Player Complaint - LynxSolstice

[Susan]

BYOND Key: SueTheCake
Game ID: Most recent example prior to crT-avSC
Player Byond Key/Character name: LynxSolstice
Staff involved: N/A
Reason for complaint: Repeated poor antag play.
Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation?: For the vault incident with photos below, I did. I believe they were 'spoken' to.
Approximate Date/Time: Pattern of behavior.

I am making this complaint because I feel the conduct that LynxSolstice engages in as an antag is not conducive to a heavy roleplay environment on Aurora Station. The most recent merc round (prior to the GID listed above), they specifically aimed legs with a 7.62 rifle and said in say chat before the round started that the other mercs should do it too because it is a 'good way' to 'deal with' security, or something to that affect. In essence, they abused the limb meta quite viciously. This, arguably, powergaming behavior is a staple of LynxSolstice's behavior as an antagonist.

I could throw anecdote after anecdote about how I have personally witnessed them resist to ridiculous levels while being arrested (escaping 3 times, biting people on the floor, seriously injuring officers over and over again, fighting their marooning 3 times), attempting to leverage game mechanics in the most game-y or power-gamey way possible (ie the limb meta) or just overall behaving in a manner that I personally do not believe is conducive to a heavy roleplay environment. The way they engage with antagonism to me seems to be that they value their own fun over anyone else's, or even constructing a narrative.

There is a pattern, especially, where they recognize a game mechanic exists, laser-focus on it, and find ways to abuse it relentlessly. From purchasing random gun boxes repeatedly after a specific incident to their excessive reliance on limb aiming - even going so far back as to repeatedly trying to rob the vault for the telecrystals that spawn in the vault safe so they can purchase more equipment for themselves. This individual was banned for such conduct prior, and it does not appear to have had an effect.

It is my opinion that LynxSolstice has engaged in a repeated behavior that is unbecoming of an antagonist, and I would like to escalate this to administration to review. That is my purpose for making this complaint.

Edited January 22 by Susan

[Owen]

@Noble Row and I will be taking this complaint. Give us some time to go through logs. In the meantime please post your side @LynxSolstice

[LynxSolstice]

For point one, I was under the impression that leg armor was less than that of the chest or head, and my intention was to disable, not kill. Aiming and shooting for weakpoints is not powergaming, it's using strategy when in a combat situation. During the merc round I had fought rangers and fully armored Sec officers. Many times outmatched. I was simply outplaying them by aiming for the weakpoints to allow the gimmick to continue, as had I not done so, we would have been arrested or killed within the hour and the gimmick would have been finished.

Regarding point two, I had broken into the vault in an attempt to drive an investigative story, however I was too sloppy with it and was not aware the bolts panel sends a message over command when it is toggled, and thus I was captured shortly there-after. I attempted to dispose of evidence and did not resist as much as I could when confronted in the Operations Lobby by Sec. I attempted to escape once, out the interrogator's office, and was successful. I then willingly returned to Sec custody on the grounds that my character's TCFL jacket would be returned. The jacket was never returned and I used my uplink to emag my cell door and I attempted to escape. After this point I believe talks were put into place to maroon me. Marooning is essentially a death sentence with enough removal to not count under Biesel law as an execution, as such, I did everything in my power to resist my marooning, which included attacking Sec, as I attempted to get away from my death sentence. When I was finally marooned, the exoplanet's atmosphere was so hot that I immediately began to suffer burns inside my soft suit due to the heat "Cooking [me] alive!", I then escaped back onto the intrepid, where I ran off, attempted to explain how the planet had been burning me alive, and I was set on fire via a science prototype laser, leading to my death.

Regarding the third section, and regarding random gun boxes, I admit, I like to gamble a little, hoping I'd get an interesting or rare weapon, I had previously gotten a musket before which I thought was really cool, so I've been trying to get one again. Regarding my previous bans they were not for "raiding the vault", they were regarding escalation issues, which I have made large strides in resolving. Part of my reasoning for shooting for the legs as well, when it came to that merc round was to disable, not kill, the security officers on duty, I may have disabled a few people that round but as far as I know, none of them were taken out of the round, as was my intention. Everyone I de-limbed survived the encounter.

As for the forth section, regarding the comment made on discord, that's been taken out of context. The reason I had so many magazines of ammo was because the Dominian gear crate that was purchased, had 7.62 magazines instead of the proper 30 round 5.56 magazines for the included guns, so I took the spare mags with the intention of splitting them between myself and whoever else used the second assault rifle. The other members of my team had the Dominian assault rifles, and refused the 7.62 assault rifle, so I took the extra mag from it for my own stockpile and throughout the course of the 2 hour round, used all of the ammunition I had. It would have been no different to getting an LMG and just using that, yet the LMG is easily attainable for antags should they wish. Why would I be penalized for taking extra, unused supplies and then using them? Our gimmick was intended to be a progressively more and more violent one, escalating as needed, as such, it made sense to me, to take the extra ammunition. I understand people are angry over the fact that limbs were aimed at but I explained my reasoning to Melaria, that I was aiming for the legs since the armor was weaker, I asked if I should instead aim for the chest or head and was given a "As you were" response. The fact that I was doing well, and using strategy in combat was not intended to powergame, it was meant to, as I said previously, non-lethally take the Sec officers out of the fight for a prolonged period so the gimmick could continue. The gimmick survived long enough to escalate past the crew armory, and a distress beacon, to a nuclear device activation.

