1 dismissal Remove Cyborg

[Jupiter Storm]

2 hours ago, Lucaken said:

a single snarky comment over-generalising the issue

2 hours ago, Lucaken said:

Considering the massive gameplay advantages they get, it's no surprise people don't really like it when a borg swoops in and does everything their job is meant to do, faster, without many of the danger associated with it or even just the personal interactions that may come of it.

It sounds like it was pretty on point to me... Unless, of course, you're suggesting that it's different when someone who isn't a borg does that, for a variety of possible reasons including, but not limited to:

+ Enjoying the riveting drama (no sarcasm pls) that ensues when you tell them off for doing it, because it wasn't their department. (ban bad borgs tbh)
+ Patting them on the head with kind words, because it was their department. (borgs like compliments too!)
+ Swooping in to rescue them from the aforementioned dangers, or work together to prevent them. (one man and his borg, the movie^TM)

Or maybe you won't do any of these things, and just ignore the fact that the aforementioned crewmember is doing it because you're getting on with your work, and they're getting on with theirs? If that's the case, then 'how' is that a different experience from anybody else blasting through a job that you wanted to do?

I have not seen, in this entire thread, any reasonable argument that separates metagaming NPCs and pro-tier departmental gods (for whom the same dangers and equipment challenges are non-existent), from Borgs... WHICH! Neatly leads me to my next point!

2 hours ago, Lucaken said:

You write this as if it's as easy as adding more 'guidelines',

I'm no mod, or policy writer, but encouraging crew interaction and discouraging mute powergaming sounds like it might be a good'un.

Of course, that just solves the issue of borgs doing it... You'll probably wanna come up with something for some of the crew that do it too.

2 hours ago, Lucaken said:

This is ontop of the fact that adding anything more to borgs from a lore/conceptual perspective makes them start encroaching on IPCs.

I really hope I don't have to explain the difference between a Cyborg and an IPC in the eyes of a Borg Roleplayer, even in the hypothetical scenario where they have the same personality. Why does the argument of "well they're basically IPCs now, might as well not have them" keep popping up? As though Humans aren't just monkey-shaped Unathi / Tajara who worship gods under a different name, and speak a different language.

If you think I'm wrong, on this, then you're right. Which is why I'm right in saying (although I'm surprised it had to be said, tbh) that Borgs can share many things in common with IPCs and still be intrinsically different - in such a way that matters to the people that choose to play them.

Look. For all I care, for all a lot of Borg mains care, the mechanical benefits that come with the role are just a sweet succulent cherry on top of the thick layer of icing which comprises their laws, restrictions, duties, unique appearance and the absolute tragedy that is their existence.

You could just as easily enjoy that cake without the cherry.

Almost as though...

2 hours ago, Lucaken said:

Gameplay and roleplay work in tandem to achieve a greater gameplay experience

We might have more in common than you think. 😎

Lastly...

2 hours ago, Lucaken said:

Removing borgs isn't going to kill our server.

Said the English when they dropped Prima Nocta on the Scots, and every change they made before that.

Again, I'm surprised I have to explain this when you write such an excellent and articulate post... I'm kinda/sorta/maybe/sorta not suggesting this is gonna wreck Aurora? I kinda/sorta/maybe/sorta am suggesting that the mentality behind dismissing the minority as a disposable element, every single time a significant change like this is made, eventually will?

Eventually. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited November 11, 2022 by Jupiter Storm

[CampinKiller]

I am indifferent to their removal, but I unironically want to know when you last played before coming here and defending borgs so hard.

[Jupiter Storm]

12 minutes ago, CampinKiller said:

I am indifferent to their removal, but I unironically want to know when you last played before coming here and defending borgs so hard.

This morning.

[Zelmana]

Borg removal, at it's face value, is incredibly divisive in the playerbase and I believe the poll will reflect that.

We are attempting, as we have many times before, to remediate problematic player behavior with code. While there are some instances of this being legitimate i.e. balancing weapons- something like this shouldn't just outright ban the role.

