Remove secret as a selectable gamemode

[kyres1]

This does not mean "remove antagonists"

What the title says. Basically, removing/disabling secret temporarily so there is no veil blocking you from immediately seeing the gamemode is the suggestion.

Why :

It's a non-destructive potential way to just nudge our pop up a little because we're avoiding the crowd who would rather not roll the dice. On either end of the roleplayer's expectation joining a round, you fundamentally have to either expect an interruption halfway through your round, or go in expecting nothing to happen. If your expectations are curbed, only rarely is it ever good. That's not to say a surprise twist antagonist doesn't happen often ; but, it doesn't happen nearly often enough to hide the gamemode, in my opinion.

Basically, people don't join without expectations. Ever. Some people join wanting action. Some people join wanting extended. Some people want Long Form RP Station, others want Colonial Marines. The marked difference between these parties isn't in question ; instead, the question of why we're wasting the time of either party when they join with those expectations.

but kyres, won't people meta the gamemode?

They already do. Your respawn timer is 20 minutes. Just observe every round until you see a mercenary round to metagame, if you're an honest-to-god metagamer. But the actual population of metagamers on this server is so ludicrously low that the previously mentioned time wasting isn't worth it, and only serves to harm our population at best.

[Lonefly]

If this were to be done, I'd prefer to replace Secret with Random. I think leaving it up to vote is still a good thing, but Random always reveals which gamemode is selected, which would still allow us to see how this change impacts things.

[Gromnax]

Big -1 from me. Unless, as explained, there is a random option, this will end up turning into perma extended by sheer votes shares between different kind of gamemodes. Even if it doesn't, we still will end up with the same gamemodes being played. Probably alternating between autotraitor and extended.

[kyres1]

3 minutes ago, Gromnax said:

Big -1 from me. Unless, as explained, there is a random option, this will end up turning into perma extended by sheer votes shares between different kind of gamemodes. Even if it doesn't, we still will end up with the same gamemodes being played. Probably alternating between autotraitor and extended.

This assumes everybody on the server wants to play autotraitor and extended exclusively. I'm pretty sure the inclination would be towards neither of these gamemodes, with the majority being whatever the highest "intensity" can be voted for the population at the time, and the round immediately after ending up being extended. That's how it's always been.

34 minutes ago, Lonefly said:

If this were to be done, I'd prefer to replace Secret with Random. I think leaving it up to vote is still a good thing, but Random always reveals which gamemode is selected, which would still allow us to see how this change impacts things.

Yeah this makes lots of sense combined with the suggestion. I agree.

[Gromnax]

2 minutes ago, kyres1 said:

This assumes everybody on the server wants to play autotraitor and extended exclusively. I'm pretty sure the inclination would be towards neither of these gamemodes, with the majority being whatever the highest "intensity" can be voted for the population at the time, and the round immediately after ending up being extended. That's how it's always been.

Yeah this makes lots of sense combined with the suggestion. I agree.

I doubt we'd see often things such as cult, borer, or burglar, for instance, though. I can not tell more without any proof, this is but a gut feeling.

To complete with everything Lonefly said, how about voting for a round intensity instead of a gamemode? Extended-Calm-Medium-Intense could be a thing.

[kyres1]

Just now, Gromnax said:

this is but a gut feeling.

This is what's great about small suggestions. There's not enough effort put into the change itself put up against the potential payoffs, so not trying it is silly when reverting it is as simple as stopping a testmerge.

1 minute ago, Gromnax said:

To complete with everything Lonefly said, how about voting for a round intensity instead of a gamemode? Extended-Calm-Medium-Intense could be a thing.

I *was* a fan of dynamic when it showed up, admittedly for very bad reasons. The thread for it is here ;

That was a much more popular thread, however. It's also old. But, that's functionally what that sentence implies! Support dynamic today.....

[Gromnax]

Yes, dynamic was such a good idea. Honestly, I'm sad it's been forgotten like it was. If this is a first move toward this, then, why not.

[Boggle08]

I think you can do this just by keeping secret, but allowing the game to announce the mode when the round starts. It establishes expectations just as fast, and people can decide if they immediately want to cryo or not.

[Gromnax]

8 minutes ago, Boggle08 said:

I think you can do this just by keeping secret, but allowing the game to announce the mode when the round starts. It establishes expectations just as fast, and people can decide if they immediately want to cryo or not.

You need to make it toggleable, then. Some people (me included) might want to be surprised.

Heck, you could even make it semi toggleable. If there is an antag, I personally don't wanna know what it is, but if there is none, I'd like to know. How does that sound?

[Captain Gecko]

So long as we still keep some kind of way to choose a random game mode, or do as Boggle said, if you believe that this might draw more people to the game, then I'm all for it.

[SinfulBehaviors]

Not a fan. I like having some degree of unpredictability and I think most people do too. There's a reason you very rarely see people actually vote for anything other than Extended or Secret, unless they're memeing, of course.

[NerdyVampire]

All I want is a vote option that allows me to:

1. Be sure something does happen in the round.
2. Doesn't tell me what that something is.

That's it. Secret does that for me.. almost. Because secret can sadly roll extended, and I'm not one of the guys who enjoy expecting something challenging to happen only to realize at 1:25 that nothing challenging is going to happen at all.

Your option doesn't seem to give me an alternative that provides this, so I for one am not onboard, unless I missed something here.

[Gem]

i agree. i'd rather know immediately what the gamemode is than having to go around it by ghosting round start or guessing by the manifest.
we should have a way to randomly vote for the gamemode, as others have said, if this is implemented.

[Carver]

Random would be a very suitable replacement. I don't really have an opinion on knowing about the game mode or not, but, I would like to retain the 'roll of the dice' mode selection that Secret offers - including Extended as a possible roll. Putting Extended into a separate vote is why I disliked Dynamic.

[Confused rock]

If we do make it set to random, would a client side option for not seeing info about the gamemode be possible? Maybe it's just me, but I definitely prefer not knowing.

[Lly2]

seems simple enough that there aren't many reasons against testmerging.

 

personally would wish for a way to not see the gamemode, however. i enjoy not knowing.

[Owen]

I'd like to see this test-merged at the very least. Could be interesting put into practice

[Peppermint]

Sounds cool. But also sounds like an insane undertaking to balance the tokens and whatnot, plus I would assume would need a whole bunch of things remapped. Neat idea though