[FEEDBACK] Double Round Rolls

[Colfer]

Here's my second bit of feedback, instead of directly punishing players for playing the game, we just use a token system.
If you play a role 3 times, you get a token. If you ready up and fail to get the role 2 times, you get a token. 
You can expend tokens to get a leg up and be placed in first in the queue, if somebody else uses tokens, its random between them like normal.
You can expend multiple tokens to get a higher queue chance to play, but this runs the risk of over-spending incase nobody else was betting. Effectively wasting tokens.
This would be good for events when somebody is rewarded for playing for a long time with the ability to guarantee they can play the event.
Tokens are refunded at round start if you still did not qualify for the role
Lastly; people should not be able to see what other people are putting tokens on, as this can only generate salt and tension between players.

Edited November 11, 2021 by Colfer

[Carver]

8 hours ago, Lucaken said:

To put it into perspective, there is absolutely nothing you can do if someone decides to play the same limited job for eight hours straight, nearly every single day. I have reached out to admins, there is nothing in the rules that they can act on in this scenario. They are not even likely to talk to the player about it. You may think reaching out to these players on your own solves it, but most of the time the response from them is 'sucks to suck'. That means this suggestion here is the only way to actually do something about this, and it's a bit off-putting to see the responses for someone that is lucky to get in a round every now and again.

You tried to report someone for playing the game how they want to? While I can understand frustration if you're unlucky with your rolls, this just seems incredibly spiteful toward other players who are simply enjoying the server and helping it maintain it's popularity.

No one has a monopoly on any role, and it is comical to assume that they do because they were uncontested for a couple of rounds and then won a roll in the next against one or two people. When you say to someone 'No, you can't play this job you enjoy because you've been playing it before' then you heavily dis-incentivize the player from playing every other round.

As for the people who argue for playing more than one or two characters, how does that argument not apply to you as well when you do not roll the slot you want? It is hypocritical to tell people to play something else (as the core of your perspective argument, no less), while in the very same comment/thread complaining that you have to play something else.

[Marlon P.]

Fantasic idea. Job sharing will improve overall engagement. I remember giving up on the detective role, my favorite role, because i would get it maybe once every other week. or nonstop 4 times in a row on days off, which isn't fair for others who were in my same position.

Does this "expire"? When do i go to the front again?

Edited November 11, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Lucaken]

56 minutes ago, Carver said:

You tried to report someone for playing the game how they want to? While I can understand frustration if you're unlucky with your rolls, this just seems incredibly spiteful toward other players who are simply enjoying the server and helping it maintain it's popularity.

There is quite a difference between 'reporting' someone and asking for clarification of the server rules, which is exactly what I did. It's what you do when you are unsure if something like spamming a role consistently is considered an offence of the rules. Was my question born partially out of my frustration? Yes, but to claim that it was becuase of a vendetta against these players is an argument in bad faith. I take issue with how they play and react to polite requests to change them - never the players themselves. Do not presume a toxic attitude from a (admittedly vague) line in my argument.

56 minutes ago, Carver said:

No one has a monopoly on any role, and it is comical to assume that they do because they were uncontested for a couple of rounds and then won a roll in the next against one or two people. When you say to someone 'No, you can't play this job you enjoy because you've been playing it before' then you heavily dis-incentivize the player from playing every other round.

Considering high-pop hour timeslots and the commonality of two-spot limited roles, yes, it is actually very easy for one person to sit on a role for a considerable amount of time. It's certainly not a monopoly, but when you take into account that these players also usually know about quirks like the 'unready bug' in comparison to those that do not, it is very easy to hold onto a job no matter your luck. But even if that wasn't the case, due to the purely luck-based nature of the current system, you could end up with a player 'winning' two rounds in a row while another player has to bite the bullet, which is an innately unfair point of luck-based systems. This is about fixing that partially, and while that is bound to upset/derail some people, I think it's safe to say that if you can commit four+ rounds to this game nearly every day, you're not going to quit because you can't play your most favourite role for two of your eight hours of playing the game.

56 minutes ago, Carver said:

As for the people who argue for playing more than one or two characters, how does that argument not apply to you as well when you do not roll the slot you want? It is hypocritical to tell people to play something else (as the core of your perspective argument, no less), while in the very same comment/thread complaining that you have to play something else.

