again.
Do your complaints apply specifically to the fuzzing PR? I am the maintainer who is handling it, so that puts any feedback about how maintainers are handling it directly on me.
if it does not apply to the fuzzing PR
Why say them about and on that PR instead of one that isn’t receiving the attention? This sends a horribly misleading and mixed message to post general complaints about the way coders are doing things on a PR that is being handled well. You also made a very misleading post referring directly to how this PR was being handled earlier in the thread with:
If it’s being handled well, it’s not a good example to use to make your point and just served to confuse me greatly.
if it does apply to the fuzzing PR
Given I am the one handling the PR, yes your complaints are directly about my handling and are my fault, even if your intention isn’t to say so about me, that is what the complaint means. That aside, what do you very specifically want from me as the person handling the PR that will make you feel I have listened to you and others? We talk about
It’s definitely on me if I came off as implying this, but I didn’t mean for it to come off as “You personally said all of these things”. Various people said the the things I listed, the one in common is.
Those aside if you want to talk about the fuzzing PR specifically, my DMs are open to that - I don’t want this to turn into a fuzzing discussion, I meant it specifically to be on communications and validating that all active coders are also players that play and enjoy the game themselves + please stop demonizing us.
Bacon is also part of the administartion team even if it’s not listed on the official list. He can ban people, mute and do other stuff admins can, so that makes 3.
Good to know!
Nope, and I see that was a great change. There are a lot of changes that one can get used to, like inventory for example, but hindering people’s activity to communicate and be located is one that probably will stay stinging and never get to a point where you don’t really crave the old way
Well Ruko, the thread is called “Coder vs playerbase fallacy” so it implied a more broad view than just the fuzzing PR. For that one specifically, I gave my (admittedly negative) feedback on git without any of the other fluff. My actual feedback remains the same here: I think it’s catering too much to antags, and they only “need” it because our antags need more playtime. Another person suggested adding machines to unfuzz that can be easily sabotaged, I said this is a great idea. That’s my feedback. You can ignore the rest since it was addressing a much bigger scope (and also laced with anger)!