Removing Malfunctioning AI as a Gamemode

[MattAtlas]

My main worry is the dilution of round types, really. Even one gamemode getting removed has pretty big impacts on repetetition.

I'm probably leaning to no on the removal because of that, but I also definitely hate most malf rounds. I would switch to yes once the gamemode PR is merged however.

[Gangstafary]

I suggest educating and inculcating the good art of gimmicks is way better than removing it. People need to realise it's their duty as antags to be a driving force of the story, and a story must be fun and engaging. With that, maybe the burnout doomsday gimmicks will cease or be addressed from other different, new perspectives.

[HighAdmiral]

This is incredible. Rather than listen to literally every single person here 

we would rather just remove the ability for AI's to have an antag slot period?
The reason no one likes malf is because the AI's that take the role are often not in the AI mindset. Every time I, an AI main, have tried to take the malf slot for gimmicks I have spent DAYS thinking out, it's taken by someone who has every antag slot set to "on". Here's a picture of two AI mains complaining about never getting to have good malf gimmicks because the slot is always full, from a discussion a few days ago.
 

So seriously, we're just going to move towards removing both a very enjoyable gamemode when done right because no one wants to take the time to completely redo the AI, and staff is too busy to implement a whitelist?

Shit, let's just remove all the gamemodes and have extended running 100% of the time, instead of pretending every gamemode doesn't have its generic ending.

After constant discussion about how to improve AI as a whole through mechanic changes, it's become pretty clear we can't fix the AI in it's current state. Too much of what makes a good AI comes from the actual skill of the AI itself, not the tools it's given. A whitelist makes FAR more sense than just saying "ok too many bad ais ruined malf, time to yeet it"

Edited December 18, 2019 by HighAdmiral

[Peppermint]

Had a really good malf round that made me rethink my stance on this a bit. More liberal use of a blacklist sounds fun, or perhaps changing the requirements to 'x hours on AI' to go malf, should the codebase allow it.

[Pratepresidenten]

21 minutes ago, Lemei said:

More liberal use of a blacklist sounds fun

Ive seen this being said by a few people, and this cannot soley be put on malf. The staff complaints that would be contesting perma jobbans would be neverending if we handed out bans left and right for peace antagging and unintentionally bad/uninteresting rounds that does infact violate the rules on antaggery.

[BurgerBB]

I'm so fucking sick of this gamemode.

 

Every single malf round is just the AI stealth malfing to total APC takeover and then nuking the station because no one ever selects malf AI because they have a gimmick.

Once they go loud they fucking lock down the bridge and their core, venting all the air, cutting non-essential power, blowing up the fucking armory, and setting turrets to lethal. They follow a fucking checklist of things to maximize them "winning" the round when winning doesn't even fucking matter. It is 100% impossible to assault the core at this point. It's powergaming at it's finest but it's not against the rules to powergame as antag and if you complain you're just a big unrobust baby.

I ahelp this shit. Every single fucking time even though I know the response. Every single response I get is either "there is nothing wrong with protecting the core" or "antags can't powergame".

I would agree if with that if crewmembers weren't allowed to powergame. Everyone fucking knew it was malf, especially engineering who saw the additional CPU cores installed. But no one can accuse the AI because A: That makes them valid as shit and subjected to extremely explosive APC detonations, B: they are laughed at by the crew because that's what everyone does when people metagame, and C you'll 100% get a ban like most people have done in the past.

We have to sit there and take the AI's bullshit until they claim that they're rogue or there is absolute undeniable proof that they're rogue. This shit happens every other malf round but we're somehow here going "b-b-b-b-b-but I had a good malf gimmick back in April of 2018!"

Like it's absolute fucking meme every single round this happens. You have designed a server where the antags get all the power and if that power is questioned you get a ban at worst or you get killed at best because antags are given extremely powerful abilities. They're given these extremely powerful abilities because most antag players are extremely unrobust and get killed by security veterans. None of this is fair to players who are here to roleplay on a roleplay server

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by BurgerBB

[canon35]

Cut it out of secret rotation, keep it as a voted gamemode. 

I'm tired of having to deal with bullshit malf rounds that, as people have said, tend to be 
>explosions!
>silent hacking APCs
>building up the core
>Wuh oh, nuke!
>Trying to leave? Sorry, shuttle recall. 

If people want to rework it in the future, they will rework it and it can be added back into secret. For now, just keep it out. 

