Kintsugi Posted May 11, 2021 Posted May 11, 2021 BYOND Key: DanseMacabre Game ID: cbY-dkaN Player Byond Key/Character name: ZI Unity, ZI Markos Staff involved: The situation I felt was inappropriate to ahelp at the time, and better suited for a player complaint. As such, no staff were involved. Reason for complaint: This round was an utter nightmare. It devolved into a firefight at 00:20 minutes into the round that saw the HoS killed immediately and an antagonist warden fighting off all of security, as they controlled the armory. ZI Unity and ZI Markos, cooperating together, roamed the station indiscriminately attacking people with zero justification- they shot up the brig, they shot up medical, they shot up cargo, so on and so forth. Very little lip service was given to the concept of a gimmick - they briefly spoke with security after the HoS was killed, and essentially refused to surrender, claiming what they did was "protocol". This round, I feel, was an extremely egregious example of poor antag play - I feel quite strongly that these two players (who have, in my opinion, a substantial history of poor antag play) used this round as an opportunity to force a team deathmatch onto the station. They successfully halted all roleplay until an ERT arrived and killed them. tl;dr: two antags engaged in zero roleplay, and focused on killing and hurting as many people as possible until they themselves were killed. Once again, no effort to roleplay was made. I feel that they engaged in everything from ganking, to powergaming (they completely denied us access to the armory and cargo weapons while equipping themselves heavily, and stole and hid the ion rifle very early into the round, knowing this is the only weapon security has which is capable of really doing much damage to an IPC. One even feigned allegiance to the security team to try and steal what little weapons we had, only to immediately turn on us when Unity arrived), and so on and so forth. Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? The situation I felt was inappropriate to ahelp at the time, and better suited for a player complaint. As such, I did not ahelp. Approximate Date/Time: 5/10/2021, 5PM EST~ Evidence is here, in this video: (At the time of posting, the video is still processing. Give it some time.) Other notes: I feel that Aurora is experiencing a major problem with poor antag play. This is a heavy roleplay server - I feel quite strongly that rounds such as this exemplify the exact opposite of what we should be doing on a daily basis.
Faris Posted May 11, 2021 Posted May 11, 2021 @Flamingo and I will be taking this complaint. @DanseMacabreCan you give us some timestamps on the video itself?
Rushodan Posted May 11, 2021 Posted May 11, 2021 (edited) Hi, I play as Z.I. Unity and will be explaining my actions. I'll try to cover you points bit by bit and hopefully address some of the concerns you raised. "HoS killed immediately and an antagonist warden fighting off all of security, as they controlled the armoury." This was unfortunate. I did not intend for the HoS to die or even find the landmine I laid there that early. I was planning to set it, go and do some general low tier sabotage like hiding some of medical's stuff and cutting some cables until a firefight would likely happen. That is when I wanted the mine to go off. If I wanted to gank them I would have killed the HoS after they spoke with me shortly after the explosion. It was pure bad luck that he ran into the armoury immediately after I left. Yes, I had control of the armoury. I was the warden at the time and security had firearms drawn on me immediately outside of the main weapon's supply. Of course I am going to use it. "ZI Unity and ZI Markos, cooperating together, roamed the station indiscriminately attacking people with zero justification" Us working together was completely unplanned. I actually shot him a few times until Markos told me to stop and that he was on my side. This can be found in the logs. We weren't randomly shooting people, we shot people who didn't co-operate, were fighting back or were security as security were (rightfully) engaging us. "they briefly spoke with security after the HoS was killed, and essentially refused to surrender, claiming what they did was "protocol"." Yes I was going for a hacked/malfunctioning IPC. We weren't going to stand down especially when the advantage was had icly. "This round, I feel, was an extremely egregious example of poor antag play" I don't agree. I can see how it looks like this, but the round kind of went that way due to the Head of Security rushing into the armoury immediately after I left it. I thought he wouldn't due to having a warden but I was clearly wrong. "(who have, in my opinion, a substantial history of poor antag play)" I don't really think this is needed, i've never been given feedback in that sphere apart from one round (which I was rightly warned for) where it was kinda LRP because as burglars we stole minor items like shoes and food. I can't improve unless people tell me they don't like the rounds I am setting up. "they successfully halted all roleplay until an ERT arrived and killed them." Roleplay isn't just sitting and talking to each other. We made the station feel like it was under a desperate attack by two hacked synthetics - you didn't have the go-to armoury option and instead had to handle it a different way (like the SMGs you ordered). I'm not sure what you wanted us to do, give an elaborate speech or constantly talk? Let you one-shot ion us and leave us in the brig for the rest of the round with very little interaction? My goal as an antag is normally to drag people out of their comfort zones and get them to deal with issues a different way, which you did. I thought the interaction from the FSF was really cool as well. I believe that covers the main points and I can answer any further questions. Regardless of the outcome, I believe I will be disabling antag for a while/for good after this is resolved. If people generally do not like the rounds I antag in I wish they told me sooner.Edit: Anyway. You didn't have to keep on pushing someone who was heavily armed from the armoury with nothing but a disruptor. Cargo and science was completely available to you, amongst other options. I also didn't make the ion totally unreachable, just changed which locker it was in. Edited May 11, 2021 by Rushodan Added something else after looking at the video
PsycoticCone Posted May 11, 2021 Posted May 11, 2021 Hello, I play Z.I Markos, so I'd like to go ahead and give my side of the situation, though Rushodan already did a good job of explaining the situation when we both paired up. I had started the round with a gimmick which meant that I would help out my fellow antags with their objectives due to being subverted. I had no idea Unity was an antag until the HoS was already dead, and Unity even fired on me before I completely understood what was going down. We were attempting to track down the Captain once we both teamed up, which is why we ended up moving into Cargo. The only people that we attacked were members of security and other members of cargo who tried to attack us, there was no intent to just go around murdering people for no reason, and there was absolutely no intent to powergame. I have had a warning for poor antag behavior in the past, but I do not believe this round was poor antag play. Our behavior progressed naturally, and we were not going out of our way to murderbone the round, though I understand if that is how it felt to other players. Regardless, I will no long be playing traitor on Markos, so incidents like this aren't likely to continue in the future.
