Ghost Role Voting

[Myphicbowser]

So I have a suggestion, to give people with Whitelists a little more time to organize and prepare something. After the shift end vote is called and passes, I suggest that another vote option be made available, only DURING shift change, that brief ten minute period. This vote could be called twice, taking up both Ghost Role slots (I assume there is only two possible) if used correctly. The idea would be that they can call the vote, and a list of all possible Ghost Roles is in that vote, allowing a group of players to select a Ghost Role that will be initialized at the start of the next round with the rest of the map, so that way we can have consistently populated ghost roles, or at the very least see some of the more rare ones filled due to the lack of whitelists keeping them empty.

I also suggest, of course, in these votes a "No" option, so that way if no one WANTS the ghost role to be selected for whatever reason, they can simply outvote it. No idea why they WOULD do that, but they could, which would lock one of the Ghost roles into the "Random" that I assume it already has and is. Meaning if the same thing happens to the second vote if its called, it to can be locked into random.

[dessysalta]

I disagree with votes being the decider for ghost roles since their randomness is based on weight to reflect certain special roles (i.e. the SFA spawning very rarely because theyre a dying fleet, or the TCAF spawning a bunch because we're in biesel, etc) as well as potentially making it impossible to enjoy certain roles you like just because other people don't vote for them. It's not the same as voting for a gamemode and variety is kind of the spice of life in this instance so we don't get more favoritism than we already do. I'd liken it to why we don't get to vote for which map we get in Odyssey, which was discussed in that thread:

Quote

Map being randomly picked is intentional, same thing as storyteller not being able to pick whether the scenario is canon or not.

If maps are votable or whatever, it just means the most popular (and safest and most boring) option will be picked every time.

Variety is good and the main strength of Odyssey (imo). Voting or picking maps means less variety.

(by Dreamix)

Keep in mind there's a lot of ships that involve xenos and the explicit purpose of those ships aside from being fun on their own is to allow players to dip their toes into what being those species is like. The Unathite Kataphracts, Skrellian Tirakqi or whatever it is, the Tajaran circus and freighter, IPC Golden Deep merchant vessel, etc. all allow playing of that species on the ship even without a whitelist so players who want to try it have a chance to. That said they don't exist every round because then we wouldn't see other ships like the freebooter/pirate spawn, SPLF, generic freighter, Cyclops, and many others.

I especially don't like the concept of saying "no, I don't like your ghost role, you don't get to have it" rather than voting for one you do want since that's de-facto bullying for the people who might enjoy one type or another (besides, what could you reasonably say is the reason you're voting "no" to that role? personal preference? most all of the ghost roles never interfere with the round, with the only ones that can being certain antagonist off-ships that are still incentivized not to, or ERT-lites that can't board the Horizon unless it broadcasts a distress signal anyways).

If voting were to be implemented for ghost roles I would recommend it's "soft" voting. What I mean is:

• You can vote multiple times for all the ones you'd be okay with seeing (not perfect, but just okay with). At the end, the votes are tallied, and based on the percentage of votes, there's a boost in the weight of one/all of the off-ships that were voted for.
  • This means it's not guaranteed and so it still stays somewhat random. 
• You're not allowed to vote against something.
  • I explained why I think this is a bad idea. Besides, rising tides lift all ships etc etc.
• Ships that rolled for the current round (whether through being voted in or happenstance) aren't allowed to be voted for (or can be voted for at a reduced rate or something).
  • Encourages variety and keeps things from being samey. Besides, the randomness we have already allows for these ships to show up like 10 rounds in a row if you're lucky, they don't need any more help than a one-off occurrence.

 

Edited January 29 by dessysalta
me when i forget to hyperlink

[Myphicbowser]

I actually added the idea of Voting No because a lot of people have this idea that the innate randomness is good, and I wanted to appease tehm

I personally disagree that Randomness is good at all, consistency is how you tell stories, Antags are our rogue factor

A lot of your points are good, and I appreciate you adding your own method for making the voting system

Overall, your points are valid, I just would prefer a hard player controlled way to decide whats coming up, but I also DO like the idea of making it so voted on vessels can't be voted on again, that way it ensures variety without randomness