Discussion of Specific Design Concepts · BeeStation/BeeStation-Hornet Wiki · GitHub contains some stuff I have been writing recently about round-impacting antagonists. Of course some of the points can be discussed further since there isn’t a definitive wrong and right answer, but I have tried to put down some guidelines as to what, in my experience, are some commanalities between some of the bad vs good antagonists in the game.
Sentient virus is pretty inconsequential and monkey is just bad so I won’t touch on them for now.
Gangs:
Gangs was driven by a positive-reinforcement power curve, which while this works for gamemodes like cult against security (a constant power) it quickly puts the system out of balance when against other positively reinforced powers such as alternate gangs. 1 gang would always grow significantly larger than the other gangs or would kill the opposing heads roundstart. This often meant that the good players would get a gang and would be the only gang with no opposition.
Gangs results in a lot of death but doesn’t have any mechanics which encourage or allow for revival of downed teammates.
Gangs could heavily benefit from some more supportive roles in the team for players who aren’t as skilled at direct combat.
The final objective of gangs was pretty lame and didn’t really work well across multiple gangs. Building a base sucks when someone else builds a base first and you now have to assault a defended location despite preparing for defense instead of offense.
The finale of gangs ending the round is probably for the best since at that point there has already been a brutal war and most people have died, although alternative objectives could be explored but may require them being made less-impactful.
I like the limited access to the shop as it requires that people protect and communicate with their gang leaders so that they can distribute gear.
Security feels overshadowed in this original gamemode and never seemed to use any advanced tactics.
Revs:
Revolutionaries specifically are designed around being an antagonist that is disorganised and only have access to regular station gear. This is a cool concept and gives them a good backstory, but is horrible for gameplay:
No comms means no organisation and an inability to make effective plans which discourages interactions.
No access to any specialist gear limits the ability to design good items into their arsenal that encourage working with the team which is hugely limiting.
The objective of revs on both sides is to survive. This objective is fine, but encourages hiding and extending the round after you know you have no way of winning. The final objective needs to be changed or altered in a way such that players dont just hide in space or disguise as crew for the entire round.
Security often had good communication with the heads, forming squads and working tactically which was very good for interactions and roleplay on their side.
Regular revs not being capable of convverting as well as not being allowed to kill convertable crew leads to an effective but boring strategy of heads hiding as regular crew members and being mostly protected by the rules.
The round-end feels extremely sudden as a single person dying results in everyone else losing even if the entire revolution is still alive.
If you are remaining faithful to the original modes, then gangs gives you a lot more options to completely rework them as revolution is entirely based on the idea of being poorly organised which findamentally leads to no interaction and as a result, no RP and only the players who are good at combat feeling like they can contribute to the team effort.
Oh yea, another problem with both of these gamemodes was upon deconversion just asking who the leaders are. If we are going to have this, it needs to be balanced properly and in a way such that this strategy doesn’t need to be made against the rules and is perfectly valid.
A lot of these feel like they would have a extreme impact with the ongoing round as the the form of,
Oh sheeit we got a hivemind prepare to go to war get cargo to buy all the guns and red alert.
I personally would like to see a second version of traitor or changling with a other style and a other upgrade/shop system.
traitors, heretics and changeling tend to offer the most out of roleplay
while the two cults are a nice break from the roleplay
(plus the trauma from sentient virus won’t heal)
People dont want/need a catharsis from RP, they want interesting rounds where something happens. Rounds where the antags do nothing and have no impact dont tell an interesting story since they are always in balance. Those rounds are some of the least memorable and rounds with the least meaningful RP.
Dearf fortress and rimworld would not be interesting if there was nothing to bring the system out of balance.
Reading that report, it looks like a break down in communication between admins and command crew after the admin tried to put their thumb on the scale to make the round last longer.
My enjoyment of revs, similar to what you previously pointed out, was very much the Macguyver vibe of making guerilla weapons to fight the power.
I love RP. I think my actions while playing on the server speak for themselves. Yet even I enjoy when I can RP as a revolutionary IED bomber rather than a crew member every once in a while.
Good point!
I feel like you should be allowed to meta-comm with your blood bro for purposes of making funny gimmicks etc.
You’re meant to have brain-to-brain comms after all.
The downside of meta-comms and the reason they’re inherently banned is that admins can’t log it. You can’t investigate what you can’t log, and it would make administration so much harder.
Why not take some inspiration from TG families for gang rework? Maybe not the full voluntary conversion part since that sounds like a self antag bwoink nightmare for admins but the general focus on less gamer gear and more just trying to be the biggest family in a way that’s not round ending sounds promising.
This is a skill issue. I’ve played and heard a lot of Security and while a lot of antags sees it as a joy to RR them for the sake of it. They also tend to not patrol during great threats pr ask for help from the crew as they often lack a leader. Having the title HoS does not automatically grant you leadership abilities.
Perhaps gangs shouldn’t be announced in anyway, but discovered naturally? They might have an objective to steal money from crew members or kidnap and torture them. Give them a revolver or two each and have them put people at gun point and steal shit until one another discovery each other. Could even scale it to pop and have various amount of gangs. Maybe there is just one? Then you’d only have to worry about Security.
That’d get security on their ass immediately. Perhaps, give them voice changer thing and such so they can change their identity? That’d allow them to kidnap crew members without spoiling their name and such. Give them only one revolver then so they can’t double team a Seccie with revolvers.