Yes, there is an innate hypocracy to some of this, as I do find myself wanting to play the same character and job on repeat many times. The difference is, I do not take it nearly as far as some players do, and should I be asked to stop doing it by another player, I would. To label this my main argument when I've pointed out several times that it's wholly subjective is just plain wrong - if you need to look for the actual points, read the paragraph above. I do not take issue if I have to play some alts, indeed I consider it a benefit at times. What I do take issue with, is people hogging roles with absolutely no concern for others, even when it is brought to them directly. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Lucaken

[Carver]

23 minutes ago, Lucaken said:

It's certainly not a monopoly, but when you take into account that these players also usually know about quirks like the 'unready bug' in comparison to those that do not, it is very easy to hold onto a job no matter your luck.

If there is such a bug, why has it not been fixed then?

22 minutes ago, Lucaken said:

What I do take issue with, is people hogging roles with absolutely no concern for others, even when it is brought to them directly. 

I'll say it simple; there is no such thing as 'hogging roles' in a luck-based roll system. If other people want the same role as I do, that's not my problem, nor is it my duty to cater to them because luck did not favour them.

There is no fairer system than the one currently implemented, where odds are wholly equal.

[geeves]

Please keep commentary relevant to the PR in question.

[ColonelOrion]

I have some concerns. I would appreciate it if the decision makers in this regard could address them, namely:

- This dis-incentivizes joining mid-round, thereby pushing down player count. Why would someone want to play 20 minutes of their role and 2 hours of whatever job they don't enjoy? I foresee an uptick in unexplained cryo activity and/or people being in the lobby and not joining even more.

- I like playing Orion. He's my character. You are prioritising the fun of the people with multiple roles/characters over my fun, which tells me I am playing your server wrong. Have I misunderstood?

- I feel this change may dis-incentivise playing multiple rounds in a row if you only want to play one role.

[Peppermint]

Thought about this a 'lil and I'm quite against it overall. Does it suck that people act like children who cannot bear to share? Yes, 100%. It's a shame some folks cannot act like adults. Unfortunately I feel outside of the NBT launch, this would do more harm than good to overall population and round quality. 

[OffRoad99]

22 hours ago, ColonelOrion said:

I have some concerns. I would appreciate it if the decision makers in this regard could address them, namely:

- This dis-incentivizes joining mid-round, thereby pushing down player count. Why would someone want to play 20 minutes of their role and 2 hours of whatever job they don't enjoy? I foresee an uptick in unexplained cryo activity and/or people being in the lobby and not joining even more.

- I like playing Orion. He's my character. You are prioritising the fun of the people with multiple roles/characters over my fun, which tells me I am playing your server wrong. Have I misunderstood?

- I feel this change may dis-incentivise playing multiple rounds in a row if you only want to play one role.

I agree and share all this.
I've really never been much of an altholic, I don't play with many characters because I wish to dedicate my time on that selected few. Keeping that in mind, I find myself to be completely against this suggestion.

Edited November 12, 2021 by OffRoad99

[Captain Gecko]

I have a better idea... ABOLISH JOB LIMITS, LET US HAVE DOZENS OF INVESTIGATORS, HUNDREDS OF THEM, EVEN! REVOLT, REVOLUTION, SHUT DOWN THE CORPORATE JOB REGULATIONS!!

But more seriously, I'm mostly against it too. Basically, what ColonelOrion and Carver said just above. If this is really that much of a problem, why not just adding more "job-slots" (or whatever they're called)? The problem happens on high-pop rounds, right? So, maybe instead of finding limitation for something can't even agree on calling "malicious" or something (I don't think there's such a thing as job hogging either), we could just add more? More jobs, more fun, I don't know, just something else that limitation that will mess up the fun for at least one player.

After all, if it's a "too much population" problem, why not making the game more fit for the growing population and simply adding more room for all of these people... Hell, why not even more jobs? Things like re-adding the Forensic Technician? Serparating some job-titles into different jobs too (like making Xenoarchs/Anomalists an actual job instead of a job slot for regular scientists).

And, well, if we don't want four detectives in a lowpop round, why not adding a system that adapts to the population? Say we have thresholds of "Lowpop", "midpop", and "highpop" based on how many peoples are online right now (not nescessarily playing on the station), and depending on what threshold we are, we can get more or less extra job-slots aviable.

We've got tons of possibilities, and I think just adding some limitation like this would be one of the worst decisions we could take, considering the other option.