To remove cyborg is to neuter a large portion of scifi aspects, no matter how lore spins it. We're on the state of the art crown jewel of the SCC, whose mission is possibly the most critical to all megacorps (finding phoron), and we don't utilize cyborgs, something that is widespread in lore? While retconning this alone may not completely kill our server, there have been enough similar issues in the past years that have always had consequences and my opinion as always is the amount of interest and new players we garner dwindle year after year (despite a 70pop round a few weeks ago. that was normalpop in 2017).

 

When has a recommendation with so much division been beneficial long term to the server's roleplay environment and playerbase? 'Fix not Remove' mentality is sometimes correct, and I think this is one of those times.

 

If there exist legitimate grievances, we should seek a remediation to the core problem, not a mitigation to the means.

Lastly, I appreciate Jupiter's stance albeit elaborate and at times sounding brash- but I believe that speaks to the absurdity- or appearance of absurdity, to those opposed to this suggestion.

[PoZe]

6 hours ago, Lucaken said:

Removing borgs isn't going to kill our server. Pretending that it will is just a weak attempt at overblowing the importance of borgs. Even if there were dozens of borg mains (there aren't), it's not like the server doesn't already have a variety of synthetic forms to play as - who, unlike borgs, get to be actual characters.

I don't like this argument. As you are basically deciding what people should play for them. You are telling people  that they will enjoy playing plenty other synthetic roles instead of this one, while they keep trying to tell you that they do not want their favorite role to be removed, and they do not want to play other synthetic roles. There is nothing wrong with people not wanting to play other roles, that just means those roles do not provide players what they are looking for. With that logic you can argue for removal of so many other roles because they can be played as another role instead:

• Most antagonist roles: ninja, mercs, pirates. All of those can only have backstory within round itself.  You cannot interact with them cross-round. For mercs vs pirates you can replace either of them with one as there used to be merc originally who then were roleplayed as pirates until pirates were added.
• Rats: that is self explanatory. They do not have backstory. They do not add anything to RP that other mobs already cannot like pAI, other pets.
• Maint drones: they are even more extreme version of Cyborgs as they are not allowed to interact with the crew.

6 hours ago, Lucaken said:

Easily the largest misconception you have throughout your entire argument is that roleplay supercedes gameplay. This is entirely wrong - it's not a matter of opinion. Gameplay and roleplay work in tandem to achieve a greater gameplay experience. If roleplay was all that ever mattered, we would all still be playing MUDs. Bulldozing over the concerns people have with how borgs affect the gameplay loop really just shows how out of touch you are with the actual game.

You cannot claim it is not matter of opinion when this topic is split in majorly two different opinions. There isn't just 2/3 want to remove, 1/3 want to keep it. It is closer to middle-ground.

[Lucaken]

4 minutes ago, PoZe said:

As you are basically deciding what people should play for them.

This is not what my reply said. I am under no pretense that some people will undoutably be mad that borgs will be removed. The point was that so little seperates IPCs and borgs conceptually that we are better off removing them from the game itself and save ourselves the trouble of trying to fix something that is broken by its very definitions - their rulesets, lack of character and gameplay advantages make them worse IPCs without a whitelist, who also frequently take over the gameplay loop all by themselves. The fact that they have been largely abandoned in both lore and code is just further sign that even if they were to be kept, not much would be done to improve them.

12 minutes ago, PoZe said:

You cannot claim it is not matter of opinion when this topic is split in majorly two different opinions. There isn't just 2/3 want to remove, 1/3 want to keep it. It is closer to middle-ground.

The qoute which you selected refers to the dynamic between roleplay and gameplay, not the entire argument about borgs. Please read my reply more carefully before insinuating that I do not care about people's opinion.

[PoZe]

2 hours ago, Lucaken said:

This is not what my reply said. I am under no pretense that some people will undoutably be mad that borgs will be removed. The point was that so little seperates IPCs and borgs conceptually that we are better off removing them from the game itself and save ourselves the trouble of trying to fix something that is broken by its very definitions - their rulesets, lack of character and gameplay advantages make them worse IPCs without a whitelist, who also frequently take over the gameplay loop all by themselves. The fact that they have been largely abandoned in both lore and code is just further sign that even if they were to be kept, not much would be done to improve them.

