[Resolved] Player Complaint - PsycoticCone, Sarge7767

[ryder]

BYOND Key: Ryder.AI

Game ID: cdW-a29B

Player Byond Key/Character name: 

Sarge7767 (as Rain Kato)

PsycoticCone (as Valera Strelitz)

Staff involved: Garnascus

Reason for complaint: A vampire round charged mostly by Valera Strelitz and Rain Kato became a shooting gallery / deathmatch on the station. Very little roleplay occurred for players besides for these two, and any extensive emotes appeared to be self-serving to roleplay a relationship arc. Some parts of the round felt predetermined and Valera Strelitz, from my observation, was chaining together turning people to vampires and thralls without any pretext, escalation, or consideration for the ‘plot’ of the antag round. This sometimes led to lulls while three at a time were turned or enthralled. The relationship plot with Rain Kato led to enthrallment, and to Kato doing whatever she asked, which to my observation resulted in some players being held hostage and turned by Valera and Kato (the only security officers throughout most of the round), even if they had just come out of cryo. Medical characters were also grabbed and turned without pretext or escalation upon trying to assist wounded.

I personally suffered what felt like the end of the round after I entered a room and only interacted with Valera Strelitz (my character and Valera had not spoken throughout the entirety of the round) through four ‘says’ before I was hit with vampire abilities, turned, handcuffed, had my belongings taken, and then told to begin killing other crewmates. This was after about fifteen minutes of active participation in the round; I did not get to roleplay. Valera was equipped with heavy armor, a laser rifle, and other weaponry as a Warden throughout the round. Rather than begin killing other characters, I sent my own to cryofreeze and observed the rest of the round, which as mentioned previously, continued on as a deathmatch with very little roleplay besides interactions with Rain Kato. I would describe this as powergaming and ganking. The only time in which Valera allowed vulnerability to her character was during a monologue from Kato - some of the only roleplay in the round - which led to Kato turning on and attempting to kill Valera.

Overall, this round appeared to solely be played by Valera and Kato in the interest of serving their romance roleplay, and severely neglected to accommodate for any other players by forcing others into critical states or turning them without roleplay.

Ultimately, I feel this round was unpleasant for all involved and unrepresentative of Aurorastation as an HRP server, specifically owing to Sarge7767’s and PsycoticCone’s behavior.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation?: Yes; no action taken, ticket was left open. Uncertain if the round was monitored.

Approximate Date/Time: 09/09/2021: 01:00 am - 04:00 am CST / 07:00 am - 10:00 am GMT

 

Screengrabs regarding my incident with Valera:

Spoiler

Screengrab regarding the round being based in a romance subplot:

Spoiler

Additionally, when I ahelped, the administrator who responded - Garnascus - did not seem to care about the round having proceeded with little to no roleplay. Below the cut are screengrabs of the conversation.

Spoiler

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Faris
Topic Title Fixed

[Faris]

I’ll be handling this complaint.

[Faris]

To summarize the issues you are reporting here. 

1- Lack of roleplay and the round turning into a deathmatch.

2- The two characters using this chance to roleplay out a relationship arc, where the focus of their two interactions was with each other and neglected others.

3- Powergaming and ganking.

Is there anything I'm missing here?

[PsycoticCone]

Hello! I play Valera, and I would like to offer my own perspective on the situation. So, to start, the round was not a deathmatch as described. Only one person died during the course of my gimmick, unfortunately as Rain and I were attempting to capture the Head of Security. I explicitly withheld from killing anyone outside of self defense. The idea behind the antag round was the formation of a vampire court within the station. 

I will agree that I did not get to roleplay as much with your character as I would have liked to, however I was expecting a security team to arrive on the bridge very soon after I encountered your character, so I had felt a bit rushed at the time. I did try to make up for this by interacting with you as I looked for a space that you could receive blood from. There was no expectation that you kill anyone, and as a fully turned vampire you would have had the option to assist in hunting Valera down. 

 

As for the situation with Rain, there was no romance subplot, and the comment that Valera had made that you gave as evidence had been made as an excuse to mask Rain being thralled. Valera and Rain are friends ICly, which is why Valera acted apologetic towards her, however, interactions with Rain were not the focus of the round nor a priority, and Valera had interacted with a number of other characters over the course of the round.

Finally, the reason for the armor and weapon was purely as a self defensive tool that Valera had taken after the ERT team had been called. It was not used to threaten or gain an unreasonable advantage. 

I do think I could have taken more time to flesh out Valera's intentions, however, I will stand by my actions during the round as acting in good faith and attempting to provide an interesting and inclusive story for the other players.

[ryder]

3 hours ago, Faris said:

To summarize the issues you are reporting here. 

1- Lack of roleplay and the round turning into a deathmatch.