[The7thLain]

1 hour ago, Captain Gecko said:

The problem happens on high-pop rounds, right? So, maybe instead of finding limitation for something can't even agree on calling "malicious" or something (I don't think there's such a thing as job hogging either), we could just add more?

How do you propose this in relation to command staff and the balance of sec roles? Command roles are by nature only supposed to have one selection. I feel as if much of the concern over the hubub around restrictions is in relation to these roles along with the two other very popular ones of Security Officer and Investigator, given security's huge popularity when compared to other departments. This also means that it is a balancing consideration rather than just a player consideration. Adding more security officers, wardens, or investigators may let more people play yes, but antags as they exist now are not optimised to fight against a team of anything more than 4 sec officers, 1 warden, 2 investigators, a HoS, and 2 cadets. Its for this reason that cadet slots weren't expanded when the learner roles saw their expansion earlier this year with a slot addition to Lab Assistants, Engineering Apprentices, and Medical Interns.

We almost never see fully staffed engineering, science, service, supply, or medical departments, even in high pop, which leads me to think that the proposed changes (the PR in discussion) in the conceit of this thread will mostly effect security and command roles exclusively, unless in relation to rounds preceding event rounds where we have half or more of the community playing all at once. These changes while indeed applying to the whole station, will most be seen to effect those who play command and sec, and should be looked at and discussed through this lens as other departments rarely, if ever, see enough competition over slots to have this change meaningfully effect them outside of the most fringe of cases. While the changes indeed may perhaps negatively effect players who only play one character on the server, especially a character that happens to be in those high-demand roles, the decision/choice to only play one character round after round should not preclude accessibility of a high-demand role to another player.

I am in support of the proposed changes as in my view it establishes a fairer system through which playtime for roles, especially command and security, can be distributed among players looking to play certain roles that are in high demand.

Edited November 12, 2021 by TheBurninSherman
spacing

[Rabid Animal]

In regards to this being mostly applicable to security and command; server culture dictates that the best chance you'll get to interact with a rounds antagonist is if you play security, (and command to a lesser extent) and since security is extremely over-armed, the antag almost always "looses" before things have the chance to get interesting. People want to be a part of the round, and so people fight over security roles. Thats a problem with server culture more than its a problem with limiting the roles available. Adding more sec roles would make this worse, and tbf I've always been of the opinion that there should be *fewer* sec roles. Make other departments more engaging, either via encouraging sec to calm the fuck down with the valid-hunting or adding interesting incentives to actually play those departments. Consider that sec mostly fills out during voted secret, but not nearly as much during voted extended as evidence of this idea. None of this is to say thats why everyone plays, or why everyone chooses those roles, but at the end of the day people want to play the game, and they want to be engaged in playing the game.

 

40 minutes ago, TheBurninSherman said:

We almost never see fully staffed engineering, science, service, supply, or medical departments, even in high pop

Mechanically, engineering is plenty of fun, but when sec breathes down their backs on projects, and CE's are few and far between, you run into this issue where it's severely limited for RP reasons - leading to a mostly empty department, most of the time.

Science has very little RP potential as you lock yourself in a lab the entire round playing with mechanics, that frankly get very boring after you've figured them out. Wouldn't be as much of an issue if science wasn't so isolated, or encouraged to involve people outside their departments in their experiments.

Service is a social role, bartender and chef get plenty of play, hydro gets slightly less, and chaplain and librarian are almost always empty. No one goes to the chapel to hang out, it gets lonely, which ruins the purpose of it being a social role. Liberians are just too nerdy for the chad culture v.v (/s)

Medical is discouraged from interacting with people because otherwise someone might die while they're distracted, so it becomes a game of only interacting within your department, which has historically been very hostile. Having roles focused around RP (A NURSE) would help, but its been established that alt roles are bad for reasons.

 

So how is this all related to the suggestion at hand? I think its a bandaid fix for a larger problem, in that other departments just aren't as engaging to play as security. There wouldn't be so much contention over those limited roles if other roles were just as fun to play for the players fighting over them. Sure, implement this, why not - but it really does only apply to one department and it doesn't do anything to fix why this became an issue in the first place.