I am not saying you are denying that people will be mad with removal. I am saying you are saying it's fine to displace those mad people into different role, basically forcing them to deal with it and just play different roles.

 

About second quote, I apologize. It's not that I didn't read it, I misunderstood what you meant.

I do agree with you that cyborgs and IPCs seem to almost overlap in their worlds. But there is untapped potential here. Cyborgification is already a capital form of punishment as I understand. However the premise that the process strips away person's personality and memories is something we should probably get rid of. We can change cyborgs to be basically prisoners forced to work as their punishment, we allow them to keep memories lore wise of their past characters and allow them to express their opinions just like IPCs do. In this case Cyborgs will be basically brains in a body, so they can still have emotions that are emulated by brain+body. This will allow them to retain their former characters. They will still follow laws, but will have greater depth to them. Android will be IPC characters whose posibrain was inserted to force them to work as part of their punishment, just like cyborgs. This both organic and synthetic characters can be basically borg prisoners forced to work . All of them retain their memories and opinions. This will allow them to complain about their sentence, and depending whether they want to be released or not eventually behave or not. The laws will force them to obey, but there is always a wiggle room sometimes in how you can approach command from a crew member. For example you can only do explicit requests that are not detailed in basic way, making it pain in the ass to have crew repeat it. But that's nature of AI and can also be if cyborgs get to keep their memories and personalies. You can roleplay that potentially both cyborgs and androids can be released back from this into their bodies after certain amount of servitude. Robots however we might have to either can or keep it, but discourse usage?

 

I feel like there is such a potential for them here in what I am suggesting. This doesn't eve require to tweak code much, other than just description you get about the role when you start it.

Edited November 11, 2022 by PoZe

[Montyfatcat]

Borgs, by their nature, are gameplay refined down to a handful of tools and rules that make them capable of running the entire station without even needing crew except for to change their modules, and even then many borg players are quite happy to print their own reset board and beg the machinist to come down and install it (sometimes in the middle of the machinist interacting with the AI). Borgs by design do not need anybody else, and have quite literally 1 (one) mechanic capping them from soloing every important job on the station during deadpop.

Any job that can do this is automatically problematic, we already have a debate about super-doctor physicians and super-doctor surgeons, and there's an active poll to merge the roles that has gone with far less controversy than borg removal. The server is a co-operative experience that requires that players work together to have a fun time, and if there's a job that can do an entire department's functions while again only being capped by their lack of hands to insert their own reset board, that sort of eliminates the point, doesn't it?

No job should be able to handle an entire department.

Engineers shouldn't be able to handle atmos and they regularly get told they can't except for the most basic shit like thrusters. Regular officers shouldn't be able to perform an autopsy and the admins will come down with fury if they so much as try to take over the investigator's niche. Paramedics can't do surgery, and if they tried then again the admins would make sure they'd never hear the end of it. Each and every role on the server is kept to a niche so that the entire server is a co-operative experience.

I'm not even sure sub-modules would help this, since yet again there comes the point of "Why not just make a first responder/pharmacist/engineer/janitor?" which still hasn't really been answered in this thread. The only convincing defence for keeping spawn borgs that I've seen is that people might need an emergency worker to start the SM or mix chems, but honestly there are multiple throwaway characters that exist just to do these jobs and fuck off into ghost again (plus, cyborgs have to wait 20 minutes in ghost like everyone else so what's the point?).

Then there comes the factor that most people here aren't even advocating for total removal, especially since recent events have kinda made that whole idea pointless to begin with. Instead, most people simply want spawn borgs removed, since it discourages "maining" such a vague role and encourages people to make a variety of characters for the different roles they want to play. That's what we're all here for right? To see a variety of characters and interact with them in fun and interesting ways, which flies entirely against the nature of a role that is best played by zooming into a room, fixing the issue immediately and then promptly fucking off again once the work is done (I also feel like maintenance drones encourage this but at least they can't just entirely man a department by themselves).

If a role can just avoid being a character fullstop by its nature, and gamifies the already mechanics heavy nature of ss13, then I truly have to ask what purpose it actually serves on a roleplay server. Even the lore seems to struggle to keep a relevant place for borgs, and the closest we got was a god damn punishment that most people hate to even see in round. Maybe it's time for borg to finally let go and be allowed to leave the normal gameplay loop.