2- The two characters using this chance to roleplay out a relationship arc, where the focus of their two interactions was with each other and neglected others.

3- Powergaming and ganking.

Is there anything I'm missing here?

This is correct.

 

In response to PsycoticCone, I want to uphold some points of my complaint that you're speaking to.

40 minutes ago, PsycoticCone said:

I explicitly withheld from killing anyone outside of self defense. The idea behind the antag round was the formation of a vampire court within the station. 

I observed firefights break out without escalation or pretext while Valera wore full heavy armor and was equipped with a laser rifle. The latter idea did not appear clear during the round and I'm unsure if you ever explicitly expressed it towards those turned, especially in the very few says I was given, but I cannot speak for every other character. I can say in the little roleplay that was done in round, I could not discern your intent.

43 minutes ago, PsycoticCone said:

however I was expecting a security team to arrive on the bridge very soon after I encountered your character, so I had felt a bit rushed at the time.

At the time, Tizoc Youalahuan and Rain Kato, the former turned and held hostage, the latter enthralled, were the only security members on the manifest until other forces joined thirty minutes later.

47 minutes ago, PsycoticCone said:

I did try to make up for this by interacting with you as I looked for a space that you could receive blood from. There was no expectation that you kill anyone, and as a fully turned vampire you would have had the option to assist in hunting Valera down. 

This regards my screenshot directly after the first image; there was no interaction. The says entered from Valera were "ah ah ah" when trying to resist cuffs, and then forcing my character down, uncuffing them, and directly telling them to kill crew. I have to again uphold there was little to no roleplay.

The plot of the round not being geared for yourself and Sarge7767/Kato, who I understand is your friend, is difficult to believe. The limited substantial roleplay I witnessed in round occurred almost solely between the two of them, especially when Kato was given what was an apparent 'go ahead' to execute Valera near round end. If I'm speaking more to my bare feelings on the matter, it felt scripted/predetermined.

While I can respect that your intentions may have been in good faith, I can only say that the impression left with myself is negative. I was unable to recognize a gimmick/story to the round, and unfortunately did not get to roleplay upon my character arriving on station.

[Scorch]

As someone who has been active throughout that entire round (Ines) I have found it to be pretty fun. I can understand how it must have sucked (pun not intended) for some who latejoined to be dragged into action without much room for other stuff, but things escalated fairly slowly at first and it was much later in the round when things kicked off to the point where people would get hurt/converted on a short notice. The threat posed by Valera was pretty widely broadcasted too and her player seemed pretty generous with the leeway that was given to my character when she was getting nosy during some of the more intense hostilities at the brig.

After things kicked off I could see Rain engaging with other people too, expressing remorse about her actions, asking for forgiveness, and later dueling Valera to the death. Most if not all of the other converts also rebelled against Valera which probably made the finale pretty satisfying for them, as it sure did for me, even if my character was far from prominent in scope of that little narrative.

All in all, it was a cool departure from yet another round of sitting around in one's department while security chases some distant threat you never get to interact with and I think both Sarge and Psycotic (and everyone else involved) delivered a pretty good round. Shout-out to the vaurca cataphract.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Scorch

[Sycmos]

5 hours ago, Scorch said:

As someone who has been active throughout that entire round (Ines) I have found it to be pretty fun. I can understand how it must have sucked (pun not intended) for some who latejoined to be dragged into action without much room for other stuff, but things escalated fairly slowly at first and it was much later in the round when things kicked off to the point where people would get hurt/converted on a short notice. The threat posed by Valera was pretty widely broadcasted too and her player seemed pretty generous with the leeway that was given to my character when she was getting nosy during some of the more intense hostilities at the brig.

After things kicked off I could see Rain engaging with other people too, expressing remorse about her actions, asking for forgiveness, and later dueling Valera to the death. Most if not all of the other converts also rebelled against Valera which probably made the finale pretty satisfying for them, as it sure did for me, even if my character was far from prominent in scope of that little narrative.

All in all, it was a cool departure from yet another round of sitting around in one's department while security chases some distant threat you never get to interact with and I think both Sarge and Psycotic (and everyone else involved) delivered a pretty good round. Shout-out to the vaurca cataphract.

To be frank this is just your side of the round's experience and does not paint remotely the same picture of what myself and Ryder had to deal with. Yes, it may have been engaging for you as someone not directly in the line of fire of their antag play, but considering that both myself and Ryder's character were in immediate and inescapable danger within minutes of joining the round while you were permitted to avoid it by staying away one pleasant experience doesn't negate two negative ones.

