Antagonism, and the state of antags

[Kazkin]

On the subject of playing to win I've always had the same approach with a severe minor exception. I personally approach with roleplay but when its time for robusting or combat go for the throat. I'll use examples of situations I've rp'd before.

Examples:

The round type is vampire and my objective is to assassinate Ted Grimsby (the psychologist), I know him ICly already and through bouts of heavy roleplay lure him to a secluded spot. At this point Ted knows OOC that I'm the vampire and is RPing it like a champ. Eventually we get to the make or break spot of physical fight as he tries to leave. I flash him, remove his radio/PDA, flash again, wire tie, then handcuff him to a chair in a matter of seconds. I don't give him the chance to scream for help or really put up much of a fight. The reason being is I don't want to lose because losing sucks. That said, after he was disabled he and I continued to RP, his resulting death was on of the most brutal and interesting antag momentsa I've witnessed.

In the above example I went full probust mode once the rp led up to it, then rp'd even after my assassination target was ready to be killed. The player in question who controlled Ted thanked me for the expirence in looc afterwards.

My conclusion is if an antag plans to use rp leading up to and after when the mechanics of fighting take over then by all means go full probust. Some players are unable to allow themselves to lose and will go to shitty lengths tro prevent it. Which brings me to the exception example.

The round type is changling and my assassination target is a skrell CMO (no I won't name who) that unfortuantely is a heavy power gamer. Additionally I've seen the same character pulling out their PDA while having a gun pointed at them and messaging security for help. While they will rp and are generally rather pleasant they do not like losing to the extreme and will go to fun ending lengths to avoid it. As such I did not use any rp or attempt to until after I disabled them. The rp afterwards was good as I gave them a chance to convince me not to end them, allowing them to argue ICly for their lives. Though I ended up consuming them it still had a good amount of thoughtful RP.

My conclusion drawn is some characters cannot be approached rp wise or realistically because they will powergame. That said, it doesn't excuse me to powergame back. I merely adjust my approach and shift the rp to after my objective is accomplished for the sake of my own fun. I do not have fun if the moment I try anything the entire station knows I'm an antag because my target went straight to screaming over the radio.

Essentially meaning being robust and even forgoing rp is sometimes neccessary for the sake of completing your objective because certain players are shit. Most are not and can be rp'd with easily in antag situations. When combat commences the expectation is that it was rp'dup to before hand, and will be rp'd after, /not/ that rp will happen during combat.

As for the subject of whitelist I would say that is an absolutely terrible idea in my opinion. The reason being is restricting antags to only people who've applied will repel new-comers to the server. Additionally while it gives the thought "Will my antag actions remove me from the white list?" it also will restrict who can be an antag based on their methods of antagging. Take the above examples for...example. If several people have a problem with my method of probusting it could stop me from being antag for what is considered unsavory tactics. That however is not my main reason for opposing the idea, it mainly boils down to the "smooth operator" versus the "agent loud" approach.

I myself have round start antagged only eight times in my year of SS13 play time, of those eight times only once did I "go loud" and that was my very first time. Everytime I was a "smooth operator" and completed every objective without anyone knowing. My targets and accomplises gave some good rp as I did my work but otherwise it was business as usual. Every round in which I was antag the game was essentially rp-extended for everybody but those directly involved, which isn't very exciting. Due to being a decent antag I never go loud and because I'm a decent antag I would apply for the whitelist. Conversely a shit antag goes loud, they blow stuff up and get people involved through the slapstick shitfest that is their antagging. When you are security or even crew that can be really friggen' fun. Bad antags, or great antags that like to go loud, have a special place for fun rounds. A whitelist app would remove all but the most serious antags, which are not always online and tend to lean towards being a smooth operator.

It is my belief a whitelist app would technically improve the quality of each individual antag, but would severely limit the fun for certain jobs like security. The occasional clusterfuck can be quite fun.

[Killerhurtz]

Y'know, I thought of something.

What about a weighted randomization?