[Scheveningen]

Cut it out of secret, entirely agree. Everyone goes the system override route when they do not need to. No AI I have ever seen really bothers to toy with the crew, try to make them play certain games, etc. There was one, actually, but they aren't around anymore.

[ben10083]

The reason people do secret is that there are people who only see it as their objective to "win" against the ai. If malf was vote only, you will see the following

A) Constant doubting of Central Command Announcements

B) Constant verbal suspicion of synthetics

C) Constant Suspicion of AI

Overall, I think it is fine as it is, perhaps add a time requirement to malf ai?

[geeves]

There is a time requirement. A month.

[Gangstafary]

Like ben said, if you take it out of secret, then rather than occasional bad malf AI rounds, you will have every malf AI round full of people MGing that it's malf, which is way worse.

[Doxxmedearly]

To be fair, you already see that anytime there's a blue screen APC or announcement. Someone screams it out over common, and the round goes shitty from there. MALF is an example of a game mode that could be good if the players were more willing to go along with it. 

[geeves]

Voted Malf is superior to StealthMalf.

[Alberyk]

My proposal would be to remove malf as its own gamemode and returns traitor AIs, but when ais are select as traitor they become malf, with all the powers and etc.

[sonicgotnuked]

50 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

My proposal would be to remove malf as its own gamemode and returns traitor AIs, but when ais are select as traitor they become malf, with all the powers and etc.

I actually kind of like this.

[Doxxmedearly]

Quote

My proposal would be to remove malf as its own gamemode and returns traitor AIs, but when ais are select as traitor they become malf, with all the powers and etc.

Takes pressure off AI being the only antag

Allows people who readied up for the role to be the antag.

AIs can choose subtler gimmicks/options since the spotlight is shared, without making the round boring

Good call.

Though on the player side of things, a rampant AI in autotraitor can be ridiculous because those rounds are already hectic, depending on how loud the AI wants to go. But in theory antag rules and "play for the story" should take care of it, I still worry.

[geeves]

I'd still be wary of it, since an airlock bolting and shocking traitor AI would still be able to steal the show from other antags. The abilities would need to be nerfed heavily.

[HighAdmiral]

10 hours ago, Alberyk said:

My proposal would be to remove malf as its own gamemode and returns traitor AIs, but when ais are select as traitor they become malf, with all the powers and etc.

This is a very fair compromise that I find acceptable.

 

8 hours ago, geeves said:

I'd still be wary of it, since an airlock bolting and shocking traitor AI would still be able to steal the show from other antags. The abilities would need to be nerfed heavily.

How do you propose nerfing electrocution?

[Peppermint]

I feel like this would just make the problem worse. The round itself in design is okay, but what people do with it - the stealth delta, the electrifying, ect- are the problem. Adding in traitors just makes the mode even more of a headache.

[HighAdmiral]

11 hours ago, Lemei said:

I feel like this would just make the problem worse. The round itself in design is okay, but what people do with it - the stealth delta, the electrifying, ect- are the problem. Adding in traitors just makes the mode even more of a headache.

I feel like removing malf as a solo mode, and allowing malfunctioning AI to interact without everyone just going "oh malf time to metagame" will allow for actual gimmicks.

[Carver]

Ambivalent on this. The mode wasn't very awful on Exodus/Boxstation as the map and older mechanics really prevented any one side from dominating (AI core was defensible, yet not impossible. AI could easily fuck off somewhere anyways with help of an Engineering unit), but the current map layout in combination with z-level mechanics (Falling through holes in the floor and being unable to walk on walls with magboots as you previously could being the worst addition I've ever seen) and uninteractive gameplay (APC gibbing means 1-2 guaranteed kills on anyone trying to breach the core unless they meme on the AI with a bomb above it) has rendered it a somewhat predictably shitty experience.

As it were, I'd be interested in seeing a return to this mode if/when we get a new map that isn't so poorly designed/poorly balanced as the current one. Besides APC-bombs and Malf's effective riot prevention capabilities being neutered by the removal of Security Stationbounds (most medborgs don't bother to make knockout smoke mixes for some reason), it's not in a very different mechanical spot than it was years ago when the mode had fairly minimal complaints from both antag and crew players.

 

On 15/12/2019 at 04:21, Kaed said:

As the mantra goes: Fix, don't remove.

This mantra has meant absolutely nothing since the removal of Security Stationbounds.

