Fraud talks about bad and conflicting design in ss13 and bee

General
42

The game is set up so that most of the players are doing their jobs or fucking around.

I think this is a misconception. The game is set up around atangonists/game modes, and everyone is fucking around in the background. The kill objectives are here to involve random people in the game.

Think of SS13 like a complex game of werewolf/mafia/whatnot. The other players have roles, jobs and skills, but it’s the antagonists/werewolves that the game relies on and the ones that move the game forward. Or think Among Us.

Is Among Us about the crewies and doing minigame?

In essence players are regulated in order to optimally die instead of fighting back if attacked by a threat.

No, they are regulated around antagonists having somewhat of an advantage because, unlike regular players, when antagonists become exposed, they are allowed to be permanently removed from the round.

Antagonists should usually have no problems getting rid of regular crew; and as an antagoinist, it would be really not fun to have to face a target who has stronger gear and you will be retaliated on by a group of heavily armed people.

In reality any game where dying is expected to take place in is just a badly designed game unless it is due to difficulty.

This is a wrong take on the game, to the point you have a completely different understanding of the game. Remember, the game centers around antagonists, not around random people.

Again, Among Us comparison. Would the impostors be as threatening if crew had a fair, or high chance to survive a impostor encounter or, better yet, robust them? I don’t think so.

The question of where powergaming starts and what the intent of combat and combat items even is.

It shouldn’t be a big part of the game. Combat should not be a focus of the game and, I can go as far as to say, instastun weapons and instakill/2hitcrit weapons suit this game better than the slow, ‘fair’ combat the game currently has.

Why is that? Simply because being robust and good at this game is not about winning combat. It’s not about clicking better and having the best mix of chems to outheal the slow damage your opponent does. A good antagonist is able to play the game of deception, stealth and 4D chess to dispose their targets, take out their objectives and leave unscathed.

It’s not about combat, it shouldn’t be about combat and combat should not be a long paced, ‘enjoyable’ experience.

Seriously, I feel Among Us does SS13 better than SS13 does SS13 at this point.

3 Likes
43

What, you don’t like murder-hobo players that will kill you for looking at them funny?

the default solution to problems faced by the typical adventurer boils down to killing things until the problem is solved or treasure is acquired.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Adventurer

1 Like
44

I like this post and the ideas behind it but I think it’s far too late to sell people on it. The game has gone to far to embrace its origins now.

1 Like
45

image

16 Likes
46

i could write more later but i take big issue with
“doing your job is not RP”
this is mostly in regards to stuff like sec, med, sci, etc.

unless ur vision of RP is bar rp, interaction through jobs and roles is basically the pinnacle of RP
key reason: its effortless and self-driving if it has been designed well

6 Likes
47

There’s another problem too which is that MRP players in my experience harshly reject features like those

even stuff like negative effects on species for eating the wrong foods gets heavily critiqued because I want to play my perfect character and bar rp. Even on bay, IIRC, the skill system is still extremely limited (but I might be wrong, its been awhile)

1 Like
48

A skill system that adapts as the round is ongoing.

Unfortunately, this does not work on SS13. Unlike RPGs/Roguelikes/whatnots, SS13 does not have classes. You are limited by what you know about the game, not by your character’s IC skills. Meaning, a medic could replace an engineer if they have the knowhow, and the job of the entire station can be done by one person.

How would skills play out? Imagine a virus spreads loose and both the chems are gone/don’t care. CMO never arrived, who will stop the bad virus? Nobody can do chemistry cause they don’t have the skill and virologist is bad.

There could be a limit on what jobs can do (ie, engineers should be able to build reinforced walls, roboticists assemble mechs, etc) but these should be expansions to the job, not core functions.

The combat example you provided is just god awful.

To prevent sec from powertripping with superior combat stats so nobody can stop them, split sec into two departments.

This is actually a good idea. But we had it on bee (deputies) and it did not work well. They would just powergame sec gear. Because current ruling says they are sec and can power-game. But they shouldn’t because RP reasons?

I would really like the idea of Internal Affairs Department and bouncers/deputies, but it will simply not work on bee, not with current rules. I even like the lavaland/mining idea a lot and we could replace lawyers with IAAs, but then again, it will not work on Bee.

Powergaming is less of a problem if the way we want people to play is the optimal way to play.

This is against the core principles of SS13.

For when you need to really encourage/discourage behaviour, have it affect your antag rep.

I like this idea and, I’m thinking, crew objectives should increase antag rep instead of awarding beecoins. People who play for antag will try super hard to get them and gain their rep, and will allow them to play their game their way (ie, more antag).

I’m also thinking of a mechanic that makes people with high antag rep the targets of other antags more often.

Allow corruption.

I wanna say, slippery slope? If a sec takes bribes, is he allowed to self antag? Can he even interact with the antag in any helpful way without getting bwoinked?