[KingOfThePing]

1 hour ago, Rabid Animal said:

Science has very little RP potential as you lock yourself in a lab the entire round playing with mechanics, that frankly get very boring after you've figured them out. Wouldn't be as much of an issue if science wasn't so isolated, or encouraged to involve people outside their departments in their experiments.

Xenoarcheology is 100% completely based on RP. The job is literally what you make of it. Best role in science by far. Xenobotany arguably, too. Making guns in RnD is shit and Exploratory Chemistry is broken with all experimental chems being unobtainable right now.

1 hour ago, Rabid Animal said:

chaplain and librarian are almost always empty. No one goes to the chapel to hang out, it gets lonely, which ruins the purpose of it being a social role. Liberians are just too nerdy for the chad culture v.v (/s)

Chaplain is in a weird spot, it's a left over dead "job" that one can argue has little place on the server, but there have been players that play this job with great passion and dedication and fun is subjective. The library is kind of not engaging enough for a few reasons - I have plans for a rework/remodel of it but I will wait until NBT arrives before anything major happens with this.

1 hour ago, Rabid Animal said:

Medical is discouraged from interacting with people because otherwise someone might die while they're distracted, so it becomes a game of only interacting within your department, which has historically been very hostile. Having roles focused around RP (A NURSE) would help, but its been established that alt roles are bad for reasons.

Medical players are not hostile. After almost 2 years I have actually played medical again - there are a lot of great players and characters in there. You are poking at a deeper problem but on a surface level - people want to go shoot the antag again, this is why RP and RP roles like the nurse used to be are unwanted. Ask yourself why we have a sublevel care ward that sees exactly 0 traffic at any point of the day. People don't want to RP with medical, I have seen people get angry ICly and OOCly for medical players trying attempting RP, instead of just treating people. They dont want to pain RP and sit around they want the healing juice and go shoot at the bad guys again. Medical is also one of the if not THE most hectical department. If you fuck up someone could get taken out of the round and in the worst case they make you responsible for it.

 

I agree with your argument that this is kind of a bandaid for a problem only like, 2 jobs have but the rest of what you wrote is poking at surface level observations at best. Fun is subjective as I wrote above and just because you find these jobs unengaging that doesnt mean that they are. RP heavy jobs is painfully hard to engage others with because often just want to go pointy stick towards bad man direction and it angers me that it gets written off as "these jobs have no mechanics and antags dont involve them".

[Rabid Animal]

Yes. Writing a one to two sentence summary as to why certain departments aren't fun is very surface level. Discussing the exact reasoning they don't see the same traffic as sec isn't the point of this thread nor was the it point of my comment. I mean to bring to attention that there ARE reasons people don't play those departments, and it should be looked into rather than putting a bandaid on the issue. You seem to have understood that though, so we agree in essentially every way that's relevant.

The fact that RP roles are unwanted ALSO speaks to the bigger picture, imo, this is a roleplay server. Why are roles dedicated to roleplay not wanted? If they are truly unwanted, why do roles like bartender have such popularity. Even further, why is the most contested security role also the most roleplay heavy role? Fun is subjective, and I even pointed out that everything I said was a generalization, I understand this.

13 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

just because you find these jobs unengaging that doesnt mean that they are

Don't put words in my mouth.

15 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

RP heavy jobs is painfully hard to engage others with because often just want to go pointy stick towards bad man direction and it angers me that it gets written off as "these jobs have no mechanics and antags dont involve them".

I'm not antagonizing you by pointing out that certain roles are played less, and theorizing as to why those roles are played less. I said it was a culture issue, and by that I mean people want to engage the antag. I think this could be fixed by nerfing security, I also think it could be fixed by taking a closer look at departments that don't see very much traffic. My observations aren't fact and if you have something meaningful to add other than "you're wrong" be my guest.

[KingOfThePing]

12 minutes ago, Rabid Animal said:

Don't put words in my mouth.

Among other things, you say this:

2 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

Medical [...] has historically been very hostile.

and this:

2 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

Science has very little RP potential as you lock yourself in a lab the entire round playing with mechanics

So what else do you want to express, other than it is unengaging to play these jobs?

 

 I also don't felt antagonized. I don't play some of these roles myself. But pointing out the obvious, which has been pointed out often before brings no one nowhere. Instead you are free to brainstorm or suggest changes that help fix these issues. You also contradict yourself by saying that jobs like chef and bartender (two of the best roles on the station, in my personal opinion) get high traffic despite almost never engaging with the antag, so I am really not sure what you mean by it is a "culture problem". I am not sure what your point being so hostile towards me is - I even agreed with your summary at the end. 