[TrainTN]

25 minutes ago, Montyfatcat said:

Then there comes the factor that most people here aren't even advocating for total removal, especially since recent events have kinda made that whole idea pointless to begin with. Instead, most people simply want spawn borgs removed, since it discourages "maining" such a vague role and encourages people to make a variety of characters for the different roles they want to play.

That's not encouragement, that's just forcing the issue.

[Montyfatcat]

9 minutes ago, TrainTN said:

That's not encouragement, that's just forcing the issue.

It's only as forced as telling people "just tell the borg to go away". At least this is mechanical encouragement, instead of telling people to get over their inhibitions about spoiling another player's fun. Nothing's stopping someone making an engineer or pharmacist or whatever that just does the job and only talks when they have to, but at least then there isn't lore or mechanics encouraging them to be asocial, they're just playing an asocial character which can lead to more fun than just "stop talking to the robot weirdo"

[Jupiter Storm]

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

I'm not even sure sub-modules would help this, since yet again there comes the point of "Why not just make a first responder/pharmacist/engineer/janitor?" which still hasn't really been answered in this thread.

It's been answered multiple times, I'm afraid you just haven't accepted it as a valid answer.

Some people just really enjoy the archetype, and the roleplay, of the Borg.

You make some very well reasoned arguments for the mechanical viability of the different roles by comparison to Cyborg, and you have best covered all of the points for how, precisely, Cyborgs CAN so completely fuck others' experience of the department.

But not everyone is comfortable juggling multiple characters of different types. I'm not, I don't even play Borg. I main only one single character at any given time. But, beyond this, I find it so difficult to envision any variation of our universe where someone could say something like this quote, read it back to themselves a few times, and be content with it.

I'm not even being my typical sardonic self here... Is it... Genuinely unclear to you why someone would want to play a role, but as a different and unique """race""" that they are personally invested in?

As I said, aside from that, you make well reasoned arguments for the mechanical concerns surrounding borgs. But ask yourself this question. Don't ask it with a blinkered view, actually take a few moments to look deeply into yourself and ask this question. While being completely, 100% honest with yourself:

Whenever a cyborg has rushed into your 'scene', and swept around doing everything 'for' you, essentially leaving nothing else that you can do... What's the first thing that you feel?

1) "Man, that cyborg is such a douchebag."

2) "Man, that player is such a douchebag."

I know what my answer would be. And I also COMPLETELY agree that cyborgs resetting themselves is obnoxious af, as is them trying to solo an entire department. We're legitemately talking about bad player behaviour here.

A knife is a dangerous weapon. But it's only dangerous in the hands of someone who intends to use it dangerously. Come on.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Jupiter Storm

[TrainTN]

37 minutes ago, Montyfatcat said:

At least this is mechanical encouragement, instead of telling people to get over their inhibitions about spoiling another player's fun.

It is not encouragement. It is forcing the issue. Encouragement is making people want to do something. This is taking away what they want to do so they have to choose between either doing something else, or doing nothing at all.

And those players are definitely going to have their fun spoiled if the thing they enjoy playing gets yanked out of the game.

Edited November 12, 2022 by TrainTN

[Montyfatcat]

3 minutes ago, Jupiter Storm said:

Whenever a cyborg has rushed into your 'scene', and swept around doing everything 'for' you, essentially leaving nothing else that you can do... What's the first thing that you feel?

The first thing I feel whenever a cyborg cleans up an area of anything for me to do before I've even had a chance to arrive is "Not again, why didn't they radio ahead?" before realising that cyborgs, unlike every other character type, are basically given permission to "just do it" and not have to disclose what they're up to by virtue of their role being designed to be wallpaper roleplay wise.  Or I think "For fuck's sake, when did we get an engiborg/mediborg and why didn't anyone let me know?" and realise yet again, the role isn't obliged to let me know. Policy wouldn't fix this, as policy needs active and constant enforcement and needs to be apparent from the start. This isn't like with literally any other job where someone joins and you see a radio message telling you exactly what they are, and I'm aware that people do wordlessly join, but I can at least try to contact them off the bat since I know they exist in my department and I need to communicate with them.