Faris Posted May 16, 2021 Posted May 16, 2021 @Rushodan @PsycoticCone What was the purpose behind the medical incursion? From what I see, there was little communication behind it. Markos went to embed in security to betray them and then Unity showed up in medical and forced their way in and started a firefight. Additionally, what was the general idea behind sabotage? I've not seen much in terms of tangible or direct goals.
Rushodan Posted May 16, 2021 Posted May 16, 2021 "What was the purpose behind the medical incursion?" It's hard to remember past the time now, but thinking back I believe I wanted to go and confront the captain as I remember hearing something about him being shot. Whatever the reason, I believed him to be in medical. The plan there was to make some general demands, possibly throw up some on-the-fly story elements about being subverted but it was quickly thrown awry by the EMT I had at gunpoint simply shutting the door on me. I had to blow my way in with C4 and that obviously started a skirmish there. I believe I wanted to demand his access as well - I only had so many blocks of C4 after all! "From what I see, there was little communication behind it." I planned to work alone from the start, so Markos joining in with me kinda just happened. I planned to portray a story through actions rather than words but clearly it just turned into a shootout rather quickly. Unity wasn't doing much grand talking over comms because it didn't make sense at the time; she was just trying to get a number of personal objectives completed."Additionally, what was the general idea behind sabotage? I've not seen much in terms of tangible or direct goals." It was just the usual autotraitor stuff. Rip up some bloodbags, maybe dump some medication so medical would have to remake / reorder things. Nothing so severe to make them impossible to operate. I considered doing a few things like disabling shields, possibly disrupting the power grid to further the idea that the goal was to cause disruption and issues to the station at large. That was the reason Unity had been subverted.
Faris Posted May 17, 2021 Posted May 17, 2021 @Flamingo and I went over the complaint and we have a verdict. ----------------------------------- First is regarding @PsycoticCone, we felt like they did not do anything improper to the extreme as it appeared to people. It seems like the idea behind what they wanted to do was act out as a hijacked IPC in order to assist other antagonists. They didn't have any indication that Unity was a traitor and were even shot before they could tell them they were on their side as well. The fights also seemed to have been entirely focused on security as well which seemed fair considering they are actively opposing the antagonists. The one thing we did notice that could use some work is that when doing these things, there needs to be more nuance as to the why, from what I could tell people knew you were hijacked as you mentioned it, but that seems to be the extent of what was apparent. In the future we'd like you to add more narrative elements and nuance to the story you are trying to drive, it'll be much more immersive and appreciated by people when they can in some way absorb the story you are trying to present. There are a multitude of lore elements you can utilize as part of your narrative to add more flavor to it. ------------------------------- Second is regarding, @Rushodan. Two things stood out to us. 1- The motives behind the narrative you pushed. From our perspective, it felt fairly barebones and minimalistic, your character was hijacked and the plan was to inconvenience people in subtle yet unimpactful ways that could really push the narrative. The whole intent can be summarized in a single word which is "chaos" which does not provide for an interesting narrative. If you want to go for sabotage, add more nuance to it that puts sense to it in a way that matters. As an example, it is far more compelling for a hijacked synthetic that needs Sol Military authorization to go for elements of the station that are against Sol ideals, like the cyborgification wings and to harm people that have in the past worked against Sol interests or any number of things that tied in with our lore. Quote The primary goal of antangonists is to DRIVE A STORY AND TO GENERATE INTERACTION. Be creative when coming up with objectives, and try to do things which will be fun for others, not only yourself. Do not resort to the bare minimums of generating a story through mechanical means, either. This means: no unmotivated/not roleplayed out mass murders, etcetera. See the rules below for further clarification. So in the future we expect some more effort when it comes to determining your goals beyond what we feel is the bare minimum. 2- The general expectation is that crew, antagonist or otherwise are responsible for the tools they use and its effects. In this case we felt that the placement of the mine should be done with more care and anticipation of the potential that it might be triggered. In this case it detonated which led to the death of the Head of Security extremely early into the round without much reason to justify it happening. This ties in with my first point in terms of general acts of sabotage. ------------------------------- In a more general sense, I feel like some of the issues of the round were a result of the points we highlighted above and they forced the crew into conflict. That is not to say that crew conflict is an issue, but that it sped things up far too fast without giving much of an idea of what's going on beyond some vague statements, and from there it pushed fights that happened into a necessity. In essence, some of the issues of the round could have been avoided, and hopefully what's been mentioned will serve to avoid these in the future. With all that's been said, Flamingo and I will be applying the appropriate actions.
Rushodan Posted May 17, 2021 Posted May 17, 2021 I will address the two points raised briefly, but only briefly because I think you are pretty spot on here. I was attempting to get interaction going, just not specifically with me. I wanted to get all the departments doing things that didn't require my direct involvement because I am but one person (as basic as engineering doing engineering work, medical doing medical work etc). My narrative was extremely weak because the mine situation was a key accident that threw the round out of control. It gave me no time to develop my idea leaving it barebones. I have been and likely will be taking a break from antag to figure things out for now. When I come back it'll be narrative focused and hopefully more enjoyable to all involved. Ultimately, I am sorry this round happened on being given time to reflect on it.
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