Antagonists : the issue + conclusions

[kyres1]

Issue : Non-canon antagonists are counterproductive to an environment where canon character progression is the primary (unique) draw to the server.

The reality of antagonists : it’s a shitload of code, especially code that is so old that it is like smashing your head with a rock.

The issue, expanded : 

Talking to people for years on this server has led me to believe the simple fact that noncanon is not preferred over canon. This is reasonable, seeing as it’s just about the only draw our server has besides freeform antagonists. Ironically, it is a proven fact all the same that extended utterly slays the server population. However, canon events possess the highest player participation we’ve ever gotten on server ever.

This leads me to believe that people are actually reasonable. Shockingly, I think that the majority of people have similar reasons for playing here - and being security, antagonist, service, or event mains have no bearing on the truth of the matter. The truth of the matter being “everyone wants something new to happen.” If this were not the case, we would not see extended axe half the server population even at highpop, and we would not see those same extended players completely avoid secret. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the people who end up playing these extended rounds happen to be players who are just sick of seeing repetition. Some of the ones playing secret tend to not really care about the antagonists to begin with, going so far as to exterminate them or ignore them in the worst cases just to get it over with.

I don’t find any of this bad. None of these opinions are necessarily wrong, but they do conflict with one another and harm our overall server population as a result. More importantly, it harms the growing interest and investment people place in the server. Why would you be interested in something that ends up kicking you in the crotch every time the majority does something you disagree with?

Antagonists serve an important niche in Aurora. Without them, we would not gather interest from people who expect to see differences in every round, and radical happenings such as death and the station being in general disarray would be rare. Contrary to this, the station’s in utter chaos 60% of the time and practically permanently code blue.

For players that stick around, however, the capability for antagonists to keep people dwindles. The third or fourth time you see Cult is probably the last time you’ll see variety in it. Beyond that, it becomes different variants of the same thing rebranded, over and over with very, very sparing exceptions. This can not be fixed by forcing everyone to be antagonists as we already have. This is because it’s a game people play for fun ; if you are forced into a position of power or drafted into being the centerpiece of the round, a lot of those people simply lose interest or get their roles removed.

Why I’m posting this :

Because it’s worth discussing and discord discussions about it usually trail off into tangents about balance or frags. I also intend to pursue fixing the issue myself beyond just saying "wait for NBT, lol!" like I have forever now.

Discuss or die

Edited December 10, 2020 by kyres1
Removing the antag ban part

[Kintsugi]

I think we’re on the same page. I’ve outlined my thoughts for what I feel a superior, more engaging system would be in discord- but I don’t want to post that here unless this is decided to be the right place for it.

I think ParadoxSpace said it best: antagonists are junk food. They make you feel good for a little while. The meal is quick and dirty, and you can’t have a healthy diet only eating it. Rounds that truly develop characters, extended and canon events or quiet antag rounds - these are the fine meals of the server. They can be hard to prepare and hard to find the time for, but they’ll tide you over for a long time, and tend to be the most enjoyable and the most memorable. We have antag rounds to fill the gaps: to keep people engaged, while they wait for the next good round.

[Scheveningen]

Quite clear we're on the same page here. It's unfortunate that it's been such a slow realization, but I think it's generally clear from experience that people have had priceless amounts of fun pertaining to the canon events or the rare occasion where someone is an antagonist, but then they do a completely different spin on the formula from what is normally expected (ironically, this is incredibly similar to the effort required from the admins and event characters' own roleplay quality). In the case of the latter, such a task requires much effort, planning and ability to adjust to changing conditions in a round, which generally isn't feasible for some people who just want the fun to come a little bit more naturally. The players lack as much control as admins possess to be able to organize their own events and spawn what's needed because the game limits them to a certain degree of creativity. God knows players and admins rarely will agree to anything as well.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Scheveningen

[niennab]

I wonder if having an expansive roster of canon ghost roles would benefit the server narratively. Something that does away with a lot of the repetition round to round but enough of them that they remain in some ways fresh.

Thus, players who take the role can drive a narrative or experience something unique. My highlights of the King of the World Arc came not from the server events, but the ghost role stuff. If I host an arc again, it's likely that I will do so exclusively through ghost roles or unannounced on extended. Personally, it's these or the quiet moments on extended that stick with me the most.

However we may want to consider what we want to be as a server. Are we HRP? Perhaps by SS13 standards but in my opinion, not really. But with less of a focus on gameplay and more on narrative, character and story, we can be.

Edited December 10, 2020 by niennab

[KingOfThePing]

It is an unsolvable topic. While I agree with many things that are said here and while I, personally, think that canon progression of characters and lore is the only correct thing and non-canon stuff can be fun once in a while, but ultimately not adding to a progressive narrative, the problem is once again not only the game - but the players.

