Staff Complaint - dreamixpl

[Carver]

BYOND Key: GMR25

Staff BYOND Key: dreamixpl

Game ID: N/A

Reason for complaint: 
Adding a deeply unbalanced away site (cult base) that entirely circumvents the basic requirements of the antagonist mode that it mimicks (players toggling the role, crew population and even the basic admin intervention required to add disruptive antagonist roles to an existing round), highly interrupts the flow of any round in which it activates if it's not likely to outright hijack said rounds, all whilst further damaging the general atmosphere of the server due to it's own atmosphere and mechanical nature (powered blood magic cultists, rather than just 'flavour cultists' which could be believable for the setting in 'non-magical rounds').

Additionally, and what pushed me to write this, directly attacking me by claiming that my suggestion to bar explicitly supernatural third-parties from appearing outside of supernatural modes (and conversion third-parties from appearing outside of modes matching their role) is a 'salt' or 'kneejerk' suggestion whilst attempting to bar further feedback by proceeding to immediately (vote to) dismiss the suggestion. I will plainly state that my arguments would have been rather similar before it was added if I had in any way been made aware of the PR, but unfortunately I was first made aware of it by other players who had partaken in several extended rounds that were entirely hijacked by this addition - which further necessitated that I make that suggestion.

Evidence/logs/etc:
https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/18578

https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/20258-prevent-supernatural-and-conversion-based-antag-third-parties-from-spawning-outside-of-appropriate-modes/#comment-174440

Screenshot in case the above is deleted, for posterity.

Spoiler

Additional remarks: It says 'don't apologize' but I feel that I should make it plainly clear regardless, I have no personal issue with dreamix and it would be unfortunate if that sentiment is not mutual. At the core of it all that I care about is the integrity of the server's serious, grounded atmosphere and existing gameplay flow.

[Dreamix]

1. Before I started working on this, I asked maintainers for opinion, and it was said to be ok, and that I can go through with it.
2. The Cult Base PR was approved by one maintainer head admin/dev, and merged by another maintainer head admin/dev. If this complaint is about the Cult Base being added, it should be aimed at the maintainers who approved or merged it, or the dev team as a whole, and not specifically me.
3. The PR was up on GitHub for about 2 months, and I was posting about it on discord, posting progress pics, and generally just mentioning it in discussions. Feedback from non-staff players was generally positive, so considering also the first and second points, I did not see the need for a feedback thread.
4. Actually having played three rounds on it yesterday, the feedback that I've seen was generally positive, and I've seen other staff (admin and mod) play it, as well as both staff and non-staff be positive or excited about it.
5. Could it be rebalanced? Sure. Maybe. But it needs to be played for some time first to see it in gameplay. I said both on discord and on forums, that I am willing to rebalance it, just not immediately after it's added, and not before it gets more feedback.
6. The Cult Base being guaranteed to spawn every round was a bug/oversight, and was fixed already. It's a new thing, so it is not at all surprising that people want to check it out, and that it may be potentially disruptive for a short bit if everyone wants to play or visit it. One of the rounds that I played also had an admin enable four more cultist ghost spawns. In a week or a month from now, it's just going to be one site from many that we have, same as other sites, and struggle to get even one cultist or visitor in most rounds, and rounds with full squad of four cultists are going to be rare.
7. The linked thread is effectively asking to remove or revert the Cult Base PR (since cult is never voted), and we don't really allow revert suggestions/PRs until at least a month or so passes, so that is why I voted to dismiss it.

 

Edited April 22, 2024 by Dreamix

[Carver]

On 22/04/2024 at 07:03, Dreamix said:

1. Before I started working on this, I asked maintainers for opinion, and it was said to be ok, and that I can go through with it.
2. The Cult Base PR was approved by one maintainer head admin/dev, and merged by another maintainer head admin/dev. If this complaint is about the Cult Base being added, it should be aimed at the maintainers who approved or merged it, or the dev team as a whole, and not specifically me.
3. The PR was up on GitHub for about 2 months, and I was posting about it on discord, posting progress pics, and generally just mentioning it in discussions. Feedback from non-staff players was generally positive, so considering also the first and second points, I did not see the need for a feedback thread.
4. Actually having played three rounds on it yesterday, the feedback that I've seen was generally positive, and I've seen other staff (admin and mod) play it, as well as both staff and non-staff be positive or excited about it.
5. Could it be rebalanced? Sure. Maybe. But it needs to be played for some time first to see it in gameplay. I said both on discord and on forums, that I am willing to rebalance it, just not immediately after it's added, and not before it gets more feedback.
6. The Cult Base being guaranteed to spawn every round was a bug/oversight, and was fixed already. It's a new thing, so it is not at all surprising that people want to check it out, and that it may be potentially disruptive for a short bit if everyone wants to play or visit it. One of the rounds that I played also had an admin enable four more cultist ghost spawns. In a week or a month from now, it's just going to be one site from many that we have, same as other sites, and struggle to get even one cultist or visitor in most rounds, and rounds with full squad of four cultists are going to be rare.
7. The linked thread is effectively asking to remove or revert the Cult Base PR (since cult is never voted), and we don't really allow revert suggestions/PRs until at least a month or so passes, so that is why I voted to dismiss it.