I've learned from my previous mistakes regarding escalation (edit: I was previously antag banned over firing on a downed security officer who was being treated, I was also banned over doing a merc gimmick where we cracked the vault silently and attempted to leave, as such I'm under the impression that merc gimmicks have to drive conflict or be overtly visible to the crew.) I've been told it's bad manners in the Aurora community to aim anywhere other than the chest, after the fact, but my intentions in the moment was not to round-end the security officers. It was to resolve a lethally escalated fight, non-lethally, which the leg shots, although flawed in their 'lower armor' theory, achieved.

Edit: Speaking on my previous habit of cracking open the vault for the extra TC, I haven't been doing that since I stopped playing my shaft miner as much. My new character (a former TCAF bridge crewman), is a lot better of a template for interesting gimmicks and ideas, and as such, I generally avoid the vault as I don't have much of a reason to be in Ops.

Edited January 22 by LynxSolstice
EDIT 2: Added a small section speaking about the escalation issues I had, and over the 'stealthy merc' gimmick I had participated in that had led to my previous permanent antag ban until I repealed recently (about 3 months ago)

[Susan]

There was no gimmick. Whatever you were doing with the freedom front was immediately undermined by the choice to have basically nobody in your group be from that area. I played that round and I don't even know what you were doing, the lore connections were lost in a slew of radio messages, and why you chose to continue to play a Tajara is the most befuddling thing.

Somebody pointed out in the discord how this gimmick did nothing with any of the primaries who were on board at the time. I don't think I have ever seen you play a species that is not Tajara as an antagonist with any frequency or regularity, which leads me to believe that you would sacrifice the cohesion of whatever you're trying to do for the mechanical advantages that the species provides you.

I think the fact you were trying to justify what you did as quote tactics quotes underscores the problem overall with your behavior as an antagonistic role, equally so that you don't think there is any expectation of you to purposely not play to win by taking 15 magazines of ammunition your rifle, or however many it was.

I have nothing else to say at this point and I leave this issue in the hands of administration.

[LynxSolstice]

56 minutes ago, Susan said:

There was no gimmick. Whatever you were doing with the freedom front was immediately undermined by the choice to have basically nobody in your group be from that area. I played that round and I don't even know what you were doing, the lore connections were lost in a slew of radio messages, and why you chose to continue to play a Tajara is the most befuddling thing.

Somebody pointed out in the discord how this gimmick did nothing with any of the primaries who were on board at the time. I don't think I have ever seen you play a species that is not Tajara as an antagonist with any frequency or regularity, which leads me to believe that you would sacrifice the cohesion of whatever you're trying to do for the mechanical advantages that the species provides you.

I think the fact you were trying to justify what you did as quote tactics quotes underscores the problem overall with your behavior as an antagonistic role, equally so that you don't think there is any expectation of you to purposely not play to win by taking 15 magazines of ammunition your rifle, or however many it was.

I have nothing else to say at this point and I leave this issue in the hands of administration.

I'm of the impression that the Fisanduhian state is supported by the Democratic People's Republic of Adhomai, as such I was a DPRA tajara, for the purposes of the gimmick. If the gimmick calls for it, I would play a different species (human) as I have done previously (Such as with the recent, timetravelling CIA gimmick). The real reason I attempt to do gimmicks that allow me to be a Tajara during them is because I'm a furry and I really like the space cats, it's not a mechanical advantage shtick, it's simply a preference for the cats. Had I wanted to powergame the tajara species I was playing, I would have gone for the M'sai, as they're the fastest or Zhan because they're fast but have a lower brute mod than the M'sai, but I didn't. This point seems to assume that if you aren't a human, you're powergaming.

Speaking on the primaries on board the vessel, I was told to "go retrieve [the unathi merc] from the medbay, and grab the Volvolaad if you can." There was still an active security officer up in the medbay as I entered (Boris Novinky I believe?) and demanded my mercenary teammate back, so I was unable, at the time, to attempt taking the Primary CMO hostage, as my main goal at that point, was retrieving the other merc, as ordered.

The fact of the matter was, Security attempted to fight me at multiple points, almost succeeding in killing me in three fights, but I managed to get away and heal, and left them with high attrition injuries that would keep them out of the fight for a longer period of time. I was not playing to win, I was playing to delay the Security team from fighting our team off and interrupting the gimmick.

I've been told off before for doing gimmicks or using items that are too high-pop for the security compliment, but the merc gimmick round was a 33 ready- highpop round, as as such I'm of the opinion that the fisanduh nukies gimmick was perfectly fine, escalation wise, we just had a few issues implementing it, like the fact that I was constantly having to fight Sec, and that our embedded shell didn't take advantage of the chaos to kidnap any of the primaries stealthily. I wasn't exactly able to parapen someone and drag them off while juggling a retrieval mission and the constant gun battles I found myself in, including a very late-round ranger team that showed up and nearly killed us before I drove them back with the help of a teammate.