6 minutes ago, Jupiter Storm said:

but as a different and unique """race""" that they are personally invested in?

You're entirely missing my point here. The """"""""""""race"""""""""""" that they are playing is specifically designed to be not a character, borgs are made with the intent to not be invested in. It don't want something "more unique" or whatever, I want to be able to know that if I scold a character, I'm not just scolding the player, I'm actually scolding the character, something which borgs are a concept are designed to not actually care about. Cyborgs aren't a species in the same way other species exist, they don't need a whitelist and they don't need any proof that you're capable. I've had to coach borg players more than once on how their own role works conceptually, something which doesn't come up with any other species whitelist because you're expected to know this sort of thing before you start playing them, it's why humans are the "default". If borgs go on a whitelist, I'll be happy since then I don't have to worry about conflicting standards, since we'll have actually enforceable and written down conventions.

19 minutes ago, Jupiter Storm said:

Some people just really enjoy the archetype, and the roleplay, of the Borg.

Because this is a very very poor answer. Some people really enjoy the archetype of a non-negotiating psychopath antag that will randomly fire into the crowd, 9/10 times the staff will be on them like dogs on steak because that can spoil other people's fun significantly. Some people enjoy the archetype of the wall of metal G2 sec officer that will relentlessly walk into a hail of fire because they know they can survive, these types of characters will either be told to chill by staff or be so heavily mocked by the community that I genuinely haven't seen a prominent G2 security officer in about 3 or 4 months. Some archetypes and roleplay types are genuinely just unfun for people on the other end, and as I said before, roleplay is a co-operative effort between multiple people to have fun. Just as I as a Dungeon Master ban active flying races at low level at my table for taking away the fun (as an oversimplification) and spotlight of other players, I consider borg to unfortunately be in the same boat, having too much personal power/jack-of-all-tradesmanship and not enough group benefit or personal downsides to actually justify it staying.

 

I also don't want to hear about guidelines alone, because frankly plain guidelines in my experience lead to one of two things. Either something so vague and unenforced that they might as well not exist, or something strict enough that it devolves into people trying to rules lawyer their way around the documentation that exists because funnily enough they still want to keep playing the role as they did before. It's happened so many times across so many communities across so many games that I honestly cannot recommend guidelines alone in good faith without also recommending a mechanical way to enforce these guidelines that aren't community warnings.

[Jupiter Storm]

8 hours ago, Montyfatcat said:

"For fuck's sake, when did we get an engiborg/mediborg and why didn't anyone let me know?"

Well... Alright, that is actually a very good point, but it at least prompts the notion of throwing in an extra feature where the Borg's module selection generates a radio message on the department's channel. This would actually one-up a crewmember joining since sometimes nobody pays attention to the green text but when a message comes through your department radio, you see it. So you'll know, that the borg's online and working.

I could also point out that there are an equal proportion of Borg players who do declare their intentions to the department they join off the bat, and say hello. But you're justifiably doubtful about that because obviously it's not something you've seen enough to feel convinced you can rely on.

Still, it does highlight the fact that it's a player behaviour problem as much as it is one provisioned by the, 'modus operandi'(?) of the role. Which you've admitted, but...

8 hours ago, Montyfatcat said:

Policy wouldn't fix this, as policy needs active and constant enforcement and needs to be apparent from the start.

While you're objectively right, I don't like this, because (delving several layers into the implications) it assumes this anti-idyll where all human beings are monkeys with absolutely no self-control who enter character creation with the very worst of intentions. I mean... Give people some credit, most of us just want to roleplay and make friends. And most of us are, at least, 'reasonably' smart enough to read the information we're given, and do something positive with it.

Circling back, the issue you're having isn't with the role / race, it's with this totally obnoxious speck of an OOC Borg who just trundles around the station, powergaming their way through every job and, if challenged by the crew, obnoxiously reasoning "It is in this unit's programming. It is illogical to share work with less efficient beings." I think there's a lot of people here who remember a player by a certain name who perfectly exemplifies this behaviour.