 

Even the way of freeform antags as they exist on our server, if you inspect it in more detail you come to the quick conclusion that antags are extremely limited by design of the server, the setting and of course, the game. You can be as creative as you want, and some people really are, but the amount of original gimmicks(tm) are exhausted. Period. You can maybe bring a spin to one or something unexpected happens and steers said original gimmick(tm) into a new direction but ultimately it boils down to the same thing in the end. That is why antags need to be non-canon, as is right now. People also do not WANT to keep interactions with antags canon. Hell, they don't even want to keep events and consequences from CANON events canon. Something that has been incredibly confusing in KOTW because it was allowed and the lack of guidance regarding the matter didn't help. But I digress.

People who know me know that opinion of me: People, for some reason, do not want lasting consequences. I see it in Incident Reports, too, regularly, when talking to involved people. It is a problem that also factors into the whole "keep all antag related stuff non-canon". But I digress again. Antagonists as they are, even if they were made even more freeform as they are, in some way, do not add anything for the long run, in my opinion. The fact that the same people over and over and over get drafted as antag speaks for itself - most people, myself included, don't play antag because the way of storytelling, delivered by antags, is just lackluster. It's a bit of action movie shooting, much talking over nothing, the ten millionth vault raid or stupid wizard from another dimension shouting ONI'SOMA over and over and over again.

Of course I know that the server would be dead in a week (Alert: dramatic exaggeration) if we'd only play 24/7 extended but that is why I loop back to my first sentence in this post: It is an unsolvable topic, for now, I think. The setting of the space station Aurora is just too limiting to be really creative and bring new and interesting antag interactions in 2020....and onwards. This is no new problem - lore events in the past sometimes felt that you had to go out of your way to include the Aurora in intergalactic events in some way.

I also want to echo what nienna said above, something I also have been saying for a long time now:

Quote

Are we HRP? Perhaps by SS13 standards but in my opinion, not really. But with less of a focus on gameplay and more on narrative, character and story, we can be.

HRP in SS13 standards is MRP - at best. Really depends on the people. By no way I mean to elevate myself or anyone else over other players, but that the game is just limiting. Of course it is, it's a game, but it shows with the standard antagonists more than in any other way, in my opinon.

 

To sum it up, there are three problems with antagonists and canon narrative:

- The setting is limiting as it is, a research station out in a asteroid nebula.

- All original gimmicks(tm) have been done a billion times over and over again - you all know that.

- People get buttblasted about actual consequences. There needs to be a solution to this, even if it is through rules or anything else.

 

It's a hard topic and I cannot give the perfect solution - or any solution to that matter, but I find it very good that a discussion has been started about it. Even if it is no new topic it is important to be talked about

Edited December 10, 2020 by KingOfThePing
Forgot a word again and a sentence apparently

[Alberyk]

Once again, people don't know the rules. The fact that antags happen does not stop you from making the interactions or events canon; as long it is reasonable and don't break the rules related to metaknowledge and the like.

However, reviewing the antagonist and round formula is not an easy task, and if we replace it with random ghost spawners, we might end with the same thing in the long run. They were a "success" during the kotw because they were new and involved the ongoing events. But, take note that they pretty much used the canon rules we had for regular antags. You could just totally ignore their existence if you want, something not possible in regards to canon events. I find quite hard to fully focus on the canon aspect of the server non-stop, because the game makes it impossible due to how it works. As danse pointed out, antag rounds are rather important in regards to how we structure the events in the server. 

Now, "most" people don't want to play antag due to a series of factors. They don't know how to improv, they don't have a plan, they don't want to contribute to the round as an active actor, or they are just too afraid to fuck up and get yelled at. I am also unsure what we can exactly do to fix most of those elements, because outside of giving some tips and help; becoming a better roleplayer is an effort that can only be done by the person in question. And people already get really angry if we give people leniency when they mess up as antag, mostly when they are new players. The best move is likely to stomp out people being dicks in ooc after the rounds, which can already be done when brought to our attention.

Good talk and all, but I am kinda tired of reading the same old conclusions without a proposal on how to solve this problem attached to them.

[Kintsugi]

3 hours ago, kyres1 said:

I also intend to pursue fixing the issue myself beyond just saying "wait for NBT, lol!" like I have forever now.

One thing I think that could be worthwhile to pursue is to supplement antags with canon third party actors - using overmap (which was ported, though is not perhaps fully functional). I've discussed this a lot in discord, but I really think we'd get a lot of mileage out of implementing the concept. Here's how it'd work:

The third party groups would spawn in via ghost-spawner, and would exist at round start (or maybe not) - they'd have their own, small, but overmap-capable shuttle that they can use to go anywhere. They'd be from a variety of factions - but for the most part, they would be able to decide how to act towards the station on an individual basis. They would not be antagonists in the traditional concept of the role, but they could antagonize. It is my understanding that this system is already planned to be thoroughly implemented on the NBT, but I feel like we could set the foundation now and begin prototyping with it early.
This is one of the bullets in my list of "how to transition Aurora away from traditional antagonists", and probably the easiest to implement? In a way, it'd be similar to the random events of the KOTW arc - but more freeform.

