Remove Antag Drafting

[Roostercat]

So I seriously doubt I am the only person that has notices the garbage quality of antagonists recently. This is due to the draft system throwing people into antags when there isnt enough people with the pref toggled on to start the round. This is how the draft system works.  The problem with this is that it often throws new players who are unaware of the draft system into an important role and also throws people into roles purely because they voted secret. Sometimes I want to vote secret because I want antags in a round but I don't want to immediately know what antags. Now I cannot vote secret without the possibility of being thrown into a role I am not comfortable with. 

The draft system was put back in due to a problem where the round would keep repicking gamemodes because there are not enough people with an antag preference on. Though I DEFINITELY prefer that happening a few times or secret extended to getting shit antags who have no idea what they are doing or are just bad in general. We have had bad antagonists consistently who either gank, have terrible gimmicks, or even don't do anything the entire round. We had a rev round yesterday where the revs started doing things an hour and twenty minutes into the damn round. If someone does not have an antag preference on, it is safe to assume that forcing them into the role will end poorly for everybody. Thus I suggest we remove the draft.

[MattAtlas]

You're making an assumption that this antagonist quality is a byproduct of the current system instead of being the usual.

You'd be wrong. Most of these issues were a problem consistently from 2017, in my experience. It was only less noticeable recently because we had no antagonist players at all.

Removing the draft is counterproductive. As unfortunate as it is that I have to say it -  and your post proves it - on HRP servers, people must be forced to be dealt a bad hand and play antags every now and then to make the antag pool expand. Since, otherwise, almost nobody will play antagonist.

[Chada1]

I understand the point of the draft increasing the pool but like I think it has a p. big flaw. The big problem with using it as a way to expand the pool is if someone doesn't want to improve at playing Antag (Or any number of other activities), they won't improve at playing it, or if they do, it's a v. weak improvement, they'll do the bare minimum required in the round and/or cryo or anything else.

Genuine improvement doesn't just come from playing a thing, it comes from enthusiasm to improve and learn a thing, sink or swim (the mindset being used here) doesn't actually work when it comes to improvement, if you throw a person into a pool, they'll frantically do the bare minimum required to stay afloat and then use it to get out of the pool. If you ease a person into a pool and show them how to enjoy it, they'll practice it every day until they're at least decent or great at it. The few times the familiarity from being forced into a thing inspires genuine improvement it's from a person changing their own mindset towards it, rather than the 'sink or swim' approach forcing them into it changing their mindset, usually it just scares them away for good.

If we want to solve both of these problems we need a different solution because forcing players into the roles isn't going to make them good antags.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Chada1

[GreenBoi]

These aren't exactly new issues. Like Matt said- this is literally just natural from newbies playing antag, which always happens since there'll always be a guy that wants to try out the roles. I literally was this type of person for several months, so the antag drafting has nothing to really do with it.

 

Besides, we've had antag drafting before and no one seemed to mind then (almost like people don't care until you tell them something exists). The most we could do is add a little note in the vote menu that voting makes you eligible for antags in that mode.

[Chada1]

3 minutes ago, GreenBoi said:

The most we could do is add a little note in the vote menu that voting makes you eligible for antags in that mode.

I think this could be p. great, it's not that obvious to newer players that it does this.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

1 hour ago, MattAtlas said:

You're making an assumption that this antagonist quality is a byproduct of the current system instead of being the usual.

You'd be wrong. Most of these issues were a problem consistently from 2017, in my experience. It was only less noticeable recently because we had no antagonist players at all.

Removing the draft is counterproductive. As unfortunate as it is that I have to say it -  and your post proves it - on HRP servers, people must be forced to be dealt a bad hand and play antags every now and then to make the antag pool expand. Since, otherwise, almost nobody will play antagonist.

I back Matt's comment entirely.

[Doxxmedearly]

I've not noticed the drop in antag quality that I was expecting when drafting was implemented. I was extremely skeptical. I still think it's too early to tell definitively one way or the other. But, I've noticed that on average we have the same players creating the same bad/lazy/uninspired stories as antags that they were doing before, and it's not the new/drafted players doing anything particularly egregious besides sloppier gimmicks as they get used to mechanics or come up with an idea on the spot.

I still don't know how to feel about drafting, but I don't think it's responsible for poor quality antags. It seems mostly unchanged to me, save for we now have more varied gamemodes.

Sometimes drafting still seems to fail, tho, which is weird.

[Hendricks]

My second round in almost a year and I become a Merc. I was entirely unprepared.

[MattAtlas]

8 hours ago, Chada1 said:

If we want to solve both of these problems we need a different solution because forcing players into the roles isn't going to make them good antags.

I'm going to wait for you to mention this magical solution, because there isn't. This is the best way to get people to play antags and there are no two ways about it. Not every solution is perfect and this is the best compromise you can get.

[The lancer]

Bring back optional antag objectives to help out.

[Chada1]

3 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

I'm going to wait for you to mention this magical solution, because there isn't. This is the best way to get people to play antags and there are no two ways about it. Not every solution is perfect and this is the best compromise you can get.

