Remove technomancer from the secret rotation

[Sheeplets]

I like wizard as a gamemode and I really don't want to see if permanently binned by being taken out of rotation. Unlike other modes we've gotten rid of this one actually has potential, unlike MALF and Changeling.

-1

[Kintsugi]

I fail to see what people mean by potential. Could someone describe to me what wizard actually brings to the table? I have never, in my six years of playing SS13, experienced a wizard round where I walked away feeling like I didn't waste 2+ hours of my life.

First off, wizard's tone is abominably unfitting. Someone will say "But we have other magical gamemodes!", and my counterpoint is that our other magical gamemodes are a lot darker in tone. Cult, vampire, whatever - they're not jovial blue men in robes. Do you compare Vampire: The Masquerade or Darkest Dungeon to Wizard 101 or Harry Potter?

The best example of how out of place wizard feels is to bring up The Wizard Federation, which is an entity some wizards love to reference. I don't know why wizards have a nation-state, but apparently they do.

As far as gamemode and gimmick variety is concerned - All you have are your spells. You could do some gimmick involving recruiting people to be wizards as well, but if anything this is just another example of how wizard is an LRP gamemode - Who aboard our high-tech research station, in their right mind, would sign a magical contract and start gallivanting around in bright blue robes while declaring themselves apprentices of the Great and Powerful Jhon Jhonson The Black? 

Furthermore, if wizards DO have some fascinating RP-stimulating potential I'm incapable of seeing, it still means nothing. You know why? Because nobody ever uses it. Having "potential" that is just wasted by every single wizard player is not enough of a reason to keep a nonsense gamemode in. As far as I'm concerned, having wasted potential is a reason to remove it in the first place - it's wasted for a reason, typically.

 

Wizard is a gamemode that is only fun for the person playing wizard, the vast majority of the time. I understand people are afraid of losing variety, but let me give you an analogy: You're in elementary school again, and the school rotates five different meals for lunch. Four of these meals are good. The fifth is a pile of literal dogshit. Would we be depriving the school lunch menu of variety by removing the dogshit from the menu? Yes, we would.

[Gangstafary]

On 21/03/2020 at 01:30, DanseMacabre said:

I fail to see what people mean by potential. Could someone describe to me what wizard actually brings to the table? I have never, in my six years of playing SS13, experienced a wizard round where I walked away feeling like I didn't waste 2+ hours of my life.

First off, wizard's tone is abominably unfitting. Someone will say "But we have other magical gamemodes!", and my counterpoint is that our other magical gamemodes are a lot darker in tone. Cult, vampire, whatever - they're not jovial blue men in robes. Do you compare Vampire: The Masquerade or Darkest Dungeon to Wizard 101 or Harry Potter?

The best example of how out of place wizard feels is to bring up The Wizard Federation, which is an entity some wizards love to reference. I don't know why wizards have a nation-state, but apparently they do.

As far as gamemode and gimmick variety is concerned - All you have are your spells. You could do some gimmick involving recruiting people to be wizards as well, but if anything this is just another example of how wizard is an LRP gamemode - Who aboard our high-tech research station, in their right mind, would sign a magical contract and start gallivanting around in bright blue robes while declaring themselves apprentices of the Great and Powerful Jhon Jhonson The Black? 

Furthermore, if wizards DO have some fascinating RP-stimulating potential I'm incapable of seeing, it still means nothing. You know why? Because nobody ever uses it. Having "potential" that is just wasted by every single wizard player is not enough of a reason to keep a nonsense gamemode in. As far as I'm concerned, having wasted potential is a reason to remove it in the first place - it's wasted for a reason, typically.

 

Wizard is a gamemode that is only fun for the person playing wizard, the vast majority of the time. I understand people are afraid of losing variety, but let me give you an analogy: You're in elementary school again, and the school rotates five different meals for lunch. Four of these meals are good. The fifth is a pile of literal dogshit. Would we be depriving the school lunch menu of variety by removing the dogshit from the menu? Yes, we would.

After reading this comment and thinking more about it, and witnessing a couple wiz rounds since my last comment in this thread, I have to post again since I have changed my mind.

Yes, still I have seen good wizard gimmicks, but they all were mixed gamemodes like visitors, not wizard alone per se. I totally agree, wizard is only fun imo for the player playing wizard, it's gimmicks are childish and LRP, don't bring anything to the table interpretation-wise. I'd go further and advocate for removing the wizard roundtype, only allowing the mixed gamemodes in which wizard is part of, while keeping them in the secret rotation.

[Carver]

On 20/03/2020 at 14:30, DanseMacabre said:

First off, wizard's tone is abominably unfitting. Someone will say "But we have other magical gamemodes!", and my counterpoint is that our other magical gamemodes are a lot darker in tone. Cult, vampire, whatever - they're not jovial blue men in robes. Do you compare Vampire: The Masquerade or Darkest Dungeon to Wizard 101 or Harry Potter?