 

Best part about it is that other servers already use this system (Though in a far more limited and restrained fashion), so we know that it'd work, technically speaking. We just need to put the Aurora spin on it.

Edited December 10, 2020 by DanseMacabre

[Skull132]

5 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

I also intend to pursue fixing the issue myself beyond just saying "wait for NBT, lol!" like I have forever now.

This might happen sooner. ?

[kyres1]

57 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

Good talk and all, but I am kinda tired of reading the same old conclusions without a proposal on how to solve this problem attached to them.

If I come up with a proposal I'll piece it together with this thread and its discussion as reference to the issues it intends to solve. With that said, I have some - it'll just take some big thonking and probably more open discussion like this before I'd ever want to take it to a coder or start spriting/mapping it for myself.

[Cnaym]

I just want to throw in my two cents of why I do not antag anymore. It's just to simple. What I mean by this is that you either go the RP route and wait for seccurity and command to facemelt you because one bald guy decided to test if the laser rifle works or you get the path of no resistance because the crew cannot do much against you. Sparkled with the "I will 1v1 the ninja in the holodeck" this is not really interresting as antag.

If I cannot deliver a good story I do not want to antag.

If the crew cannot push back in a realistic manner I do not want to antag.

Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but this is a staff issue in my eyes. People who main antags or security and repeat shitty behavior should be put in other departments to improve their RP and mentality, this will cost us some players but as usual the ones who try to uphold some standards will stick around.

I cannot understand how antags arrives on station with gimmiks like "We own the station now, check our paperwork" without even putting in the two minutes to create a single sheet of paper with a stamp or somesuch. I've avoided Aurora recently because for me the RP seems to fall short on both extendo and secret and most discussions tend to be about mechanics instead.

Rarely agreed so much with Alb, but if people would just play their characters on secret like they do on extendo, we would not need to have this talk.

This goes both ways though and seeing the same three people chill in the same office with shutters down for four hours is exactly why extendo kills highpop. The ghost spawners forced interaction, interaction is what makes a round engaging. Does not matter if it's with antags, ghostspawners, events, cannon or not. I frequently joke about my RP not being good enough for extendo because I cannot talk about the weather for four hours and call it interesting. Never understood why those interactions are not done on discord (or even a privat server, I know some already did/do this) instead.

[Boggle08]

I keep my antag prefs off because there's such an inflated expectation from the people who play regularly to create a decent gimmick, be robust enough to pull it off, and involve everyone. If you are very successful, people talk about it for 30 minutes after the round ends and then it goes straight into the memory hole, because it isn't canon. Your effort is fucking gone and swept away. If you fuck up, or never escalate because you got drafted with no idea, you get treated to people grading your performance like you were a piece of meat that wasn't cooked to their liking. The effort isn't worth it because it just poofs away.

When we design this new gamemode system, we need to design it for the lowest common denominator. People who are unrobust, have no fucking gimmick or direction, are terrible at improvisation, or maybe are even completely new to the server. Maybe, we can have lots of heavily prefabricated setups and motivations for you to choose from, more so than selecting a few faction gun and armor boxes in the uplink. I'm noticing a trend for our antag picks, they don't seem confident at all about what they should do, sticking to their gimmick, or even escalating. We need a structure or support system that can help turn around bad rounds.

The Ghost role system works wonders. It leads to interesting scenarios as multiple events and ghost-types spawn in and emergently bash into each-other along with the gamemode selected. It was one of my favorite parts of the Sol arc, because it gave other job departments besides sec something to do, and it made rounds unpredictable. It is by no means a cure-all for our gamemode's ailments, but it is a component that should be integrated and developed for our future system, I feel.

I don't think making everything canon is a cure-all either, and our current rules for canonization are pretty solid. Whenever people talk about our gamemode designs, I get the impression that most people just want more staff ran event rounds, or at least something similar in structure to that. There's a thread similar to this one talking about gamemode concepts, and someone's already suggested a pseudo player controlled game master for this purpose. I'm not against the idea, I just have concerns about there being a greater dependency on staff being available, and even more demanding expectations on players who boot in to manage these pseudo events. Events work because things have been preplanned out by the lore team, everyone shows up on the date requested, and there's enough staff and players to make things work. You get optimal conditions because a time and date is put out. If we want to develop a system for player ran pseudo-events, we have to keep in mind that there won't always be staff, there won't always be a roster, and there won't always be optimal, preplanned conditions. Especially given that you're going to be randomly drafted into these roles, unless that eventually changes.

 

Whatever solution is developed, It isn't going to be one idea or PR that magically makes everything better. Creating a gamemode system that is self sustaining whilst mediating everyone's interests and reasons for playing will take time and testing until the final product reveals itself. We should ponder the trees before we can see the whole forest, we should start with small, constituting elements of our round design before a massive overhaul happens.