 

Addressing #7 specifically, the scope of the thread was not to remove but limit it's availability to where it'd be reasonable - that is why the thread is a policy suggestion, as such a policy would affect future away site/third-party additions going forward. Supernaturals only within Supernatural modes, and conversion antagonists only within their precisely matching mode. The first to maintain server atmosphere and the second to maintain the round flow of the present mode, to prevent any lower population rounds and lower intensity modes from being overwhelmed by what could be effectively equated to an ERT-tier threat (without the oversight and necessary judgement of requiring administrators to spawn it).

To the other points, (1) I'm not in staff and I cannot read staff discussions, it would not have affected my making this thread. (2) The policy suggestion was a policy suggestion, to which only head staff/maintainers are capable of enacting - this thread's existence is instead multi-factor as you chose to directly attack my character by claiming said policy suggestion is a 'kneejerk' or 'salt' suggestion. (3) I do not closely examine most older github PRs, and I generally look to the forums for project discussion over the discord (as discord is rather poor for any serious discussion due to it's design). (4) My policy suggestion was made after reading the experiences of players who had several rounds, often lower pop and extended where Cult could not exist naturally to begin with, up-ended and turned into a murderfest by an extremely disruptive third party. (5) For balance, I'll clarify my position - I do not mind antagonist third parties, even them being dangerous, but I mind the nature of their danger (in this case, supernatural) and whether they are capable of essentially up-ending the flow of a round and undermining roundstart antagonists (as conversion third parties, particularly with some of the strongest powers in the game, are trivially capable of). If these were merely insane madmen making sacrifices without mechanically supported blood magic (cult powers), I would see zero issue. (6) How commonly that it was generated was not really a contributing factor to my making the policy suggestion, and I actually valued that error for allowing me to see more feedback and the effects this away site had on rounds.

Thank you for responding.

[Arrow768]

I’ll handle that complaint.

At a first glance it seems relatively simple so I should have a update within a few days.

[Arrow768]

On 22/04/2024 at 11:09, Carver said:

Adding a deeply unbalanced away site (cult base) that entirely circumvents the basic requirements of the antagonist mode that it mimicks (players toggling the role, crew population and even the basic admin intervention required to add disruptive antagonist roles to an existing round), highly interrupts the flow of any round in which it activates if it's not likely to outright hijack said rounds, all whilst further damaging the general atmosphere of the server due to it's own atmosphere and mechanical nature (powered blood magic cultists, rather than just 'flavour cultists' which could be believable for the setting in 'non-magical rounds').

This is not a reason for a staff complaint.
Every PR has to go through a review process and be merged by a maintainer.
To advance the current gameplay loop new things have to be tried out from time to time.
As such things that might be outside of the established gameplay loop will be merged from time to time.

Such changes are expected, and it is also expected that the author continues to tweak problematic PRs in coordination with the maintainers (which is happening in case of the cult PR) until these PRs fit into the standard gameplay loop (or are removed).
The maintainers monitor this process and do reserve the right to take actions themselves if a PR author is unwilling/unable to tweak a problematic PR (which does not seem to be the case here).  

 

On 22/04/2024 at 11:09, Carver said:

Additionally, and what pushed me to write this, directly attacking me by claiming that my suggestion to bar explicitly supernatural third-parties from appearing outside of supernatural modes (and conversion third-parties from appearing outside of modes matching their role) is a 'salt' or 'kneejerk' suggestion whilst attempting to bar further feedback by proceeding to immediately (vote to) dismiss the suggestion. I will plainly state that my arguments would have been rather similar before it was added if I had in any way been made aware of the PR, but unfortunately I was first made aware of it by other players who had partaken in several extended rounds that were entirely hijacked by this addition - which further necessitated that I make that suggestion.

As you have been part of the community for a while, I believe it to be likely that you do know about the "no revert for 1 month" on new/controversial PRs-Ruling (from quite a few years ago). With that in mind I can see how Dreamy came to the conclusion that this was a kneejerk reaction to a PR that was just merged in an attempt to bypass the "no revert for 1 month" ruling. (Especially when considering that the PR has been up for almost 2 months). It could have been worded better, but ultimately, they are calling it out the way it appears to them.

The only thing I can fault dreamy for is the attempt to vote for dismissal on that policy suggestion (which developers are unable to do according to the established rules for that sub-forum)

 

I have discussed that with dreamy and advised them that:

• They should be more considerate when choosing how to word their response
• They cannot vote for dismissal on policy suggestions.

The vote for dismissal on the policy suggestion by dreamy will be removed.

[Arrow768]

As there have been no further replies I am closing this complaint and moving it to the archive.