I would hope you understand that VTM is an abysmal comparison, seeing as it has fairly strong ties to two different mage-focused settings. Whilst not quite as frivolous as men in blue robes, they are well enough proof that mages aren't a 'silly concept' in and of themselves. Harry Potter is also a poor comparison past the first 2 child-focused books or so. If a tonal change is desired, alternatives such as Technomancer have been brought up within this thread.

On 20/03/2020 at 14:30, DanseMacabre said:

The best example of how out of place wizard feels is to bring up The Wizard Federation, which is an entity some wizards love to reference. I don't know why wizards have a nation-state, but apparently they do.

Akin to the Syndicate, this is a hold-over reference. Unlike the Syndicate, it has gotten absolutely nothing lore-wise. It's certainly not the most ridiculous writing you'll find on the server, and so you can merely ignore it as per most lazy gimmicks presented by one-off antagonists.

On 20/03/2020 at 14:30, DanseMacabre said:

As far as gamemode and gimmick variety is concerned - All you have are your spells. You could do some gimmick involving recruiting people to be wizards as well, but if anything this is just another example of how wizard is an LRP gamemode - Who aboard our high-tech research station, in their right mind, would sign a magical contract and start gallivanting around in bright blue robes while declaring themselves apprentices of the Great and Powerful Jhon Jhonson The Black? 

Who aboard our high-tech research station, in their right mind, would ever act against the station and company itself? Revolutionaries are the epitome of LRP, Traitors can often be LRP in their goals and gimmicks, Changelings who do absolutely anything that might reveal themselves are LRP, Mercenaries and Raiders are LRP in their mere existence and somehow not being wiped out by the Icarus before even reaching the station - their very boarding is a justifiable reason to call for an ERT immediately due to the station being woefully under-equipped as a location that's been canonically attacked in a multitude of ways. This argument means nothing unless equal action is taken against essentially any mode that isn't extended or a canon event.

To say 'all you have are your spells' is also one of the single dumbest arguments I've seen: All changelings have are their abilities. All vampires have are their blood powers. All traitors have are their uplinks. All ninjas have are their suits. Congratulations, you understand that repetition exists in this game. It applies to every single mode, without fault.

On 20/03/2020 at 14:30, DanseMacabre said:

Furthermore, if wizards DO have some fascinating RP-stimulating potential I'm incapable of seeing, it still means nothing. You know why? Because nobody ever uses it. Having "potential" that is just wasted by every single wizard player is not enough of a reason to keep a nonsense gamemode in. As far as I'm concerned, having wasted potential is a reason to remove it in the first place - it's wasted for a reason, typically.

A subjective view, as I see all changeling and vampire gimmicks the same way. This is arguing against the RP of the players, rather than the role itself; wizards easily have the most potential out of any role due to their lack of grounded lore and thus ability to make up whatever the fuck they feel like, whilst having greater justification due to the 'arcane machinations of their mind' or whatever they wish to make up. If we're going by wasted potential in player writing we may as well remove half the roles and species due to the playerbase overall.

On 20/03/2020 at 14:30, DanseMacabre said:

Wizard is a gamemode that is only fun for the person playing wizard, the vast majority of the time. I understand people are afraid of losing variety, but let me give you an analogy: You're in elementary school again, and the school rotates five different meals for lunch. Four of these meals are good. The fifth is a pile of literal dogshit. Would we be depriving the school lunch menu of variety by removing the dogshit from the menu? Yes, we would.

Congratulations, in your first sentence you summed up every single antagonist role bar revs and cultists. If we're throwing the 'dogshit' out, then we'd be losing AIs first and Changelings would've been gone years ago.

[Kintsugi]

Bump. I actually just went to make this thread before the forums politely reminded me I had already made it in the past.

I'm going to approach the subject of wizard more diplomatically. I am sure that to some people on Aurora view me as an individual who makes scalding denunciations of things he dislikes, and to be sure this is quite true. Ignoring every other statement I've made about wizard, there's one thing people can agree on, I'm sure:

Wizard is flawed by virtue of being a single antagonist gamemode that must engage the entire station. They are a high visibility, low capability antagonist that is alone. While I do not like wizard, I will not suggest removing visitors, magistake, or other gamemodes that incorporate wizards. Why? Because mixed bag gamemodes have a cast that can support the wizard. The antagonist to crew ratio is entirely skewed out of whack with wiz. I have seen many wizard rounds where there are forty, fifty, even sixty people on the server-- Which invariably leads to a brief wizard incursion that inevitably (d)evolves into extended. Wizard simply cannot support a station of more than ten to fifteen people.