Right now antags are *cough* entirely random (at least as random as the Byond RNG is).

But what if, each round, people had the chance to vote 'yay' or 'nay'?

'Nay' would make people drop in ranking - to the point where if they insist to be complete shitlers, they'll rarely if ever come up as antag.

'Yay', on the flipside, fixes 'nays' - it increases the 'probability quota' up to a maximum of 1 (which is what people start with, and the maximum attainable)

That way, with this system - shitty antags get voted out of the system, while good antags can go on. And it doesn't discourage new antags because they'll start with the same chances as the best of the best - and if they don't act completely retarded they'll keep getting antags.

(Plus, if people actually like being antag, they'll make an effort to improve their game)

(Or maybe, to ensure no abuse happens, instead of a vote - an admin/mod has to manually lower the rating if there's too many complaints. It could serve two purposes: for people like Baka who get picked against all odds, it could fix that without being banned from a certain antag - all while keeping the shitty antags happening less often)

Thoughts?

[jackfractal]

I expect that your proposed system would brutally punish new players who make honest mistakes. It would also death spiral people who are unskilled but want to improve. Without the opportunity to play as an antag, people would have no opportunities to practice and get better at it.

That's without adding in the social pressures such a system would inevitably create.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

It could be brutal... or it could be not-brutal. Depends on how many up/down votes it takes to get a meaningful change to your probability of antaging. I'd go with non-brutal, personally, because antagging does take practice and even people who aren't inherently bad antags can make mistakes.

I'd also place new players in the middle, with our experienced and well-loved antags (I'm looking at you, Delta) more likely to get the slot and people who've have too high a downvote-to-upvote ratio getting somewhat less of a chance.

The important thing to keep in mind here, though, is that most antags will likely get more downvotes than upvotes. It's the nature of antagging that butthurt happens.

[Killerhurtz]

That's why I suggested that everyone starts at max out - because if the good ones have more chance, it means the new one are negatively impacted by having a lower relative chance.

But yeah - otherwise, I suggest maybe making it exponential. One, two, three downvotes have pretty much no effect. Four, five, start having negligible effects - six, seven, eight, nine, ten get worse and worse, to the point of almost never getting it.

NOTE: these votes are not called in TOTAL votes - they're binary server votes, so they're in ROUNDS that the majority downvoted. So if a new guy makes a honest mistake (or if butthurt's gonna butt), it won't actually impact their rating, most likely - for someone to get a downvote, they would need to actively piss off the majority of the station by their actions (like the nukeops deathtrain I've heard of a while back). Maybe have a fraction-vote - like 1/3rd or 1/4th for a downvote since not all antags involve all of the station.

And the fact that everyone starts at one was also to avoid pressure: the system is not to make good antags better, it's to give the population of the server at large a tool to slowly weed out the shit antags.

[Lord Lag]

I would be completely against such a system because of the many factors that go into a persons thoughts regarding an antag. Downvotes due to inexperience or salt would probably be very common, and essentially locking people out due to being a poor antag, regardless of wither or not it can be said they deserve it, strikes me as basically an antagban.

[Killerhurtz]

So. As I said, it's not like "XYZ voted against him, no antags anymore" it's more of a "the majority of the server voted against them for three consecutive rounds, less antag chance".

Though you tackle a good point - ideally there would be admin tools to reset it, and a format of appeal in which people could post in the 'unban requests' or something like that.

[EvilBrage]

Or only admins get to vote and your antag weight is hidden from you. Or just whitelisted players. Or some arbitrary system that allows only players we have confidence in as a community to make the determination.

Or maybe just give players one "kudo" point to use per day to increase the chance of someone becoming an antag for X amount of time.

Weighting antag selection is a solid idea, it's just a matter of finding out how to go about it.

[Killerhurtz]

Brage, that's the thing though.

While I agree about whitelisted players being capable of voting, I would disagree about admins - because when there's no moderation on, these are the times that would suffer most (though with this new wave of mods that are going to be picked, it might be less of an issue.