I didn't say I knew the magical solution tho (And there might be one, we just have no clue what it is), I was just pointing out that the draft system has problems too. ATM I think the best solution posted in the thread is to keep the draft but like Greenboi said, add a warning in the gamemode vote area. This at least makes it v. visible for new players that if they vote, they might be antag, so absolutely noone can say they didn't opt into it in some way.

Quote

The most we could do is add a little note in the vote menu that voting makes you eligible for antags in that mode.

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Chada1

[Doxxmedearly]

3 hours ago, The lancer said:

Bring back optional antag objectives to help out.

This wouldn't be a bad idea to help people get used to it or help people put on the spot. It could do with some updating, but I can see this as a good idea. Maybe even suggesting some gimmick ideas, too.

Also we can definitely do with more detailed help menus for the antag types.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Doxxmedearly

[Pratepresidenten]

I honestly dont antag because I have no idea on what to do, so I opt out because I dont want to be a bland-ass antag. Not a fan at freeform at all. Having a modicum of direction would help antags a loooooooooooooot, atleast me!

[Skull132]

HOKAY SO. Time to ruin a party a bit.

I took about half an hour to write a short Python parser for the logs. And then I applied it to figure out how many antag lads we actually draft from the (completely unwilling) voters. The numbers will truly shock you!

So. I took the rounds from 23MAR to 15APR (today). This is about 24 days, which coincides with the time when the PR was merged. In that time:

• A total of 215 rounds have been played.
• Out of those, 51 (23.7%) were extended rounds or (for some reason) included no antag drafting.
• Out of those 215 rounds, 63 rounds (29.3%) required a voter draft.
• Out of the 164 antag rounds, 38.4% of the rounds require a voter draft.
• In total, 259 voters were drafted, with an average of 4 drafted antags per round where they were required.

So basically. There's about a slightly more than 1 in 3 chance of an antag round requiring a voter draft. Which is actually slightly more than I was expecting, I thought the number would be around 25% or 20%. But still, 38% isn't as high as I would have feared.

But it is high enough for claims of degraded quality to have some statistical merit to them!

Now for solutions.

14 hours ago, Roostercat said:

The problem with this is that it often throws new players who are unaware of the draft system into an important role and also throws people into roles purely because they voted secret

This is a very easy problem to solve. Apply age restrictions on most types of antags. Currently they're applied to only a few.

5 hours ago, The lancer said:

Bring back optional antag objectives to help out.

This would be good, IMO. But brace yourself because 3 months later you're gonna have players complaining that antag objectives don't befit heavy roleplay and whatever the fuck.

14 hours ago, Roostercat said:

The draft system was put back in due to a problem where the round would keep repicking gamemodes because there are not enough people with an antag preference on.

Technically incorrect. It was done to increase the variety of round types picked. ON THIS NOTE. Let's look at more data! Because I have data to prove that our plan succeeded, and the change has indeed increased the variety of game modes picked. What's more, it has allowed for more group antag modes to get selected. Ultimately, a positive move, in my perspective.

The graph is a bit hazy but things to note:

• The reliance on autotraitor as the "go-to" round type has fallen by more than 5%.
• Group antag modes (cult, merc, heist, spy-v-spy, revolution) have all seen a non-marginal increase in the relative amount that they're played.
• Wizard and vampire (another two single antag type modes) have falled by non-marginal amounts.

So basically. This goes to show that without forced drafts, our round type selection was heavily biased towards single antags. Which lowered overall gameplay variety, and, in my opinion, would leave larger rounds with quite "Meh" antags.

So basically. Removing this change would be bad. Based on the data.

[Doxxmedearly]

The objectives idea would need a pretty big overhaul in terms of what they offer, but it's not impossible to make them fit our community's RP standards. I feel that replacing them with suggestions/ideas for creating a round story would go far. I've already had others reach out to me about helping rewrite them to better fit our environment. It could be an interesting idea to have people submit ideas for objectives/ideas and go through them to make a new aurora-unique list. 

I'd be willing to undertake a good portion of the writing myself and go through community submissions to modernize objectives, if that's an idea the dev team feels would work. 

[Skull132]

Remember that the objectives don't necessarily need to track completion. But they do need to be creative.

[Doxxmedearly]

Yeah, exactly. "Completion" is a thought for the old system. The way I'm conceptualizing it is that it would present you a handful of suggestions for objectives or other ideas that could help give a push for people who need help coming up with something, with a disclaimer that you're free to ignore them if you have your own ideas. 

[Peppermint]

I think they'd be interesting in theory, though I'm curious as to how they'd work in practice. 

[Chada1]

An idea is instead of a set of static objectives at round start that you just complete, what if when you completed an objective, it assigned you another one?

This'd make it so the Antags using them don't just complete the 1-3 objectives they have, then just p. much hit a stonewall in objectives. ?

As for what the objectives would be, I have no clue

Edited April 15, 2020 by Chada1

[Doxxmedearly]

Well, keep your eyes open. I may very well be asking for ideas in the nearish future for this.

The idea would be to move away from simple "objectives" and migrate towards bigger ideas. Anybody can come up with "Kill X", "Steal Y", "Suck X blood", "Raid vault." What I'd be looking to add is ideas more along "Here is a goal to shoot for" or "This problem exists, fix it" or "You are X, thrust into Y situation. Figure it out." Something to give someone a creative push. 