Can players aid antags (read, use their restricted skills) in their goals? For monetary gain? For any gain? Is it self antag if the price is too low? Is it ever not self antag?

Will not work on bee.

1 Like
49

Tbf, that is a difficult thing when drawing comparisons to what is basically a completely different game.

It’s hard to just pick up one link without picking up the rest of the chain too. Over there, you can do all of that (self antag, etc.,) its balanced to various degrees by all of the other mechanics.

I think the spirit of a lot of it is nice but it’s not something that can quite be gently iterated towards. Unless we do just delete most of science, chemistry, viro, etc.

50

The problem is, bee doesn’t have a ‘secret rule’. You can’t do anything against the rules without it being a offense first, and a mercy second.

51

Like I and others have said, it’d have to be an entirely different server. Most of the pieces don’t work on their own and need each other to function. Several jobs, like virologist, would have to be entirely deleted along with their associated mechanics. Viro? Contributes nothing to the game for anyone but the viro, gone. Xenobio? gone. Atmos? Merged with engineer, fusion gone. Botanist? Remove, merge basic food growing with chef and bartender. Miner? See the gulag thing.

Obviously that wouldn’t work on either of our servers, and so bandaid fixes will have to be applied insteand, such as skillchips and gimmick antagonist objectives.

It wouldn’t be an offence. Part of this design is that selfantag is entirely allowed outside of extreme grief like bombing and is instead enforced by game mechanics (significant mood penalty for seeing someone killed by another person, antag rep penalty if you kill a nonantag as a nonantag). Things like muggings are entirely allowed and expected within the design, hence why it’d have to be an entirely different server.

1 Like
52

It’s been awhile but even that’s allowed iirc unless you’re constant enough to get noticed and ejected

the difference is that highly destructive stuff (like cannons) are difficult to procure and will require help. To be a maximal asshole in ss13 all you need is large grenades and 30 seconds at a chem dispenser to get maxcaps. or alt-click a couple thingerinos to plasmaflood.

It’d actually be pretty nice if that stuff was severely curtailed in ss13, it’d allow antags more freedom since you don’t have to worry about everyone just going for OP stuff. (Rules against it are pretty bad rp-wise too imo.) Not that that will happen because that stuff is so iconic that people will hate to see it go

1 Like
53

You don’t need to start a new server to start fixing issues. You can gradually change the server over course of years towards a well defined goal.

To do that however, you need to start by defining a goal in concrete terms, ideally with test cases to verify they were achieved. A game design document would be a good start, some reference to point at whenever a change is suggested.

I recommend taking example from already established large open source game projects, for example GitHub - CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA: Cataclysm - Dark Days Ahead. A turn-based survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world.

As for administration and rules, that’s entirely on the server owner to solve. You have admins with various opinions on how game mechanics should function and even enforcing them randomly from player perspective, it’s absurd to have moderation teams influence game design or force their vision on how already implemented mechanics should be used.

Then you have how the repository itself is ran, a popularity contest among contributors. Another popularity contest to appease the playerbase should a controversial nerf be implemented, going as far as holding votes on balance. That’s non-sense, balance is not achieved from popular vote. You’ll always have people that rely on faulty design decisions voting against it being fixed.

Long story short, game lacks coherence and will to enforce it.

1 Like
54

Balance should not be the point of the game, fun should.

55

Fun is subjective and does not exclude balance. Balance is objective when there’s reasonable choices and counter-choices for players. Note that I will not engage in semantics debate.

7 Likes
56

Fixing issues yes, we can do that via skillchips etc, but what I had spitballed there would be a massive departure from what we currently have. While sometimes the playerbase opposes changes that would make the game better in the long run because they involve hard decisions, like removing/completely redoing/heavily nerfing content, the above changes would be such a massive departure from the original game that it wouldn’t be fair to force such changes onto the playerbase.

1 Like
57

Wow, way to have a giant stick up your ass.

9 Likes
58

Yeah pretty much, after reading that I can no longer take Francinum that seriously.
There’s more griefers running around, but also quite a few nice people joined too, even if the video that raked them in was griff man being griff.

2 Likes
59

ok boomer

but seriously, you realize that you just insulted the majority of your player base and at least half the admin team right

4 Likes
60

Fran doesn’t care
20202

61

This also feeds into the issue of valid hunting at least on sage.

Skills, imo, need to be transferable.

Also, many jobs yield powerful things which can help others, but unfortunately, these often get hoarded/not made useful specifically for a department

Things I have tried:
Making a nanite cloud with a stun program, give sec the remote with the code, set to trigger only on 1 person.
Making helpful viruses to distribute.
Botany Meds
Rebuilding exploded departments
What Happens:
Round Ends
People get scared of what is produced and don’t use it

1 Like