Though I strictly disagree with a 'positive' weighing because with rewarding 'good' antags, we lump the new antags with the neutrally-good antag with the bad. Which means that while the server, at average, DOES see better antags - it means that they will always be the same people playing antags, and new players will have to wait a LOT longer to get antag role (which, if I were a new player, I would find extremely frustrating - I already almost never get antag, if I was weighed less than other players...)

By weighing negatively, we only cull the continually bad.

My point is, whatever system we need to adopt - it shouldn't put new players at a disadvantage.

[Carver]

I disagree with weighting antags based purely on two factors:

A) Everyone interprets a 'Good Antag' in a different way.

B) There's jack shit to stop someone from just piling negative votes on someone they dislike, and asking their friends to do the same.

Admin/staff votes would still be plagued by A. If anything, just weight antags by how often they log out and stay logged out during a round they come up as antag, and reset this every week (Whilst giving admins a button to manually reset this for the people who genuinely had to go, if it matters). At the very least you can just filter the majority of serial ragequitters who start shit, get hit brigged, and leave immediately; whilst only MILDLY punishing people who leave for RL nonsense.

[Frances]

Submitting antagonists to the constant pressure of public vote isn't a good idea, in my opinion.

Look at admins running events. No matter who runs what event how, a few people will always complain. And this is actually putting off some admins from running events (I don't think it should, and since it's inevitable I think part of running events is just being able to take criticism while remaining detached, but it's something that's inevitable.)

Antags currently don't have that pressure to deal with, but I have a strong feeling that if they did, it would stifle most innovation. Currently, admins can deal with cases of bad antagging by talking to them and trying to teach them how to be better, and if nothing works, by handing out antag-bans. What precise purpose would antag voting serve?

[Killerhurtz]

@Carver:

I agree with A. However I think we can both agree that if an antag was a complete shitler, people would generally agree - and that's why negative weighing would work, I think.

With B? You underestimate just how many people would need to be on board for that to be a problem.

@Frances

It's not submitting then to the constant pressure of voting. It's submitting antags to the pressure of knowing that if they decide to just powergame their way to victory, they're going to get shot down and not have antags as often anymore - and to me, that's a good thing.

Admins running event I won't say much - for many reasons, but w/e

And as far as innovation goes - not really. The goal is not to streamline antags - it's to avoid shit sucking 20 minutes into the game. If anything, it would help innovation by forcing players to find ways to RP said antags instead of just bullrushing. And yes, admins CAN do that - but generally speaking, it can be a very lengthy process that doesn't always work - and is also a source of workload on the mods and admins that I believe shouldn't be there. The antag-downvoting would serve the purpose of eventually reducing the mod load of that aspect.

[Carver]

As I mentioned, fairest system possible would be a system that punishes the people who log out/ragequit (This potentially includes people who ghost when alive and outside of a cryo storage sleeper as antag) when things don't go their way as antag. An automated system, resets each week (month?), a little option for admins to reset things for a person when they give a fairly legitimate reason for their logout (To distinguish ragequitters from people who had to go). The more 'ragequits' you accumulate, the lower your chances of rolling an antagonist slot.

This avoids the issue of "What is a good antag" and community bias, whilst solving the worst of the bunch, the people who get caught in 10 minutes and just leave instead of sticking to generate RP. It also punishes antags who die early and leave instead of opting to stay around incase of potential cloning, borging, respawning as a different character, etc. Maybe have an hour/two hour passing point at which the "log out" punishment isn't applied. But, let's be fair, if you were an antagonist you should've generally been planning to stay the whole round anyways, if you really have to go, inform an admin, they can replace you (And with this system they can null the 'punishment').

For conversion-based antag rounds like mutiny/rev/cult? Have the logout punishment non-existent for dead/cryoing and non-starting (That is, converted) antags.

[Frances]

But... if you get caught and permabrigged, or die, isn't your job essentially done at this point? If people have a good reason to kill you they're unlikely to clone you afterwards, and if you get permabrigged you might get a chance to escape but could easily consider your antag arc as finished if you wanted.