Edited January 22 by LynxSolstice

[LynxSolstice]

The core issue is that violent gimmicks are much more visible than peaceful gimmicks. I had done a very officially official TCAF peace-merc gimmick which was not well received because we essentially made a merc round an extended round, so it seems like some people hate the peaceful antags and some hate the violent antags. There's no pleasing everyone, just playing within the rules of the server, which as I've stated previously, we were doing, even if we may have fucked up our fisanduh gimmick slightly, and been unable to kidnap the primaries.

As for the Unathi, their reasoning was that they were a Si'akh from the newest unathi arc, and that the Dominians were oppressing them or something. They paraded a corpse around on deck 3 before and after I had gotten into a gun battle with security forces.

Speaking on gimmicks further, I've personally turned off revolutionaries, because coming up with and sustaining a gimmick for revolutionaries is fundamentally difficult, if people wanted to be antags, they would have their prefs on. Hence I stopped attempting to interact with the gamemode, outside of being a bystander during it.

Edited January 22 by LynxSolstice

[LynxSolstice]

[pocheto]

As someone who's played with Lynx in the past, I'd like to say that he doesn't come off as power-gaming to me. He genuinely doesn't seem that way when talking out of game, Just my two cents though

Edited January 22 by pocheto
specified subjectivity

[Owen]

Hi. @Noble Row and I have spent a while deliberating over all of this. First, we want to address the idea of there being a “limb meta” which is allegedly being abused. This is not something that Noble or I agree with, nor do the other staff who we’ve discussed this with. While that does not mean that there cannot/should not be further discussion regarding the specific values, etc. of limb targeting, this is not considered an instance of powergaming in our view.

The targeting mechanic exists for a reason, and just as how you could aim at someone’s hand to prevent them from using a weapon that requires both hands, or how you can aim at someone’s head to quickly kill them, aiming at someone’s legs functionally is no different. Regardless of where LynxSolstice was aiming throughout the round, firefights were certain to break out, simply with the way that the antags were approaching the round. 

However, that being said, we are taking an overall look at @LynxSolstice’s antagonist conduct overall here and what appears to be a more gamey attitude to the system as opposed to conveying a real story--these are glaring issues in our opinion. Additionally, your overall attitude toward antagonist-related situations has been consistently inappropriate. At the time of writing, you have two warnings on record for inappropriately aggressive/salty comments in LOOC, and you’ve been spoken to numerous times regarding the same issue. This recurring problem, spanning your entire history on the server, shows no sign of improvement on its current course. I’ve attached just a few examples from the aftermath of the recent round to explain what we are referring to here. 

Spoiler

The comments made on the Discord, similar to your prior instances in LOOC which you’ve been spoken to about, are not at all acceptable to see in our players. As a result, Noble and I have decided to place a permanent antagonist ban. You may appeal this decision when you feel you are ready. 

During this period, we strongly encourage you to reflect on your attitude and actions, especially when engaging in non-antagonist roles moving forward. We do genuinely hope to see a positive change in your conduct. 

We will be locking and archiving this in the next 24 hours. 

[LynxSolstice]

9 hours ago, Owen said:

Hi. @Noble Row and I have spent a while deliberating over all of this. First, we want to address the idea of there being a “limb meta” which is allegedly being abused. This is not something that Noble or I agree with, nor do the other staff who we’ve discussed this with. While that does not mean that there cannot/should not be further discussion regarding the specific values, etc. of limb targeting, this is not considered an instance of powergaming in our view.

The targeting mechanic exists for a reason, and just as how you could aim at someone’s hand to prevent them from using a weapon that requires both hands, or how you can aim at someone’s head to quickly kill them, aiming at someone’s legs functionally is no different. Regardless of where LynxSolstice was aiming throughout the round, firefights were certain to break out, simply with the way that the antags were approaching the round. 

However, that being said, we are taking an overall look at @LynxSolstice’s antagonist conduct overall here and what appears to be a more gamey attitude to the system as opposed to conveying a real story--these are glaring issues in our opinion. Additionally, your overall attitude toward antagonist-related situations has been consistently inappropriate. At the time of writing, you have two warnings on record for inappropriately aggressive/salty comments in LOOC, and you’ve been spoken to numerous times regarding the same issue. This recurring problem, spanning your entire history on the server, shows no sign of improvement on its current course. I’ve attached just a few examples from the aftermath of the recent round to explain what we are referring to here. 

  Reveal hidden contents

The comments made on the Discord, similar to your prior instances in LOOC which you’ve been spoken to about, are not at all acceptable to see in our players. As a result, Noble and I have decided to place a permanent antagonist ban. You may appeal this decision when you feel you are ready. 

During this period, we strongly encourage you to reflect on your attitude and actions, especially when engaging in non-antagonist roles moving forward. We do genuinely hope to see a positive change in your conduct. 

We will be locking and archiving this in the next 24 hours. 

I'll take the feedback shown here and make sure to reflect on my salting/venting frustrations in the out of character chats and maincord, and other such things.

Edited January 23 by LynxSolstice