[Jupiter Storm]

  

On 18/12/2019 at 19:29, HighAdmiral said:

we would rather just remove the ability for AI's to have an antag slot period?
The reason no one likes malf is because the AI's that take the role are often not in the AI mindset. Every time I, an AI main, have tried to take the malf slot for gimmicks I have spent DAYS thinking out, it's taken by someone who has every antag slot set to "on". Here's a picture of two AI mains complaining about never getting to have good malf gimmicks because the slot is always full, from a discussion a few days ago.

This +

On 19/12/2019 at 23:12, BurgerBB said:

Like it's absolute fucking meme every single round this happens. You have designed a server where the antags get all the power and if that power is questioned you get a ban at worst or you get killed at best because antags are given extremely powerful abilities. They're given these extremely powerful abilities because most antag players are extremely unrobust and get killed by security veterans. None of this is fair to players who are here to roleplay on a roleplay server

= Agree, insofar that the key perpetrators here are people who just go hUrR hUrR LeT mE TrY aNtaGgInG coUlD bE FuNnY. They don't give a flying poo about the roleplay or the interaction, they're not playing a character they're attached to, they're not playing a role they're passionate about. So why the heck should these people be the governing cause of a negative outcome for something that others are very attached to and work really heckin' hard to do well!????

When a malfunction round is put in the hands of somebody who is passionate about synthetic RP such as Kyres, Tailson or Capesh, the narrative direction they can take it outshines a lot of other round types - moreso if Malf was given MORE ROLEPLAY TOOLS LIKE I SAID IN MY THREAD WHICH WAS IGNORED BASICALLY. The results have spoken for themselves, we've all seen their rounds.

The latest trends seem to be:

 

1. "Remove everything rework is too hard and tougher regulations are too hard."

Yeah, no poo, that's because angry people are louder than those trying to take a slow, methodical, level headed approach and solve problems and sometimes, between all the rabbling, one or two good points get made. At what point has it become unreasonable to take an elitist approach to playing any kind of role - especially one that has such a profound impact on rounds. Why must we constantly listen to the people who are talking about the game mechanics, the script design and the code? Oh my god, it literally brings bile up the back of my throat when we as serious roleplayers use words like 'github', 'codebase' and 'mechanics' in the context of providing a fundamental base for good storytelling.

I understand the game - and by extension the roleplay - does not work without the mechanics, but all of the extreme powergame scenarios of A.I. Malf are just that; extreme. They are brought on by people who know the code and the gimmicks well and don't have any scruples about ruining others' experiences just so that they can win.

-- wait, Jupiter, you mean... JUST LIKE ANY OTHER ANTAG ROLE?

Why yes, voice in my head, I do. Your core of people who care about the role, and care about the effect their actions have on the crew, do not rush for these things unless they have a very specific purpose in mind, or the narrative demands it.

Right now, the 'Aurora Way' is to stamp on anything that has the potential to be used badly because in the wrong hands it is. If this role had been whitelisted like Chada's forum post suggested, way back, you would have absolutely none of these issues right now - and any that did arise could be swiftly and decisively dealt with in a lasting manner.

bUt WhITelISt mAn BaD - Elitism when it comes to high-impact roleplay has never been nor ever will be a bad thing. It's infinitely okay to learn and roleplay at different intensities but I'm pretty sure you want the baseline of your story to be good, and not pooped on explosively by a potato head. And jeez, I'd apply to be a Synth lore deputy for no other reason than to help sort through the apps if I even had a shred of experience or credibility as one. 

 

2. "Implement everything Bay does with a two year lag."

Don't people move here from Bay for a reason? Isn't the Aurora different to Bay in its goals? If so why are the same suggestions coming to the Aurora from Bay?

 

- P.S. sorry I had no idea this thread was even here until very recently I apologise for the long winded post.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Jupiter Storm

[StationCrab]

-1 Outright removal is too far, and unfair to the malfs out there that pour large amounts of effort into their gimmicks. As a frequent borg player, nothing is more frustrating than getting a bad malf as your master, but that could be said for any game mode. Rework it somehow, whitelist the AI slot, something, but please do not remove it. 

[Snakebittenn]

Bump. Please, at the very least, take this out of the secret rotation so we don't accidentally stumble into this roundtype.

[Seeli]

I think that Traitor AI would be a fun and interesting replacement, and as mentioned, would take the pressure of them being solo-antag, or whitelisting AI may be a good alternative, as the difficulty and responsibility of an AI are quite high.