I get that some roleplay can happen after being permabrigged (and killed I guess?) but I don't think it's the crux of good antag roleplay. I don't think we should be forcing antags to stay after they've been permabrigged, and expecting them to stay after they've been killed is kinda unrealistic.

 

And as far as innovation goes - not really. The goal is not to streamline antags - it's to avoid shit sucking 20 minutes into the game.

The problem is that if you give people any kind of ability to "downvote" antags, it'll be used whenever an antag does something a person simply disagrees with. And since so many people seem to react negatively when their characters are killed for any reason, including valid ones, it'd discourage antags from doing anything to, well, anyone.

[Carver]

Add cryosleepers in communal or PM an admin to have them "nullify"/reset the punishment, problem solved. It's when antags leave w/o cryoing/PMing that's the biiiig issue. Plus this communal is far more forgiving on the "no RP" aspect than old perma was.

[Frances]

Add cryosleepers in communal or PM an admin to have them "nullify"/reset the punishment, problem solved. It's when antags leave w/o cryoing/PMing that's the biiiig issue. Plus this communal is far more forgiving on the "no RP" aspect than old perma was.

Wait, why is it the specific fact that antags don't cryo or ahelp when leaving that's an issue?

[Carver]

Add cryosleepers in communal or PM an admin to have them "nullify"/reset the punishment, problem solved. It's when antags leave w/o cryoing/PMing that's the biiiig issue. Plus this communal is far more forgiving on the "no RP" aspect than old perma was.

Wait, why is it the specific fact that antags don't cryo or ahelp when leaving that's an issue?

Half of the 'bad antags' are the sort who get the role and leave in 20 minutes when they fuck up. Cut down on them, discourage the 'leaving' behaviour, you encourage them to get things done. Now if you try and police how they play the role or add community bias in, then, you'll never have a fair system. If you discourage the blatantly bad behaviour, you have a start.

[Frances]

Half of the 'bad antags' are the sort who get the role and leave in 20 minutes when they fuck up. Cut down on them, discourage the 'leaving' behaviour, you encourage them to get things done. Now if you try and police how they play the role or add community bias in, then, you'll never have a fair system. If you discourage the blatantly bad behaviour, you have a start.

Alright, then two questions:

-How does this system distinguish between antags ragequitting and antags leaving because their round is legitimately over? (whether because they got caught or died early)

-If this system makes no distinction, how many false positives (antags simply leaving without using cryo or ahelping) would we be encountering, in comparison to legitimate cases of ragequits?

Oh, and as a last consideration:

-Is this system worth spending the resources to implement? Is this a non-negligible issue? Are there no better solutions available?

[Carver]

-How does this system distinguish between antags ragequitting and antags leaving because their round is legitimately over? (whether because they got caught or died early)

They ahelp either then, or later. (Later would likely require a higher degree of scrutiny)

 

-If this system makes no distinction, how many false positives (antags simply leaving without using cryo or ahelping) would we be encountering, in comparison to legitimate cases of ragequits?

If they crash, contact an admin, if they just straight up leave with no notice, then why are they rolling for a 'slot' that requires a good bit of dedicated time? Telling from the existence of the roundstart logout report, there's already a system that detects when people leave before a certain time threshold. Make it an hour or two for antags after which leaving is not punished, and if you haven't done anything in an hour or two.. Well, that's some inefficient use of time but atleast you stuck around.

 

-Is this system worth spending the resources to implement? Is this a non-negligible issue? Are there no better solutions available?

I'd say it's worth as much as any other system suggested, and an automated system with a minimal amount of added staff moderation is certainly more fair than leaving it up to a minimum-effort high-penalty player input.

[Killerhurtz]

Alright, let me reiterate.

It's not individual votes. It's not an election.

So let's say that we get Round A, nukeops, 30 players. They RP out, and they end up killing 5 people before detonating the nuke. Out of the 30 players, 5 players are mad that they died or that nuke was deployed or that they lost or whatever reason. That's 5/30 votes for nay - it's not a downvote, the antags are not penalized.