If people do not want to lose a chance to play wiz, increase the odds of visitors or other wizard-including gamemodes to compensate. This post is solely being made to point out that wizard is not viable as anything but an ultra-lowpop gamemode.

 

Please ignore the rest of this thread, with that in mind!

Edited October 14, 2020 by DanseMacabre

[Omicega]

Wizard is absolute anathema to a high roleplay environment. It boggles my mind that the lore writers and staff team as a whole here have gone to such lengths to craft such a high-quality roleplay environment and maintain its integrity over all these years, only to let it regularly get dumped on by the clown fiesta that is wizard. I don't even really care that it's low-impact on its own; to me, any round type that has wizard in it is just straight up worse off for it.

There is nothing immersive about Mungo the Magnificient materialising on the station at 12:15 to grab the spare and then cast STAUN EI and whatever the EMP blast spell is over and over and over for the next two hours. It's just a pain in the ass. Every other game mode I can think of at least has some justification to fit into the lore -- even ninja, which is a close second to wizard in terms of how bad the gameplay is -- but wizard provides nothing either to those looking to click on things until they die (just one antagonist, albeit an obnoxious one) or to those looking for a good story.

[NewOriginalSchwann]

Please god just remove this stupid game mode. I cannot believe that we are even seriously arguing to keep the statue-creating, fireball-shooting, robe-wearing, spirit-bear-having role that is a little too whacky by the standards of a LRP server here, on the Aurora. It's utterly mind-boggling lunacy, and it brings me pain to see the lore I've poured my time and heart into get used to chase Biggus Chungius of the Wizard Federation around the station for two hours as he turns random people into statues. It makes me want to scream.

[Waff-AI]

Please, God, just let it die. Ninja is bad enough, but this? This? Funnyman Referencename of the Wizard Federation is here to turn the representative into a statue because he wants epic reddit gold? Please. PLEASE.

While I understand 'improve don't remove', I raise a counterpoint: It's a bad gamemode!

Why is it bad? The following:
1. It doesn't provide any player agency to working with the antagtype. You're either a peacewiz or there are fireballs spitting left and right and nobody has much fun.

2. There's one of you- maybe more if you spend spell slots on familiars. As has been seen in the past, familiars can often make for a good round, but not enough to justify every other kind of wizard.

3. It makes no sense in the lore. The Veil, Nar'sie, blood cults, vampirism, the like all have connections to our current lore. Wizard is... bluespace? Bruhhaps? Where do we get the wizard juice?

Sometimes, bad things don't need replacements! Sorry! Variety is the spice of life, but we're not living on Arrakis. Technomancer would be a great reflavoring if you're desperate for a spell-y gamemode, but there are ways to do 'fun and quirky' with the other antag types that mean this one is utterly, completely obsolete. I continue to see no reason to keep it.

[DronzTheWolf]

Wizard is one of the best game modes, I should know because it's one of the only antags I have enabled.
It's one where, if used correctly, you can do just about anything with enough thought. Maybe if you'd play it, you'd think up good gimmicks. 
The major problem is, well, people play wizard like a wizard. You gotta think outside the box, especially now that you don't even need robes. Be a power-hungry anomalist who uses a bunch of advanced anomalies for power, or a hyper-advanced EPMC with "augments" that source your power. Or an interdimensional thief trying to get valuables from a more advanced time. The potential is limitless if you're willing to, y'know.. Roleplay?

[Daemon]

11 minutes ago, DronzTheWolf said:

Wizard is one of the best game modes, I should know because it's one of the only antags I have enabled.
It's one where, if used correctly, you can do just about anything with enough thought. Maybe if you'd play it, you'd think up good gimmicks. 
The major problem is, well, people play wizard like a wizard. You gotta think outside the box, especially now that you don't even need robes. Be a power-hungry anomalist who uses a bunch of advanced anomalies for power, or a hyper-advanced EPMC with "augments" that source your power. Or an interdimensional thief trying to get valuables from a more advanced time. The potential is limitless if you're willing to, y'know.. Roleplay?

based on what I've gathered from the replies - I don't think people are willing to endure the 90% of boring or repetitive rounds for that one good player who does Wiz right or does it in a unique way.

I also want to ask another thing - would this also remove magistake? cause "raider wizards" sounds like dumpster fire waiting to ignite.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Daemon

[DronzTheWolf]

1 hour ago, Daemon said:

based on what I've gathered from the replies - I don't think people are willing to endure the 90% of boring or repetitive rounds for that one good player who does Wiz right or does it in a unique way.

I also want to ask another thing - would this also remove magistake? cause "raider wizards" sounds like dumpster fire waiting to ignite.

My point is that if they should enable wizard and try to do it their own way if they're tired of seeing urist mcgreyshirt do it. Legitimately outnumber them with good players.

 

[NewOriginalSchwann]

1 hour ago, DronzTheWolf said:

Wizard is one of the best game modes [...] if used correctly[.]