There wouldn't be checking for completion or anything. Just three ideas someone can use as an outline for antagging in a way that isn't boring. Sometimes you just have such paralysis about being an unexpected antag, you can't think of an idea on the spot.

Even for non-drafted antags, it might help people come up with better gimmicks than "Steal captain's spare, go EVA forever." If anything it is worth a shot. It could very well be nixed, but I will probably move forward with redoing and implementing something like this despite that risk. But that will be for another thread.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Doxxmedearly

[Scheveningen]

QED: reasons to vote extended.

But seriously, why do people care so much about the quality of antagonists? It really doesn't matter. Usually what happens is that they do something stupid enough that they get lynched by the crew anyway or die some other manner. They're so painfully easy to shut down -- not to mention it's also very easy for said inexperienced antags to get themselves killed on their own. So why even stress over it? It's a roleplay server -- it's not really about the antagonist. It's about the group unit of everyone who is playing and interacting with one another.

Clearly, the fact that there are any antagonists at all is of the only concern to the admins + devs at large, elsewise we would've been able to see a lot of specific changes to the various antagonist types. Quantity over quality and etc.

[MattAtlas]

2 hours ago, Scheveningen said:

QED: reasons to vote extended.

But seriously, why do people care so much about the quality of antagonists? It really doesn't matter. Usually what happens is that they do something stupid enough that they get lynched by the crew anyway or die some other manner. They're so painfully easy to shut down -- not to mention it's also very easy for said inexperienced antags to get themselves killed on their own. So why even stress over it? It's a roleplay server -- it's not really about the antagonist. It's about the group unit of everyone who is playing and interacting with one another.

Clearly, the fact that there are any antagonists at all is of the only concern to the admins + devs at large, elsewise we would've been able to see a lot of specific changes to the various antagonist types. Quantity over quality and etc.

This is a whole lot of words to say nothing at all. 

Roleplay, in a roleplay server in SS13, stems mainly from character conflict. Extended is fun as a novelty, not as a continuous event.

[Doxxmedearly]

2 hours ago, Scheveningen said:

Clearly, the fact that there are any antagonists at all is of the only concern to the admins + devs at large, elsewise we would've been able to see a lot of specific changes to the various antagonist types. Quantity over quality and etc.

This is an incredibly rude and downright incorrect thing to say.

In the last six or so months, the following changes to various antags have been performed:

• Ninja got updated to include a secondary ninja
• Borer got a total overhaul and was introduced as a gamemode
• Renegade got a total overhaul and was introduced as a gamemode
• Multiple improvements were done to cult, wizard, and rev
• Traitor keeps getting new uplink stuff to improve gimmicks, as well as a number of bugfixes and overall improvements to the gear
• I'm overhauling changeling as my trial project
• Countless bugfixess relating to antags and their powers have been performed
• As the posts before yours demonstrate, I am going to be undertaking an overhaul of the objectives system for antags which will help players with ideas and allow them to become more comfortable with their role, likely asking the community to submit ideas and participate in this change, with the overall goal of increasing antag quality and overall enjoyment for everyone.

If there's something else you'd like to see, suggestions are always open, and I know you know how to use DM/git. If you don't see an improvement over how antag types were a year or more ago, you probably need to try opening your eyes. Everything we do involving antags is either 1) an idea we think is cool, 2) in response to a problem with it, or, mostly commonly, 3) a combination of both. Drafting was a response to a problem. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than what we had? It seems to be so far. Do we intend to take feedback into account and improve it? Well, re-read the thread; clearly we see where things can be improved.

I'm honestly very surprised and pretty disappointed to see this coming from you.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Doxxmedearly

[Scheveningen]

Not really referring to gameplay quality, but rather being wound up over the perceived "roleplay quality" of antagonists. It really does not matter.

[sonicgotnuked]

I'm going to post my opinions on what I saw before the antag drafting to after its implementation.

 

Before the draft, there was a constant and narrowed focus to gamemodes that place reliance on a single antag to function. Wizard, Ninja, Malfunction, Traitor, Vampire, and Changeling. These are all game modes that would span multiple rounds on end throughout the day until they got extremely stale. On the pre-lobby selection, you'd see gamemode after gamemode cycle through until it forced one of these modes or extended. There was an overall increase in secret extended.

 

After the implementation, team modes became more diverse. On a staff perspective, it actually increased the quality of rounds as it placed higher experienced roleplayers into these antag slots. Most of the time, they just roll with it, and participate without complaining. Staff have been removing antag statuses from those who didn't want it.

 

My only issue that I have is the increased amount of revolution rounds, 3/4 of the antag base being drafted, and everyone requesting for their status to be removed. In terms of this, I don't think this is an issue with the drafting system, but a highlight in the fundamental issues of revolution. The game mode can be actively frustrating to play as it requires, not only a gimmick, but the crew to engage in whatever gimmick. You can't actively "Wing It" like you can on any other gamemode.

 

I think the draft has been a substantial improvement in general.