Now round B, nukeops again. The team raids Cargo with weapons. They hack the cargo trolley to run over people and to be able to carry people. They go around the station killing everyone they can see and actively seek a complete wipe. All 27 non-antags find this utterly ridiculous, and so the vote comes, it's 27/30. The antags are slightly penalized.

Round C, black magic happens and it's group B again. They decide not to fuck shit up, only 3 people end up disagreeing with their actions - no further penalty. A week or two later, the weight handicap is lifted.

OR they could decide to do the same thing over and over, and the majority says that they shouldn't be antag - so they get heavier and heavier penalties until it's virtually impossible for them to get antag. A week later a tiny bit of the weight is lifted to give them a very slight chance, and so on.

If an antag leaves before doing anything significant? No penalties since they did not negatively affect RP.

Does it make sense?

[Carver]

"Negative effects" are entirely subjective, though. It's the consistent "bad seed wasted slot" behaviour that does absolutely nothing of value, doesn't even cause chaos or add any kind of slightly lasting roleplay that leaves the round as extended. Atleast with Round B, people have a threat to rally against, they're encouraged to work together to stop Group B. When Jane McTraitor rolls up, gets caught in fifteen minutes trying to beat some guy up or steal the hand teleporter, and then just leaves immediately once they're searched and Security finds a revolver and e-mag on them, that just adds a bit of marginal mess for people for 1/5th of the round and then it's extended.

Since it resets every week/month, Jane has something to learn and improve on. Maybe next time they don't order gear immediately, and get farther. Maybe next time they plan out something a bit more complex, think ahead. Maybe next time they stay instead of leaving and potentially get released with an implant on good behaviour, or have a chance to break out.

[Guest]

Could just rip off the whole "karma" system from paradise tbh and start applying it to everything. Obviously, before you give a karma point, you need to attach a summary or a reason for it. It'll slightly deter metabuddies from abusing it, especially since the devs or admins can go and adjust a person's karma level for whatever reason. In addition, people who don't give karma often or receive it don't get to give it more than once a day.

Having a database open so that we know which people are getting karma in-game for would be cool, too. Could add high scores to show off people who are doing right by other players, etc.

Negative values wouldn't be possible, since you probably should be reporting people who are being OOC negative influences instead.

[MagnificentMelkior]

You are giving people with access to democratic processes far too much credit. I am sure that this system will introduce new problems and I don't think its worth trading any problems we might have now for these fresh new ones. Reddit karma/goodboypoints or wahtever they are called are supposed to be given based on "was the post on topic and well made" but of course people just use it to attack things they don't like and upvote things they do like.

Here's a potential scenario that I feel is more realistic than your nuke op scenario A.

30 people are on. 6 votes for nukeop, 5 votes extended, 5 secret (14 nonvoters).

Nuke round. Some people hate nuke rounds, but don't quit when they lose the vote. Nuke Ops go loud and kill people in a way that people who like Nukeop rounds enjoy, but people who voted extended probably don't. 5 people get murdered with carbines or hull breaches.

Round ends. 5 salty dead people downvote the antags, plus the 5 extended voters, plus some fraction of the nonvoting population who nontheless don't really like nuke rounds probably exactly because of nuke ops who go loud and kill people. If 5 or 6 of those people downvote, which is entirely possible, the nuke ops lose their goodboypoints.

Counter-counter arguements: If your vote requires more than a majority to subtract goodboypoints, good luck ever getting enough voters to tip the scale. (Abstainees are a significant portion of the server, and you can't fix that.) If would only happen in extremely fragrant cases of shittiness, in which case player complaints or adminhelp handle it fine, and it is not worth it to implement this system just for those corner cases.

If you would use a voting system that cuts out abstainees, you get skewed results and people who the majority were fine with WILL get smacked with badboypoints because salty players are much more likely to show up to vote than people who don't care.