RP roles are not unwanted, I might have worded it wrong. Titles like Nurse were removed because no one played them, there is little reason to hold these alt titles when absolutely no one is using them and even that was met with criticism. But all this is derailing into off-topic, just as questions on why some RP heavy roles are played so much less than shooty shooty ones. To your other point on why the most RP heavy security role is the highest RP one I cannot say anything. I don't play security and I am not sure what the RP heaviest role there is. Investigator? This also is only a kind-of-recent development, because no one fucking ever played Forensic Tech. It gained traffic after the problems the role had got fixed. Just as the library and chapel could surely be improved or made mor attractive.

Edited November 13, 2021 by KingOfThePing

[Peppermint]

Stay on topic, please. There are better places to put these kinds of thoughts than this topic in particular. 

[WickedCybs]

Only natural it's seen as more of a sec issue at the moment, though to me it is more of a limited slot problem for mechanically diverse/interesting jobs. As of now, we're in a lull with most departments other than sec being underpopulated at times as interest waxes and wanes. It was not always this way though, we're in lower populated part of our cycle and also have a good amount of people waiting for the NBT. I'm thinking of the future as well rather than how this would affect the present.

Almost every department has a role people used jockey for and sometimes still do, if not multiple. These usually have limited slots, as low as two. Things like roboticist, surgeon, first responder, bartender. There's more. Nobody competes for command much at the moment, but when they did we would have over five chief engineers gunning for a single slot role. This was not even exclusive to high pop. I think we're going to see a lot more roles put back into the crosshairs once the NBT arrives, new ones too.

While this PR would only really be affecting a few roles at the moment, I'd still be pretty interested in seeing it in practice. I get the fears of it potentially negatively affecting the NBT's pop, though I think trying it out still stands to benefit. Like how the antag draft was tried.

[TrickingTrapster]

Honestly, I don't think this is a good thing to use as a blanket solution. From what I gather in these comments, it seems to be a certain few jobs that are the problem, so why suddenly put this on everything? Having this for the specific problem jobs would be fine with me, but to suddenly have every job like that seems a bit too much.

Also, regarding the idea of 'just go visitor'... This simply does not make sense for every character. A lot of characters would simply have no reason to go visit the place they usually work at, and the same goes for suddenly going a different job. As far as I'm aware, it would not make sense for a CMO to suddenly go medical doctor the round after, because that would just straight up be a demotion. Same for service roles - You can't just expect a bartender to do botany, and vice versa. It's not a viable solution at all.

As for the limited slot problem... Yes, that is a problem for interesting jobs, but consider what will happen if you give it more slots. It's very possible that, depending on the job, because there's more people doing it it becomes vastly less interesting. Plus, it should make sense within the context of the station as well. Why would a station (or ship, later, whatever) need 4 investigators on their security team? They simply don't, so why would they allow that many on station at once? Two bartenders makes sense, due to the size of the bar (in reality the bar size doesn't matter that much but it makes sense in context), but four are simply not needed. And, people would just get in eachother's way anyway.

I think this system should be limited to those highly contested jobs, or an incentive should be added for characters to be able to come on shift as visitor or off-duty. Like being allowed to go on-duty if needed. Say, when some officers leave the round and leave sec a bit understaffed or something. That's just my thoughts and opinion though.

[DatSamTho]

On 13/11/2021 at 21:20, TrickingTrapster said:

Honestly, I don't think this is a good thing to use as a blanket solution. From what I gather in these comments, it seems to be a certain few jobs that are the problem, so why suddenly put this on everything? Having this for the specific problem jobs would be fine with me, but to suddenly have every job like that seems a bit too much.

I really don't get this. If those roles aren't contested, the system simply doesn't work, since it needn't, and when it does, the same reasoning applies. Besides, who's to say surgeon or Cook won't be the next hot role in half a year?

 

 

 

[SatinsPristOTD]

It's a strange fix targeting those that main one or two characters. AI at the moment has like, four people playing. The odd's of two of us fighting over it during high pop are pretty high, so I guess it'd help there.

At the same time, it feels moot for 90% of the other jobs. TL;DR, this won't effect half the server, but those it do affect need to understand there are others that ALSO main that role they're monopolizing