I had been in round for less than ten minutes before I was held hostage in my office with little to no pretext besides "I'm sorry Valera told me to" and spent the majority of the round unable to properly or satisfyingly interact with crew because I was vampirized with little escalation, and unable to remain out of frenzy for more than five minutes at a time. When it came to me formulating some means to assist the crew in resisting Valera she immediately returned to my office (wearing full heavy armor, mind you) after having previously stripped me of most of my equipment, including my ID, and proceeded to blast me repeatedly with a laser rifle until I was near death when I was only equipped with a telebaton. At no point did I feel she was concerned with promoting roleplay besides only to thinly justify their gimmick, as I was on the receiving end of their malice for most of the round. None of the aggression felt reasonable, especially after I had reasoned to first discuss the matter openly with staff instead of moving to directly arrested Valera.

While I'm glad that some crew had a pleasant experience it doesn't change the fact that some of their heavy-handed choices soiled the round for several others, and posting a positive testimony just feels like an attempt at discrediting our experience.

[Star Dust]

36 minutes ago, Sycmos said:

To be frank this is just your side of the round's experience and does not paint remotely the same picture of what myself and Ryder had to deal with. Yes, it may have been engaging for you as someone not directly in the line of fire of their antag play, but considering that both myself and Ryder's character were in immediate and inescapable danger within minutes of joining the round while you were permitted to avoid it by staying away one pleasant experience doesn't negate two negative ones.

I had been in round for less than ten minutes before I was held hostage in my office with little to no pretext besides "I'm sorry Valera told me to" and spent the majority of the round unable to properly or satisfyingly interact with crew because I was vampirized with little escalation, and unable to remain out of frenzy for more than five minutes at a time. When it came to me formulating some means to assist the crew in resisting Valera she immediately returned to my office (wearing full heavy armor, mind you) after having previously stripped me of most of my equipment, including my ID, and proceeded to blast me repeatedly with a laser rifle until I was near death when I was only equipped with a telebaton. At no point did I feel she was concerned with promoting roleplay besides only to thinly justify their gimmick, as I was on the receiving end of their malice for most of the round. None of the aggression felt reasonable, especially after I had reasoned to first discuss the matter openly with staff instead of moving to directly arrested Valera.

While I'm glad that some crew had a pleasant experience it doesn't change the fact that some of their heavy-handed choices soiled the round for several others, and posting a positive testimony just feels like an attempt at discrediting our experience.

(Sarge7767 here) I wanted to say sorry for how I started that whole encounter, I was enthralled and my orders were to detain you and bring you to the warden/vampire. But that still doesn't excuse the total dickry I pulled on you in the HoS's office, I should have Ahelped and ask but I was far to mentally tired and while at the same time starting to just get fired back up due to the excitement of seeing the round finally pick up, so I wasn't properly thinking at the moment. But like I have said, what I pulled wasn't ok, a telebaton and riot shield vs a energy carbine on stun isn't fair, especially when you just joined the round only about 15-20 minutes ago and didn't have time to even gear up. I just hope that I can learn from this mistake and try to use better judgement in the future.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Star Dust
fixing mistakes and added something else.

[Roaper]

Hey there, I was another player involved in the round, although I spent about an hour of it as a ghost due to the fact that I was killed. I have no complaints about my character's death in that round, they completely had it coming, but as a ghost it did lead me to see a good bit of the rounds proceedings including the near silent conversion of Ryder's character that seemed to have been done for no reason other than to steal their Engineer ID and as far as I can tell, shut down the RCON system to which I am still confused about the reasons behind. Personally, I feel converting someone shouldn't be done lightly, and if you can't commit the time to do it properly why not just tie them up and leave them? At least that gives them a chance to try and make a comeback instead of immediately forcing them into a role of being an enemy of the crew.

 

[Faris]

Just posting this for the sake of formality as this thread has received some attention. Both are from the subforum rules for complaints.
 

Quote

Only post if involved or you have something to contribute. If you are not a moderator or administrator and/or were not involved in the incident(s) referred to, you may not post or reply to a complaint regarding said incident(s).

 

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Stay on topic, this means that the posts should be constructive and focus on the complaint itself only. Any off-topic post made will be removed and met with a reminder to remain on topic.

 

[Faris]

@Peppermint and I have reached a verdict.

 

To start, we want to say no one here is in the wrong. Sometimes clashing perspectives during a round gives a different impression of what is happening, which is the case here. Adminhelps and complaints can help smoothen things out and clarify what happened, which is the case here. 

No action on will be taken on the two reported players and anyone involved here. After reviewing what happened, the two of us came to the conclusion that it seems like the round went in accordance of the rules. 

We also spoke with some of the people involved to clarify how we came to this conclusion over discord. So we will be treating this complaint as resolved, keeping it open for 24 hours in the event something new is presented back by evidence.

[Faris]

Marking this as resolved.

Locking and archiving.