This is the same argument that we had with AI malfunction, and that mode was also horrific. It also got removed, so there's at least some good left in this unending nightmare of a world which we inhabit. I'm not going to hit myself in the hand with a claw hammer for the 1/100 chance that I'll get a good outcome, so why would I bother with playing wizard for the cryptid that is the good wizard round?

[niennab]

Schwann put it perfectly and I wholeheartedly agree with his sentiments. Wizard is nothing more than goof goof shenanigans and I always find it incredibly difficult to navigate playing a realistic character while a wacky robed wearing silly man turns people into animals, statues and teleports around the station. It simply isn't appropriate of a game mode for our server. Every time I get wizard on lowpop, I pray the antag will do a peace-wiz gimmick.

[Hepatica]

It's the most low RP game mode conceivable on a High RP server. It's not worth the 2 rounds that were good out of the trillion that were not. Remove wizard, remove magistake, and do what we did with malf AI. Replace them with something new, like Burglars. Pleeease.

[Flpfs]

I have opened a PR regarding this:

 

edit: ok there's no need for a PR

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/10263

Edited October 15, 2020 by Flpfs
poopy

[Roostercat]

I miss the days of Obrigald and that one IPC who sold magic to people. Unfortunately good wizards seem to have gone effectively extinct, so cutting this tumor out now would likely be a good idea, though my only real concern is that the antag list grows ever shorter.

[StationCrab]

Most of the complaints here seem to be a result of the player piloting the wizard more than the wizard itself. I have witnessed some amazing immersive wizard rounds, with creative uses of the spells to drive a narrative. It would be sad to lose yet another mode because of player mistakes.

[CampinKiller]

7 minutes ago, StationCrab said:

Most of the complaints here seem to be a result of the player piloting the wizard more than the wizard itself. I have witnessed some amazing immersive wizard rounds, with creative uses of the spells to drive a narrative. It would be sad to lose yet another mode because of player mistakes.

The same thing was said of malf, yet malf was removed, as well as wizard should be.

[Waff-AI]

46 minutes ago, Roostercat said:

I miss the days of Obrigald and that one IPC who sold magic to people. Unfortunately good wizards seem to have gone effectively extinct, so cutting this tumor out now would likely be a good idea, though my only real concern is that the antag list grows ever shorter.

I used to play Obrigald the Defiler, actually! It really warms the heart to see him mentioned. Unfortunately, gameplay from other wizards resulted in the removal of the spells that made it possible to last more than ten seconds- namely lich. In regard to the antag list growing shorter, I doubt one gamemode compared to merc, raider, cult, vamp, ling, rev, burglar, and ninja will be truly missed.

19 minutes ago, StationCrab said:

Most of the complaints here seem to be a result of the player piloting the wizard more than the wizard itself. I have witnessed some amazing immersive wizard rounds, with creative uses of the spells to drive a narrative. It would be sad to lose yet another mode because of player mistakes.

 While I appreciate the faith in humankind as a believer in the innate goodness of the soul, I feel as though if the kit is that easily utilized to make for a miserable two hours then it should be removed. Besides, nobody is saying it can't be added again down the line when it has been made less griefy.

[goolie]

I can never get behind removing content. The “improve don’t remove” saying really does need to be adhered to in this case because there is definitely substance to wizard rounds. If you take a look at the stark contrast between the syndicate items list, and the spells list you’ll see the wizard has much less content to work with. In my opinion I think if we were all to sit down and come up with a larger array of spells, it would give wizards more chances to spice up rounds and add variety. It gets quite samey and that’s why most people don’t like wizard, (that’s what I’ve heard at least.) 

[Kintsugi]

2 minutes ago, goolie said:

“improve don’t remove”

Nobody is allowed to say "improve don't remove" except the person who will be coding these improvements. It is a rule (in my book, anyway), comrade

Edited October 15, 2020 by DanseMacabre

[goolie]

I totally get that and I don’t want to come off as one of the people that try and par off work to our coders but, coding is incredibly hard. We have people who know what they’re doing, and have volunteered to do such. I don’t think it’s a crime to suggest now and then. This thread has sparked up a lot of replies so maybe it’s something they’ll look into? As long as you’re not demanding change, I don’t see the problem.

[Alberyk]

Like it was done with ninja, another solution is probably rebrand wizard for it to have more lore friendly options.

[Lord Lag]

I'd prefer to just remove it from the rotation. Keeping it as mixed gamemodes is fine, but its just not strong enough to carry a round by itself in too many cases as has been pointed out repeatedly.

[Carver]

Lone wizard is usually pretty dull. Only shines with other antags to play off of.

Rebranding it would be cool but it'd require someone who wants to either port one of the alternatives from other servers, or come up with something new and innovative.