And I say, OOC Borg, because you have to have a certain complete absence of human empathy and social nous to actually want to do what those Borgs do. We've also had A.I. who behave like this. Who take abject pleasure in having these fucking pseudo-philosophical reddit debates with the crew with the sole purpose of winding them up or showing off how clever they think they are. And then saying "It's not my fault, it's my programming. If that upsets you, then that is an inherent flaw in your... awmodawim" BLURGH, BORING, NOBODY CARES.

Twats, honestly! But not everyone should be held to that same low standard.

8 hours ago, Montyfatcat said:

If borgs go on a whitelist, I'll be happy

I hate the concept of whitelists. I utterly despise the notion that you are in some way required to meet with the "approval" of other human beings in order to write words. It's so degrading to prostrate yourself before the throne of the race-gods and wait upon their judgement.

Yes, you can throw a redundant bucket of logical reasoning to explain what actually happens here, but it doesn't change the way it actually feels.

It's just plain wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

... That said, if it would save the role, I'd vote for it. The same way I voted for A.I. whitelist, even though I will never ever ever ever everever everever everever everever everever everever everever everever everever ever ask for anybody's approval to do something I know I'm fantastic at.

At least whitelists will only be a kick in the teeth for HALF the Borg population, rather than all of them.

8 hours ago, Montyfatcat said:

Because this is a very very poor answer.

Cringe & right back at you!!! Since your answer was, (heavily paraphrasing) "people cannot be trusted unless they sacrifice a goat and kiss the devil's beefy hoop before being permitted into the inner circle".

And the other arguments you've made in line with this supports downsizing their toolkit and rendering the role/race nothing more than a reskinned IPC - which a lot of borgs would be a-okay with - and then you still don't want that, because... What, their guidelines 'allow' them to be mute workers? Let me tell you Mister Man, that is simply no longer true.

With this recent and utterly hateful addition which has killed the concept of the Astromech-analogue 'Sooty' in Engineering (IPC btw, not borg), I don't think it'd be a huge leap to expand this to borgos as well.

EDIT: the job accessibility requirements obviously make sense from a roleplay and real-world perspective but i'm very salty and i throw my teddies out of the pram because i can't play cute retarded star wars droid anymore. 

Either way, you can very easily infer the same logic that applies to these accessibility requirements, to Borgs. Requiring them, BY THEIR LAWS, or by guidelines, to actively pursue lines of communication at all times.

8 hours ago, Montyfatcat said:

it devolves into people trying to rules lawyer their way around the documentation that exists because funnily enough they still want to keep playing the role as they did before.

You're right. And those people should be jobbanned.

I gaze with a raised eyebrow at the board of roleplay police who literally signed up to do exactly that.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Jupiter Storm

[Scheveningen]

my eyes glaze over the essay-like proportions that this bloated thread has grotesquely malformed into, knowing that there exist worse and more incomprehensible eldritch abominations and that I have gazed upon them already. "But truly, this place has served its purpose once more, it is a glimpse of 2017 once again", a reflection of my storied past tells me, which drives me to the urge to drink and smoke.

God, please, end this thread. Smite it down once and for all and leave this to the maintainers to decide what to do. It is eminently clear how much worth the input of the broader community actually is if this is what gets posted here.

[Arrow768]

People said what needed to be said.

This will be locked until the poll is over and the maintainers discussed it.

[Arrow768]

The question if borgs should be removed has been polled from 2022-11-01 00:00:00 to 2022-11-14 00:00:00 and discussed by the maintainers.

As the option to remove the borgs did not gain a sufficient majority the PR will be closed.
(25 abstain, 82 for removal, 136 against)

Given the nature of this thread, I expect that there will be follow-up PRs that will attempt to severely limit/partially remove the borgs. It is very likely that such PRs will be closed without much deliberation.

I encourage the people who posted in this topic to participate to this discussion.
If it is possible to reach a consensus on how the borgs can be improved, then it is likely that a PR implementing these changes will be merged.

[Gem]

suggestion has been dismissed by community vote and maintainer discussion.

locking and archiving.